Jamie Le Souef

I normaly don’t weigh into the Mac vs PC debate all that much, unless it’s actualy worth while and meaningfull. But this i had to blog as i thought it was quite funny and clevor.

Mac vs PC - The climate edition

[Original Digg Link]

Post Tags : Apple, Mac, Microsoft, OS X, PC, Windows
Filed under Apple, Microsoft

News is now flying around the internet of Windows 7 - how it’s to be broken down into modules allowing you to piece together the software you want and need, it’s ever jumping and speculated release date (2009, 2010, 2011), it’s UI, M1 (Milstone1) but one thing that I’ve read has really caught my eye.

In my opinion one of Microsoft’s biggest strengths is also their biggest weakness - Size. Windows with its massive market share, its split version install base and ridiculous support for legacy applications Windows is bloated and just continue to bloats. Evidence of this is clearly in Vista with its size and performance issues - not to mention the install size!

I’ve long been of the mind that Microsoft need to though caution out the window and start fresh. Windows needs to be rebuilt to be a lean and mean OS that supports future technologies and systems - allowing it to move forward and regain the title of the best OS available. This means getting rid of support for legacy applications within the core OS. No more FAT32 (even FAT16!) no more printers that are 10 years old, office 95 etc.

Virtualization! Legacy needs to be offered via Virtualization - not in the core OS.

What Microsoft should do is exactly what Apple did with the conversion to OS X - Virtualization. With all the new CPUs having hardware virtualization support, and 100+ cores foreseeable in the near future, it would seem stupid that Microsoft would start making moves to rebuild windows for the future, whilst offering support for legacy applications in a Virtual XP or vista environment.

This leads me to the latest article I’ve read that reads of is the author has some inside knowledge - thought there is no indication it’s any more than just a glorified opinion.

According to Dev Corvin “Windows 7 takes a different approach to the componentization and backwards compatibility issues; in short, it doesn’t think about them at all. Windows 7 will be a from-the-ground-up packaging of the Windows codebase; partially source, but not binary compatible with previous versions of Windows. Making the break from backwards compatibility is a dangerous proposal but a dream for software developers. Performance of native applications can be increased, distribution sizes can be cut down, functionality can be added without the worry of breaking old applications, and the overall end-user experience can be significantly improved.”

He points out that “Apple took an unorthodox approach in order to offer Mac OS 9 users the ability to retain their existing software while still upgrading to the improved Mac OS X experience; the virtual machine. Essentially, Mac OS X contained 3 separate application environments; Cocoa, Carbon, and Classic.

Cocoa was the name for the native, Objective-C environment which allowed code to execute directly on Mac OS X without any interpretation or legacy libraries. Carbon was a mid-point solution which allowed older, Mac OS 9 code to be recompiled and then executed in the Mac OS X environment, without providing access to the newer, native UI elements. Classic, the most interesting of the three environments, is the approach that Microsoft will be taking with Windows 7. Essentially, Classic provided a complete API and binary abstraction layer which allows Mac OS 9 code to run within a “virtual machine” inside Mac OS X. Applications retain the appearance and behavior (sic) that they have on the older Mac OS platform, yet still having access to the Mac OS X system resources.”

Apparently Windows 7 will be “breaking previous API compatibility, offering new API frameworks as a native solution, and providing support for legacy frameworks (COM, ATL, .NET Framework, etc) through monolithic libraries designed to provide the functionality of all previous revisions of the modules in question.”

If this is in fact the path of Windows 7 is to be taking then I believe Microsoft will be on a massive winner - if not with Windows 7 then future version of the no 1 piece of software. There is no doubt that at some stage windows will need to take a different path to what it has been since Windows 95 (if not earlier) and the sooner the better.

If you’re interested I recommend reading the full article over here.

Post Tags : Microsoft, Windows 7
Filed under Microsoft

Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 7 is right on track for release in 2010. Concomitantly with the leaked details associated with Windows 7 Milestone 1 dropped by the Redmond company to select partners in January 2008, a potential timetable for the availability of the successor of Windows Vista was also made public. According to the leaked information on the next iteration of the Windows platform, having just reached M1, the final version of Windows 7 was to be wrapped up the end of 2009.

