Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft’

Running Windows Live Messenger 2009 beta

I just updated my Windows Live Messenger to the 2009 beta. I've only been using it for a few seconds and as with the last update (to 8.5 if I remember correct) it has received a visual upgrade. As you can read in my Twitter stream, the installation kinda annoyed me.

Here's a look at the chat window:

The Beta can be obtained from http://download.live.com/messenger.

30 terabytes of old English public domain literature to go online

BBC News reports that The British Library in cooperation with Microsoft, is preparing some 100.000 old books to go online.

The books are 19th century books which belong in the public domain — to avoid copyright infringements.

Google is also working in the digitizing of books department, but with other libraries: Stanford, Harvard, and Michigan university libraries, the New York public library and the Bodleian library in Oxford.

Read the BBC News article for more information.

Microsoft investing in Facebook?

Just saw that The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft might be very interesting in investing in social startup Facebook.

Facebook has — according to the WSJ — 40 million users, and Microsoft (and apparently also Google) is now trying to grab a piece of the action.

Microsoft's approach to Facebook in recent weeks with proposals to invest in the fast-growing site is part of the software giant's effort to catch up with the Internet rival Google. If successful, Microsoft's talks with Facebook could give it an up-to-5% stake in the closely-held startup—a stake potentially valued at roughly $300 million to $500 million, the people familiar with those talks said.

The people familiar with the matter said that the discussions are still preliminary and Facebook could wind up not taking an investment from either Microsoft or Google. Factors in the discussions include the valuation the suitors would offer to Facebook and other business considerations they could contribute to sweeten any deal.

I wonder if there's anything else than an increase in Facebook's value in store for us, if either Microsoft or Google starts to invest in a company like Facebook. Some time ago Rupert Murdoch snatched MySpace — the far biggest social site/community.

In the past years Google and Microsoft have been in an internetish "battle of the titans". Things might get a lot more interesting…

Related posts

Tags: Businesses, Microsoft, Social web

5 GB of storage at Hotmail

I have a Hotmail account that I don't use a lot, since I'm hopelessly in love with Gmail, among other things because of the magnificent search.

Nevertheless, I just got a mail from Hotmail telling me, that my account has been upgraded.

Among other things, my account is now an impressing 5 gigabytes — a bit more than the 2.9 that Gmail is currently offering.

It's going to be a little bit interesting to see what's going to happen here. Yahoo has unlimited space and Hotmail is now providing 5 gigs. No way, that Google will do nothing ;-)

That's my view…

Microsoft Works 9.0 will cost…nothing

Mary Jo Foley has a post, that Microsoft Works 9.0 will be free of charge and powered economically by ads.

She also writes that there might be a hosted version of the Works office productivity suite popping up in the near future. Read Foley's post for more info.

Windows Live Messenger 8.5 Beta is here

Just upgraded my Windows Live Messenger 8 to the 8.5 beta. So far I haven't seen any new features but mostly design improvements.

I found the installer at FileHippo.com (it's also available from Microsoft's Live.com site) and I could log in without any problems, but that may be because I'm enrolled at the Windows Live Messenger 8 beta testing (?)

Read the release notes for Windows Live Messenger 8.5 Beta.

Anyways, it looks better than version 8 :-) Screen shot of the login window below:

Cracking Windows using a bootable Vista DVD

Microsoft logo MSBlog has an interesting, and incredibly disturbing, blog post about how much you can do with a Vista bootable DVD.

All a person has to do is to boot a computer into the recovery mode using the command prompt, which doesn't require user name or password. This means, that the cracker can get full access to the hard drive.

Here you have full access to this computer, not only as an administrator but also as a system account user. After this you can insert usb-memory and copy any non-encrypted file from this computer to usb-memory and steal information without leaving any marks to the system or event viewer logs.

Also, you could for example copy SAM-file (contains names and passwords of local users) from c:\windows\system32\config to usb-memory and start cracking computer’s user password at remote computer.

A cracker can:

copy files from hard disk to USB, floppy or network server

create / modify / delete files and folders

use most of the MS-DOS like commands

use this method in Vista, XP, 200x

As a means of protection Patrick S from MSBlog advices you to the following:

setup bios boot order so that booting from other media than hard disk is not possible
setup startup password from your bios (mainly in home computers)
use hard disk encryption software, if possible (such as bit locker)
encrypt files and folders using EFS, if mechanisms above are not possible

Office 2007 installed

I've just installed Microsoft's Office 2007 — legally of course.

And I must say, the first hand impression is quite nice. Expect more posts on this in the near future :-)

Related posts

Tags: Microsoft, Office, Software

Ubuntu vs. Windows Vista

Is Ubuntu (Linux) ready for the desktop?

I haven't read it yet, but InformationWeek has done a comparison between Ubuntu and Windows Vista.

It's quite a long article, but you can skip right to the conclusion. :-)

Found via Digg.

Update 1:
Ubuntu News also has a take on the comparison.

Microsoft meets open source

To allow better playback of Windows Media Files Microsoft is now issuing a Windows Media Player plugin for Firefox.

This is my first time installing anything Microsoft into my Firefox and for simply that reason I actually looked at the End User License Agreement, EULA. Here's a snippet of what happens, when Microsoft issues a plugin to Firefox and adds its legal mumbo-jumbo:

[...]

2. Scope of License. The software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights. Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement. In doing so, you must comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways.

You may not
· work around any technical limitations in the software;
· reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation;
· make more copies of the software than specified in this agreement or allowed by applicable law, despite this limitation;
· publish the software for others to copy;
· rent, lease or lend the software;
· transfer the software or this agreement to any third party; or
· use the software for commercial software hosting services.

3. BACKUP COPY.
You may make one backup copy of the software. You may use it only to reinstall the software.

[...]

I can't see what I cannot redistribute the software? You'd think that Microsofts wants as many people as possible to know about it, eh?

And I just created my one backup copy. Better burn it to a CD-ROM — just to be sure, since I'm only allowed to create one.

What's up with all of this?

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