Archive for March 12th, 2008
Yahoo! Expands Yahoo! Video
A week after introducing their new Lifecasting streaming service, Y Live, and a matter of days after buying video advertising firm, Maven, Yahoo continues to expand their online video offerings by rolling out a brand new version of Yahoo Video. Among the site’s new features is a wider screen. The new Yahoo! Video supports a 16:9 player that’s “far ahead of what most sites are offering,” according to Yahoo. The site has upped its capacity, as well; filmmakers can now upload videos up to 150 MB. Yahoo Video’s content has also been expanded, featuring videos on topics including music, movies, TV, news, and sports.
Taking a cue from Google-owned YouTube, Yahoo Video is also expanding its sharing options, letting users embed videos in their blogs and Websites. Users can also create and embed video playlists.
On the social side of things, Yahoo Video is seeking to expand its community by adding more in-depth profiles, letting users create nicknames, design user playlists, add contacts, and leave comments.
According to a post of Yahoo’s Video Blog, the site will be rolling out even more features in the near future.
Source: PC Magazine
Add comment March 12, 2008
Apple Mac mini (2-GHz Core 2 Duo)
The Apple Mac mini has been around in one form or another for almost three years, and while the internal components have changed, the general concept and overall design has stayed the same. Pricing starts at $599, but the one we looked at is the upgraded 2-GHz $799 model. It’s one of the forerunners of the green PC, having gone through several generations of substituting energy-efficient notebook-class components for desktop parts since the G4-powered Mac minis of early 2005. The Mac mini has been the lower-priced, entry-level Mac, but now that it’s equipped with the Core 2 Duo processors, it is as powerful as a larger desktop while retaining its power (and space) savings. The Apple Mac mini appeals to both space-constrained and green-thinking PC users.
The Mac mini (2.0-GHz Core 2 Duo) comes in the usual 6.5-inch-square by two-inch-high white plastic and brushed-metal chassis. Like other Apple products, it’s iconic within its category. The system’s IR receiver for the included remote is on the front of the chassis, along with the slot-loading DVD burner. The remote is the same old Apple remote, with simplified controls and a small size that makes it somewhat easy to lose. Now that Front Row 2.0—which gives the mini an Apple TV-like interface so you can easily listen to and view all of your digital media like photos, music and videos—is part of Leopard, the remote becomes more than a novelty. And since the mini’s 120GB hard drive is enough to hold your iTunes library, even including downloaded videos, the mini now gives you the functionality of Apple TV (plus the ability to order stuff in iTunes) for only a few hundred dollars more—and you get a full-blown PC as well. You do have to buy the monitor, keyboard, and mouse separately for the mini.
Like most Apple systems the mini is quiet, with almost no fan noise. (You have to stick your ear next to the mini to hear the hard drive working.). It does still use an external power brick, but now that’s a plus instead of a hindrance. That’s because the brick is more efficient than some internal power supplies, particularly when the system is sleeping or idle. This Mac mini is both Energy Star 4.0 and EPEAT Silver certified, so it will serve you well while making a minimal impact on the environment (though it’s not quite the virtue generator that a Toyota Prius would be). Your power bills will be lower, and since the mini is physically such a small system, the impact when you recycle it will be smaller as well. According to EPEAT reporting, the mini is 90 percent recyclable (65 percent is the minimum needed to get any sort of EPEAT certification). Other components, like the 2.5-inch notebook-class hard drive and integrated graphics, help you cut down on power use in the long run.
Alas, the Mac mini’s performance on the benchmark tests was unimpressive. The Mac mini failed to run 3DMark06 while under Vista via Boot Camp, though its Windows Media Encoder scores were respectable: 1 minute 32 seconds (less than 2 minutes is considered very good). Its Photoshop scores were okay but not great: a slow 2 minutes flat on Photoshop CS2 can be attributed to the systems’ relatively meager 1GB of memory (we recommend 2GB). The time improved to 1:10 when I upgraded to Photoshop CS3, which is Intel-optimized in Mac OS X. For thoroughness, I tested CS2 (2:22) and CS3 (1:03) under Windows Vista as well. Again, good but not great. It is notable that at least for Photoshop CS3, the Mac mini makes a really good Vista PC.
