This article was written on September 22, 2006 by CyberNet.
WindowsITPro is reporting that Vista 5728 will be the last version of the operating system that is released to testers before it begins the RTM process. Of course by tester they do not mean the general public, instead they are referring to the Microsoft Connect testers. Just like always I’m sure someone will post a torrent after a few hours of it being released…which Paul Thurrott expects to be sometime this week.
Windows Vista RC1 has the build number 5600 so 5728 seems like a pretty big jump, but they did a little “numbering trick” for preparation of the RC1 release. When they had to branch off and start creating Vista RC1 they decided that they would reserve all numbers up to 5700 for future RC1 builds. That means all post-RC1 builds would have to be greater than 5700…so the difference in build numbers isn’t as large as you may think.
This article was written on July 08, 2009 by CyberNet.
If asked which operating systems were most popular, most of you would list the usual: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux/Unix. Come the second half of 2010, to that list we will be able to add the Google Chrome Operating System which will be both open source and lightweight. Initially targeted for Netbooks (smart move, Google, those things are everywhere), Google’s newly announced operating system is being described as a natural extension of the Google Chrome browser which millions now use just a short nine months after its launch.
According to Google, “Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.” The open source community will get their hands on the code sometime this year.
Microsoft and Google are seen as competitors in certain areas, and now certainly with an Operating System in the works, they will be competitors on another level. This is why the timing of the announcement is, shall we say, interesting? Between bits and pieces of what Robert Scoble has said (more what he didn’t say, apparently Microsoft has a big announcement coming but he’s embargoed) and what Long Zheng over at I Started Something said (his “sources” say Microsoft’s Monday announcement will be about an Office Web application), we’re thinking Google carefully timed when to make the announcement.
Around the web we found both those who are excited about the thought of a Google browser, and those who are a little skeptical as well. We’ll start with the skeptics: One of the biggest concerns seems to be privacy. Any time you mention Google these days, people cry “but what about my privacy, Google will have access to too much information about me.” The skeptics of the Google Chrome OS fear their privacy will be compromised. Certainly privacy is important, but it shouldn’t get confused with security when it comes to an operating system.
Now for the excitement: Those who are fans of web apps and the individuals who create them are excited about the opportunity a Google Chrome OS gives web apps to thrive. Another positive coming from this is that throwing another competitor into the OS mix helps push innovation. Sometimes it takes competition for companies to up their game.
Alright, so here are our last thoughts. A Google Chrome OS does sound like a smart move for Google, BUT, consumers won’t have their hands on it until 2010? Hopefully they will be able to keep the excitement up over the next year or so. We’re just wondering what Microsoft thinks of all this? Maybe this brings some relief? Michael Arrington summed it up best when he said “Every Chrome computer bought won’t have Windows and won’t have Office. That must send chills down the spine of the guys up in Redmond. But hey, at least they can now point to Google when the antitrust guys come knocking. Someone other than them are bundling the operating system and browser in one neat package.”
So now Microsoft, what’s this about an Office Web application? We’ll be enthusiastically waiting this Monday announcement…
A quick glance at the above photo might have you believing that’s the site of a Microsoft Store being constructed; actually, it’s an Apple Store. Yesterday, in the Jungfernstieg section of Hamburg, Germany, a group going by the name of “.WAV Collective” apparently vandalized the soon-to-be Apple retail location. They casually went up to the building posing as a team of construction workers, cordoned off a work site, and proceeded to screw pre-made panels, forming a Windows logo, to the side of the store’s black veil — all in broad daylight. Looks like the old question of Mac vs. PC just got a bit more confusing over in Europe. Don’t believe us? Have a look at the collective’s own video recap of the events posted after the break.
This article was written on January 10, 2008 by CyberNet.
The December 2007 market share stats for operating systems and web browsers are in. I wouldn’t say any of the numbers are that shocking because patterns have emerged for many of them, but looking back one year ago shows some pretty impressive results.
For the stats that we’ve posted below we’re using the data provided by Net Applications. Generally this has been looked at as a fairly accurate representation of the market share for browsers, but when it comes to operating systems it’s not quite what you would expect. That’s because it is only able to analyze the computers that are browsing the Internet, which eliminates nearly all of the servers out there that are never used for that purpose.
