News

December 9, 2007

Want to Test Vista SP1? Yes this is the big week for Windows Vista.  The long awaited fix for the nasty disaster for consumers in the PC market is here.   If you ask me after the drain of time, resources and hardware, how many of us, with the exception of  "techies" really want to test  the SP1, right? 

It seems now Microsoft wants to make us all beta testers in the process. 

Yes many of us paid a premium to use the latest and greatest that turned out to be for some the "last" time for a trick like that from Microsoft!

So is Microsoft trying to make amends by  having us all test this software or is this to stem the tide of "cross-over to other platforms"
movement. 

What ever the reason in the next few days it will be available to all
says Microsoft.

Gheez! ..and Microsoft kept telling us the software was fine.  Well we will see in a few days what this SP1 brings. 

Microsoft claims to have fixed the Security, speed and reliability issues they claim nothing was wrong with.

Here are just a few bugs that are said to be fixed in Vista SP1!

Reduction of the number of User Account Control
(UAC) prompts from four to one when creating or
renaming a folder at a protected location

I hope so!

Improve by 25 percent local file copying on the same
disk on the same machine.

After you've dished out extra cash for memory, right!

Improve by 45 percent the speed of copying files
from a remote non-Windows Vista system to a SP1 system

It seems that speeding up the file system activities are all the
major changes.

But what about the shut downs and the unexpected shutdown
of programs without warning? Not to mention the programs that
Vista can't close without assistance.

I say give it a try, but the question is for all the beta testing efforts will those of us that got on the Vista "band wagon" early, will we be rewarded with the product we should have gotten in the first place or will we have to shell out some more cash to get such.

When Microsoft say everyone that had Vista before a certain date will get a, hopefully corrected, SP1, then I will say Microsoft is headed in the right direction.

So until then we can have fun being Microsoft's Beta testers but the buck stops when it goes to live. read more here

Here is the site with an early download click here.  But be forewarned
proceed at your own risk!

November 4, 2007

Policy Of Coercion. Has It Given Vista the sniffles?
Part II   Article by Vistasgottogo.com published 3rd of November 2007.

Yes, enters the good old end-user who's suckered into the purchase
of a new system pre-installed with Windows Vista.

He uses the system and finds it doesn't work. It didn't do what
Microsoft claimed it does. Consumers all over the world were
disappointed once more by Microsoft. However, due to the
elimination of provisions to revert back to their previous product,
consumers were stuck. Many felt trapped. Some jumped ship and
got a MAC.  Others tried Linux, a high tech operating (open source)
system. Still others, in sheer frustration, wiped out their drives to install
XP, voiding then, their system warranty altogether. Read more about it here

Coercion? I'd say so. Four months later amidst numerous complaints Dell,
one of the major PC manufacturers, wakes up, breaks ranks with the
coercive terms set by Microsoft and starts selling not just XP but Ubuntu
one of the pc market's "lukewarm competitors" to Microsoft.

Five months later under pressure by consumers, vendors, and slowing
retails sales of Vista, Microsoft's changes its policy and extends the
sales time period for XP. In addition, M$ frantically moved to create a
downgrade CD to allow users revert back to XP after eliminating it all
together. However, this CD for now is available without penalty or
charge to a small percentage of end-users. The rest will have to pay to
get their "downgrade made easier" CD if they wish to do so.

Finally, for those who have not read their end-user license agreement
you may note some very startling differences between XP's EULA and
Vista EULA.  Microsoft calls it clarification. Basically, it restricts your
use of the software to one machine and transfer one time.

So if my system had an unrecoverable crash more than once (very possible
with Vista) then I would have to purchase a new license for the previous
operating system, XP, if the results of the crash required a new machine, twice.

If this is not enough to give Vista a bad case of the  sniffles, the high price
tag and the resource hog that it has been created to be, most certainly will.

To recap, Microsoft commands a 94% share of the pc marketplace. To
be given just one choice and that choice is Vista, then, my friend, what else
could this be? Yes, you are trapped into using Vista through the subtle
means of a "policy of coercion" that pervades the whole field of technology
as we know it today, unless you pay with time and hard cold cash.  Yes, this
trap is through the policies set in motion in the rollout of one single piece of
software, the new operating system developed by Microsoft, Vista.

