Posts Tagged ‘windows’

Windows Marketshare Drops Below 90%

The monthly browser and operating system marketshare report from Net Applications has been released for November. According to the report, Mac usage jumped up to 8.87% with Windows dropping below 90% at 89.62%. The big shift comes from Vista share not picking up as quickly as Windows XP and Windows 2000 share drops. Windows XP has dropped by nearly 8.8% and Windows 2000 dropping 1.15% with Vista only picking up 8.49% of the slack.  Linux usage was also up 16.9% from last month to 0.83% market share. On the browser side of things, Internet Explorer continues to slip, this month down to 69.86% while Firefox continues to rise up to 20.73%.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Dec 2nd, 2008

Windows as a TV-Tuner Commercial

So I recently saw a Microsoft commercial about how Windows could be used as a DVR. They had testimonials on how they can record TV and take it with them as though this was a new thing for PCs to do. Much like the ‘Mojave Experiment’ commercials, these commercials are a bit out of base with reality. What person, in their right mind uses a PC as a DVR and then takes it with them? What about the shows that are on when your PC is on the road? Oops.. Seriously, use a MythTV box and share out your shows as podcasts so they can sync to your iPod or Zune or just use a real DVR. You’ll use less power with a real DVR and not have to worry about having your PC left home while your favorite shows are on. If you really must use your Windows PC as a DVR, use something like Orb so at least you’re not taking the PC with you. It’s free and it allows you to access your TV tuner card from another machine over the web. Okay, I’m done.. I just couldn’t take it any longer.

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Nov 17th, 2008

Microsoft Finally Ditches Windows 3.x

Microsoft has finally stopped selling licenses for Windows 3.x as of November 1, 2008. Michael Sinz once said that programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life. Well, at least until it’s 18. Which.. oddly enough, that’s exactly how old Windows 3.x would be this year. Of course, Microsoft stopped actually supporting it years ago, but it still exists in embedded machines and on some older computers whose owners refuse to upgrade.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Nov 6th, 2008

Return to Windows?

Since last Tuesday when CrossOver offered their products for free, I’ve been installing all my old Windows games to see if they’d run on my Mac. I plan on reporting my results, but I ran into an interesting situation in one of my tests. It was a battle of wits greater than The Princess Bride.

The game I was experimenting with was one that I’d played thousands of times in my former Windows life. Dirt Track Racing 2 from Infogrames ran beautifully under CrossOver with one small exception. When you hit escape while racing, the menu didn’t display. If I hit the up arrow which would “move” the “cursor” which did not exist to the “quit” button that didn’t exist and hit enter I could still exit the race. Only a minor workaround was required. However, when using the menus to exit the game itself was where it got interesting. I was prompted by this intriguing question:

I came to an impasse. Clearly I can’t choose “Yes”. I can’t in my right mind go back to Windows after seeing the light with Mac and Linux. Of course, even if I wanted, I don’t have Windows installed on this machine. This answer truly went against my deepest convictions and desires of my heart. Yet, if I answer “No” it takes me back to the game menu. So, logically, I can’t answer “No” or I’ll get nowhere. However, if I answer “Yes” then I am admitting that my *NIX diversion was just that: a diversion. It was like I was somehow admitting that I needed to come back to Windows. But still, I can’t answer “No” because then I’m back to where I started and can’t get out of the game. While trying to escape Windows, it had backed me in to a corner. Obviously, Windows wanted me to say yes but I couldn’t in good conscience answer “Yes” to the question “Return to Windows?”!

In the end, I ended up just shutting down the machine to avoid answering the question. I’d rather lose data then go back to the list of troubles I had with Windows. :)

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Filed under Just for Fun : Comments (0) : Nov 5th, 2008

Microsoft Releases RPC Patch Out of Cycle

Today Microsoft released a very important patch. It’s very rare that they deviate from their standard patch schedule and this patch was apparently one of those rare cases. The problem is reported to affect file sharing through the Windows Server service using a flaw in their implementation of RPC. Windows systems from Windows 2000 to Vista and even Server 2008 are vulnerable. If you are unfortunate enough to to be running Windows, please patch right away. I’m not a doom-and-gloom kind of guy, but when discussing RPC zero-day vulnerabilities, all I have to mention is “Blaster worm”. The update can be found via Windows Update.

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Filed under News : Comments (2) : Oct 23rd, 2008

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