BlogAllAlong » Microsoft

Mac Vs PC The Movie

Bashar — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:31:44 +0000

It’s been going for too long now… a war that dates back to more than quarter of a century, and the final battle is about to unfold.

Judgment day is coming.

But where is Google I say? Maybe those people are just playing for the runner-up.

Mouse wheel scroll background inactive windows with WizMouse

Bashar — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:39:21 +0000

If you’ve ever used Mac or Linux, and if you’re a heavy user with dozens of open windows, you most likely have come to admire the simple cool feature that allows you to use your mouse scroll wheel to scroll the open windows in the back, without clicking and bringing them to the front. This is pretty useful when you’re reading a document or article, which relates to say your open code editor in the front. For some reason however, even with Windows7, Microsoft still failed to realize and copy this simple feature.

Luckily, little Googling revealed the lightweight WizMouse tool which does simply and exactly just that. I’m usually very reluctant to installing softwares that interfere with the OS and run in the background, especially on Windows. But this one seems quite light, and is extremely handy, I don’t think any Windows user should live without it.

[via LifeHacker (through Google search ;)]

Disable Dim on Windows 7 Program Installation Confirmation

Bashar — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 19:50:42 +0000

There is something really annoying about Windows 7 when you attempt to install any program, and that is the screen dimming that happens before the program installation confirmation message. And while it’s meant to draw attention and avoid unintentional approvals, I see it as an overkill and really annoying when I’m in the middle of work. So to disable it, simply open the User Account Control Settings simply by hitting the Windows button, and typing “User Account Control Settings” then hit Enter.

You will most likely see the like this (the default).

Simply drag the scroll bar one level down to this.

I find this much better.

Where is the quick calculator in Windows 7?

Bashar — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:56:50 +0000

I kinda thought this can be taken for granted by now.

But apparently not for Windows 7.

Bing Map Vs Google Map

Bashar — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:59:52 +0000

Kinda feels like fill in the spaces map right? And yet sites like Expedia.com and Hotels.com insist on putting Microsoft before their customers.

The Windows 7 Upgrade Marathon

Bashar — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:13:13 +0000

Comparing it with the previous Windows Vista SP1 Upgrade, an official Microsoft Software Engineer (or so he was) has posted results about the Windows 7 Upgrade performances over machines with various hardware levels, and different data profiles in terms of stored data and installed apps.

Notice something? Windows 7 Upgrade results for what they call a Super User with 650Gb, and 40 applications running a mid end hardware could take up to 1220 minutes, that is more than 20 hours and approximately a whole freaking day! And nowadays, with terabytes hard disks, I don’t think bragging about a 650 Gb as a super user means anything, since lots of people have this amount of storage. True many maybe have it on an external media, but lots of users still have it on their main machine.

Leaving that apart, who doesn’t have 125 GB on his machine nowadays? My iPhone has 20 GB, and it’s only been with me for less than 2 months! They call a user with 125 GB a Heavy User, and if you are that user, and hold a high end hardware, then swipe that silly smile off your face, as you’re in for 3 hours upgrade time as well! Compared to the Snow Leopard of 1 hour or so, leaving aside all the issues inside ofcourse :). Clean installations it seems are quite fast, but hey, who want’s to reinstall all his apps and do all the config once more?

But the truth is, I really gotta take my hat off for those people who for once it seems did something quite courageous and honest, releasing performance benchmarks that could make sense in real life. So much better than this home-made browser comparison really.

[via arstechnica]

The Force Is Strong With This NERD!

Bashar — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 12:26:33 +0000

I think we should have large scale game of this style. That would be the only fighting game I’m really interested in!

Ballmer for once says something right!

Bashar — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:16:58 +0000

In an interview by CNET, Bill Gates without much information in hand yet was not so optimistic about the newly announced and upcoming Google Chrome OS saying ”In some ways I am surprised people are acting like there’s something new. I mean, you’ve got Android running on Netbooks. It’s got a browser in it.” .

