In case you have not heard, Vista Service Pack 1 has been officially released my Microsoft. The update includes all of the security updates since the release of Vista, a huge amount of performance updates/bug fixes and a few other things. For a list of everything, check out the release notes here. I have updated my system to SP1 with no issues. I suggest you update as soon as you get a chance.
I like to report about good experiences I have with companies. Here is another story.
The other day I ordered a digital camera from Costco.com that included a free 2 GB memory card. Because I was not paying attention, I did not bother to read how to get my free 2Gb memory card. I assumed the memory card was automatically included but I really was supposed to add it to my cart during checkout. Completely not aware of my blunder, I received an e-mail from a person named Kyle at Costco. The e-mail explained how I screwed up my order but said not to worry, Costco had taken the liberty to add the free memory card to my order. The memory card also had to be sent out seperate from my order which means Costco had to pay more for shipping. Costco: Whenever I need to buy something, I will look at Costco first.
A Chinese company named SoloMobi claims that a phone with a 16,800mAh lithium battery, yes 16,800mAh, will stay powered on stand by for a year. I seriously doubt it but a 16,800mAh battery is what I sure need in my phone. Typically, in any battery powered device, the higher the mAh, the longer the battery will last. I am not too educated on batteries so I may be wrong but this has been my experience. What is really cool, the company is rating the phone as a 3-5 day talk time. Could you imaging charging your cell phone every week instead of every night? Heck! Sometimes I have to charge my phone more than once a day. All information here was summarized from Engadget.com
I have noticed while making tech house calls, that many people who have Vista don’t use it’s built in search from the Start Menu. You will be amazed how cool and quick it is. As soon as you start typing the the program, everything with that name in it starts to pop up and you can select the program or type the whole name and hit enter. If you are a slow typist, I can see why you would not use this feature but if not, you are missing out on some Vista efficiency. The cool part about Instant Search is that it gets faster the more you use it. Next time you click the start menu, try to type what you need. For an even quicker result, get in the habit of hitting the Windows key on your keyboard and then begin typing.
With Google threatening Microsoft’s Office with Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Microsoft is taking a step towards cloud computing. As mentioned before, cloud computing is the idea of using the applications on your computer from the web. In other words, you don’t install software on your computer, you edit your documents online via a web browser. So far, Microsoft is far from it. I am not really a big cloud computing advocator, but I am not sure what Microsoft is trying to do with Office Live.
Office Live online has a few same features as Google Docs & Spreadsheets. For starters, Office Live servers as a place where you can store files online and collaborate with few or as many people as you want. You and others you allow can edit online Office documents. Microsoft, as usual is late to the plate. I am not sure at this point, but I don’t think there is a way to embed a word doc or spreadsheet in a web page like Google Docs and you also need to have Office on your computer to use the service. Requiring Office on your computer is a huge disadvantage when compared to Google Docs because it is completely free where the Office suite is very expensive. I would not expect anything from Office to be free anytime soon since it is a huge money maker from Microsoft. To be honest, I don’t see many people using this service. I see business people using this service because documents are often revised many times before they are made public. At this time, I am not sure what versions of Office, Office Live is compatible with, anyone trying this service with an older version of Office or from Office on the Mac, let me know. Try it out at http://www.officelive.com/default.aspx
In case you have not heard, today Apple released the SDK for the iPhone and iPod Touch and there will be a 2.0 update for iPhones in June. SDK stands for software developer kit and it will allow mobile software developers create everything from games to useful applications for iPhones and iPod Touches without having to use the browser.
Here are some of the highlights you have to look forward to in the iPhone:
-iPhone gets Enterprise support. This is the single most important thing to me. The iPhone will now have Microsoft Exchange and Active Sync support. This means my exchange server can now auto sync my contacts and give me push email through my iPhone. This won’t happen until the next software update but I am so happy for this.
-There will be an App store for the iPhone and and iPod Touch via iTunes for purchasing and installing software. This will be the only way to get software for your iPhone if it is not hacked.