Compared with systems like the HP Slimline 3200 series, the Mac mini is much smaller and has the benefit of being both a Mac OS X and a Windows PC. The HP Pavilion Slimline s3020n PC does have larger hard drives, optional internal TV tuners, and also works with MCE extenders like the Xbox 360. Look for more compact systems to start muscling in on the Mac mini’s turf as 2008 unfolds.
The Apple Mac mini continues to be an energy-efficient computer as well as a design statement. It’s an attractive alternative to Windows Vista PCs, even those with small form factors, since it’s a visual, technological, and spiritual match for the iPods in millions of pockets worldwide. It’s worth putting on your short list.
Source: PC Magazine
Add comment March 12, 2008
Microsoft Releases Four Critical Office Updates
Microsoft released today four security bulletins describing vulnerabilities in various versions of Office and ancillary products, and issued updates to address them. All four updates are termed critical.
The most serious of the four—MS08-015—is titled Vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook Could Allow Remote Code Execution. The flaw is in Outlook’s handling of mailto: links, which are HTML links meant to initiate an e-mail session. The user would have to click on a maliciously-crafted link in an Outlook HTML e-mail or in a browser.
Exploitation would allow remote code execution in the context of the logged-in user; the usual protection provided by running HTML e-mail in the Restricted zone does no good in this case, as mailto: links are permitted there, but it is true that these links cannot be made to execute without the user clicking on them.
Almost all supported versions of Outlook are affected, including Office 2000 Service Pack 3, Office XP Service Pack 3, Office 2003 Service Packs 2 and 3, and Office 2007 with no service pack. Office 2007 with Service Pack 1 installed is not affected, indicating that Microsoft silently patched this bug in that service pack. There is no indication that Outlook Express or the Vista Windows Mail program are affected by this vulnerability.
Source: PC Magazine
Add comment March 12, 2008
Internet Explorer 8 Goes a Different Way
Microsoft displays new and welcome restraint in its latest browser beta.
I’m not bowled over by Microsoft’s new beta of Internet Explorer 8. First of all, it looks almost exactly the same as Internet Explorer 7.0 (IE7), which was arguably one of the most significant updates in the browser’s roughly 12-year history. The tabs, address bar, Favorites and Home buttons, and RSS and other links are all in the same places as they were in IE7 and appear little changed. Microsoft says that many of the forward-facing consumer features aren’t active in this beta. Maybe they’ll make a bigger impression. For now, however, I contend that it would be more accurate to call this release IE 7.5.
That said, all in all, I’m pleased.
Last year, Microsoft overhauled the interfaces in its tent pole products—Office, IE, and Vista. This time around, the company seems content with taking a measured approach, one that’s clearly more focused on what’s inside the browser than on what’s on the outside.
It took me a while to get used to the IE7 interface. I loved the tabs and knew how to work with them, thanks to Firefox. I hated that Home, Refresh, and Stop had been separated, and I had hoped that Microsoft would consider reuniting them. By now, though, I’ve grown accustomed to IE7’s quirks. I’ve even embraced some, particularly the Favorites panel, which drops down over the left-hand side of your page and allows you to navigate easily through and find all of your stored links, even if they’re nested deep inside multiple folders. The RSS button on the main toolbar is a handy feature, but I often wonder if consumers miss it because there’s no label.
I decided to hop on the beta bandwagon early, because I was actually having some trouble with IE7. It’s been my experience that software updates often automatically fix major problems without much user intervention.
For weeks I’d been running IE7 without add-ons. It’s easy to do: You simply right-click on the IE desktop icon and select Start Without Add-ons. This loads IE as fresh and new as the day you first installed it. This action was necessary because IE had been crashing a lot—often when I was scrolling up or down on a Web page, but not always. Sometimes, I just clicked in the wrong place and the browser would freeze. I noted that, at one point, a reader had a similar problem, and our software expert, Neil J. Rubenking, suggested that an add-on-free load might get around the problem.
