If we just admit we are heading in to a technology Duopoly split between Microsoft and Google.
Microsoft is the reigning king of the desktop, Office Automation, and all things local.  Google reigns over all things Net, Search, and Connected.  As the lines blur between the desktop, the Net, and the Cloud, the two kings will [...]

Filed under : Industry News

ZillionTV died Monday.  They may not admit it, but much like Akimbo still refuses to admit it is dead, ZillionTV just hasn’t crossed over, but it’s lying dead on the table. 
Rallied by an overhyped Ben Silva, (overhyped is the polite word for the man who claims he won 7 Emmy’s but isn’t in IMDB [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Mark Condon works as a Flash and Web Developer using PHP, and MySQL. Mark also does user interface work with JavaScript, and JavaScript libraries. He’s also developed a number of Facebook Applications in FBML, FBJS, and FBQL. Creating sites that follow the W3C Web standard while using XHTML and CSS to develop multiple sites in [...]

Filed under : Riches and Lifestyles

If you want to get a jump on Windows 7 you can download it from Microsoft.   It’s a 2.24 Gig Download, so it’s not for the faint of heart, but it is a great way to try it out before it goes live.  That said, this version has a LOT of downsides since it is [...]

Filed under : Computers, PCs, and Macs

Betanews is reporting that you shouldn’t upgrade to Windows 7 unless you are buying a new PC.  Carmi Levy is a Troll.  His “philosophy” may have been right with Microsoft Vista, but not with Windows 7.  Windows 7 is faster, smarter and better looking than Vista, and it will run on even the lowliest of [...]

Filed under : Computers, PCs, and Macs

Are you well organized, a self-starter, committed and most importantly experienced. Accounters are responsible for supporting the finance department staff accountants on a daily basis to help facilitate all finance and accounting processes, including project closes final billings, and the accuracy of reporting.
While Accounting job postings have decreased 49% since July 2008 the clicks on [...]

Filed under : Money

ESPN Reporter Erin Andrews had her privacy violated, as she was staying at a hotel.  While the video is blurry, as it was taken through the door of hotel, it is currently unknown when the video was taken or by who.
Erin Andrews is suing anyone who publishes the video (though it is still cached on [...]

Filed under : Celebrity News

Microsoft Popfly, a strange sort of mash up community is shutting down.   The Popfly Shutdown shouldn’t be too much of a surprise the site doesn’t have much of a monetization model.
Follows is the e-mail poplfly is sending out about the end of the service.
I’m writing to thank you for registering and using Microsoft Popfly. I’ve [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Remember the good old days when search was about mastering Boolean expressions so you could find what you want?  You could say you wanted “((bing OR kumo)) AND search) NOT crosby NOT bada” and get exactly the result you were looking for.  Yeah those were the days.  Then we decided the Internet was too large [...]

Filed under : Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Microsoft is soon to announce/release Kumo/Bing.com a rebranding of Live.com Search.  While Microsoft has been trying to consolidate brands in to a single “Live.com” in order to get away from preconceptions it is rebranding at Microsoft Bing.
Bing is really just Live.com with an easier “Modify my search” function.  Basically Google Suggests for Live.com.  The Interface [...]

Filed under : Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Microsoft is like the puppy that doesn’t know it is chasing its tail.  Microsoft has Active Sync for Outlook/Exchange, Microsoft Mesh, Microsoft Live for Mobile and now Microsoft My Phone.  Each of them have a few features the other doesn’t, but they should be merged in to one product.
I use Mesh on my desktop, and [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Hi, I’m Brandon, And I’m a PC.
Microsoft doesn’t make PC’s.  Microsoft doesn’t own HP.  Microsoft Sell’s copies of Office and Vista to Mac users.
Now that we have established some basic facts of the world, let’s talk about the imaginary redhead named “Lauren” from Microsoft’s most recent ads.
The message here is that PC’s are cheaper [...]