It's no wonder Vista has the sniffles. read more here

Do you really have a choice?

Do you have Vista?

You Be the Judge!

October 27, 2007

Policy Of Coercion. Has It Given Vista the sniffles?
Part I   Article by Vistasgottogo.com published 27th of October 2007.

While sales in the retail pc market continue to drop
it's no wonder PC manufacturers have reverted back to
selling XP machines along with the new Vista Machines.
 read more about it here

So exactly what is going on here?

If we look at a few relationships we can begin to
piece together the motivations. While Microsoft holds
a strong market share in the PC marketplace, it is the
PC manufacturers who are their biggest customer. This
customer represents a whopping 80% of all operating
system sales. The retail market represents a paltry
20% of the sales.

With the recent "Vista" roll-out Microsoft set policy
with these manufacturers that required them to offer
"only" Vista on all new PC's sold. And with glee
these manufacturers did just that.

Prior to Vista's roll-out, PC sales for 2005 to 2006
were, to say the least, very slow.  So naturally PC
manufacturers were looking for a boost and stringent
terms don't look like "arm bending" when you have
nothing to lose and everything to gain unless of course...

As you can imagine Vista sales are very closely tied
to PC sales. So if PC sales are down and operating
system sales are up a huge gap is created in the
process. The "fall guy" is, you guessed right, the PC
manufacturer.

As you can see, the coercive step went unnoticed
simply due to market conditions for pc manufacturers.

Ok, let's look at something more critical to the
adoption of this new operating system.

In the past Microsoft made available methods to
"downgrade" to the previous version if the current
version didn't work with your hardware or you just
didn't like the "new and improved".

With Vista, there was no provision for downgrades
created. Microsoft seems to have taken the attitude
this time around as did Admiral David G. Farragut
said, during the Civil War, “Damn the torpedoes, full
speed ahead,” then the battle cry of Microsoft is
“Damn the end user, full speed ahead."

So Vista to the rescue? Not quite! Did Microsoft and
the vendors forget the trump card? Yes... the end
user.

Several months into the release of this new operating
system retail sales plummeted and business sales
slowed dramatically.  read more about it here

What happened?

Look for Part II next week

October 15, 2007

Vista back to XP! To downgrade or not, that is the question?   Article by Vistasgottogo.com published 15th of October 2007.

Microsoft is giving a fraction of it's customers the option to downgrade to XP at no charge or penalty.

This group is the Business and Ultimate users, who may or may not have as many problems as these versions require high-end hardware to run.

It appears the fraction they have eliminated are the Home Premium and Home Basic users. (This faction seems to be the most vocal and resistant to Vista after giving it a fair shake).

Considering the numerous problems many are having with Vista, overall, do you think Microsoft should give all their customers that option without penalty or charge? why or why not? read more about it here

October 6, 2007

Is Microsoft a bit concerned about Vista?  Article by Vistasgottogo.com published 6th of October 2007.

Experts say there are several reason to be
concerned.

Reasons:
1. Only 6% of business computers can
use Vista at present. read more about it here
and also here

2. This week Microsoft announced it
would extend XP sales five months
longer from January 2008 to June 2008.
read more about it here

3. Two weeks ago Microsoft announced
that it will allow manufacturers to
make available both XP and Vista with
new computer sales. read more about it here


What are your thoughts? Do you agree
with the experts.

September 29, 2007

Vista? No Net for You! Article by Rodney and
published 3rd September 2007.
 

If you're a Vista user and live in Lund, Sweden, then say goodbye to the Internet. It seems a "flaw" in Vista prevents it from operating properly with Linux environments and all outbound pipes from Lund run on Linux. Lundis Energi, the company responsible for keeping the city online, says the problem is purely the result of non-compliant and bad code in Vista and there's no way they're going to work around Microsoft's screw-ups.

Lundis Energi also said that they are in no way willing to change the configuration of their server to cope with the flaw.

Furthermore, there's a good deal of speculation that the "flaw" is actually "on purpose", to make using Linux one step harder for  non-technical users and Lundis Energi see no reason to bow to that pressure.

Given 70% of the web is served up on Linux, why should they?