Tag: Windows 7

Categories
Uncategorized

A past look at future tech: thoughts on the Windows PC of 2008 back in 2003… and 2012’s in 2008

Here’s a blast from the past, when I predicting the average PC of 2012 back in 2008… and the PC of 2008 back in 2003:

Way back in 2003, I worked in the Windows Hardware group, and was asked to present at an industry conference about “the PC of tomorrow”. Looking at what we had shown off that year at our Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), I suggested…

“the machine of PC of 2008 would be a multi-processor, 8GB machine with a 200GB HDD, DVD-multi optical and integrated web cam and telephony for under a grand (US$).”

In the summer of 2008 I purchased something quite close to that, as I noted here:

“… in our house is the new HP TouchSmart IQ506 which is quite nice, has very good specs and can be found at a broad range of retail and etail stores.  With an Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB of memory, 500 GB, a 22 inch touch screen, TV tuner and more…”

The configuration cost me about $1,100, which I noted was considerably less expensive than a similarly configured iMac 20-inch at the time (2008 SRP of $1,749.00 with 4GB or memory and 500GB HDD).

I further prognosticated in 2008…

“… by the time our eldest makes it into senior high school [2012], he’ll be taking a light and sleek slimline, multicore notebook with slot-loading DVD, wide screen display, 16GB or memory and a 256GB SSD drive… all for under $1,000.

“But… his main device will be a phone.”

So let’s take a look at what you get today for about $1,000:

Yesterday I purchased a slim Samsung Series 9 notebook PC with an Intel Core i5-2467M 1.60 GHz running Windows 7 Home Premium, 13.3 inch active matrix TFT colour LCD, 4 GB of memory, 128 GB SSD, 1.3 MP HD webcam, premium audio, USB 3.0 ports, Micro HDMI, Ethernet (10/100/1000), seven hours of battery life, 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth, under three pounds.

Oh, and far less than the $1,000 targeted, including tax.

Or for just under $1,000 (it was on sale 😉 was the Samsung Series 7 slate PC running Windows 7, with an Intel Core i5-2467M processor, 4 GB of memory and a 128GB SSD on a 11.6-inch, multi-touch screen, dual webcams (2.0 MP front, 3.0 MP rear HD cameras), USB 2.0, Micro HDMI, MicroSD – and under two pounds.

Interesting.

What Tom Phillips said then easily resonates today:

“It is our hope that together with the industry we can deliver on the challenge of true system development and deliver what our customers desire – compelling, innovative experiences that improve the way they live, work and are entertained. And as a result, people will get more value out of their PCs.”

My personal guess is that a year from now we’ll see similar sleek and slim multicore notebook offerings with up to 8GB of memory and a 256GB SSD drive for close to $1,000. (Standard disclaimer applies, please don’t attribute this as an official view of anything save a parent planning his back-to-school budget. 😉

The same will go for power all-in-one desktops, just as I noted recently: I purchased a great new Sony VAIO AIO for under $1,000 just before the holidays, complete with 4GB of memory, a 1TB HDD and touch input. By next year, double the memory and the size of the HDD.

But what about the time our oldest is ready for college?

More on that tomorrow: I have to head off and get this boy of the future (and his younger brother, class of 2019) ready for bed.

Tags: Windows, Windows 7, Microsoft.

Also available via http://bit.ly/zWZlAl

Bookmark this on Delicious Bookmark and Share

Categories
Uncategorized

Advisory: Windows Cumulative Update for Samoa, as they skip Friday and change their time zone

As I noted in a prior post, Samoa will move their time zone this week, essentially traveling to the future…

When is December 30th not December 30th?

When it’s 2011 in Samoa.

[rimshot]

As you may have read, Samoa has decided to move ahead in time and join neighbors and trading partners on the western side of the International Date line (like Australia and New Zealand). In doing so, Samoa will move from December 29th directly to December 31st this year. As Alan Boyle wrote this week in his post on MSN… 

“Just this once, Samoa is making Dec. 30 disappear.

“It’s the key step in the Pacific island nation’s plan to move from the eastern to the western side of the International Date Line and mesh its work week with two of its primary trading partners, New Zealand and Australia. The New Zealand territory of Tokelau is making the switch as well.

“In doing business with New Zealand and Australia, we’re losing out on two working days a week,” Stuff.co.nz quoted Samoan Prime Minister Tuila’epa Sailele as saying. “While it’s Friday here, it’s Saturday in New Zealand, and when we’re at church Sunday, they’re already conducting business in Sydney and Brisbane.”