While this might be true, so was a piece of news about Google launching a new browser, yet it changed the way people look at browsers. It made browsing experience much better for many from it’s time of launch. It showed that current browsers are not giving the best experience there is. The web has outgrown current browsers, and if we want to get the most of the web, we have to give it the tools it needs.

The hilarious words however, and as always, came from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, arguing that currently half of PC use is done off the browser. Let’s repeat that last sentence one more time. “PC users spend half their time outside the browser”. Hmmm, now let’s rephrase it. “PC Users spend half their time inside the browser”. Does that sound different? I wonder if Ballmer has a chart to support his words, and I hope his chart has historical figures as well. How much was that number just 3 years back? It must’ve been quite lower, and it keeps growing with more advances and richer sites. I for one now use the web for most of my time, and online project management, tasks, and Google Docs are giving me great experiences, that I stopped or decreased my offline tools dependancy to a great extent. I think offline word editing is the only thing of the three I do offline now.

Ballmer statement makes two things quite clear for all:

1- He admits to the fact of increasing browser time usage compared to non-browser time usage.

2- Microsoft still doesn’t, or more likely doesn’t want to, admit to the large role of browsers and the internet.

Well Ballmer, just because you can’t ride the big wave, doesn’t mean it’s any less of a wave. Ohh, did I just say Wave? Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you!

What’s the most searched for term on Microsoft Live?

Bashar — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:52:44 +0000

Google

No seriously…

And How Many People Do it?

1% of all Live.com Search Queries are “Google”!

And what’s number 2?

Yahoo!

Seems most people just use Live.com to find a way out.

So Microsoft, please just help make the world a better place and default your browsers to Google!

You can file it under a Green Environment initiative, since every bit consumes a bit of energy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/apr/30/google-yahoo

BumpTop 3D Desktop

Bashar — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:44:40 +0000

I received this via email today, and I promise you, it’s like nothing you’ve seen before (unless ofcourse you’ve already seen this :). Makes me wanna buy new powerful PC now!

Provided by BumpTop in a FREE and a Pro version, It’s Windows only for now and I’d be really eager to pay and try the Pro one. You can subscribe for news alert for Mac and Linux versions however from the Download page. There seems to be something about widgets but I’m still not sure how easy or possible it is to make one.

Tribute to Bill Gates

Bashar — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:36:23 +0000

We must admit despite all our differences, he did make it happen.

Can Gmail Chat Talk to MSN?

Bashar — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:16:28 +0000

I’m not sure how true is that, but before today I never saw Hotmail contacts on my side menu chat list, today I see several of them, some I only contacted once long time ago, and can invite them. Up till now, I couldn’t see anything on Google News or anywhere else, but here is a snapshot:

Any idea?

Yahoo! still single and looking!

Bashar — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:12:44 +0000

Several months after initial agreement and testing, Google all of a sudden decided it’s too much of a hassle to fight for the Yahoo-Google advertisement deal, and simply decided to walkaway. This coming after Google was directly trying to talk Yahoo! out of Microsoft acquisition at $33 a share seems like a fiance walking away after taking away the girl from her ex-boyfriend, and now Yahoo! are re-opening the door to Microsoft talks, however with their stock price down to $14.53!

Google are usually tough in those legal battles, like when they snapped DoubleClick against all odds, or like when they stood against handing over their customer query logs. So I wonder what made them change their mind at this time. Is it that they no longer fear Microsoft acquisition? Are they relaxed now that Yahoo! stock has fallen so hard there is no way they will sell right now? Is it the fall of Yahoo profits 64% as opposed to 31% increase in last quarter profits for Google. Perhaps this’s made it a bad looking match. Or is it really true Google have just now awakened and saw it too tough to take and no longer worth it.