Filed under : Industry News

I like when smart people agree with me.  Pablo Perez-Fernandez released a report which spells out where all the prior art which the patent office pretty much ignored.  How is this possible?
The US Patent office would grant you a patent for a Ham Sandwich if you filled out the paper work correctly.
When you fill out [...]

Filed under : Industry News

 LiveLabs Blog announced that Neil Gaiman has put up the beta of Infinite Canvas.
Infinite Canvas is currently is just a fancy Light box for images.  It lets you point to a series of images, and ads fades, and slide ins for your story.
This is better than just sticking the images on the page, but [...]

Filed under : Site Reviews

Windows 7 Wordpad has gotten a major face lift and looks a lot like MS Word’s main screen.  You now get page lay out options, margins, and Zoom functions that were never there before.  But Wordpad.exe still lacks Spell Check.  While Live Writer has spell check and is free, it won’t save to a .doc [...]

Filed under : Computers, PCs, and Macs

The Default Values in Internet Explorer 8 ( IE8 ) as they ship for Vista and Windows 7 Leave a lot to be desired.  As such I recommend doing the following steps after install, or if you have already done an install, choose “Reset” from the Tools –> Internet Options –> Advanced  and then configuring [...]

Filed under : Computers, PCs, and Macs

Things often boil down to you get what you pay for.  Wuala is free cloud storage based on P2P technology.  Zumo Drive is a pay service which stores your data on Zumo’s servers and emulates a network drive.  Mesh.com is Microsoft’s free service which sync multiple computers and stores your files on their servers.

Wuala [...]

Filed under : Product Reviews

The First CTO of America is very likely to be born in India.  There are 2 candidates for the position, Padmasree Warrior, the chief technology officer of Silicon Valley networking giant Cisco Systems (CSCO), and Vivek Kundra, who holds the same title in the government of Washington, D.C.
While both of these candidates have a great [...]

Filed under : Random News

Microsoft is encouraging over 1000 women to host Xbox 360 parties. Microsoft contracted with a company called House Party which arranges in home parties for marketers to ship hosting packages containing $150 worth of Xbox goodies.
The Package includes a copy of Scene It, and Xbox Universal Media Remote ( called the Scepter ) 90 days [...]

Filed under : Blogging

Lots of people ask me how I make a living blogging, and when I explain that not all of that money is directly from Google they don’t really understand.
Blogging is only partly about Search Engine Optimization, and selling Ads, and convincing your readers to buy things.  Part of what you are selling, is you.
Getting people [...]

Filed under : Blogging

Changing a Password Means you Should set a Windows Restore Point I found this out the hard way, or the easy way depending on how you look at it.  I set my Windows password accidently with the numlock on on a laptop which meant I had a weird password, which I didn’t know.  Doing a [...]

Filed under : Computers, PCs, and Macs

These Windows Vista Components are that are safe to remove, just make sure you know if you need them, or are going to use them.
 
ActiveX Installer ServiceDon't removeIf you want flash updates and things of that nature to happen you will need this.
GamesFeel Free To RemoveGames will just waist time.
Indexing ServiceSafe to removeThis might make [...]

Filed under : Computers, PCs, and Macs

Need a Ad covered European traveling guide? www.92920v.nl puts together a comprehensive list of Europe Maps, Route Planner, Tickets, World Atlas, Car Rentals, Railway Schedules, and general planners. It's sad this site is dedicated to only offering sponsored links with so many great resources.
92920v.nl list particular needs for any European travel. The map section has indexes [...]

Filed under : Site Reviews

Ah they said it couldn't be done.  It is impossible they say.  They lied.  Doing an upgrade from Windows XP 32 Bit to Vista 64 bit, is not straight forward but it is in fact possible.  Why would you want to do something like that?  Well for example if you had a Asus GS1 Laptop [...]

Filed under : Computers, PCs, and Macs

Enter your university/college email address.
If eligible, you will receive an email to purchase.
Click on the link in the email to access the store.
Purchase your license/product key.
Add back-up media to your order (optional).
Checkout and download Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007!

You must have a valid e-mail address at an educational institution [...]

