Ballmer (almost) Gets Egg On His Face
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Ntas in Microsoft | Leave a Comment
I have just stumbled upon this funny video on Silicon Alley Insider that shows a protester in Budapest trying to throw some eggs at Steve Ballmer and doing some yelling at a conference. Boy it seems people just LOVE to HATE Microsoft or just HATE to LOVE Microsoft. My is guess some of them don’t even know anymore why they HATE the BIg M… Here is the clip.
Firefox 3 Release Candidate (1) Available for Download
Posted by Ntas in Software | Leave a Comment
Well the wait is almost over, Mozilla have have announced that Firefox 3 Release Candidate is now available for download. As usual with release candidates, it is not recommended for normal everyday usage as it STILL has unknown and just fixed BUGS and thus intended only for developers to test it and get community feedback.
Firefox 3 Release Candidate has some major improvements in memory usage, performance and speed, includes new features added (listed below). The goal being testing the core functionality brought on by new features and changes.
New features and changes;
- Improvements to the user interface based on user feedback, including changes to the look and feel on Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux.
- Changes and fixes for new features such as the location bar autocomplete, bookmark backup and restore, full page zoom, and others, based on feedback from our community.
- Fixes and improvements to platform features to improve security, web compatibility and stability.
- Continued performance improvements: changes to our JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimization continues to improve performance over previous releases as measured by the popular SunSpider test from Apple, and in the speed of web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office.
So far I have been giving a test drive on my Windows XP x64 (which has all major browsers installed on it) and have yet to encounter any problems. But I wont be doing any money transactions on it.
If you want to give it a go, download it from here but keep in mind it is NOT the stable version yet and might cause some fatal errors.
Ars Technica Acquired by CondeNast (Wired)
Posted by Ntas in Internet, Tech Biz | Leave a Comment
Ars Technica, one of the most popular technology blogs, has been acquired by CondeNast a media company that also owns Wired Digital. In a breaking story from TechCrunch, Michael Arrington reports that the deal is around the $25 million mark.
It is expected that Ars Technica will now be running under the Wired Digital (CondeNet) umbrella along side flagship site Wired.com. Since Ars has a much more computer-tech-focused audience than Wired, we can also expected Ars to maintain its branding and its current personnel.
More details will be revealed after the official announcement on Monday.
Microsoft Office Doing Well on Apple Macs
Posted by Ntas in Apple, Microsoft | Leave a Comment
With the recent success of Apple Macs, it seems Microsoft is not hurting much. Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit (yes, they have a dedicated Mac unit) has revealed that the Mac version of Office 2008 has been a runaway success with the sales still continuing to grow and that it is the highest selling Office for Macs in the past 19 years. Service Pack 1 has also been released to provide enhancements to the Office suite.
In the same announcement Visual Basic for Applications is returning in the next version after a stint in the wilderness. Well it is safe to say that no matter how much folks like to pretend that they hate Microsoft deep down they got some soft spot for it.
Apple Brings HBO Family to iTunes
Posted by Ntas in Apple | Leave a Comment
Finally after some “minor” disagreements between Apple and TV networks on the pricing of premier TV shows, Apple and HBO have agreed to sell HBO’s TV shows on the iTunes store. HBO is well known for its critically acclaimed shows like The Sopronos, Sex and the City, Deadwood, The Wire and Rome. But no Entourage yet.
The iTunes store is now really growing (150 million episodes sold and has over 800 shows with about 20,000 episodes) and with the announcement last week to sell movies on the same day as DVDs sure Apple they are in the league of their own.
Top shows like Deadwood and The Sopronos are going for $2.99 per episode and the rest are $1.99. Its good that Apple took cream of the lot (The Sopronos) or else those geeks at Apple would have been wearing some concrete boots…
HP to Take On IBM with Acquisition of EDS
Posted by Ntas in Internet, Tech Biz | Leave a Comment
According to the Financial Times Hewlett-Packard, commonly known as HP, is in the process of acquiring Electronic Data Systems (EDS) for $13 billion. EDS is one of the biggest IT services company in a market that is dominated by IBM and was also a pioneer being that it was formed in the 1960s it had a head start in the IT outsourcing which gave it a big hand in getting big lucrative contracts.
With so much happening in web sphere a lot of people have forgotten the other side of technology, IT services:IT outsourcing, design and maintenance of enterprises computer systems, custom building enterprise software and infrastructure. In a Microsoft-Yahoo discussion on a Gillmor Gang podcast Michael Arrington of TechCruch was kind of surprised or shocked to hear that IBM are still a leader in their market.
This move signals the desire of HP to expand the company’s market and try to take on IBM and the way the web is evolving and lines between desktop apps and the Internet (cloud computing) it does make sense to get into the IT services market now. HP needing EDS is like Microsoft needing Yahoo in the search game.
Microsoft + RIM: Windows Live Services Now on The BlackBerry
Posted by Ntas in Microsoft | Leave a Comment
Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of the popular Blackberry smartphone have entered an agreement that will see Windows Live services such as Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail on the BlackBerry mobile phone’s platform that will enable lovers of Windows Live services to communicate in real time using BlackBerry’s push technology.
BlackBerry users who also use Windows Live services will now have an easy access to Messenger and Hotmail while on the go by one simple Live log in.
Windows Live services users will be happy to hear that just like the usual BlackBerry mail, Windows Live Hotmail will now use the same “pushâ€? technology for automatic message delivery and message synchronization and do have a choice to have their Hotmail messages delivered to the BlackBerry into a dedicated inbox or along with other messages from other email accounts. And that they can view HTML mail with imagesand photos in it.
Windows Live Messenger for BlackBerry will pretty much have the same features as in Windows Mobile OS and most of the desktop version.
With their recent effort to make available the BlackBerry Partners Fund, a $150 million venture investment fund that aims to support app developers for BlackBerry phones and their new potential to tap into atleast 400 million Windows Live users will sure catapult RIM to the next level.
Well, next up Windows Live services on the iPhone and the coming Android…