–Browsers–
The general trend with browsers is exactly what you would expect it to be. The standards compliant browsers are reaping the benefits of their hard work. Browsers like Firefox, Safari, and Opera have all increased their market share over the past year, while Internet Explorer is looking at a nearly 4% drop.
–Operating Systems–
There is a new operating system that wasn’t available last year, and it has already been able to make its way onto the charts. What is it? The iPhone! It only has a small market share right now, but for only being around 7 months I would say that it’s doing pretty darn good. Aside from that the Windows market share has dropped over 2%, with Mac and Linux coming in to scoop it up. Linux’s market share is still a little weak, but it did almost double which is pretty significant.
Note: As I mentioned above this would not include stats from servers and such which are not used for browsing the Internet.
This article was written on July 17, 2008 by CyberNet.
Click to Enlarge
Win; Mac; Linux VLC is one of the most well-known media players out there, and it’s been almost 4 years since they’ve released a major new version. VLC 0.9.0 is on the horizon, and it packs in 2 years of development… so you can expect some great things. There’s just one gotcha: Windows 98/ME and Mac OS X 10.3.9 are no longer supported operating systems.
So what’s new in this release? One of the biggest things would have to be the revamped interface seen in the screenshot above. The preferences have been drastically overhauled, and are now broken up into “simple” and advanced settings. That way new users aren’t overwhelmed by the number of things that can be configured.
Beauty is only skin deep though, and that’s why there’s much more than the flashy new interface that’s worth a look:
Improved playlist support: Shoutcast TV listings, Audioscrobbler/Last.FM support (in supported countries), album art, and more
Better tag support
Supports most types of subtitles
New and enhanced filters
Improved mouse gestures
Full support for meta data editing (ID3v2, Ogg/Vorbis, AAC, APEv1/2)
If you’re looking for the Last.FM support you’ll have to dig through the options (Tools -> Preferences). You’ll need to be in the “advanced” view by filling in the All bubble located in the lower-left corner. Then navigate to Interface -> Control Interfaces -> Audioscrobbler. From there you can enter in your Last.FM username and password. Then click on the Control Interfaces section, and check the “Submission of played songs to Last.FM” box. VLC will share your listening habits with Last.FM from there on out.
Think ASUS netbooks threw Linux out the window? Think again: the Eee PC 1001PXD, 1011PX and 1015PX are about to get Ubuntu configurations. Harking back to when the famous netbook line launched running Xandros, these Ubuntu loaded machines could help Linux reach a larger audience. Canonical representatives are pitting the new netbooks against Windows-powered machines, telling The Inquirer that Ubuntu is competing with Microsoft, not other Linux distributions. That’s quite a goliath you picked there, Ubuntu. Are a trio of Atom notebooks enough to win the war on Windows? Considering Dell abandoned their love of Linux over a year ago, we’re guessing no.
This article was written on September 08, 2009 by CyberNet.
In our WrapUp earlier this morning we talked about how a new build of Office 2010 Beta had been leaked, and in this build Microsoft included new icons for each of the applications. It didn’t take long for someone to extract all of the icons from the release and assemble them into an icon pack, which is exactly what one DeviantArt user did (our download mirror).
I’ve pasted the icons for each of the main applications below, and that includes Access 2010, Excel 2010, InfoPath 2010, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010, PowerPoint 2010, Project 2010, Publisher 2010, Visio, 2010, and Word 2010 (in that exact order). Each of the icons are 256×256 pixels, and come in both ICO and PNG formats if you download the pack. In all there are over 60 different icons included in the download.
What do I think of them? Well, I actually like them. They feel modern, and one of the first things I thought of when I saw them for the first time was how much they reminded me of the icons Adobe uses… mostly because of how prominent the lettering is on them. I think they fit the Office Suite well.
Here are the full uncompressed icons for the 10 primary applications:
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at CES 2010 shares his vision for the company: Windows will run everywhere. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Microsoft has shown an early look at Windows 8. The upcoming OS is designed to run on any machine, from a tablet to a desktop PC, and that’s going to be a problem. While Windows 8 has some genuinely clever features, it is at heart yet another skinned version of regular old Windows.