At all rates, Google have stabbed Yahoo! in the back hard and at a time that just couldn’t be worse, making Yahoo! now turn back begging for past love. If such an acquisition happens, perhaps only then Google would regret.

Bill Gates, I feel sorry for you… I really do

Bashar — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 21:20:20 +0000

When Bill Gates annouced his retirement from day-to-day work from Microsoft, I really felt the smartness he has. Going away from the company while still in shape, being able to monitor and direct from far is a pretty smart thing to do. Compare that to Apple, which is just another name for Steve Jobs and you will know what I mean. Many people underestimated the statement though saying he will still be in the board of directors. Either ways, keeping away from day-to-day work was a smart and bold move from him.

Few days ago I was wondering what’s he up to recently. This was around the time I heard rumors about Microsoft putting $10,000,000 on the table for Seinfield to do them promotional ads, as a counter attack to Mac Vs PC ads most likely. I was like, how desperate from them. That big money for an actor not so actively recently. Not to mention he has been previously seen using Macs before. That amount of money made even MacCast podcaster welling to promote Windows. At least I’m sure he thought of it.

Today, I read about the ads and boy was I shocked to see Bill performing in the ads. And what a lousy ad it was. Over 4 minutes of boredom, and pointless shooting. I personally was not able to bare the 4 minutes and has to seek forward to see what’s the point of it. Bill featuring in the ad didn’t do it any good either. He’s just not the character people look for like Jobs is. And when he decided to step down from Microsoft, I really don’t think this is the best way back in. TV Ads. Poor ones as well! I really felt sorry. Take a look and see what you think.

For the record, this is not the first time Microsoft has hired actors for promotional purposes. There was this Jennifer Anniston and Mathew Perry featuring Windows 95! Wasn’t WOW, but was better at least.

UPDATE: Turns out I was right. Sienfield and those type of ads are no more, as Microsoft says they are getting for part 2 of their $300 million campagin. Part 1 wasn’t really good enough for a sequel if you ask me.

UPDATE: New Microsoft Ads are out, and they’re not so hot either. Pretty much repetitive,

Microsoft & Nikon Collaborating on… Microsoft Surface?

Bashar — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:31:50 +0000

BetaNews is reporting on a deal between Microsoft and Nikon that “covers digital cameras made by Nikon as well as a [range] of other consumer products each company manufactures and sells.” according to Microsoft spokesman.

No further details have been revealed yet about the deal between the two, but BetaNews is predicting it could be around the wireless technology. For me, this brings nothing to my mind but the long anticipated Microsoft Surface.

Take photos, build your 3D world with Photosynth

Bashar — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:54:44 +0000

I still remember when I saw videos of this service when it was still in labs. Photosynth from Microsoft is a new technology that is now being open to the public. The technology takes a collection of photos and smartly creates a 3D environment out of them. What’s cool about it is now it’s open to the public, with 20 GB of storage per user, and you can start building your own environments with pictures from your digital camera or even mobile phone.

CNET which is covering the story in much high details is speaking highly of the speed and performance of the new service from Microsoft. There is also a video interview there for you to watch. I think the service is interesting to try, and I will probably try to create a synth or two. This coming from Microsoft, alongside the Microsoft Surface means Microsoft Labs are still not dead, and are capable of bringing new technologies to the market. What I hate about Photosynth however so far is this:

“Operating System: Only Windows XP (SP2 or SP3) and Windows Vista are supported at this time.” – So no Mac, no Linux. Luckily however, Microsoft for once is considering Firefox in their equation “Web Browser: Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2, and Firefox 3″.
“All synths are public. Your photos will be visible to everyone on the Internet.” – First thing I want to try is my home, and perhaps my home is not something I want to share publicly. Their point of view ofcrouse might be, they are baring the cost of storage, bandwidth, and processing, so what they want in the end is to build more and more 3D environments of the realities.

