1. No multitasking
2. Use a push notification for updates
3. Use the iPod Touch ZuneHD interface
4. Force apps to be installed via the iTunes App Store Windows Marketplace

While these changes aren’t confirmed yet, even if one or two of those changes are true, they scream jealousy. Why these changes? Microsoft needs to be able to compete with Apple on speed, battery life, and stability. While I am certainly not in any inner-circles close to this, I’m sure Microsoft is finding that people want stability, responsiveness, and good battery life in their cell phones. I know that responsiveness and stability are top on my list (I haven’t been overly happy with a phone with the exception of my BlackBerry ((no AT&T coverage in my area))  for some time now over those very things).

Whether Microsoft wants it or not, the world is slowly drifting away from do-it-all devices that have to be setup by power users. The world wants phones that they can turn on, install apps, and start using without having to worry about one application slowing down the phone or having too many open causing the phone to crash.

But not to worry, to those now doubting Microsoft, they thought of all of these radical changes all on their own..

UPDATE:

According to a Slashdot article today, the problem looks like it may be much worse. According to the article, Gmail will be adding Facebook-like photo albums and comment feeds. Fortunately, the Gmail social networking tools are opt-in, so perhaps I won’t have to see the clutter when I don’t want to? We’ll see.

Part if Microsoft’s message was spot-on. Switching to a different browser due to a single flaw is a really over-dramatic reaction to the situation. If I immediately stopped using any product that had a vulnerability, I would communicate with no one. Even physical mail can be stolen and has been stolen in the past, therefore one would be forced to live in a hole in the ground, not communicating at all. I would recommend not using IE for far bigger reasons than this single vulnerability, but switching solely because of this is purely sensationalism.

On the other hand, the rest of Microsoft’s message was taken to the opposite extreme. They responded by informing users that switching to a different browser would lead them to an even greater threat. Quoting from Cliff Evans at Microsoft (via TechRadar.com):

The net effect of switching [from IE] is that you will end up on less secure browser

The risk [over this specific] exploit is minimal compared to Firefox or other competing browsers… you will be opening yourself up to security issues.

I’m not aware that the vulnerability exists in other products, but those products may have other vulnerabilities.

As much as I want to say that was intended as a joke, it’s not. Yup, instead of using products that might have vulnerabilities that Microsoft’s UK Security Chief “isn’t aware of”, users should feel comfortable using a browser that has known vulnerabilities used in a real life attack. No, I’m not switching up my stance that users should switch purely for this one incident, but to claim IE as the only secure browser in the world is absolutely ridiculous and laughable. IE’s history doesn’t help it much, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one and let that part go.

Now, I understand that large systems like the BlackBerry Internet and Enterprise Services are complicated and eventually go down. Really, I do get it. What goes up must come down. However, the whole thing is starting to get frustrating to me and I’m ready to give up.

First, there’s a right way and a wrong way to deal with outages. For me, a majority of the frustration could be alleviated with a simple notification or a way to know that something is up. During these outages, there was nothing on BlackBerry or my wireless carrier’s websites, no automated text messages, no nothing. I simply had to realize that email was quieter than normal and check out crackberry.com (an unofficial, yet useful site). Not exactly confidence-instilling. After the incident we got a bit of a “my bad” (I still have yet to find the official statement) from RIM, but just crickets to the public during the outage. At least when Gmail had a system-wide outage earlier this year they were up-front about the issues.

Second, the outages happened all over North America. Yes, multiple several-hour-long outages affecting an entire continent within a week. The sad part is, we come to expect it. Something needs to be done. I can understand that with an IT system this large there will likely always be issues, but something needs to be done to segment pieces from one another. A single issue may cause a system-wide outage occasionally, but not three times in two months is unacceptable.

These outages, of course, come along with having a centralized message delivery system like the BIS/BES. I’m ready to give up and now am on the brink of going on the market for a non-BlackBerry smartphone that will connect directly to my mail servers (the others are mocking us..). It’s a sad day that it’s come to this. I really do have quite a love-hate relationship with my BlackBerry (Tour). It’s a solid phone, a great interface, and great management features. I just can’t constantly think of it as a single point of failure that I have no way of knowing whether or not it works except by sending stupid test emails.