Filed under : Advertisements

I am constantly annoyed by the low disk space warning on hard disks which are packed full, but I'm just using for swap files, hibernate files, or Video Files.  So here is How To Disable the Low Disk Space Warning In Window Vista and XP.
Run the Registry Editor (REGEDIT.EXE).
Open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ [...]

Filed under : Computers, PCs, and Macs

Microsoft Thumbtack (thumbtack.livelabs.com) is an easy way to save links, photos, and anything else you can find on bunch of different Web sites to a single place.  Grab the stuff you want, put it into a Thumbtack collection, then get to it from anywhere you can get online.  Share it with your friends, or just [...]

Filed under : Site Reviews

I’m not saying you should play gay just to keep your job, but I think today would have been a good day to have had a little bit of an edge if you work at Yahoo.  If you were to call in gay, they might think twice about laying you off.
Yahoo is laying off 1500 [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Following the success of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 last spring, Microsoft (MSFT)has been working hard on Windows Vista Service Pack 2. As a part of the development and testing process, they are going to start by providing a small group of Technology Adoption Program customers with Windows Vista SP2 Beta for evaluation. The final [...]

Filed under : Computers, PCs, and Macs

The impact of technology in our lives has grown exponentially over recent years. The demand for better, faster, more productive software and hardware equipment has increased the need for more experienced and better qualified IT (Information Technology) specialists. These IT professionals must possess a degree of knowledge and expertise that sets them apart from others [...]

Filed under : Money

Many schools faced with high cost of maintaining the computers look for creative solutions to reduce the cost per student.  Most computers today are grossly over powered 90% of the time.  If you have ever looked at the CPU Usage of your PC you will see that much of the time you are using less [...]

Filed under : Computers, PCs, and Macs

MIT Student demonstrates how to solve a Rubiks Cube with relative ease.  In this demonstration the Rubik’s is a Microsoft branded cube.  And no, you can’t just peel off the stickers, that’s cheating.
The video takes about 3 minutes to start really showing you anything useful.  And the personality is less than stellar, but it is [...]

Filed under : Mathematics, Fomulas, and Equations

The Mojave Experiment has to be the only ad campaign which annoys me more than the "Wow" campaign.  mojaveexperiment.com was less than easy to use.  I had to install Silverlight to view it, because my silverlight was too old. The video encoding of the people on the site is not youtube quality.  There is nothing [...]

Filed under : Rants and Tangents

Circuit City Black Friday Ads, Sales, and Door Buster Specials are going to be big this year with them going out of business.  Their already low prices are even lower.  Definitely worth starting your day there.
Automotive Cobra 9-Band Radar Detector $29.99   Motorola Bluetooth Speakerphone / iPod Adapter $74.99   Computer Related CA Internet [...]

Filed under : 2009 Black Friday Ads, Sales, and Door Buster Specials

Best Buy and BestBuy.com Black Friday Specials for 2008
Computer Related Acer 19" Widescreen Flat Panel LCD Monitor $99.99   Adobe Photoshop Elements / Premiere Elements $89.99   Canon MX700 Network-Ready All-in-One Printer $99.99   Epson Stylus NX105 All-in-One Printer $29.99   HP Photosmart C4480 All-in-One Printer $49.99   LG Internal Blu-ray / DVD [...]

Filed under : 2009 Black Friday Ads, Sales, and Door Buster Specials

Often one of the easiest ways to remove certain virus infections from you PC is to first remove Java's Runtime Environment which many of them use to execute on your system.  You may also wish to remove JRE to increase your performance, or test web page experiences with out the JRE.
To uninstall the Java [...]

Filed under : How To

Just because someone writes for StreamingMedia.com, doesn't make them an expert in the space.  Most the time it means quite the opposite.  I work for a company that is betting on H.264, but I quite strongly think Jan Ozer's piece (OS) about Microsoft dumping VC-1 is so poorly researched that Jan should consider a change [...]

