Vista News

Google has an infamous propensity to keep projects in beta for an unusually long time, and now somebody has gone to the trouble of quantifying just how widespread the testing tag is at the Internet giant. "Of the 49 Google products we could find, 22 are in beta. That's 45 percent," not including Google Labs projects, according to a Wednesday blog post at Pingdom, a Web site performance monitoring company. "We're so used to seeing the little 'beta tag next to the various Google product logos that we almost don't register it anymore. We even had to double-check that Gmail really still was in beta." Full Story: Half baked: 45 percent of Google projects in beta | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone - CNET

Today we are excited to announce that 3 new Windows Ultimate Extras are now available for installation via Windows Update! This is the 6th wave of Ultimate Extras released by Microsoft exclusively for Windows Vista Ultimate users. Users will find the following Ultimate Extras waiting to be installed: Microsoft ® Tinker (TM): Microsoft Tinker is a casual game that provides players with short puzzle game play sessions set in a warm, calming environment. Ultimate Extras Sounds from Microsoft Tinker: Based on the positive feedback we received from the release of additional Windows Sound Schemes in April, we've integrated the unique audio sounds from Microsoft Tinker into a new sound scheme. Windows ® DreamScene (TM) Content Pack #4...

I caught this via Nic over at Channel 10 today – a new version of Microsoft Pro Photo Tools has been released: Microsoft Pro Photo Tools 2. Download: Microsoft Pro Photo Tools 2 The first thing I want to mention in regards to what’s new with Microsoft Pro Photo Tools 2 is something I think many readers here will find as very good news: Microsoft Pro Photo Tools 2 now has support for 64-bit Windows Vista. Here’s what else is new with Microsoft Pro Photo Tools 2: Support for reading & writing XMP side car metadata enabling interoperability with Adobe products. Viewing actual RAW images, in addition to thumbnails Conversion of RAW files to JPEG, TIFF, and HD Photo using “As Shot” camera settings. The ability to resize RAW images...

10 Things That You've Wildly Overhyped! Written by Will Smith 09/23/08 at 09:06:36 PM You know it, we know it, the whole damn world knows it: On ever-so-rare occasions, there are technologies that we, the nerd elite, have ever-so-slightly... umm... overhyped. That's right, we said it. Overhyped. It's just that when we're talking with engineers or reading about about some hot new technology, we get so damn excited. So excited! And can you really blame us? I mean, who wouldn't get excited when you hear about CPUs that clock in over 4GHz, or instruction sets that will multiply your CPU's performance? And geez, who wouldn't want to turbocharge his gaming framerate? Hell, we shouldn't be blamed for overhyping, it's those damn engineers...

Read the article here. Microsoft issues four patches for September - Computeractive

I caught this bit of news tonight from Redmond Pie’s awesome Web Slice for IE8 Beta 2 which shows their latest headlines: Microsoft Live Labs has released a really neat Color Picker Gadget for Windows Sidebar. Download: Color Picker Gadget from Microsoft Live Labs Essentially the Color Picker Gadget gives users quick access to RGB color hex codes. This could be extremely handy when working with several apps or doing website development and you’re needing to utilize a palette across the board. This Gadget allows you to create and save your own color palettes and search palettes from the website COLOURlovers. This was a side project of Live Labs Designer Jeff Weir. For more information, check out this post on the Microsoft Live Labs...

Heres a very good Microsoft/SCO/IBM/Novell history about the Windows NT development from Unix/OS2/Netware/Linux ;) Microsoft was the major Unix company at this time. In late 80th there were more computers running Microsoft XENIX than all OTHER VERSIONS OF UNIX COMBINED. Quote: From the timeline above its clear that work on Microsoft XENIX and DOS was largely in parallel and XENIX greatly influenced DOS design: for example Microsoft Press' "MS-DOS Encyclopedia" shows a reproduction of a late DOS 1.25 OEM brochure which mention such future enhancements to DOS 1.25 as XENIX-compatible pipes, process forks, and multitasking, as well as "graphics and cursor positioning". That shows that Microsoft certainly tried to bring those two...

More - PC World - What Autoloading Programs Should I Keep?

Adobe Flash Player 10 Release Candidate Update: Flash Player 10 release candidate was released on 9/15/2008 and includes several bug fixes. Pleasedownload the new version. Adobe® Flash® Player 10, code-named "Astro," introduces new expressive features and visual performance improvements that allow interactive designers and developers to build the richest and most immersive Web experiences. These new capabilities also empower the community to extend Flash Player and to take creativity and interactivity to a new level. This public prerelease is an opportunity for developers and consumers to test and provide early feedback to Adobe on new features, enhancements, and compatibility with previously authored content. Once you’ve...