Thinking of the ultimate goal if this thing is executed properly, if they could create 3D worlds of all the locations which already have a lot of available images on the net, you could search the map for your location, and see 3D views of it instantly.

For a tutorial on how to create a Synth, click here.

What is today?

Bashar — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:24:02 +0000

Today, the 27th June 08 will mark the end of a revolutionary career for the man who had a dream of putting a PC in every home. Perhaps he didn’t expect it would be 4 PCs for each person in some occasions. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft back in 1975, will be retiring as an executive officer today. The 52 years old genius has announced his departure plan two years back, was shocking news for many, but I guess is something good for Microsoft on the long run. First of all, Bill Gates is not what he was 3 decades back. Fresh blood and new ideas need to take place, and Microsoft have fallen behind in the online era. Second, that way Mr. Gates can absorb how Microsoft performs without him from a bit far, and he can still interfere if it needs, as he will be the non-executive chairman of the company even after his departure.

Bill Gates founded Microsoft with Paul Allen at the time, when Allen showed him an issue of Popular Mechanics, featuring the first microcomputer, The Altair 8800. Gates did his contact with the manufacturer to offer him a BASIC interpreter for the new machine, which he didn’t really have ready! Against all odds, and despite technical expert advise that it’s not possible, the two young geeks made it a reality, with the contribution of a third person, Monte Davidoff!

Altair 8800

Bill Gates has also been attributed for coming up with the concept of buying software as a product, with his harsh open letter to hobbyist who were stealing his code for FREE. It seems people enjoyed stealing Bill’s code from the start :). The letter created a big mix of supporting and attacking reactions. The fact that Bill was using Harford University labs, inviting Allen along, when he was not even a student in the University, made some people think he has already used public property for commercial use, and thus, they have indirectly paid their debt through taxes. One thing to note is,Gates claimed “Who can afford to do professional work for nothing?” The answer is, Open Source folks like Linux :). And it’s not really nothing, it many times pay back. Open Source developers are known to be paid highers salaries for their solid online reputation, and the great experience they have.

So is Bill Gates gonna have so much FREE time on his own, plays all Xbox 360 games start to end? I doubt this guy can hold it this quite. Gates is retiring to pursue full time job with his wife in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Some people may be wondering why I’m writing this article, when I have attacked Bill Gates so much in the past. It’s true, I very much hate Bill Gates’ anti-trust and monopoly practices, I hate Microsoft way of doing things, however I cannot deny also what a genius this guy is, and what changes he made to the industry.

I am looking forward to some photos of the small farewell party they might do to him :).

My only question now is, are we gonna get finally an updated version of this?

The book is what now, 15 years old? He is retiring, and this book definitely needs a successor or updated version.

I also recommend watching this amazing video, that I’m sure mos geeks already did.

UPDATE: I also naively forgo to mention. It’s WALL-E release day. My kid is going crazy about it already. However the movie is not hitting large screens before next week in Kuwait!

Bad news for Vista, XP SP3 is out

Bashar — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:23:06 +0000

Microsoft have finally made the official release of Windows XP SP3, which in their words “includes a small number of new functionalities, which do not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system”. Yet, the public is giving it more attention and interest than Microsoft hopes for, in it’s continuing effort to kill the OS, and replace it with Vista. Despite their official announcement to kill XP from retail store this coming June, PC manufacturers like Dell and HP have found a loophole in the possible downgrade option from Vista to XP, and will sell their computers preinstalled with downgraded XP version. This would ofcourse incur little extra cost, that they seem to be welling to take.

To read the SP3 update details, download the PDF file from here.

Microsoft Q1 Profits Falling

Bashar — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 05:13:32 +0000

The 67% increase in Xbox 360 sales did not save the company from reporting the 10.9% drop in net profits this last quarter, to only $4.3bn. The net revenue it self didn’t grow much either, less than 1% to $14.45bn. So the drop can’t only be blamed on the $1.42bn EU anti-trust fine.

