A question from a customer last night:
“Is there a list of software applications that work with Windows Vista?”
Check out Microsoft Knowledge Base article 933305, “Applications that have earned the “Certified for Windows Vista” logo or the “Works with Windows Vista” logo.”
And if you are wondering about current Adobe products that support Windows Vista, check out Adobe’s Vista-compatible products list.
Tags: Microsoft, Windows Vista, Windows, Vista,
Christopher Null of PC World shares 35 Things Every PC User Should Know in his column, now up on MSN Tech and Gadgets, as well as Preston Gralla’s Windows Tips for Everyone.
Want to speed up your broadband connection? Diagnose mysterious crashes? Move massive files across the Internet? Sooner or later, you will — and you’ll find step-by-step instructions for these and other common PC tasks right here.
A few goodies include PowerToys for Windows XP and Speakeasy’s speed tester to test your broadband download and upload speeds.
A few random thoughts.
BusinessWeek has an interesting article this week on “Where Is Microsoft Search?” The author observes that Microsoft has stumbled in an effort to provide a better comprehensive mousetrap on the Web, and prevent others from undermining core businesses, as is often cited thee days with companies offering competition to many of our products and services.
“There’s plenty of pressure to make this fix stick. Last May, Microsoft launched adCenter, a technology that takes demographic data (gender, age, Zip Code) of Web surfers who sign up for various MSN and Windows Live services and lays it over their search queries. That lets advertisers tailor ads to specific types of customers and should allow Microsoft to charge more. But the strategy packs a punch only if Microsoft boosts its share of search.
“Microsoft could still do that. It is betting search will move beyond the all-purpose Web site where users plug in a query for any bit of information. That’s not a bad idea; many analysts believe the search world will fragment into vertical sites that focus on niches. The eye-popping success of YouTube Inc., now owned by Google, is one example. More than just a place to show off your creations, YouTube has become a place to search for videos. Microsoft announced plans in February to buy Medstory Inc., a health-care search engine for consumers. And on Mar. 14 it said it would buy Tellme Networks Inc. for what one analyst estimated to be more than $1 billion. Tellme should give Microsoft a leg up in the emerging market for voice-activated search over a mobile phone.”
Now look at the deal between News Corp. and NBC reported in the NY Times is significant, and requires an alignment of the content owners with distributors and advertisers.
“All the advertising in the video programming will be sold by either the media companies themselves or the new Web venture, and shows and clips will be displayed on a video player that will be embedded in sites like MSN and AOL. For the Internet companies who are distributing the shows, it allows them a new way to tap into the surging popularity of Internet video and vie with YouTube for viewers.
“The impetus for announcing the business now, executives involved said, was the conclusion of deals with AOL, Yahoo, MSN and MySpace. The partners had also spent several months trying to recruit other media companies including Viacom, Walt Disney and CBS to join their start-up.”
Perhaps the connection via MSN (and ultimately services like the one offered on Xbox Live) is one way for MS to participate. Just as I blogged earlier this year, ABC’s apparent success at providing free ad-supported TV shows via the web was a good entree, balancing a good customer experience balanced with a reasonable business model is as important as meeting the needs of teh viewer, in this case with content that they want to watch (TV shows, movies) in a format that’s appealing (reasonable quality streaming video) and at an acceptable price point (free with ads). Perhaps MSN and ultimately Live could be the go-to destination to search for and view video content, providing Microsoft opportunities to apply value-adds that are more than just selling ads: video search, tagging, metadata, social ratings and targeted advertising enhance the video library and ultimately the customer’s experience.
More to think about this weekend.
Last night was date night, where we (my wife, me) find a sitter and head out for dinner and a movie. Not that it always works out that way. But last night after dinner, it was a toss-up between 300 and Premonition, and the Sandra Bullock drama won out due to scheduling.
Of interest is that 300 is next on our list, and I noted in a previous blog entry, movie goers agree that this is a good action movie and adaptation the Battle of Thermopylae as it grossed more than $100M last week. But for those interested in learning about the historical accuracies of the movie, see my favourite SiValley newspaper for Doug Griswold’s article in the Mercury News this week.
“Sure, it’s fun to watch 300 nearly naked Spartans – abandoned by the rest of Greece – ignoring their own battle tactics to fight off a million invaders.
But don’t mistake this for history.
“Click on this link to see a detailed illustration (a PDF) about how Zack Snyder’s new movie “300” (based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel) stacks up against the textbooks on what really happened 2,500 years ago at Thermopylae. (OK, 2,487 years.)”
Link: http://bayareanewsgroup.com/multimedia/mn/entertainment/300_history_031407.pdf
And as for Premonition? This review from the Mercury News sums it up:
“It’s a sad state of affairs when we have to look to the title of the film for answers. But Linda must have, in between shuttling her daughters to school and hanging sheets out to dry, had a premonition or two. Can she change fate? Can she stop Jim’s head from rolling? Do we care? No!”
Let’s see… I have a premonition that I’ll spend nearly $20 on a movie that I should wait to see (or not) on TV. Oh wait, that was last night. <sigh>
After getting back to my regular day job this week (in addition to daylight saving time and time zone work), I found a couple of emails asking…
“What are those numbers at the end of your blog tags?”
Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, DST. 786,613; 1,106,004; 1,264,772
As noted previously, I tracked the increases in references on Live Search when I added a new entry on my blog:
“And here’s an update on the quick search query on Live Search for DST in 2007: there’s now 280,783 results: that’s more than 100,000 additional results added in the last couple of weeks, with more than 513,000 results (+100K) for DST alone. I’ll go out on a limb and estimate that we eclipse 1,000,000 by March 11, 2007.”
Well, turns out that a search on “daylight saving time” in 2007 tops out today at 804,229 results, with “daylight saving time” topped a million with 1,076,605 today (and the incorect “daylight savings time” at 1,337,264).
(And remember, we ‘fall back’ a week later this year, on November 4th.)
But here’s a number that should get your attention: ninemillion.org.
You can contribute to ninemillion.org with every search. Each time you search here, Microsoft will contribute to ninemillion.org, a UN agency-led campaign providing education and sports programs for the nine million refugee youth around the world.
You can also add the gadget to your Windows Live Space or Live.com by going here: http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=3b452693-c968-4838-bf19-47e3ebf903bd&l=1
Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, DST. 804,229; 1,076,605; 1,337,264