Filed under : Industry News, Technical

If you want your startup to get noticed, you need people to talk about it.  So you pitch not just to VC's but to the online rags that VC's read.  Tech Crunch is one of the top online magazines for news about startups, and industry trends, so they get a lot of pitches.
So many pitches [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Akimbo was the Silicon Valley Start up I moved to the Bay Area for.  It only took about 2 weeks to figure out they were not going to make me rich.  But I held on longer and worked hard to try and make that not happen.  The problem was simple.  They were driven too hard [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Wishing your Xbox 360 had that 6 axis feature of the PS3?  No? Me neither, but you are getting it wether you like it or not.  The "Spring" dashboard update will bring the ability to sense motion from the controller.  This could be one of two things.  A new 6 axis controller competitor "lame", or [...]

Filed under : Gaming

Wired has a good read on the results of a Court Decision that declares that Laptops entering the country are subject to search with out cause.
But what Wired doesn't talk about is the implications to Corporate America.  If you have an employee leave the US carrying company secrets, even e-mails that might put your corporation [...]

Filed under : Privacy

Microsoft said that they Lite-on is not manufacturing an Xbox 360 Blu-ray drive, but if you read their words carefully they don't say that there isn't one in the works.
"No. Lite-On is not manufacturing Blu-ray drives for Xbox 360. As we have stated, games are what are driving consumers to purchase game consoles and we [...]

Filed under : Gaming, Industry News

The HughesNet installer was here about 2 hours the install was relatively quick and straight forward.  The dish is barely 15 feet from the modem which made for short work, and good signal. 
Benchmarking the solution I have 2024k down and 295k up, faster than the 1.5m/256k which is advertised.  Altitude apparently helps, and having [...]

Filed under : Uncategorized

HD-DVD died, and it is time we look to the future.  I'm still anti-blu-ray, but I have to have HD movies in some format so I guess it will be Blu-Ray.
Microsoft and Sony are in talks about creating a Peripheral for the Xbox 360 to play Blu-Ray, but the current quote makes the drive nearly [...]

Filed under : Gaming

Newcomer Void Star Creations, an Independent developer based in South Carolina, takes the puzzle game genre to a whole new level with “Poker Smash,” an action packed puzzler with a poker twist! In “Poker Smash,” players rush to clear rows of cards by arranging them into poker hands. To keep things interesting “Poker Smash” offers [...]

Filed under : Gaming

The trojan horse Downloader.Swizzor AF is bundled with the product MSN PLUS which is NOT from Microsoft.  To remove it Panda's Free Antivirus Scan really is the way to go.
Downloader.Swizzor AF is a new warning message that introduced by a rogue anti-spyware program, which is a form of fake malicious software engineered by Internet [...]

Filed under : How To, Random Virus News

I really like a solution from Microsoft called FolderShare you install it from Foldershare.com and it gives you a web interface to all your files. And you can search your files so if you can't remember exactly which file you were looking for you can still find them.
I also use this to sync files over [...]

Filed under : Reviews

Stuff Magazine wants you to believe there is an Ultimate Xbox on the way.  Well they may not be that far off.
One of the biggest obstacles to Microsoft's IPTV solution, now named MediaRoom, is that the Xbox 360 is too much of an energy hog to be an always on device.  Combine this with the [...]

Filed under : Industry News

It seems Apple Attorney's are tired of the press Fake Steve gets and are threatening him, and not in the happy fun way that Microsoft Legal has done to me in the past.
Want to show your support for Free Press?  Want to let Apple know that you at least should wait until after CES to [...]

Filed under : Call to Action

I think I actually said "You'd have to pay me to watch it", but JackAss 2.5 is available on www.blockbuster.jackassworld.com  .  Who would have ever thought that Johnny Knoxville and Steve O. would be paving the road to the future? Well, On December 19th, Blockbuster will premiere the first (and did I mention FREE) full-length [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Mary Jo Foley at ZD Net is reporting that XP Service Pack 3 is available in it's final release candidate.
Microsoft has begun posting XP SP3 RC documentation to its Microsoft Download site, which is open to the general public. And the XP SP3 RC bits are available from various file-download sites on the Web.
Microsoft [...]