Officially, the Redmond company has only been saying that windows 7 development would take an estimated three-year timeframe. However, Microsoft always failed to specify the moment when the three-year timeframe started. The debut of Windows 7 development was indeed connected with the release of Windows Vista, but this aspect only contributed to the confusion because the latest Windows client was launched to businesses in November 2006 and to the general public in January 2007. So in this context, the finalization of Windows 7 could just as easily be aimed for the end of 2009, as well as 2010.

Well, this is no longer the case. Microsoft explained that it would deliver Windows 7 three years after the consumers launch of Vista. “We are currently in the planning stages for Windows 7 and development is scoped to three years from Windows Vista Consumer GA. The specific release date will be determined once the company meets its quality bar for release,” a Microsoft spokesperson revealed to Softpedia via email.

Windows Vista Consumer GA means nothing more than the general availability of the operating system. In this regard, Microsoft has merely reconfirmed what it has in fact said since mid 2007, that Windows 7 is planned for 2010. Recently, the Redmond company has delivered a build of Windows 7 for review to the U.S. antitrust regulators. This was made public via the “Joint status report on Microsoft’s compliance with the final judgments.”

Post Tags : Microsoft, Windows 7
Filed under Microsoft

The latest status report in Microsoft’s U.S. antitrust case mentions that the company has submitted a build of Windows 7, the next version of the PC operating system, for review by the technical committee involved in the case. The report was filed last week, but it slipped under the radar until it was noted within the last day by Information Week and others.

Here’s the full report: PDF, 23 pages. And here are excerpts from the report’s Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 references:

As noted in the prior status report, as the scheduled expiration of the relevant portions of the Final Judgment approached, the TC [Technical Committee] identified a number of remaining middleware-related bugs and requested that Microsoft address these issues. Microsoft has corrected most of these issues, and the TC has tested the fixes. Microsoft has included these corrections in XP SP 3 or Vista SP 1, as appropriate. A remaining bug in the “Open With” feature will be corrected in “Windows 7,” the announced successor to Windows Vista. The TC and Microsoft continue to discuss another middleware issue, which the TC has sought to have Microsoft include in Windows 7.

In addition, the TC has begun to review Windows 7 itself. Microsoft recently supplied the TC with a build of Windows 7, and is discussing TC testing going forward. The TC will conduct middleware-related tests on future builds of Windows 7.

Plaintiffs reported in the last status report on their agreement with Microsoft to resolve any Final Judgment concerns relating to the desktop search functionality in Windows Vista (”Desktop Search”). The TC reviewed Microsoft’s implementation of the changes agreed to, and Microsoft included the new Desktop Search features in Vista SP 1, which Microsoft recently released to OEMs.

Post Tags : Microsoft, Windows, Windows 7
Filed under Microsoft

Contrary to previous rumors of Microsoft planning a Windows 7 release sometime in 2009, Microsoft has apparently gotten in touch with WinVistaClub and set the record straight: Windows 7 is in “planning stages,” and development will take approximately three years. Microsoft wouldn’t comment on that supposed leak a while back, and of course denied any implications that development was being accelerated to make up for Vista shortcomings.

Post Tags : Microsoft, Windows, Windows 7
Filed under Microsoft

Sony CEO Jack Tretton on these new figures:

Coming off a great holiday sales season we see strong momentum behind PS3 in 2008, and feel confident about the year ahead. We have an exceptionally diverse lineup of exclusive games, from Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Resistance 2 to more mainstream games such as LittleBigPlanet and SingStar. Beyond that, we have Blu-ray emerging as the de facto high def standard, the developer community is hitting their stride, consumers are recognizing the tremendous value and innovative services such as PlayStation Home are all in the works, so this is definitely shaping up to be a breakthrough year for us.