VGA Charts 2008: 101 Configurations Tested : Five Generations Tested 1:50 AM - September 15, 2008 by Tino Kreiss Five Generations Tested Our largest and most up-to-date 3D comparison covers 101 different graphics cardgraphics card configurations spanning five technology generations. The test includes the Radeon X800radeon x800 , X1000, HD 2000, HD 3000, GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9 families, as well as the new HD 4000 series from AMD and both of the GTXgtx 200 models from Nvidia. A total of 500 hours of work was invested in the 6,767 test values, which consist of tests taken at three resolutions (1280x1024, 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 pixels) both with and without anisotropic filtering (AF) and anti-aliasing (AA). The local grid provided...

Hardware 2.0 “Best Kit List” for Oct/Nov 08 Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 6:37 am 9-19-2008 OK, it’s time once again for The Hardware 2.0 “Best Kit List” for Oct/Nov 08. Here I’ve put together a list of the best high-end and mid-range components currently available, with some decent budget parts listed too, along with a few honorable mentions. So if you’re thinking of buying, building or even upgrading a PC, this list is a must-read for you! These components are on this list because I firmly believe them to be the best either in terms of performance or price - although I’m ready to admit, as always, that there’s room for debate and some choices “go with the gut” more than others. NOTE: Each time I come out with a list...

Microsoft aired the first ad in it's $300 million+ campaign to give the company's image a much needed makeover. n7apqvqws9M The only thing that ad will do to the company's image is show they know how to waste money on crap ads :rolleyes: Sorry guys but I think that ad ageny seen you coming. gBWPf1BWtkw kkZdkHylJ3w

Microsoft Pro Photo Tools provides a set of tools for photographers allowing them to perform various tasks with their images—including RAW captures. The current version enables you to quickly geotag your photos, edit metadata, and organize your images by leveraging the power of Microsoft Live Local. New features include: Support for reading & writing XMP side car metadata enabling interoperability with Adobe products. Viewing actual RAW images, in addition to thumbnails Conversion of RAW files to JPEG, TIFF, and HD Photo using “As Shot” camera settings. The ability to resize RAW images. Support for 64-bit Windows Support for geotagging international locales Improved functionality for geotagging images. More info: Microsoft Pro...

Australian company launches 3D Internet tool Thu Sep 18, 5:41 AM ET MELBOURNE (AFP) - An Australian company on Thursday launched a free tool it says offers web browsers a world-first opportunity to view the Internet in three dimensions. Melbourne-based ExitReality said its application allows users to turn any regular website...

Everything You Need to Know About GDDR Memory Written by Michael Brown | 09/16/08 at 01:11:36 AM We invariably refer to the video memory in modern videocards as GDDR, differentiating it only by version (GDDR2, GDDR3, GDDR4, and now GDDR5), but the technology’s full acronym is actually GDDR SDRAM, which stands for Graphics Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory. “Double data rate” describes the memory’s capacity for double-pumping data: Transfers occur on both the rising and falling edges of the clock signal. This endows memory clocked at 800MHz with an effective data-transfer rate of 1.6GHz. “Synchronous” refers to the memory’s ability to operate in time with the computer’s system bus. This allows the memory to...

Microsoft Concedes Vista Launch Problems Abandoning the pretense that Vista is the perfect OS, Microsoft reps sat down with us to discuss the OS’s problems in a (kind of) frank conversation We were surprised when Microsoft reps agreed to discuss Vista’s launch problems and what the company has done to fix them. We were surprised not only that they agreed to answer our questions with candor, but that they were speaking to us at all. Our initial conversation occurred in June and set the stage for the article you’re reading. This dialogue also marked the first time in eight years that we had a private conversation with any Microsoft employee without a PR manager present. The answers we got during this mid-June background conversation...

While Microsoft is busy trying to overcome consumer opinions of its current operating system, Windows Vista, the software giant is also undergoing an internal effort to beta test the next version, called Windows 7. Last week, the company began testing an internal version of the software that it hopes to ship to attendees of its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in late October. This build has shipped to Microsoft employees and, reportedly, close partners of the company. The build, which is referred to internally as M3 for "milestone 3," reveals a product that is very much like Windows Vista both visually and functionally. Microsoft has ported the "ribbon" user interface from Office 2007 to a number of bundled applications. As...

Christina Storm who is a program manager on the Windows Customer Engineering feature team has some interesting Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) data Statistics about Windows 7 planning... Full Story: The Windows Feedback Program - Windows Seven Beta Forums

Microsoft Launches Consumer Subscription Offering That Combines Microsoft Office and Windows Live OneCare Microsoft Equipt gives consumers powerful productivity and security protection technologies in a single package through Circuit City. REDMOND, Wash. — July 2, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today unveiled Microsoft Equipt, an all-in-one security and productivity software subscription service for consumers. In one easy installation, the service delivers award-winning anti-malware protection technology and features to simplify PC management and help improve performance, the productivity tools people use to organize their lives, and online services that help make it easy to keep in touch with friends and family. Initially code-named...

IE8 Beta 2 contains Google-style keystroke logger