Feb 12

Microsoft Expects Big Growth by 2015, Offers $3 Software Packages

Posted in: Apple, Microsoft, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili, Windows, Windows XP

This article was written on April 19, 2007 by CyberNet.

WindowsvistachineseMicrosoft has lofty plans over the next eight years.  By 2015, they have a goal of increasing their users to two billion people.  Is it doable? Especially when they already command 90 percent of the market with one billion users?

Here’s how they intend to do this:

  • Offer developing countries $3 software packages with Windows XP and Office included.
  • Increase the number of paid copies of Vista in developing countries.

$3.00 Software:

The $3.00 software package is called Microsoft Student Innovation Suite, and it will include Windows XP Starter Edition, Office 2007 Home and Student, and other educational type programs.  The software packages will be offered to governments who purchase Windows-based computers for the students.

It’s their way of getting new users hooked on Vista before they have access to anything else.  Generally speaking, developing countries are untapped, and Microsoft is thinking that they could do well there. It also sounds like Microsoft’s plan to compete with the One Laptop Per Child program(Linux) in developing countries, which has gotten plenty of support and publicity.

China:

Then there’s China they have to work with. In the two weeks right after the release of Vista, only 244 copies of Windows were sold in China.  One of the biggest, if not the biggest reason is piracy.

Pirated copies of Windows Vista are selling for just $1 all over the streets of China, and because of that, there’s no reason for people to purchase it for full price.  Microsoft had hoped that they had dealt with this issue before the launch of Vista by spending millions of dollars advertising about piracy, and the new operating system.Part of their advertising campaign was to place the largest Vista ad ever on the Jim Mao Tower, which reaches 421 meters tall in Shanghai. Clearly it didn’t work.

So, is it possible for Microsoft to increase their users by one billion in just eight years?

Source: Information Week

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags: ,
Feb 10

Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Delayed until at least October

Posted in: Apple, Mac, Microsoft, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on April 13, 2007 by CyberNet.

Apple_leopardThe rumors were right, Leopard has been delayed again. This time, until at least October. Apple’s official announcement says:

“The iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS® X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard’s features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we’re sure we’ve made the right ones.”

You can definitely tell where Apple’s priorities are right now. Maybe that shift in focus came when Apple dropped “computer” from their name back in January. When Apple released their first quarter results in January, 48% of their sales came from the iPod alone.  Add in iTunes sales, and the soon to be iPhone, and their computers will definitely be last on the totem pole.

Their focus tends to point towards potential new customers that they’ll scoop up in the future instead of an equal focus on both the past loyal customers who are just waiting for new software, and the new ones.

If you’ll recall, Leopard was originally supposed to ship before Vista, and then it got moved to right around when Vista was going to get released.  After that didn’t happen, it was pushed to Spring 07’, and now at the earliest, it will be an October 07’ release.

What’s also ironic is that two weeks ago, rumor had it that Leopard was going to be pushed back to October 2007, but because of Vista.  It was said that Apple wanted the new operating system to support Vista through an integrated version of Boot Camp.  But then a week later, Boot Camp 1.2 was released to work with Vista. The rumor was at least half correct.

Or maybe there is more truth to that.  Users are reporting problems with the new Boot Camp 1.2 software, even though it’s supposed to support Vista.  It sounds to me like there’s a lot going on that Apple needs to iron out before Leopard will be ready for its grand entrance.

Also funny: Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet says that if she were Microsoft, she’d start a new campaign – “Cupertino, start your photocopiers!” This of course, mocks Apple’s previous campaign, “Redmond, start your photocopiers.”Their excuse is that they pulled their engineers from Leopard to the iPhone project, much like what caused the Vista delay when Microsoft pulled engineers to work on XP Service Pack 2.  Their campaign would go something like, “Who’s copying who now, huh? We thought of the not-enough-engineers excuse way back in 2004!”

Source: eWeek.com (Thanks for the tip CoryC)

 

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags: ,
Feb 09

Automatically Restart Crashed Apps

Posted in: Freeware, Software, Today's Chili, Windows, Windows Vista, Windows XP

This article was written on January 21, 2009 by CyberNet.

application monitor.jpg

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
There is a good chance that you’ve had a program crash on your while you were away from your computer, and it probably caused quite a headache. Maybe you have a web server or FTP server at home, and the application running it crashed when you were at work leaving those files inaccessible. Another good one is when you start a download before you leave home, and when you return you realize that the download didn’t finish because the program crashed.

If you’ve found yourself in this situation then you may want to take a good look at this free Application Monitor. You can set it to monitor the status of a running program, and it can automatically restart it should the program inadvertently get stopped. Just specify what process should be watched, how often you want it checked, and what command you want executed when the program is found not running.

