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Monday, January 29, 2007

Windows Vista and Office 2007 already being pirated

Cracked copies of Windows Vista and Office 2007 were available via BitTorrent which is a peer to peer file sharing service. As of January, more than 100 individual copies of Office 2007 and more than 350 copies of Windows Vista were available on the Bittorrent service.

The software pirates that cracked early copies of Vista managed to sidestepped Microsoft’s latest anti piracy technology.

6 out of the 25 most widely pirated software packages on BitTorrent and eDonkey, are made by Microsoft.

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Friday, January 26, 2007

Dell taking orders for PCs running Windows Vista

Dell announced it will begin taking orders this weekend for computers loaded with the Windows Vista operating system.

Dell said it has spent more than 100,000 engineer hours testing the new operating system.

The initial release of Vista installed computers will be in English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese, with additional languages soon to follow.

Gateway said that it will be announcing new notebook and desktop products related to Vista next week.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Migrating to Office 2007 may take longer than expected

Microsoft's hoping for a quick update to Office 2007 for Office users based on a redesigned and simpler interface. But this new interface could be the reason why companies don't make the switch from older versions of Office.

Most enterprises will wait between three and five years before switching from older editions of Office to Office 2007.

Most business users will need up to three hours formal training, which will be followed by a drop in efficiency for up to four weeks as they adjust to the new interface.

Office 2007 will be released next week.

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Monday, January 22, 2007

Windows Vista vs. Windows XP

With the new Windows Vista starting to make its way into homes and business here is some information on the Vista features to help you decide if Vista is worth the upgrade.

Added Security
Parental Control: There are a number of software applications available nowadays that allow parents to keep a tab on their kids Internet activity.

User Account Control (UAC)
UAC is a new security feature that allows users to operate Windows Vista more as a standard user than as a true administrator, where one has complete access to everything.

Windows Firewall
Vista features two different firewalls: the standard firewall that was available in Windows XP and Windows Firewall with advanced features.

Windows Defender
Windows Defender is the built in spyware blocker bundled in Windows Vista.

Windows Aero
Aero is enabled for use if the system contains a high graphics card that can support DirectX 9.0 and higher. This feature enables one to view the open windows as 3D windows.

Windows Search
One of the most helpful new features in Windows Vista, is the new, vastly improved search for files or applications from almost anywhere.

Live Icons
When Windows Aero starts, users can hover their mouse over open windows in the taskbar and see a live representation of what's running in them.

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Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Internet Explorer 7 on the rise with Firefox on its tail

Microsoft is claiming that IE7 has just passed its 100 millionth download making IE7 the second most used browser after IE6. But it turns out that most of the downloads are upgrades from IE6 and taking away from the total of computers running IE6.

Over the same period the number of Firefox browser installations comprising versions 1.5 and 2.0 had risen from 13.5% to 14%.

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Monday, January 15, 2007

PayPal to enhance its security

PayPal will begin offering customers the option of using a password generating device called a key fob to increase its security.

The key fob will generate a random 6 security code every 30 seconds. In order to log onto their PayPal accounts, users will have to enter the code with their ID and password.

eBay said the PayPal Security Key is now in beta testing, primarily by eBay employees, but should be widely available in the United States and select countries within two months.

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Thursday, January 11, 2007

Cisco suing Apple over iPhone name

Cisco Systems started a lawsuit against Apple Wednesday over the trademark of the name iPhone without Cisco's permission. The suit seeks an injunction to stop Apple's use of the name.

Apple's iPhone, is a gadget that combines a cell phone and a video and music player. Cisco obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000. iPhone has been the rumored name for Apple's cell phone effort for years.

Cisco's Linksys division launched a family of iPhone devices, which includes WiFi antennas that allow users to make calls with their home wireless networks.

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Monday, January 08, 2007

The new easier to use Word 2007... or not

The new Microsoft Word 2007 will be released on January 30th. It has been totally redesigned and a lot of the unnecessary stuff you don't need has been removed but that doesn't mean its going to be easy to use. It will take some getting used to.

Word 2007 is lovely to look at and use. But Word's 450 million global users can expect major, unwelcome surprises from the new design. Everything you've learned about Word over the years is now wrong. The familiar menu names such as File, Edit, View, Insert, Format and the rest are gone. They have been replaced by cryptic new headers: Home, Insert, Page Layout, and Reference. Now you get a long horizontal bar called The Ribbon that holds most Word commands.

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Saturday, January 06, 2007

New flash hard drives for laptops

SanDisk has just released a 32 GB drive for notebooks that stores information on flash memory chips rather than the magnetic platters like a traditional hard drive.

Unlike regular hard drives, flash memory drives do not contain moving parts and are less prone to breaking down. Flash drives can also increase battery life by about 10% and retrieve data faster.

The commercial drive from SanDisk contains a controller and other electronics that reduce power consumption and the overall cost of the drive and will add about $600 to the cost of a notebook.

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Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Wikipedia Search Engine

Wikia, created by Wikipedia Founder, Jimmy Wales, along with financial backing from Amazon is planning to launch a search engine that will leverage the user driven model deployed by Wikipedia.

The search engine will be called Wikiasari deriving its name from Wiki which is Hawaiian for quick plus asari which is Japanese for rummaging search. Wikiasari in intended to compete with the likes of Google and Yahoo. The search engine will also be advertising like Google and Yahoo.

Wikiasari will add human editorial input rather than simply render search results based on popularity and other such algorithms and will be designed to apply the "wisdom of the crowd" to judging a Web page's value.

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