An add-on-free IE7 worked like a charm for me, except when I wanted to do things like view Flash video. As a result, I began using Firefox as my primary browser. I like Firefox, but it has its own interface quirks, and with enough tabs running, it’s as much of a resource hog as IE.
Still, I have a soft spot in my heart for IE (I had used it almost exclusively since giving up Netscape Navigator), so I jumped at the chance to install the IE8 Beta. I has high hopes that the add-on problem would be fixed. After install, however, IE8 crashed faster than IE7. I guess that’s progress. Still, it’s a beta, so I wasn’t all that surprised. After a couple more attempts, I loaded IE8 just as I had IE7—without add-ons. Once I got the browser working, I was able to do what I should have done with IE7. I opened Internet Options, navigated to the Programs tab, and selected Manage Add-ons. Then I disabled different ones until I found the culprit—Skype. With that turned off, IE8 launched without a hitch.
There are a couple of minor interface changes I’ve noticed in IE8. The Panning Hand, which lets you grab and drag the page up and down, is gone. Help shows up on the main feature bar (IE7 defaults to hiding it behind a main menu bar drop-down). Under Help, you’ll find the familiar About IE window, but with a nifty added addition: System Info…. Hit the button and you’ll get a complete accounting of your system hardware, components, drivers, Internet settings, Office apps installed, and more. I hope this isn’t just another beta feature, because I love it. IE8 also adds an Emulate IE7 button. This may only be a stop-gap beta feature, but in any case, it’s kind of laughable, since there are few major differences between versions.
There is one other interesting change that has nothing to do with functionality but could indicate a little bit of a branding shift: The icon next to Microsoft-specific shortcuts, which include Free Hotmail (why not Live mail?) and Windows, is an “M” that looks like the first letter in the Microsoft logo. This is not a new style for Microsoft, but I’ve never seen the company use the single letter in quite this way. Watch for more branding like this in other Microsoft products.
Web Slices, another new feature in the beta, lets you subscribe to content within a page, though it doesn’t appear functional in this beta. It’s an intriguing idea with a decent name, but my guess is that few people will use it.
I like that the focus of this update is simplification and shortcuts. Making it possible to access Activities (e-mail, blogging, translating, and, it seems, dozens of others) with a simple right click and with no cutting and pasting is not huge change, but it’s a smart one.
Using an early beta that works this well (yes, it has crashed, but such is the price of beta use) and seems so familiar is oddly comforting. I wonder, now, if Microsoft might finally be getting the idea that less is more. If that’s the case, it could bode well for Windows 7.
Source: PC Magazine
Add comment March 12, 2008
Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 released, this time for real
By Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews
A few days after an unusual false start, during which testers at a virtual worldwide party made do with a release candidate, Mozilla gives the public its next taste of what’s coming in Firefox.
BetaNews FileForum has posted Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 this morning, and the good news is, it’s still there.
Last week, the link went live for Beta 4, but FileForum users and testers immediately noticed upon installation the prominent message, “This is not Firefox 3.0 Beta 4.” It was a version of the message Mozilla typically posts as the default newcomer’s page for release candidate installations; and in Mozilla’s testing procedure, there are “private” RCs prior to the release of public betas.That RC happened to be surprisingly stable in BetaNews tests, and thus far this morning, the real Beta 4 is showing off its skills remarkably well — though we’ve yet to put it through its full paces. In an effort to give the browser something more of an IE7 “trademark” appearance, new testers will be surprised to find the extra large Back button within an inset, beveled housing, in the new default theme. The Home button, meanwhile, has moved to the left side of the Bookmarks Toolbar, though it is not a shortcut like the other entries there, and cannot (easily) be removed.
