Operating Systems and Internet Messenger in the USA

Mark Croft, Microsoft director of Marketing, probably had too much beer before he explained the meaning of the Vista Capable sticker. According to him, Vista Capable meant being able to run any version of Windows Vista which should put him and Microsoft in big trouble.

Remember, Vista Capable doesn’t mean it can run any version which includes even the most demanding Windows Vista Ultimate with Aero enabled. Vista Capable is being able to run only a version of Vista and less powerful Vista Capable computers should at least be able to run Windows Vista Home Basic.

Mark Croft got himself and Microsoft in a tight spot; and after a 10-minute consultation with their high paying lawyers, he made the correct statement: I made the statement that … Capable would be able to run any version of Windows Vista, whereas, in reality, our intent with Capable was that the system would be able to run a version of Windows Vista.

The lawyers of Diane Kelley, state resident who filed the suit, were quick and asked Mark Croft whether the company researched about the confusion the marketing slogan brings where the public could make the same mistake he did. Mark said there weren’t any research done on it.

Anyways, good work Mark. Being the marketing director of Microsoft, you should have had no need to consult your lawyers about the correct statement for Vista Capable especially when you were the ones who coined it.

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While I was cleaning up my office I ran into the March 1986 issue of UNIX/WORLD, a long-since deceased magazine. I had saved this particular magazine because I am the author of the article featured on the cover: The Unix System on the IBM PC.

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LanachTech is conducting a training on Configuring Windows Vista Applications. The schedule are as follows:

Start date / time : End date / time

December 13, 2007, 8:30 am - December 14, 2007, 4:30 pm
December 17, 2007, 8:30 am - December 18, 2007, 4:30 pm

Information on the training:

Introduction

This two-day instructor-led course provides students with the knowledge and skills to successfully configure mobile computers and applications that run Windows Vista.
It will also provide them with the knowledge and skills necessary to ensure successful configuration of the IT Pro tools and productivity applications that ship with Windows Vista.
Students will focus on six main areas: maintenance and optimization tools, media applications, productivity applications, notebook computers, mobile devices, and Tablet PCs.
Audience This course is intended for IT Professionals who want to become technology specialists. A Windows Vista technology specialist is defined as a technology specialist interested in learning about, assessing skills, using reference products, or taking exams to prove his or her knowledge/skills/experience related to Microsoft’s Windows Vista technologies.
Technology specialists:

If you are interested to attend this training the contact details are as follows:

Phone: 312-201-8808, option 1
Email: info@lanactech.com

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I initially had problems with my client software for Ericsson on Windows Vista; even they were late in the game, I was pleased that they updated their software to work well on the latest operating system.

Nikon and Canon users should be happy as well as both companies have updated their software to support for “raw” images on Winodws Vista. Nikon, however, only opted to support this for their latest SLRs while Canon has done so even with their older models.

Windows Vista is able to read Raw images via codes that vendors have developed relative to their product. Raw images are far better in quality compared to JPEGs which allows photographers flexibility in formatting images in Raw format.

Some of the modesl supported by the latest codecs from Nikon and Canon are:

Nikon’s $5,000 top-end D3 and $1,800 D300.

Canon’s $8,000 top-end EOS-1Ds Mark III and the $1,300 EOS 40D and other older models that supported Raw images.

This should sound good for all Nikon and Canon owners using Windows Vista, go and download updates from your respective model sites.

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TechWeb - The vulnerabilities could be used to gather sensitive data from sites in other windows or inject data or code into those sites, Mozilla said.

NewsFactor - “Give One. Get One.” That’s the slogan for the two-for-one program by One Laptop Per Child, an organization set up to promote and distribute the innovative, low-cost, Linux-based XO laptop computer developed by former MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte and other members of the school’s Media Lab.

TechWeb - XTuple will announce this week that it’s certified its OpenMFG ERP suite and its simpler, free PostBooks accounting software to run on Mac OS X Leopard.

I just attended a Microsoft event and the speaker presented about SharePoint Enterprise Search. On a quick Vista marketing, he quickly mentioned that users would be able to save 15 minutes a day on searches when Vista is used. And he encouraged the audience not to wait 5 months to move to Vista, because by then, the organization should have already saved 1650 hours in searches nowithstanding all other time savings from other features of Vista.

I have definitely found the search of Windows Vista beneficial and so much faster than in XP. A lot of enteprises doesn’t allow installation of third party applications that replace the standard Windows XP search and given that Vista is a far better option, the speaker did have a point.

To think about it, so many features of Vista can save time for both the end user and tech support.

There are a lot of factors in a cost and savings analysis in the adoption of Vista, and 15 minutes of search savings is a pretty cool add-on.

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Devil Mountain Software, a small, four-year-old developer in south Florida tested release candidate versions of Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) and XP SP3.

Devil Mountain used DMS Clarity Studio for the test run on a dual-core Dell laptop. Windows XP SP3 performed twice as fast as Vista SP1 which according to Craig Barth, CTO at Devil Mountain, “This doesn’t bode well for Microsoft in our opinion. Microsoft’s biggest challenge with Vista is how to unseat XP.

Devil Mountain’s tests were not extensive and they haven’t looked if the file copying process became faster which was said to be an issue in the current Vista released version. Also, he only used 1GB of ram for testing head on with Windows XP. When used 2GB of ram, Vista performed four percent faster compared to 1GB of ram.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is the first iteration and improvements would be welcomed with open arms even if they fall short compared to Windows XP which is already on the third and last iteration.

As always, the biggest competitor of Microsoft on their latest operating system is its predecessor.

I believe that the Service Pack 1 improvements on Windows Vistas bodes well on Microsoft contrary to Barth’s claims.

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