The experiment is a clever, yet incredibly simple idea. It’s about as far away from Google’s alleged experiments with data centers on the ocean that we read about last year as one can get. Feeding off the rock walls around it for cooling, these certainly seem a bit more sturdy and safer to me than a floating data center, but they would definitely be inconvenient to get to (though, I suppose having to hop on a boat or helicopter would be fairly inconvenient as well ).

There are plenty of other areas and environments where we can feed off the environment for keeping data centers cool. For instance, in the area where I live we have pretty cold winters. If we would simply pull in cool air from outside, it could cut down on unnecessary resource consumption for cooling quite a bit. Of course, in the winter we have to watch that the humidity doesn’t drop too far, but it would certainly help.

This week was a big week for non-Windows users waiting for the Chrome browser. Earlier this week they released the beta of Chrome for Linux and Mac. I actually held out a bit on using many of the pre-release version of Chrome on Linux/Mac, mostly because I didn’t have a lot of time on my hands, but also because I didn’t realize just how much faster it really was than the browsers I’d been using. But, it wasn’t just Chrome that has sped up my browsing experience this week either.

Last week Google announced the general availability of its new public DNS service, touting it  as a speed booster(?). DNS typically isn’t something that we give a ton of thought to when chasing after faster browsing speeds, but I was pleasantly surprised by a bit snappier browsing experience. Of course, my download speeds really aren’t any faster, but the initial connection to my favorite websites (and non-favorite I suppose..) has sped up a bit. Just how much faster did this new DNS service make my little network go? Well, I really don’t have any numbers. If you haven’t tried it, it’s definitely worth a shot.

All’s not entirely well in my new Google world since Chrome is still in beta. I have to close the browser on occasion because things start acting up and some of my saved passwords are acting a bit weird, but overall the experience has been great. I still have to rely on a combination of Firefox and Safari for things that Chrome is buggy at (or can’t do like my Zimbra admin ), but that’s to be expected with a beta.

If you are running a Mac or Linux machine as a desktop, I’d encourage you to check out the new Chrome beta. I guess even more of my data are now belong to Google..

As far as I’m aware, we still have no word on whether Gmail will support some of the more advanced features of ActiveSync the way that Exchange (and now Zimbra 6.0) can. So far, Exchange competitor Zimbra can do things like initiate wipes to mobile devices, lock devices when an incorrect password is entered, and pause (and resume) syncing to the device.

Gmail has differentiated itself from the market, however, as being the only free email provider (that I’ve heard of) that offers push mail, contacts, and calendars via ActiveSync (or other similar way to your choice of device). Others (like Hotmail) aren’t even offering IMAP access to external mail clients to free customers.

In a world where most things are available to us online, there’s a surprising amount of things that one still has to pick up the phone for and this allows consumers to have the convenience of browsing, much like the web, but still be able to get to talk to a real-life person. I can see Fonolo being ripe for the picking from the likes of Google to add to Google Voice as a wonderful time-saving feature. Hopefully we’re not too far from the day where businesses offer such a service right from their website as well, but I’m sure we’re a long way from that day..

I really don’t get it. As far as I understand, they were able to add the camera to the Nano without adding any width to the device. I’m sure there’s reasons that they can’t add the camera without adding width, but I’d gladly sacrifice a little bit of width if I gained a camera. Besides, the iPhone has it. Now Apple’s going to have to come up with some crazy chart like the Windows 7 product comparison chart to decide which model to buy..

The speed improvements will be much more noticeable on a desktop strapped for memory as it comes from better memory management that reduces the number of reads from disk to memory. The benchmarks also show a dramatic reduction in the number of major faults on file servers as well.

Other improvements to the release include ATI graphics card support improvements, USB 3.0 support and an improved Firewire driver.

I’m glad that I’m finally able to read software release news other than for Microsoft and Apple for a change..