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The game Spore will be available for the iPhone. Cool, and even though I can’t wait to play this game, I think I will want to play it on my computer.
-AIM, which was reported to be the most requested App will be available.
-Testing starts today with the beta release of the SDK but everything goes official in late June. What is odd to me, in the presentation, it said shipping in June. What is shipping? Are we going to see a new iPhone with 3G speeds? That is what the rumor is. I really hope it is true.
-Sim Unlock software will not be allowed in the iPhone App store. This means if you want software that is available for a hacked iPhone that is not available in the App store, you will still have to hack your iPhone. After June, and other than wanting to you use your phone on another carrier, I don’t see the reason to hack your iPhone anymore.
Well, not sure if it is amazing yet but the idea behind it is very cool. For starters, the Atom processor is the size of a penny and it will be designed for ultra mobile PC’s
notebooks and any pocket devices that need awesome power. This new small size Atom boasts super speed to wattage ratio. To give you an idea how much this will have on your notebook, a normal Mobile Core 2 Duo processor that you find in today’s notebooks sucks a low 35 watts, the Atom will only sip .6-2.5 watts.
I assume you still are not going to get super fast speeds with this design when it is introduced but Intel says it will go up to 1.8 GHz. At this time, there are no specs on the memory it will have integrated or clock speed.
This will essentially make new ultra mobile computer last much longer on a battery charge. I wonder what Apple thinks of these after they spent money to design a custom processor for their MacBook Air.
Engadget reports the military is testing autonomous robots so that they can be used in battle. Supposedly, these robots given the use of the term "autonomous," will be able to fight on their own and tell the difference between civilian and military targets. Notice I call them both targets… I have no clue if this is possible. Given what I know about current technology, this is not possible; but given our military with unlimited resources, this technology could be on the horizon. Skynet is on track to become self-aware as soon as these babies go online!
People just don’t seem to like Vista. I don’t get it, I use Vista everyday and could not go back to XP. Microsoft announced recently that they are going to lower the prices of Vista to hopefully jump start slow Vista sales which in my opinion are not too bad. Looks like the full install of Vista Ultimate will be $320, down from $400, the upgrade is going to $220, down from $260 and Home Premium upgrade is going to $130, down from $160. This is all the pricing I have from Engadget but I’m sure we might hear drops from other versions too.
I recently purchased a Blu-Ray Player not for my home theater system but for my computer and there are some things people should know before they try to tackle adding Blu-Ray to players to their computer. Luckily, I had been planning this so I was not as unprepared as some might be.
First HDCP which stands for High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection and it is the new wave of copy protection added to Blu-Ray movie discs. The key to remember is that all devices in your computer that a Blu-Ray movie’s data will transfer through needs to be HDCP compliant or the movie won’t play. This means the Blu-Ray drive need to have HDCP but that should be included in all Blu-Ray players, your video card must be HDCP compliant, and finally your monitor must be HDCP compliant. If you have a computer with none of this, it can be very costly to add a Blu-Ray player and it might be cheaper to get a dedicated player for your TV. One last part you will need is software to play it on like Power DVD Blu-Ray edition which may be included with your Rom drive.
Seriously, this copyright junk really makes life miserable for honest people but it is necessary given all the people who steal movies and music over the Internet. HDCP is no joke, I have an nvidia 8800 GTS which is a high end HDCP compliant. To test HDCP, I connected my 8800 to two monitors, one HDCP compliant, and one not. I decided to move a playing Blu-Ray movie between the HDCP compliant monitor over to the non-compliant and as soon as I moved the window, it stopped playing and threw an error message at me. No exceptions, HDCP needs the Blu-Ray player, special video card, special monitor, and Blu-Ray player software. There is a possibility that there is some other HDCP compliant hardware that may be necessary which I have and have not heard of. This was tested on Windows Vista, I have no clue if XP will support Blu-Ray even with compliant hardware.
Everything I say goes for Windows computers only, all of you Mac people have to wait till Apple decides to add the functionality.