The nice thing is that you get to specify the command you want run after a program has crashed. That means you can also point it to a batch file in case you need something done before the program starts. Or, if you really wanted, you could set it to restart your computer if a particular program crashes. This guide might help you with some other ideas of things you can run when a program crashes.

Application Monitor Homepage for Windows
Thanks for the tip Jason!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags: , ,
Feb 03

Verizon can now throttle top five percent of bandwidth hogs, downres multimedia transfers

Posted in: 4G, lte, mobile broadband, mobile internet, MobileBroadband, MobileInternet, Today's Chili, verizon, Verizon Wireless, VerizonWireless, vzw, wwan

Nice timing, Verizon. Just as thousands — possibly zillions — of smartphone users are pondering the switch to Big Red for Apple’s iPhone 4, the carrier has slipped in two critical policy changes that are apparently effective immediately. Tucked within loads of fine print in a new PDF that surfaced on the company’s site, there’s this:

“Verizon Wireless strives to provide customers the best experience when using our network, a shared resource among tens of millions of customers. To help achieve this, if you use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5 percent of Verizon Wireless data users we may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users at locations and times of peak demand. Our proactive management of the Verizon Wireless network is designed to ensure that the remaining 95 percent of data customers aren’t negatively affected by the inordinate data consumption of just a few users.”

To our knowledge, this is the first time that VZW has taken a notable position on throttling, and the link to its stance on net neutrality (as it applies to wireless, anyway) is fairly obvious. What’s most interesting to us is the five percent of data users figure; the top one or two percent isn’t a huge amount, and there’s a good chance that bandwidth abusers are up in that echelon. But we’re guessing that quite a few business travelers will fall within this particular range, and given that VZW now holds the right to throttle data for your existing billing cycle and the next one… well, good luck gritting your teeth and lasting through that two-year contract.

In related news, the company is also implementing optimization and transcoding technologies in its network, which is a politically correct way of explaining that it can downres any multimedia you try to send through Verizon’s pipes. Head on past the break for the full quote.

Continue reading Verizon can now throttle top five percent of bandwidth hogs, downres multimedia transfers

Verizon can now throttle top five percent of bandwidth hogs, downres multimedia transfers originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Feb 2011 12:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Mac Rumors, Boy Genius Report  |  sourceVerizon Wireless [PDF], (2)  | Email this | Comments

No Comments | Tags: , , ,
Feb 01

Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer Compatible with Firefox 3

Posted in: Firefox 3, Firefox Extensions, Freeware, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on May 29, 2008 by CyberNet.

foxmarks.pngFoxmarks is one of the most used Firefox add-ons raking in nearly 70,000 downloads every week, and up until now it has well over 5 million total downloads. With it you can synchronize your bookmarks between multiple computers, or in my case use it as a backup. The popularity of this extension shows just how important a user’s bookmarks are.

On Tuesday the developers publicly released Foxmarks 2.0.46.9, and this version is capable of running on Firefox 1.5 and up (including Firefox 3). According to the Foxmarks Blog 20,000 users participated in the Beta, and have verified that it works as expected:

We should note that until Firefox 3 ships (expected in about two weeks, according to what we hear), we’ll be continuing to refine Foxmarks’ support for that browser. There are still some rarely experienced problems, but having validated the core functionality with nearly 20,000 users in beta test, we felt sufficiently confident to make it available to anyone who has already made the early jump to Firefox 3.

Once you have Foxmarks up and running you’ll be able to access your bookmarks from any computer either through synchronization, or with the web interface. Hopefully having Foxmarks on the Firefox 3 Bandwagon will ease the transition for many of you.

Get Foxmarks for Firefox

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags: ,
Jan 27

The Revival of Napster…Again? 6 Million Song DRM-Free Library

Posted in: Music, Newly Released, Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on May 20, 2008 by CyberNet.

napster ipod-1.pngI swear that Napster is as close as it gets to a cat with 9-lives. In 1999 it started off as a file sharing service that exploded with popularity. People could share and download songs freely, but the service was doomed to failure since it used central servers to connect one user to another. That made it easy for the RIAA to shut it down, which is exactly what happened in 2001. Napster then turned to a subscription-based model for music in hopes of recovering some of the $36 million they had to pay in the settlement.

They’ve been alive ever since, but not doing all that well. What they’re hoping to do today is make it easy for people to purchase DRM-free music that can be played on nearly any music player, including the iPod and iPhone. Their library consists of over 6 million songs, and for $0.99 per song (or $9.95 per album) you’ll get an MP3 that’s likely encoded at 256Kbps, and includes high-resolution album art.

Napster also has a web-based store available, which means that users on any operating system can sign-up and purchase songs with ease. You can also browse their collection of music without needing to create an account first, which is nice. The question is whether they’ll be able to compete with with the other big names offering DRM-free music, such as Amazon. Is this finally going be the formula that provides financial success for Napster?

