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News Source: www.microsoft.com
Microsoft on Wednesday released a minor update to its Zune software aimed at fixing several issues, including one that was causing some users to hear skipping when playing back purchased songs.
“We were aware a limited number of users were experiencing that issue, and we were able to address it,” said Zune spokeswoman Katy Asher.
The software maker had originally hoped to have the update by midmonth, but the patch took slightly longer than it had hoped to develop and test.
In addition to addressing the song-skipping issue, the Zune 1.3 software update aims to offer quicker syncing and improve a situation where the Zune’s battery could drain more quickly after using the FM tuner.
Source:http://www.activewin.com/awin/comments.asp?HeadlineIndex=38788
Apple has posted a new version of Boot Camp today. Boot Camp 1.2 brings several updates, including Windows Vista support.
Boot Camp allows owners of Intel-based Macs to dual-boot their Macs into Windows and Mac OS X. The new version offers these features:
- Support for Windows Vista (32-bit)
- Updated drivers, including but not limited to trackpad, AppleTime (synch), audio, graphics, modem, iSight camera
- Support the Apple Remote (works with iTunes and Windows Media Player)
- A Windows system tray icon for easy access to Boot Camp information and actions
- Improved keyboard support for Korean, Chinese, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Russian, and French Canadian
- Improved Windows driver installation experience
- Updated documentation and Boot Camp on-line help in Windows
- Apple Software Update (for Windows XP and Vista)
News Source: www.macrumors.com
Reader Gary Priester has a question likely to be faced by other buyers of computers outfitted with Vista, the latest Microsoft (MSFT) operating system:
I just purchased a new Dell [computer] with Vista. I ordered 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive. When I first booted the machine, it showed only 3GB of RAM and a 288GB drive.
After much going back and forth with Dell (DELL), both on the phone and via e-mail, finally one of the tech-support persons explained that the difference is Vista uses binary to measure memory, whereas the traditional way is to calculate by the decimal equivalent.
It made sense, and they have a chart hidden somewhere deep in the bowels of their Web site that shows the equivalents. This is probably something that should be pointed out to consumers in the first place and would have saved Dell and me a lot of time.
Dell’s explanation may make sense, but it doesn’t answer your memory question. Yes, what we commonly refer to as a megabyte (1 million bytes) of memory is actually 1,048,576 bytes. But that isn’t the issue here.
The confusion may be related to a somewhat obscure issue called memory addressing. Until recently, Windows and the hardware it runs on have used 32-bit addressing. This limits total memory to what can be represented by a 32-bit binary number, a bit more than 4 billion bytes. Your new computer almost certainly came with the 32-bit version of Vista. Although there is a 64-bit version, it’s not being used much because it has, to now, extremely limited support for third-party hardware.
And if your computer is a laptop with an Intel (INTC) processor, the chip that handles memory addressing, known in computer-speak as the northbridge, can only handle 32-bit addressing, even though the Core Duo and Core 2 Duo chips themselves are 64-bit models.
This limits you to 4GB of physical memory. But the available user memory is less than that (3GB in your case) because the system reserves a chunk for its own use. Click here to read a good Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) paper on the issue. While it deals with Window XP, it’s equally applicable to Vista.
Traditionally, memory modules grow by powers of 2, so you can buy 512MB, 1GB, or 2GB. And the Core Duo architecture requires that memory modules be added in matched pairs.
Later this spring Intel begins shipping new chips, code-named Santa Rosa, that will allow full 64-bit operation, as is already possible on Intel and AMD (AMD) desktops. With luck, by that time Microsoft and third-party software and hardware vendors will have added enough support to make 64-bit Windows a more useful proposition.
Source:http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2007/tc20070326_121616.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily
A representative from Microsoft (MSFT), the developer of Windows Vista, is quoted in local media as saying this is the most serious case concerning pirated Vista since this operating system software was launched a few months ago.
Following a tip from a local citizen, Yangpu Department of Industry and Commerce found 1034 Simplified Chinese versions of both basic and professional beta of Windows Vista and up to 8000 pirated game disks. The two suspects, identified by their surnames Chen and Li, said they shipped these items from Guangzhou and then sold them to stalls and video and audio stores in Shanghai. According to the men, each of the pirated Windows Vista cost RMB6 wholesale, in comparison to the normal market price of RMB2000.