That said, add to it the very slow growth Microsoft is getting in the online business, and to add insult to the injury, Gartner analyst have recently reported on the danger of Microsoft Windows collapsing due to it’s lack of competitiveness with the fast growing market. Come to think of it, really, for the leader in OS business, Microsoft haven’t been shaking things up at all. So maybe few years from know, Microsoft will receive door knocks by Yahoo for a buyout!

And it’s not 1st of April yet!

Bashar — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:22:06 +0000

What exactly is the meaning of this?

Even Bill Gates Hates Facebook

Bashar — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:21:28 +0000

Many people have said it before, but to come from someone who has spent $240 million dollars on it, and that someone be Bill Gates him self! Wall Street Journal writes that Bill Gates have quit using facebook following the enormous amount of friendship requests he receives every day, 8000 to be exact. Imagine how the number would look if Facebook had enemy requests :). I’ve personally seen social sites as bubbles that come and go. Facebook had something special, in how he wanted to make it clean friendly environment, where you only list your true friends. Apparently, that’s not working so great either, and even my friends are not supposed to know all my moves, which is where the whole Facebook philosophy falls apart as far as I’m concerned.

So was Facebook really worth investing $240 million in it? Making it worth $15 billion dollars! The same link writes “the average person spends on a social-networking site has dropped 14% over the last four months, according to Internet research company comScore” 14% in four months! That’s a big drop, but I expect that number to jump again once another social bubble comes up. But clearly, this shows social networks is dangerous shaky business to get into. One stupid foolish mistake infringing on people’s privacy and thousands of protesters would leave, which is what happened when Facebook started broadcasting to the world what you bought online without prior notice. I can only imagine how embarrassing that was to some!

It’s a big day in the history of the web

Bashar — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 10:30:01 +0000

This tale of this day could really be told for decades to come. It could be a day that will change the web dramatically, with Yahoo Board of Directors setting today on one table to discuss and decide on the Microsoft $44.6 billion bid to acquire Yahoo. Such an acquisition I believe has never happened before in the web. One of top 3 sites acquiring the other. Shall Yahoo decline the offer, Google would be happy to offer all the help their competitors need to get back on their foot, starting with powering their Search (again), and their Search Marketing expectedly.

Google hasn’t been looking at this only however, rumors are spreading about acquisitions of two social-networking sites, namely Bebo and Plaxo. Meanwhile, Ask.com keeps their steady silent enhancement with their Big News release, which is really appealing, and is aided with some video, picture, and Digged news.

UPDATE: Yahoo! says we are worth at least $56.4 billion ($40/share) if Microsoft is interested. While Yahoo! doubts Microsoft would bow to such claim, the door is still open for Microsoft, and this time with a certain target. I don’t think this is the end of it, but I believe meanwhile Google are gonna boast things with their rival in a joint venture, just to show Yahoo! how good it will taste.

If you can’t beat them, buy them

Bashar — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 07:27:36 +0000

This is literally what Microsoft did after more than a decade of failure to catch up with the quickly evolving web world. They are making the biggest bid in the technical world ever to acquire Google’s rival, Yahoo!. Shall such a deal go on, Microsoft would finally be #1 in the WWW customer base, and Ballmer would finally see his dream come true. Beat Google that is! I think they must have thought of this after their protest on Google acquiring DoubleClick failed. This must have been a strong hit and they wanted to strike back in any way they could. Major acquisitions also have been the latest fashion. BEA and MySQL both acquired last month, so why not Yahoo! this month? After all, they have been lacking for the past few years.

But is it a wise thing to acquire a deteriorating company instead of emerging one? In the technology world, it’s about what smart people you hire, and looking at this story, companies like Google and Facebook seem to be getting all the attention of fresh talents, while Microsoft is not anymore the dream of programmers, and Yahoo is not even close to Google. Merges of falling down companies could go real bad. Look at AMD & ATI merge and how terrible it turned out to be, and they are still suffering from it. Such major acquisitions could be really harmful not only to the end user, but to the acquiring company as well.