“Samoa will go directly from 11:59 p.m. Thursday, through midnight to 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

“It hasn’t been controversial,” the editor of the Samoa Observer, Mata’afa Lesa, told me today. (Yes, definitely still today.) “People are realizing when they sleep tomorrow night, they’ll wake up on Saturday.”

Not contraversial? I’m not so sure, but that’s not a matter for this post. Just ask people who will miss a birthday (perhaps they won’t age a year?) or a special anniversary.

Technical Changes

The change will be a move from from UTC -11:00 to UTC+13:00, and a change in the display name for UTC +13:00 time zone (Nuku’alofa, Samoa). So, on the next clock tick after Dec 29, 2011 at 23:59:59, Samoa’s UTC offset becomes UTC +13:00. And the next clock tick will be is Dec 31, 2011 00:00:000. Cartographers will have some challenges dealing with all the updates to maps, moving the International Date Line to 171 degrees longitude west of Greenwich.

Associated challenges

There are also other technical challenges as I called out last year… as this change again occurs at midnite, but this time with good reason…

Here’s my regular advice for governments: in support of these types of changes, we provide guidance and Microsoft’s Policy in Response to DST/TZ Requests. It’s important for countries and territories to work towards seamless transitions to new DST and time zones policies, providing ample advance notice (of a year or more) with published confirmation of planned changes.

In addition – and this is important – we suggest that entities considering moves to DST implement changes at the next clock tick after 01:59:59 rather than at 00:00:00. Making the change at midnight can impact daily scheduled system events that sometimes occur at 12:00 midnite, such as back ups, data pulls or other automated tasks.

But I imagine that in Samoa’s case with this change, it would have been a greater challenge to have December 30th last only a few hours. Noting the article cites “there were 767 births and 43 marriages registered” on December 30th, I sympathize for the loss of a special day.

What’s Microsoft doing about this change?

Microsoft is aware of the upcoming change in time zone and shift in date for Samoa, and we’re looking at ways to minimize the impact this change has on our customers and partners. As with other changes to daylight saving time and time zones (like the recent change in Russia, noted here), this requires an update to the OS.

So users should look at the December 2011 cumulative time zone update for Windows operating systems avilable at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2633952.

In addition to the change to the UTC offset for Samoa standard time from (UTC-11) to (UTC+13) — which will change the time zone’s display name to “(UTC+13:00) Samoa” — we also made additional changes since the last semi-annual Windows cumulative time zone update (back in August):

  • Kaliningrad Standard Time:
    As previously announced in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 2625508, Belarus has decided to discontinue daylight saving time from 2011 and stay on permanent “summer time.” That article suggested that users move to a “workaround time” of Kaliningrad standard time. This windows update makes the move permanent by including Minsk in the display name for Kaliningrad standard time. The new display name for Kaliningrad standard time is “(UTC+03:00) Kaliningrad, Minsk.”
  • E.Europe Standard Time:
    The display name for this time zone has been updated to “(UTC+2:00) Nicosia.”
  • Bahia Standard Time [Display Name “(UTC-3:00) Salvador”]:
    A new windows time zone has been created for the Brazilian state of Bahia.
  • Fiji Standard Time [Display Name “(UTC+12:00) Fiji”]:
    Sets the 2012 DST start date to occur on the fourth Sunday of January.

Most applications and services reference the underlying Windows OS for their TZ and DST rules, with some exceptions. This change in Samoa has the potential for worldwide impacts on time references for multinational customers. Updates will be important not only for users in Samoa but for connected systems around the world, particularly Samoa’s closest partners in the region. Additional information is also available on our official Daylight Saving Time Help and Support Centre at http://www.microsoft.com/time.

So happy new year! Take comfort that at least Samoa decided not to skip that holiday. 😉

 

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, Samoa

Also available via http://bit.ly/uTbcqT and https://t.co/5Nr3hWJR

Bookmark this on Delicious Bookmark and Share

Categories
Uncategorized

The time has come to move on… to Windows 7 (especially if you’re still on Windows XP)

It’s time to make a move away from Windows… Windows XP that is.

As Rich Reynolds noted in his post on the Windows team blog commemorating Windows XP this week…

“We’ve been talking a lot about the anniversary of Windows XP and how much technology and business have changed since a decade ago when it launched. Today we officially commemorate its 10 year anniversary and we also celebrate the anniversary of Windows 7 officially being in market for two years on Saturday.

“We also thought it would be fun to represent the shifts over the last decade through this infographic.

“Although a lot has changed since we launched Windows XP, the one constant that remains is our focus on enriching people’s lives through the power of technology.”