Below is a video of it in action. Skip to a minute in, if you don’t care to hear about how tired the poor Windows 8 team is after so much work.
On the surface, Windows 8 looks pretty. The tile-based touch interface makes the iPad look old and dusty. The live info that can be seen at a glance, and the fast switching between apps are very slick. So is the split view, which lets you drag a second app in from the side and — after a pause — the existing app shifts over and makes space. Thus you can run two apps concurrently, which is enough to get most multitasking tasks done.
I’m also impressed by the thumb keyboard, an option which splits the QWERTY keyboard into two parts and shrinks them into the corners of the screen. I wish for this every time I use my iPad while standing up.
But under the hood, this is, like every other tablet-friendly version of Windows, a skin over a desktop OS. The fancy new “Windows 8 apps” are written in HTML5 and JavaScript, but you can also run regular ol’ Windows apps like Excel and Word. You even have access to Explorer and the full file system.
The issue? Microsoft is clinging on to its old PC legacy, which won’t help Windows 8 succeed as a tablet — for the same reasons we said Windows 7 wouldn’t be good for slates. It will carry with it the baggage of the Windows PC legacy: vulnerability viruses, the need to install drivers, and apps that aren’t optimized for tablets. These were all issues that the iPad eliminated to make it better than traditional computers in a few key areas.
Given that developers can just run their existing apps in normal Windows mode, where will the incentive be to make amazing touch-only versions of applications, like the truly excellent Omni Outliner or GarageBand for the iPad? What we’ll get are a thousand Twitter widgets, turning the innovative tile skin into something akin to OS X’s Dashboard.
This also brings the disk-gobbling size of a desktop OS, along with the complications of running Windows (malware and the general weirdness of any desktop OS) and of course, the battery life of a desktop OS.
That’s fine. Many people want a full-featured computer in tablet form.
But remember that the iPad is selling in the millions precisely because it is simple, lacks a complicated file system and the like, and doesn’t require a nerd to keep it humming along.
People who want all that already have a choice. It’s called a laptop.
Microsoft is almost there, but it needs to lose its obsession with putting Windows on everything. Take this cool, tile-based OS and put it on a tablet, sure. But leave the mouse-based, legacy desktop OS out of it. And for God’s sake, don’t call it Windows.
This article was written on August 05, 2006 by CyberNet.
I think everyone has heard about Vista’s voice recognition that didn’t exactly cooperate, but are people taking it to far now?
Cafepress.com is a site where anyone can upload images and start selling them on t-shirts, mugs, hats, and much more. You receive a percentage of each sale for your creation and, of course, Cafepress also receives a nice portion.
It looks like someone has now created a t-shirt with the Vista voice mis-recoginition: “Dear Aunt, let’s set so double the killer delete select all.” I think this has gone way to far since the whole world pretty much knows about it by this point.
Remember how Microsoft unveiled that whole “Windows 8” thing earlier today? It’s back for more: here at Computex 2011 in Taipei, prototype ARM-based Windows 8 slates and smartbooks are coming out of the woodwork. Foxconn, Wistron and Quanta all unveiled early hardware for the new OS, with chips from Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and NVIDIA powering their live tiles — including NVIDIA’s upcoming Kal-El, which got both a tablet and a super-slim prototype notebook to call its own. Dell’s also got a XPS development station up on stage, which Microsoft used to demo the UI — it’s bulky and ugly as such things are, but it suggests that Dell’s also likely to have a portable Windows 8 machine at some point. For its part, Qualcomm is promising a chip that can instantly wake from sleep, and one of the devices showed that USB host support works fine and dandy. Unfortunately, none of these machines will make their way to market, but it’s nice to know that the OEMs care enough to show their solidarity here.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
WindowsITPro is reporting that Vista 5728 will be the last version of the operating system that is released to testers before it begins the RTM process. Of course by tester they do not mean the general public, instead they are referring to the Microsoft Connect testers. Just like always I’m sure someone will post a torrent after a few hours of it being released…which Paul Thurrott expects to be sometime this week.
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