Either ways, Google obviously is not happy about the attempted acquisition, and is fighting it from both ends. Publicly, they went with the predicted monopoly protest statements, describing how the take over would seriously hurt the global market fair competition, and without any doubt, they are absolutely right there. Especially when the acquisition is coming from Microsoft. From the shadows however, instead of making their own bids as it would contradict their monopoly protest, news have surfaced about Google’s Eric Schmidt calling Yahoo’s Chief to co-operate in backing off Microsoft offer, probably by reaching partnership agreement, something which could be appealing to Yahoo!. Google have also been making contacts with other companies, like Time Warner, looking for possible Microsoft rival bidders. Alas, none seems interested in a lost battle against a company as large as Microsoft.

I personally have been feeling real bad about competitor acquisitions, such as Oracle and BEA. It really cuts down the choices and give the company control over pricing and portability. Yahoo!’s fall to Microsoft would be even more devastating and harmful to much larger segment. And the thing that worries me the most is Yahoo! logically saying that they will “pursue the best course of action to maximize long-term value for shareholders.”. That said, you can only imagine how $44.6 billion looks compared to annual $4.13 billion in profits.

How to push for SilverLight!

Bashar — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:38:48 +0000

So Bill Gates makes his final keynote at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) exhibition and the world news media is talking about his presentation. Best place ofcourse to get more on the software giant plans and insight is there official site. And imagine how convenient it feels when you go there to see this:

It tells me I am using Firefox like I already committed a sin, not a good deed infact. And then it just enforces me to install SilverLight (Microsoft’s Flash) and restart to be able to visit the page. No Flash version, no HTML light weight version, nothing. This is it, either take it or leave it. We see such sites from time to time, but coming from a company like Microsoft, who wants to write the standards with their OOXML. A company that is supposed to be setting high quality standards, trying to make their way into the WEB 2.0, where data can be moved any where. But no, I cannot even get it from their own site without being a Microsoft slave.

Shame on them really, and thanks for the invite. I will keep my Firefox a green environment. There is a reason Firefox was invented you know.

Bid for Microsoft brand

Bashar — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:21:04 +0000

Have you ever heard of Microsoft? It’s a software company that started in the seventies by two young geeks who dropped out of university. They thought that they can create a home PC that would be used by everyone around the world. Eventually they became multi-billionaires and their brand is currently ranked # 3 worldwide (behind Google and General Electrics :P), and is valued globally at $55bn. Apparently the brand name Microsoft was not copyrighted every where when they started. They either didn’t think the name would grow that large, or most likely they were just too small to copyright it in each and every country at that time. Either ways, a company inside Portugal back in 1981 called it self Microsoft locally, and thus forcing Microsoft to use a different name in that market, which they chose MSFT.

According to Microsoft Lda CEO Ricardo Carvalho, MSFT have been interestedin buying the brand name from them but needed some time to think it up. Well, apparently MSFT’s time is up as Microsoft Lda have released a public bid on the brand name on eBay for a starting $1m price. This is going to cost MSFT a lot more than if they have reached an agreement with the company directly. Imagine how many people would want to get their hands on that name. Think if Google buys it with their load of billions of dollars and makes it a second name for Google in Portugal. That would be really humiliating, but ofcourse it won’t happen. Microsoft won’t allow it I’d say, and the smart trick from Microsoft Lda is gonna push the price high until no one can top Microsoft bid. The auction will kick off on Wednesday, so if you plan on making a bid, starting counting your cash money now.