In case you’re wondering Napster is still offering the “unlimited” music plans, but the songs you get from those are in a WMA format that is still plagued with DRM. Bummer!

Napster Homepage [via Yahoo!]
Thanks for the tip Omar!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags:
Jan 23

Instantbird – Where Mozilla Meets Pidgin

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Mozilla, Newly Released, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on October 19, 2007 by CyberNet.

Pidgin is an extremely popular open source instant messenger, but have you ever thought to yourself what it would be like if Mozilla created something similar? It would be possible to make the instant messenger do almost anything you want with the use of extensions … you could even add more networks! Well, there hasn’t been any signs that Mozilla is working on such an application, but Florian Quèze and Quentin Castier took it upon themselves to turn the dream into a reality.

Let me introduce you to Instantbird, an XUL application that uses the libpurple library to connect to other networks. That’s the framework used by Mozilla, and the same library that both Pidgin and Meebo run off of.

–Current State–

The Instantbird 0.1 download is about 13MB in size, and there is no installation required to test it out. With that being said you may want to do a quick read through of this article before you spend the time setting it up.

Right now Instantbird is about as simple as it gets, but it does let you connect to several different networks: AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, MSN, QQ, XMPP, Yahoo!, and more. There is a tabbed interface for your chats and a decent account manager, but there are absolutely no options for you to configure. This screenshot that I took just about demonstrates the entire extent program:

Instantbird 

–What’s to Come–

The exciting part, however, is still yet to come. Here’s a brief look at the plans for future versions of Instantbird:

  • Instantbird 0.2 – status handling (away, busy, etc…), contact management, extensibility, notifier, and more.
  • Instantbird 0.3 – richtext for outgoing messages, buddy icons, file transfers, preferences, sounds, and more.
  • Instantbird 1.0 – should be close to what Pidgin offers
  • Instantbird 1.0+ – video and voice support

–Oh the Possibilities–

I’m really excited about the future of this project because of how it plans to use extensions. In fact the theme and extension manager has already been implemented into Instantbird:

Instantbird Addons

The add-ons site hasn’t launched yet, but when it does we might see some truly awesome features roll out. Think about being able to send files to friends no matter what network they are on! The thought of having addons in an instant messenger is extremely appealing to me, and if developed well enough could cause its popularity to rise very fast. Pidgin’s plugin system just doesn’t cut it in my mind.

I wish the best to the developers, and I can’t wait to see what future versions have to offer!

Instantbird Homepage [via David Ascher]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags: ,
Jan 23

More FREE O&O Products: Defrag Professional 11, Unerase 2, DriveLED, and More

Posted in: free, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on March 02, 2010 by CyberNet.

o&o defrag.pngAbout two months ago we wrote about how you could grab O&O Defrag Professional 10 for free, but now you can get one step closer to the latest version without dropping a dime. Not only that, but on top of their defragmenting application they have also included versions of Unerase, CleverCache, SafeErase, and DriveLED for the picking.

There’s no telling how long these would be available, and I’d therefore recommend signing up for your free license now. Not only that, but if you ever decide to upgrade to the latest version of the apps you can actually use these to get discounts. Or, we learned with the last O&O “giveaway” that those who are patient will be rewarded. Some users reported getting email offers from O&O to upgrade to the latest Defrag Professional 12 at upwards of 70% off. Not to shabby.

Note: Interestingly the version of DriveLED being given away is the latest.