The two suspects have been detained and all the pirated software have been sealed by the police. There is no word yet on the punishment they face or when a trial will be held.
Sourcehttp://www.chinatechnews.com/2007/03/28/5183-pirated-windows-vista-identified-in-shanghai/
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday it will begin selling a new version of its Xbox 360 console that transmits high-definition video and comes with a larger hard drive in its latest effort to position the video game machine as a digital media hub.
Microsoft’s new Xbox 360 Elite, with a 120-gigabyte hard drive and High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) port, will be available on April 29 in the United States and Canada for $479.99The hard drive on the new machine is six times bigger than the current high-end Xbox 360 model, which retails for $399.
Microsoft said the Elite hard drive has space to hold a library of arcade games and thousands of songs, as well as high-definition TV shows and movies downloaded from the company’s Xbox LIVE online service.
“Today’s games and entertainment enthusiast has an insatiable appetite for digital high-definition content,” said Peter Moore, corporate vice president for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft.
Microsoft said it will sell the Elite alongside existing Xbox 360 systems and it will offer the detachable 120 gigabyte hard drive for $179.99.
MULTIFRONT WAR
Microsoft released the Xbox 360 a full year ahead of Sony Corp.’s new PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s Wii, grabbing an early lead in the new, three-way video game console war.
The Xbox 360 and PS3 are also battling on the home entertainment front with each shooting to take control of the digital living room.
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said Microsoft is making a play for a niche market.
“Very few consumers will care,” he said, noting that most gamers can probably get by with a 20-gigabyte hard drive while owners of pricey high-definition televisions are still a small percentage of the overall audience.
Sony’s PS3 includes a next-generation, high-definition, Blu-ray DVD player that is slowly gaining popularity with movie buffs. Microsoft did not put a competing high-def DVD player in its console, but with the Elite, the world’s biggest software maker is making its own assault on the living room.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said earlier this year it would offer an Xbox 360 that would double as a set-top box for Internet Protocol TV, or IPTV. Telephone carriers and cable companies provide set-top boxes to pipe high-definition movies and television into homes.
Executives at Sony, whose $600 high-end PS3 has racked up fewer sales than the Xbox 360 and Wii, said Microsoft’s new console does not seem to address any consumer need.
“We’re scratching our heads. They’re fragmenting their product offering and fragmenting their consumer base,” said Peter Dille, a Sony Computer Entertainment America senior vice president of marketing, who said Sony has no current plans to increase the size of its 60 gigabyte hard drive.
Source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/28/AR2007032800034.html
In 2005, Microsoft officials admitted that it was iffy as to whether Monad would be integrated into Longhorn Server. They promised the technology would be built into some future Windows Server build, but not necessarily Longhorn Server.
At the Microsoft Management Summit in San Diego this week, however, Microsoft changed its tune and said that PowerShell will debut in Longhorn Server Beta 3, which is expected to go to testers in April. Jeffrey Snover, Windows Management Partner Architect and “father” of PowerShell, acknowledged the change in strategy on his blog on March 27.
“At the Microsoft Management Summit in San Diego today we announced that Windows PowerShell will be included in Windows Server code-named ‘Longhorn’ and will be available in Beta 3 of ‘Longhorn.’ “
“That’s right, every version of Windows Server will ship with PowerShell!” Snover blogged “It’s a pretty big day for us in the PowerShell world.”
PowerShell is an environment “similar to the Korn, Bourne, or other shells on UNIX and Linux,” as explained in an article in TechNet Magazine, “and a rich programming language like Perl or Ruby, combined with the functionality of the Microsoft .NET Framework.”
Microsoft released PowerShell as part of Exchange Server 2007. A version of PowerShell for Vista is available for download, as well.
The final version of Longhorn Server is slated to ship before the end of 2007, most likely in the fall, according to sources.
Source:http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=352
The world’s biggest e-mail service is scrapping its free e-mail storage limit of 1 gigabyte, or about a billion bytes of data, responding to explosive growth in attachment sizes as people share ever more photos, music and videos via e-mail.
Microsoft has a 2 gigabyte free e-mail storage limit, while Google caps its Gmail service at 2.8 gigabytes.
“We are giving them no reason to ever have to delete old e-mails,” Yahoo co-founder David Filo said in a phone interview. “You can keep stuff forever.”
Officials said the decision to remove e-mail storage limits reflects the plunging cost of storage as new personal computers store up to a trillion bytes of data and owners of 80-gigabyte iPods can carry 100 hours of video in their pockets.