Filed under : How To

StayAtHomeServer.com is a Daily Show Style Spoof which talks about the Windows Home Server Product from HP.  It is a two part campaign that also includes "Mommy, Why is there a Server in the House?" a children's book explaining why a home would have a server.
My Home has had a Server for a long time, [...]

Filed under : Goofing Off

Vivendi best known for its huge Warcraft Franchise which includes World of Warcraft, announced Sunday that it would Acquire Controlling Shares of Activision which is the company behind Call Of Duty, Tony Hawk games, and Guitar Hero.  The combined company will be known as Activision Blizzard.
The move stands to benefit Microsoft, as Vivendi has typically [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Michael Toutonghi left microsoft a few years back to star Vizrea a company dedicated to making your media easier to share.  Now Microsoft is buying the company.
 
This is not uncommon with Microsoft.  Is it that Microsoft doesn't know how to keep talent? Or doesn't know a good product when it sees one?  Partly.  Microsoft has [...]

Filed under : Industry News

I was walking on Broadway in San Francisco and saw a pole plastered with images of an attractive woman, who didn't have that "entertainer" look.  In this particular neighborhood the type of girl you expect to be on a poster works at the Deja Vu across the street from my office building.  Instead it was [...]

Filed under : Dating in Cyberspace

            BRISTOL, Conn., and REDMOND, Wash. — Nov. 5, 2007 — ESPN and Microsoft Corp. today announced an agreement that will add high- and standard-definition full-length games, television shows and video game programming to Xbox LIVE, the online games and entertainment network on Xbox 360. Effective immediately, fans of all ages can access a growing [...]

Filed under : Industry News

A group of developers on the OSx86Scene forum have published instructions on how to install Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on a standard PC. The move will no doubt bring Apple's legal team a knocking very soon, but for the time being, the instructions are still available on the organization's website. Not all features are [...]

Filed under : Industry News

An Xbox 360 that got sent to a customer from Xbox Service didn't get cleaned up well enough from carbon testing.  Imagine the fun and surprise of receiving an Xbox back from having suffered the Red Ring of Death, Firing it up to download something from Market place, and seeing a bunch of squares where [...]

Filed under : Gaming

A How to Guide: Microsoft Windows Media Video 8, and DivX
By Brandon Wirtz
bwirtz@griffin-digital.com
This document has now been expanded in to a full fledged book and multimedia presentation.  To find out more visit my Digerat.com page here
An Introduction: 1
Choosing the Right Codec: 2
Best Codec by Bit Rate: 3
Implementation: 4
Live Video Stream to 30 simultaneous users (Windows [...]

Filed under : How To

Windows 98 Optimization Guide:
This tweak guide was written for advanced users. Smart users, who change one of these settings at a time, will find it useful… Those of you, who change all of these settings and then reboot, will watch their PC melt down before them (maybe not, but don’t try and sue me if [...]

Filed under : How To, Technical

One of the duties of Dr. Watson, a Windows NT default system debugger, is to take a snapshot of the process space when a user-mode program crashes. Unfortunately, like Sherlock Holmes' friend, Windows' Dr. Watson is well-meaning but dim. It puts the snapshot in a file called user.dmp and saves it by default to a [...]

Filed under : Technical

If Facebook is worth $15 billion, and Myspace is $65 billion XYHD.tv is worth $571k.  The math would seem simple.  If Facebook has 42 million users and you calculate the value of a user to be 15billion divided by 42million you see that each User has a value of $357.14.  My 1622 users results in [...]

Filed under : Hard on the Pocket Book, Industry News, Rants and Tangents, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

As you may know, Microsoft announced Q1 FY08 earnings results this afternoon. Xbox 360, the leading next-generation game console, announced life-to-date sales of 13.4 million consoles worldwide.  The Entertainment and Devices Division revenue grew more than 90 percent to $1.9 billion, driven by “Halo 3” (MGS) and higher than expected Xbox 360 console sales. Xbox [...]