274k - Wii
269k - PlayStation 3
251k - Nintendo DS
230k - PlayStation Portable
230k - Xbox 360

read more | digg story

Post Tags : Blu-ray, Home Entertainment, Microsoft, nintendo, Playstation, PS3, Sony, wii, xbox
Filed under Microsoft, Technology

I’m a bit of a fan of office 2007. I like the ribon tool bar and the countless other improvments that Microsoft have made to the Office suite. I also use Outlook 2007. Outlook 2007 I’ve been quite dissapointed with. They don’t seem to have fixed any of the issues that plauged 2003 but a review of Office 2007 and it’s contents is for another day.

Anyone who has installed Outlook 2007 knows that you need to install Microsoft Desktop Search 3 with it in order to quickly search your email.

Before you all jump up and down screaming about Google Desktop don’t worry. I use it religiously to search my stupid amount of Backup Hard Drives for all my precious content. But I don’t like using it in Outlook. Too many seperate windows. In My Option Desktop Search 3 is better then Google Desktop in Outlook 07.

But how the F*&^ did they stuff up the indexing of files!? How is it that Google does such a brillient job of indexing my PC and Microsoft’s software designed to run on Microsofts OS can’t even find it’self!?

Not only can’t it find anything but it also replaces the decent working Search Companion…

It’s time to remove that and bring back the Good ol’ dog (I’ve actualy removed that dog as it was very anoying. Tweak XP has a nice setting to use the classic search in Explorer - still the best search tool Microsoft has made… how sad)

Here is how you bring back the Dog or the Clasic search in Explorer:

Open RegEdit (Start > Run > regedit).

Find the following : HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Desktop Search\DS

Double-click on ‘ShowStartSearchBand’ and set the value to ‘0′. Close that and you’re done, the next time you click ‘Search’ in explorer, the old, reliable search companion will appear.

This applies to operating systems before Windows Vista

Happy searching.

Post Tags : desktop search, Google, Microsoft, Windows, Windows XP
Filed under Microsoft, Tutorial

A simple question: what Microsoft product could have used a little more polish before release? The answer is quite astounding.

Decide for yourself

We would just like to thank Bill Gates for his honesty and his openness

Post Tags : bill gates, Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista
Filed under Microsoft

Since the price drop and lead up to Christmas, Sony’s Playstation 3 is gaining some massive momentum.

The weekly sales snapshot has the PS3 leading the Xbox 360 by 3,375 (417,534 to 414,159 respectively). Some might say that is a tiny lead and they would be right, but remember that the PS3 has been out for roughly 1/2 the time the xBox has and still punches a $300 premium over the Xbox (Australian Price) - not a bad feat!

Figures also show that the PS3 now has the lead in sales based on release time with the Xbox selling 5,570,349 units in it’s first 52 weeks and the PS3 selling 5,617,494 units (47,145 more units for those playing at home) (Source)

Again, add the handy cap of the higher price tag - even after the price drop and it really shows the Ps3 is starting to move in the right direction.

The fight is defiantly between Sony and Microsoft for now as Nintendo is eclipsing both in terms of Sales in first year - 14,292,627.

But will the Wii bubble pop? That’s a question for another post.

Pleas feel free to comment.

Post Tags : 360, Microsoft, nintendo, Playstation, PS3, Sony, wii, World, xbox
Filed under Microsoft, News, Technology

If you have been tossing up between an xBox or a PS3, then this could be the decider. Sony, and Sony fanboys alike (of which i’m one of them) have been touting the power of the PS3 over all the ‘Next Gen’ consoles (Nintentdo Wii, Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft XBOX (for thoes playing at home)) but now we have serious proof of this superioity!

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue!

Once again, the graphics are simply stunning. Whether watching the new Nissan GT-R whiz by or staring at a race-prepped BMW Z4 in the pit garage, there’s nary a pixel out of place. Though we all know the Playstation 3 is a graphical powerhouse, few games have really shown off the console’s potential. This one will, if it ever gets released. And this is just the prologue! We’re still a good era away from the full game’s actual release.

Original Post

Post Tags : Cell, Playstation, PS3, Sony
Filed under Microsoft, News