By contrast, when Yahoo first introduced its e-mail service a little under a decade ago, it capped individual storage at 4 megabytes per user. At that time, an “ultra high-density” floppy disk for personal computers then held 144 megabytes.
“People should think about e-mail as something where they are archiving their lives,” said Filo, who remains active in managing technical operations at the Sunnyvale, California, company and carries the honorific title of Chief Yahoo.
Starting in May, the changeover to unlimited storage should take a month, said John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail.
“We have been closely monitoring average usage. We are comfortable that our users are far under 1 gig(abyte), on average,” Kremer said by phone. “What we see are an increasing number of rich media files as consumers send more photos.”
One caveat Yahoo makes is that the offer is for personal use and subject to guidelines against abuse that apply to Yahoo Mail. No one can build a business giving away unlimited storage to other consumers using Yahoo Mail, executives said.
Two countries — China and Japan — are excluded. “We will continue working with these markets on their storage plans,” Kremer said in a statement. Yahoo is a minority owner with partner Softbank in Yahoo Japan Corp. and a part owner with Alibaba of the Yahoo business in China.
Filo said Yahoo is looking at lifting caps on storage for other services such as its Flickr photo-sharing service. “We are looking at those on a case-by-case basis,” he said.
It’s a far cry from when giving away 2 megabytes of data was considered a big deal, said David Nakayama, Yahoo’s group vice president of engineering and developer of RocketMail, which Yahoo acquired and relaunched as Yahoo Mail in 1997.
In a posting to Yahoo’s corporate blog, he said capacity when Yahoo Mail started was 200 gigabytes for all customers.
“I remember getting in a room to plan our RocketMail launch over a decade ago and worrying that our original plan of a 2 megabyte quota wasn’t enough, and that we needed to be radical and DOUBLE the storage to 4 megabyte per account!” he wrote.
Source:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070328/tc_nm/yahoo_mail_dc;_ylt=AiYC.O2z69SNZBYnkcXXCPkjtBAF
A Vista bug is frustrating some users with extra-long wait times to move, copy or delete files. Microsoft has acknowledged the flaw and produced a hot fix for it, but users must call the company’s support line to obtain the patch.
A thread on a Vista support forum has been active since late January, with users regularly complaining of ultraslow file operations on the new OS. The volume of messages spiked today.
“I downloaded a 1.8GB file over the Internet to my D drive,” a user identified as BadBlock said today. “Moving the tmp file from C to D took three times longer than downloading the file on a 6Mb connection! I’m thinking of going back to XP.”
Another user was equally scathing. “I simply cannot believe that I updated to a new computer and put Windows Vista on it to find that it’s not even capable of moving and deleting files in an efficient manner. The most basic of features that I use all the time is a slow train wreck. Who do they have designing these programs — monkeys?”
According to a document on the Microsoft support database, the company has produced and tested a hot fix that solves the problem. But because the fix has not been posted for public downloading, users must contact Microsoft to obtain the patch. A US$59 support charge may apply, although Microsoft’s general policy is to cancel such charges if the support representative decides the hot fix is necessary.
Microsoft typically rolls such hot fixes into the next Service Pack for the OS in question. A first pack for Vista, however, has not yet been scheduled.
Source:http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130185-c,windowsbugs/article.html
The following Windows Vista updates are available:
This update is provided to you and licensed under the Windows Vista
License Terms.
Install this update for Windows Mail to revise the definition files used to detect e-mail messages that should be considered junk e-mail or that may contain phishing content.
This update configures the Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program to improve the quality of software information sent to Microsoft.
Install this update to resolve an issue where poor video quality may be experienced when configuring video to interlaced mode on a system running Windows Vista.
Install this update to resolve an issue where an Apple iPod may be corrupted by using the Safely Remove Hardware feature on a system running Windows Vista.
Install this update to resolve an issue where when adding metadata to RAW images from Canon EOS-1D or EOS-1Ds cameras, the file is truncated and the image is permanently lost.
Update for Windows Media Player 11 for Windows Vista (KB931621)
Update for Windows Media Player 11 for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems (KB931621)
Install this update to resolve an issue where an error message is received when placing a Windows Vista system into a sleep state while a PPP connection is active. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.
This update is provided to you and licensed under the Windows Vista License Terms.