In BetaNews testing, Beta 4 passed the Acid2 test from the Web Standards Project splendidly and quickly, with no obvious errors. Of course, last week, the WSP raised the bar on standards compliance with its Acid3 test, for which our Beta 4 scored a 67/100. (You can tell Beta 4 wasn’t perfect in this picture, because the queued-up boxes should be in color.) That score is actually quite impressive, and the highest we’ve seen from Mozilla since Acid3’s release…especially compared with IE8 Beta 1, which scored for us a measly 17/100.
BetaNews’ test environment is Windows Vista Ultimate running in a Microsoft Virtual PC environment, on a Windows XP-based PC with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor.
One new feature we noted for Beta 4 right away is full zoom, which is a big step up from the “Text Size” menu in Firefox 2. This feature is not only capable of stepping up or down text size in magnification increments of 10%, but scaling graphics to fit as well. The graphics scaling also appears to work perfectly for Flash-based ads and Flash videos, whose frames scale up to match the current frame resolution.
IE8 Beta 1 also boasts a similar feature, and we’ve noted that Firefox 3 Beta 4 omits the “thumb” slider along the bottom for live scaling. Firefox’s status bar is often reserved for use by its add-ons, though for now, fairly quick scaling can be achieved by pressing Ctrl-+ and Ctrl-[minus].
Add comment March 12, 2008
Windows 7 (Vienna)
Windows 7 (formerly known as Blackcomb and Vienna) is the working name for the next major version of Microsoft Windows as the successor of Windows Vista. Microsoft has announced that it is “scoping Windows 7 development to a three-year timeframe”, and that “the specific release date will ultimately be determined by meeting the quality bar.” The client versions of Windows 7 will ship in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. A server variant, codenamed Windows Server 7, is also under development.
Microsoft is maintaining a policy of silence concerning discussion of plans and aspirations for Windows 7 as they focus on the release and marketing of Windows Vista, stating that Microsoft doesn’t want to promise features and then fail to deliver, though some early details of various core operating system features have emerged. As a result, little is known about the feature set, though public presentations from company officials have disseminated information about some features. Leaked information from people to whom Milestone 1 (M1) of Windows 7 was shipped also provide some insight into the feature set.
History
Circa 2000, Windows XP and its server counterpart Windows Server 2003 (codenamed Whistler) were planned to be followed-up by a major release of Windows that was codenamed Blackcomb (both codenames refer to the Whistler-Blackcomb resort) and scheduled for a 2005 release. Major features were planned for Blackcomb, including an emphasis on searching and querying data and an advanced storage system named WinFS to enable such scenarios. In this context, a feature mentioned by Bill Gates for Blackcomb was “a pervasive typing line that will recognize the sentence that [the user is] typing in.”
Later Blackcomb was delayed and an interim minor release, codenamed “Longhorn”, was announced for a 2003 release. By the middle of 2003, however, Longhorn had acquired some of the features originally intended for Blackcomb, including WinFS, the Desktop Window Manager, and new versions of system components built on the .NET Framework. After the Summer of Worms, where three major viruses exploited flaws in Windows operating systems within a short time period, Microsoft changed their development priorities, putting some of Longhorn’s major development work on hold while new service packs for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 that included a number of new security and safety features. Development of Windows Vista was also “reset” in September 2004 as a result of concerns about the quality of code that was being introduced to the operating system. The eventual result of this was that WinFS, the Next Generation Secure Computing Base, and other features seen in Longhorn builds were deemed “not ready” for wide release, and as such did not appear in Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.
As major feature work on Windows Vista wound down in early 2006, Blackcomb was renamed Vienna. However, following the release of Windows Vista, it was confirmed by Microsoft on July 20, 2007 that “the internal name for the next version of the Windows Client OS” is Windows 7, a name that had been reported by some sources months before.