I agree.

And perhaps with all the talk of “falling behind” and changing the batteries in your smoke detectors, I’ll say that upcoming “fall back” from daylight saving time is a good time to go out and get a new PC, or at least upgrade to Windows 7. (Disclosure: I upgraded my own HP Touchsmart to Windows 7 from Windows Vista.)

Get a good-looking new PC. It’s a great time to get a new PC that, as the Windows team says, goes great with your living room and your budget. I’m looking to replace my now three year old PC at home with a new All-in-One (love the design of the HP Touchsmart) and considering the latest version of the line, such as this HP TouchSmart 610-1151f. (The new 420 and 520 model in the line are also quite nice.) I’m also looking at the new Sony VAIO VPCL235FX/B and the Samsung DP700 (which you can use as a mega-slate, with it’s full flat design).

Tags: Microsoft, articles, blogs, Microsoft, Windows 7

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse, Windows 7, computers, how-to

Bookmark and Share

Also available via http://bit.ly/uqUYcU

Categories
Uncategorized

Announcement: Late breaking 2011 time zone changes for Armenia and Ukraine (again)

I originally posted that we confirmed that Armenia, Belarus and Ukraine won’t fall back but also stay permanently on summer time on October 30, similar to the move in Russia.

Well, it appears that that these decisions were recently reversed.

Please note we have received reports that Armenia and Ukraine have canceled their proposed changes. (http://blogs.technet.com/b/dst2007/archive/2011/10/19/notice-ukraine-and-armenia-revert-2011-dst-cancellation.aspx).

According to reports in Rada and Kyivpost that we have confirmed through our offices in the region, Ukraine will not stay on permanent summer time and instead will fall back to winter time on October 30, 2011 as originally scheduled. If these reports become the plan of record, customers in Armenia and Ukraine will not have to adjust time zone settings on their computers that are running Windows operating system.

The Microsoft Knowledgebase article KB2625508 has been updated with this information.

Our advice? Check with your local government if you live in Armenia or Ukraine to get more details. This is one of the reasons we recommend that in order to achieve more seamless transitions to new DST and time zone policies, Microsoft requests that governments provide the following:

  1. Ample advance notice (1 year or more) of the planned change.
  2. Official published confirmation of planned changes to DST or time zones.
  3. Concentrated efforts on promoting the change to the affected citizens.

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, Russia

Bookmark this on Delicious Bookmark and Share

Also available via http://bit.ly/ruDYnA

Categories
Uncategorized

Advisory: Fiji plans to shift from daylight saving to standard time earlier in 2012

As you may have read, Fiji has decided to shift their move back to standard time earlier than originally planned in 2012. This from the Government of Fiji…

“The end of daylight saving scheduled initially for the 26th of February 2012 has been brought forward to the 22nd of January 2012.

“The commencement of daylight saving will remain unchanged and start on the 23rd of October, 2011. An official gazette reflecting this change will be released early this week.”

Technical Changes

The change will be a move from the original scheduled date of Sunday, February 26, to January 22, 2012. Folks in Fiji will then turn back their clocks one hour from 3:00:00 AM FJST (Fiji Summer Time) to 2:00:00 AM FJT (that’s Fiji Time).

Now, who wouldn’t want to be on Fiji Time? I thought it was always summer time in Fiji, where the temperatures in summer and winter are around 85-88ºF (or 30ºC for my shivering friends up north).

Associated challenges

There are also other social challenges as this change happens with only a few months warning. Here’s our regular advice for governments: in support of these types of changes, we provide guidance and Microsoft’s Policy in Response to DST/TZ Requests. It’s important for countries and territories to work towards seamless transitions to new DST and time zones policies, providing ample advance notice (of a year or more) with published confirmation of planned changes.

What’s Microsoft doing about this change?

Microsoft is aware of the upcoming change in time zone, ending daylight saving time earlier in Fiji, and we will work to minimize the impact this change has on our customers and partners. As with other changes to daylight saving time and time zones (like the impending change in Russia noted here), this will require an update to the OS, likely as part of the Windows December Cumulative Update. Most applications and services reference the underlying Windows OS for their TZ and DST rules, with some exceptions. This change in Fiji has the potential for worldwide impacts on time references for multinational customers. Updates will be important not only for users in Fiji but for connected systems around the world. Further information will be shared here and reported on our official Daylight Saving Time Help and Support Centre at http://www.microsoft.com/time as status updates are available.

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, Fiji

Also available via http://bit.ly/pmXIRG

Bookmark this on Delicious Bookmark and Share