Filed under : Gaming, Industry News

Microsoft Corp. found a friend in Facebook on Wednesday, paying $240 million for a small piece of the quickly growing social networking Web site. Full Story

Filed under : Industry News

Microsoft yesterday announced a $240 million deal with Facebook, giving the technology giant a minority stake in the popular social networking site and the exclusive rights to sell worldwide advertisements that target Facebook's 50 million members. Full Story

Filed under : Industry News

Microsoft Corp., facing new competition from Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and Apple Inc.'s iPhone, is working with sellers of its Windows Mobile phones to cut prices below $100. Full Story

Filed under : Industry News

Mary Jo Foley is not wrong, the Vista WOW and Speechless campaigns are among the worst ad campaigns I have seen. It misses one of the first rules of advertising.  "Know your Killer App"  and if you have 30 know which niches are going to want each of those.  The problem is, that Vista's Killer [...]

Filed under : Industry News

The Fearless Leaders:
Steve Jobs knows brandwidth. Apple is not competing with PC’s anymore. A PC is a tool, a Mac is a status symbol, and brandwidth is what got Apple to that designer label status. Steve Jobs was recently interviewed by Rolling Stone. He is talking to Disney about a job they offered him. He [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Today I went to MSN.com and saw this Headliner "TV's Most Disgusting Ad?"  which linked to Slate which while owned by the Washington Post, is part of the MSN Network.  In the Slate Article, embedded smack dab in the middle of the page is a YouTube Player.
This is a huge "No, No" when it comes [...]

Filed under : Rants and Tangents

In the days before Google your brand was measured by your .Com. Today your page rank at Google says a lot, but if someone will buy your T-shirt you know you have hit the big time. CitiBank gives its T-shirts away on college campuses, Electronic Arts sells their Shirts for $30 a piece.
The Big Guys:
Steve [...]

Filed under : Rants and Tangents

Microsoft's response to early reports of its Bungie Studios spinoff provides a case study in the challenges companies face when dealing with rumors. Full Story

Filed under : Industry News

Microsoft is launching a Web-based service for organizing events and remembering them afterward — trying to move further into the highly competitive areas of social networking and online photo sharing. Full Story

Filed under : Industry News

Microsoft Corp. shares hit a two-month high Tuesday after Goldman, Sachs & Co. said rising demand for the video game "Halo 3" will boost profits this quarter. Full Story

Filed under : Industry News

A lower priced, 40GByte HDD PlayStation 3 model will be released in Japan and Europe as Sony looks to make a bigger play in the gaming market with holiday season competition from Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 continuing to mount. However, the new PS3 models will not play PlayStation 2 titles. Full Story [...]

Filed under : Industry News

Bungie, the internal Microsoft Corp. studio behind the "Halo" video games, will split from the company, but Microsoft will retain ownership of Halo and an ownership stake in the studio. Full Story

Filed under : Industry News

Microsoft has unveiled new updates to its Zune family of media players that are set to make a November market debut. Full Story

Filed under : Industry News

With more than $300 million in sales in its first week on the market, "Halo 3 is truly a cultural phenomenon," says Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. Full Story

Filed under : Industry News

Microsoft has unveiled new updates to its Zune family of media players that are set to make a November market debut. Full Story

Filed under : Industry News

Microsoft is announcing that they are releasing IE7 with out the requirement for Genuine Advantage.  This could be any of several moves. 
a. Microsoft has decided that browser vulnerabilities are more important to combat than piracy, and so has set aside the WGA requirement because they are hoping to prevent virus and spyware infections which [...]

Filed under : Industry News

If you haven't popped in the bonus disc for Bungie's Halo 3 for Xbox 360 you are missing out on an entertaining way to calibrate your Home theater…  Not a particularly effective method. But an entertaining way to configure your HDTV screen.
If you plopped down the extra $10 for the Halo Tin, and you didn't [...]

Filed under : Gaming