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VIEWING 1 - 4 OUT OF 4 BLOGS.
Microsoft ships Vista SP1 release candidate to testers
DATE: 11/19/2007 03:08:57 / MOOD: disappointed
A new build of Service Pack 1 (SP1) dubbed Windows Vista SP1 RC Preview was made available to testers yesterday, a company spokeswoman said via e-mail today. "The RC Preview incorporates feedback from users in our beta program, including changes to the setup and installation experience," she said.
The first beta of SP1 was seeded to approximately 12,000 testers about seven weeks ago, after considerable ship date speculation and several months of uncertainty whether the company would even produce its usual service packs for the new operating system.
"We will release a [release candidate] of SP1 to a broader group of testers soon," the spokeswoman added. "And we are targeting the first quarter of 2008 to release SP1 to manufacturing."
Microsoft will offer a pre-release version of SP1 to all comers at some point, but declined to share a schedule for that stage of testing today. "We do not have details on the timing," the spokeswoman said.
Vista, which has received its share of criticism from users and reviewers, has been deployed by relatively few big businesses in the 12 months since it was given the green light by Microsoft. Just-published results of a survey by Forrester Research Inc., for example, said that only 7% of U.S. and European companies will have started deploying Vista by the end of the year; that number, however, will climb to 32% by the end of 2008, a Forrester analyst added yesterday.
Although Microsoft is obviously extending the service pack concept to Vista -- a fact that was unclear for several months after the operating system shipped to consumers in late January -- it's also made much of several recent performance, stability and reliability updates that have been pushed to all Vista users. The most recent was added to the Automatic Updates lineup offered via the Windows Update service on Tuesday.
"Continuous improvement is the name of this game," said Nick White, a Vista program manager, in a posting on a company blog that described the three updates provided to all users this week.
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A new email awaits you from Yahoo!
DATE: 08/28/2007 01:29:32 / MOOD: don't know
MUMBAI, INDIA: For those millions of Yahoo! users who are reading this article, chances are that there would be a smile before you finish reading this piece.
The last couple of seasons have witnessed the Internet behemoth, Google conquering the cyberspace with vigor, leaving compatriots such as Yahoo! to catch up. This popular email service provider has stated that it would be immense opportunities for those countless users of its service to connect with the near and dear ones. This would be accomplished with yahoo helping its users to exchange messages to cell users.
This move is an integral part of the initiative taken by the company to renovate its portfolio, which would unify the expediency of instantaneous communiqué with the inherent group of relations that exist in any email user’s address book. This move comes at the background of making this a site, which would give a social experience to its users.
With users spending a lot of time using social networking sites such as Orkut, Facebook, etc. and fewer hours on sites such as Yahoo!, this project couldn’t have come at a better time.
This fresh edition of Yahoo! email service would provide three choices to correspond with their contacts -- one is via the usual email, second is via the usage of text messages and thirdly through instant messaging to cell phone users.
It is entirely up to the user as what he/she requires at that moment of time.
The new version of Yahoo! Mail gives users three options for communicating with contacts: e-mail, online instant-messaging or text-messaging to mobile phone users. Users can switch between the three, depending on which is most convenient.
Countries such as the Philippines, India, Canada and the United States would be availing the feature of text messaging provided by Yahoo! during the initial phase. To send across a text message to a friend, all one needs to do is to type the mobile number, get the message typed in Yahoo! Mail and click on the send button.
With such features being added to the Yahoo!’s stable, the Internet site has also bolstered its search features in a bid to gain lost ground and aims at celebrating a decade of staying in the Internet space in style when October arrives.
Pundits predict that Yahoo! is making every attempt to catch up on Google and it would be sometime before one knows the results.
Till then, the race is very much on! 
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Microsoft to modify Vista
DATE: 06/26/2007 03:40:06 / MOOD: don't know
CHICAGO, US: Microsoft Corp. has agreed to modify its Windows Vista operating system in response to a complaint that its computer search function put Google Inc. and other potential rivals at a disadvantage, the Justice Department and Microsoft said on Tuesday.
Under an agreement with the department and 17 state attorneys general and the District of Columbia, Microsoft will build into Vista an option to let users select a default desktop search program on personal computers running Windows.
The function, known as "Instant Search," allows Windows users to enter a search query and get a list of results from their hard drive that contain the search term.
The agreement was made public as part of a joint report that the Justice Department and Microsoft filed late on Tuesday with the court overseeing Microsoft's compliance with a 2002 antitrust consent decree.
As part of the deal, a Microsoft official said the company also had pledged to place links inside the Internet Explorer window and the "Start" navigation menu to make it easier for people to access that default desktop search service.
The changes will be introduced in a service pack, or updated version of Windows Vista software. Microsoft said it anticipates a test version of the Vista Service Pack 1 to be ready by the year-end.
Under the agreement, Microsoft also promised to provide additional technical information to third-party developers, such as Google, in order to optimize the performance of their desktop search service on Vista.
"These remedies are a step in the right direction, but they should be improved further to give consumers greater access to alternate desktop search providers," David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, said in a statement.
The changes stem from a complaint Google filed with the Justice Department in December, in which it argued that a feature built into Vista that allows users to search a computer's hard drive did not leave room for competition from other desktop search applications.
Google said the feature violated the consent decree that monitors Microsoft's conduct as part of its settlement with the government.
"We are pleased that as a result of Google's request that the consent decree be enforced, the Department of Justice and state Attorneys General have required Microsoft to make changes to Vista," Drummond said.
The agreement is expected to be presented to the judge monitoring the consent decree, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, at a June 26 court hearing.
The Microsoft consent decree, which settled the government's landmark antitrust case against the company, is scheduled to expire in November. However, some provisions have been extended to November 2009.
Microsoft has called Google's complaint "baseless" and said it was in compliance with the antitrust settlement.
© Reuters
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Apple intros Safari browser
DATE: 06/12/2007 04:20:27 / MOOD: full of life
SAN FRANCISCO, US: Apple Inc. is introducing a version of its Safari Internet browser for Windows, chief executive Steve Jobs said on Monday, taking on Microsoft Corp. in its key stronghold of Web access software.
The move by Apple, which has expanded beyond its Macintosh computer core with iPod media players and the upcoming iPhone, could let the company control how large numbers of people use the Web at a time when services and programs are increasingly Internet-based.
Jobs also said Apple would let outside developers create applications for the iPhone by tapping Safari, softening the company's previous position that the device would not support other software due to security concerns.
But investors were disappointed that Jobs -- known for his surprise announcements -- did not have bigger news to unveil -- and Apple shares sank nearly 3.5 percent, their biggest one-day fall in about four months.
"Apple always hits a home run, and when they hit a triple, it's a disappointment," said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co. who has an "outperform" rating on Apple stock.
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