  • O&O Defrag Professional 11 [Free License] [Download]
    Unleash the hidden performance of your computer with the minimum effort. O&O Defrag 11 Professional Edition packs file fragments quickly and securely back together to optimize your hard disk under Windows. Its functionality ranges from a fully automated defragmentation to an individual professional set up. It can do everything a truly good defragmentation software should be able to do. The new background monitoring function helps to prevent fragmentation at source. Newly added and modified files are analyzed and defragmented whenever they are not being accessed. O&O Defrag makes sure that your hard disk is constantly performing at its peak.
  • O&O Unerase 2 [Free License] [Download]
    O&O UnErase V2 makes the restoration of deleted data as easy as “a walk in the park”. With the help of a new and one-of-a-kind algorithm, more files can be restored than ever before. Within a matter of seconds, O&O UnErase finds your deleted files and restores them with just the click of a button. The original filename and directory structure are also restored as if nothing had been deleted in the first place.
  • O&O CleverCache 6 Pro [Free License] [Download]
    O&O CleverCache 6 Professional is a unique tool that optimizes the File Cache Management for Windows Vista, NT, 2000 and Windows XP. This results in an enormous increase in performance boosting a system’s performance at times to up to twice its original speed. All this is achieved without the need for additional hardware or any reduction in your system’s stability. You simply install O&O CleverCache 6 and you’re ready to go – no need to reboot. It automatically recognizes your configuration, and within 5 minutes you can unlock the hidden resources on your Windows system! The more the file cache grows, the less memory is available for running applications. The result is a significant decrease in performance as requests for memory lead to the so-called “swapping” of memory. This occurs when unused memory segments are paged out to the hard disk’s paging file. Because hard disk access is slow relative to Memory, loss of performance is inevitable. O&O CleverCache 6.0 Professional Edition is optimized to meet the day-to-day needs of individual users. The software is optimized to run on Windows NT4 Workstation, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows Vista and Windows XP Professional.
  • O&O SafeErase 2 [Free License] [Download]
    O&O SafeErase V2.0 is THE solution for the secure deletion of sensitive data from your hard disk and offers you the ultimate protection of your private sphere. With just one click of the mouse you can securely and permanently delete files, folders and partitions. The motives for the deletion of files are many. Old e-mail files, internet history, file cache, financial records, company information, and private files ought to be protected from other’s access. The reality, however, is much to the contrary. O&O SafeErase puts a stop to this by not only deleting files, but by annihilating them with the help of recognized and recommended methods. In Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows 2000, and Windows NT, O&O SafeErase will protect your computer from the unpermissive access of others to your alleged deleted files.
  • O&O DriveLED 3 [Free License] [Download]
    The number of mobile computers in use in companies has grown dramatically over the last couple years. Just as dramatic is increase in difficulty of servicing these mobile system that are usually being operated in remote locations. The Achilles heel for any notebook is the hard disk, usually overstressed by the sheer frequency of use in a variety of different environments. With this stress on the hard disk comes the risk of hardware failure, which, until O&O DriveLED 3, was an unpredictable gamble. Monitoring all of the internal hard disks of your system, O&O DriveLED 3 examines its “health”, providing you with information from your hard disk’s read/write access to its current temperature. Should signs of problems appear, O&O DriveLED 3 alerts the user, reducing the chances of a hard disk crash or the loss of precious data.

[via SlickDeals]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags: , ,
Jan 20

FTP-like Uploader for Firefox Supports Flickr, Picasa and more

Posted in: Apple, Firefox Extensions, Freeware, Microsoft, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on June 01, 2007 by CyberNet.

Firefox Universal Uploader

One thing that many file sharing sites lack is an FTP-like interface for users to upload their files. Whether it be photos, videos, or just about anything, most power users like having the option to drag-and-drop files from one window to another.

So what if there was an FTP program that worked with Flickr, YouTube, Picasa Web Albums, and even Box.net? You’d probably think that was pretty great…and so I introduce you to Firefox Universal Uploader. This extension is sure to become a huge hit as it incorporates more services, but I’m already loving it.

Once I installed the Firefox Universal Uploader I clicked the "Manage Accounts" button in the upper-right corner to setup my Flickr account. It took me a little while to realize that this was actually a button, but after I figured that out it was smooth sailing. The extension went and grabbed all of my sets from Flickr, and put them in a folder-like structure on the right side of the screen.

Then using the left and right buttons located in the middle, I was then able to transfer images back and forth between Flickr and my computer. At the bottom of the screen is where you manage things like names, descriptions, and privacy options for the items you upload.

Unfortunately it doesn’t have the drag-and-drop feature that is found in most FTP applications, but it is almost there. I’m sure future releases will support more than just Flickr, YouTube, Picasa Web Albums, and Box.net as well as offering drag-and-drop support.

After seeing this extension it started to make me wonder why a standalone application has never been made to do something like this. I could just see it now…an FTP program that supports plug-ins for services like Flickr and YouTube!

Thanks to Radu and 100rabh for the tip!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


No Comments | Tags: , ,
Jan 20

Samsung’s HDTV-based app store passes two million downloads

Posted in: apps, AppStore, download, hdtv, samsung, Today's Chili
Reaching two million downloads in a year may seem paltry considering Apple’s app store delivered 1.5 billion downloads in its first year, and the Mac app store passed one million downloads on opening day. Still, it’s the largest number we’ve seen from a TV maker, and when you factor in that Samsung’s store just passed one million downloads back in November, it seems the Korean tech giant has a good thing going. Naturally, we knew the company was serious about apps when it announced the Free the TV contest late last summer to lure developers to the platform, and today the app store is available in over 120 countries and features roughly 380 applications, 259 of which are free. It also doesn’t hurt that the brand has already sold boatloads of Smart TVs and plans to ship 12 million more in 2011. The question is, when the store hits the 10 million mark, can Samsung possibly pull off a new interpretive dance that tops its 2011 CES keynote? We certainly hope so. For the full announcement, check out the press release after the break.

Continue reading Samsung’s HDTV-based app store passes two million downloads

Samsung’s HDTV-based app store passes two million downloads originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 05:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

No Comments | Tags: , , , ,