Microsoft delayed Microsoft Vista until at least January 2007. This means that Dell, HP and other computer vendors won’t have Vista to install on PCs in time for the big “Christmas Sales” push. Most PC purchasers may wait until Vista is available since a large chunk of the price of a PC is the “Microsoft Tax” of the cost of the Operating System (unlike Linux, which is free!)
“While Microsoft emphasized during a Tuesday conference call with press and analysts that it was still going to make Vista code available to some customers in 2006, as the company has been promising for nearly two years, not everyone bought that argument. ‘Today’s announcement essentially means Windows Vista is delayed until 2007,’ said Joe Wilcox, an analyst with Jupiter Research. ‘While Microsoft says software will be available to businesses through volume licensing, the company’s own financials show that a small percentage of customers purchase that way. Most businesses buy Windows on new PCs, and these won’t be coming until 2007.’”
Windows XP does many strange and mysterious things by default. It reports a great deal of info back to it’s Evil Microsoft Masters in Redmond. So, enter xp-AntiSpy!
“The xp-AntiSpy is a little utility that lets you disable some built-in update and authentication ‘features’ in Windows XP. For example, there’s a service running in the background which is called ‘Automatic Updates’. I don’t know what this service transfers from my machine to other machines on the internet, especially the MS ones. So I play it safe and disable such functions. If you like, you can even disable these functions manually, by going through the System and checking or unchecking some checkboxes. This will take you approximately half an hour. But why waste time when a little neat utility can do the same in 1 minute? This utility was successfully tested by lots of users, and was found to disable all the known ‘Suspicious’ Functions in Windows XP.”
Dr. Bill Podcast – 28 – (03/20/06)
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Netcast Show Notes:
Podcast – better late than never (again!), Monday night podcasting… weird!, Microsoft Delays XP for Legacy PCs, Happy “Pi” Day!, the ULTIMATE “Pi” day, far in the past!, Two hackers in California won the “Intel Mac running Windows XP” contest this week, a note on the Monday podcast, Linux v2.6.16 has been released according to the man himself… Linus Torvalds!
“Ok, it’s being mirrored out right now, the git tree should already be all there, the tar-file and patches are still uploading.
Not a lot of changes since -rc6, but there’s various random one-liners here and there (a number of Coverity bugs found, for example), and there are small MIPS and PowerPC updates.
Appended is the shortlog from 2.6.16-rc6, the full log (from 2.6.15) is on the web/ftp-sites.
It looks like both Fedora and SuSE end up using a kernel that is pretty close to this 2.6.16 release, so let’s all hope it’s good. Give it a good testing, please, Linus”
I know, I know… everyone’s wondering… where’s Dr. Bill? Well, I have been swamped of late! I plan to get the podcast out this evening… better late than never! Whew! What is it about Spring that seems to stack things on your plate?!?
“The hackers who won the contest are keen to keep their anonymity and are known only by the handles ‘narf’ and ‘blanka.’ According to reports, their feat has been independently confirmed and XP has been made to run on an iMac, Mac Mini and MacBook Pro. Technical sites such as Ars Technica have provided walkthroughs for people keen to try it for themselves, though they stress that it is likely to defeat those who are technically unskilled. It is possible that easier ways to get a Mac booting both operating systems will appear as other hackers follow up the success.”
They won $13,854 which was contributed by surfers that hit the contest web site.
On another note, should I buy a MacBook Pro? Should the Doctor take the plunge? Everything I have read so far seems to indicate it is a great machine. Hummmmmm… opinions?
“March 14, written as 3-14 in the United States date format, represents the common three-digit approximation for the number Ï€: 3.14. It is often celebrated at 1:59 p.m. in recognition of the six-digit approximation: 3.14159. Some, using a 24-hour clock, celebrate it at 1:59 a.m. or 3:09 p.m. (15:09) instead.”
Microsoft is planning on releasing a “stripped down” version of Windows XP for legacy systems (systems that shipped with, say, Windows 95) so that they could drop all security updates on older systems. Now, that release has been delayed.
“Windows Fundamentals can run on older machines that do not support XP while providing the same level of security. The system could be utilized as a Remote Desktop or Citrix client, along with supporting management tools, terminal emulation software, and viewing of some documents. Microsoft did not give a specific reason for the delay, but the company has been focusing most of its efforts on finishing Windows Vista.”
Dr. Bill Podcast – 27 – (03/12/06)
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Netcast Show Notes:
A very short Podcast today as my voice is still shot! A Computer that works when it is turned off?!?! A Floppy based RAID array!?!? What A RAID array is, and why floppies aren’t the best choice! Comments on the Windows XP optimization podcasts were good! (Thanks!) And, watch for a new Geek Software of the Week coming soon! Well, I know it is short… but I have to sign off so I can cough! Bye for now!
College students get bored. And when that happens, watch out! Check out this story (with pictures) of what some bored college students did with a bunch of old USB based floppy drives!
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