Focus
Microsoft’s Ben Fathi claimed on February 9, 2007 that the focus on the operating system was still being worked out, and could merely hint at some possibilities:
| We’re going to look at a fundamental piece of enabling technology. Maybe it’s hypervisors. I don’t know what it is” [...] “Maybe it’s a new user interface paradigm for consumers. |
Bill Gates, in an interview with Newsweek, suggested that the next version of Windows would “be more user-centric.” When asked to clarify what he meant, Gates said:
| That means that right now when you move from one PC to another, you’ve got to install apps on each one, do upgrades on each one. Moving information between them is very painful. We can use Live Services to know what you’re interested in. So even if you drop by a [public] kiosk or somebody else’s PC, we can bring down your home page, your files, your fonts, your favorites and those things. So that’s kind of the user-centric thing that Live Services can enable. [Also,] in Vista, things got a lot better with [digital] ink and speech, but by the next release there will be a much bigger bet. Students won’t need textbooks; they can just use these tablet devices. Parallel computing is pretty important for the next release. We’ll make it so that a lot of the high-level graphics will be just built into the operating system. So we’ve got a pretty good outline. |
Milestone 1
The first known build of Windows 7 was identified as a “Milestone 1 (M1) code drop” according to TG Daily with a version number of 6.1.6519.1. It was sent to key Microsoft partners by January 2008 in both x86 and x64 versions. Though not yet commented on by Microsoft, reviews and screenshots have been published by various sources. The M1 code drop installation requires Windows Vista with Service Pack 1, and creates a dual-boot system with Windows Vista.
Later builds
According to TG Daily, the Milestone 2 (M2) code drop is scheduled for April or May 2008. UI changes are expected to appear in later builds of Windows 7. Milestone 3 (M3) is listed as coming in the third quarter, with the release to manufacturing in the second half of 2009. The release dates of a beta version and a release candidate are “to be determined”.
Features
Windows 7 has reached the Milestone 1 (M1) stage and has been made available to key partners. According to reports sent to TG Daily, the build adds support for systems using multiple heterogeneous graphics cards and a new version of Windows Media Center. New features in Milestone 1 also reportedly include Gadgets being integrated into Windows Explorer, a Gadget for Windows Media Center, the ability to visually pin and unpin items from the Start Menu and Recycle Bin, improved media features, a new XPS Viewer, and the Calculator accessory featuring Programmer and Statistics modes along with unit conversion.
Reports indictate that a feedback tool included in Milestone 1 lists some coming features: the ability to store Internet Explorer settings on a Windows Live account, updated versions of Paint and WordPad, and a 10 minute install process. In addition, improved network connection tools might be included.
MinWin
A minimalistic variation of the Windows kernel, known as MinWin, is being developed for use in Windows 7. The MinWin development efforts are aimed towards componentizing the Windows kernel and reducing the dependencies with a view to carving out the minimal set of components required to build a self-contained kernel as well as reducing the disk footprint and memory usage. MinWin takes up about 25 MB on disk and has a working set (memory usage) of 40 MB. It lacks a graphical user interface and is interfaced using a full-screen command line interface. It includes the I/O and networking subsystems. MinWin was first publicly demonstrated on October 13, 2007 by Eric Traut. The demo system included an OS image, made up of about 100 files, on which a basic HTTP server was running.
Incidentally, the name MinWin was also used earlier to refer to what is currently known as Server Core in Windows Server 2008. However, the two are quite different. While both efforts are to consolidate and componentize the core of Windows, with server core, the functionality of the OS is constrained according to server roles, and unneeded components (which will never be used as the role isn’t supported) are removed from the binary image. However, the dependencies still exist in code, and the code cannot compile without the components. In contrast, with MinWin, the dependencies are consolidated into MinWin and what is not needed is removed at the code level itself. As a result, the code compiles even without any extraneous components and builds a stripped-down self-contained OS kernel image.
Methods of input
On December 11, 2007, Hilton Locke, who worked on the Tablet PC team at Microsoft reported that Windows 7 will have new touch features.
Also, Bill Gates has said that Windows 7 is also “a big step forward” for speech technology and handwriting recognition
Source: Wikipedia Encyclopedia
Add comment March 12, 2008