Microsoft shakes hands with Facebook – Let the battle begins…

Bashar — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:36:10 +0000

Usually, Google are faster and smarter in closing up deals with new comers, and this is for several reasons. 1) Google are the giants of the web. 2) Microsoft have failed or on purpose buried down many companies they have acquired over the years. I am not saying Google is completely the opposite here. Some bad notes have been taken on them. Nevertheless, the Facebook founder and guru have decided to go with Microsoft this time surprisingly, giving Ballmer for once the upper hand over Schmidt. The deal gave 1.5% of Facebook shares to Microsoft in exchange of $240 million dollar. I heard reasons behind the choice was that Microsoft have stronger global marketing than Google does, which is something true obviously.

The joke made by CNet people was that there are still shares left, and Google could get some of it and set near to Ballmer on the same table. non-sense however, we all know it. Microsoft wouldn’t allow it to happen, and neither does Google want. The war already seems to have erupted as a reported video leak from inside Google have revealed plans by the web giants to build a massive giant social community called Maka-Maka, what kind of name is that?, over it’s broad of services, and mainly the online RSS Reader as it seems. If the news is true, and the execution is done properly, then Microsoft’s worst nightmare was a true prophecy. Microsoft have enjoyed the privilege of dominating the OS for home use, and thus manipulating everything that goes on top of it. They didn’t take good care however of the risk of the net. They underestimated how far it can go, and that in a way, it would be something that replaces desktop apps. Google started with their search engine, best so far, and then kept taking on new grounds. Google Groups, Google Reader, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Desktop which made Windows search a complete joke, Gmail which quickly became something like default for many, online Google Docs, which feature editing, sharing, collaboration, rich graphs. All that was faced by simple view only Live Office so far. Google also controls big chunk of hte blogosphere with their Blogger. The list goes on and on . If you take a look at the Top Ranked sites at Alexa, you would see they are mainly search engines, or community sites. Almost nothing else. Google has the search engine world firmly in its hands, you can see their stock price stroke $600 and now is less than $2 from $700!. And now, Google wants a share of the community world. Serious one. The possibilities with what they have right now are endless, which is why Microsoft wants to stop Google from taking up new companies like DoubleClick. I am again wondering, shall Google really take bandwidth license and get into telecom, release GPhone, and probably Google OS as well. How much flexibility and on the go services they can give, all bundled under one sign-in. It will be The One Account for all.

I still wonder though how did the video find it’s way to the public. I double checked it’s not April 1st.

Source: Search Engine Journal

How to kick deals away!

Bashar — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 07:33:36 +0000

To have a successfully good selling product, you must have mainly two things:

A Good Product
Good Marketing of that Product

Some other non-encountered for factors happen however even in the largest companies. I have read Bill Gate’s book about Business @ The Speed of Though, it was a pretty good book actually, even though a bit old. He talks about the digital nervous system of the company, and how all information should be digitized, accessible easily with click of a button. How a problem is quickly reported and reflected in the system for appropriate action. It’s a pretty insightful book I recommend reading. But it’s funny how a company that big, and with such genius brains running it still manages to fall into such loop holes.

The story here is from a potential Eurpean customer for Microsoft Expression, who was pleased with the trial version and wanted to buy the license for it. Going online to buy it, he found out he cannot get a legitimate copy inside the UK right now! So he was happy to find the Product Manager for Expression at The Future of Web Apps show. Hear that, Product Manager. So he asked how he can get a legitimate copy of the software. The product manager proudly said, yeah sure you can. Went into Amazon.co.uk, searches for product, and no items in stock! Goes to many other sites searching for it only to find it from one unknown reseller!

Now if the product manager can’t manage to get a copy of the software in Europe, who can? And how come the product manager is so ignorant to the European Market? It’s UK, not a small island in the middle of the Caribbean. And how come you don’t know when Amazon UK runs out of copies? Amazon has the best APIs to use, let alone your strong relationship with them as primary merchants. And where are the sales people from this? Shouldn’t there be a report of the software sales. How many we shipped, how much did we sell. If none is selling, something is wrong. If they know they sold out, they need to be shipping more. But never you should reach a stage where a whole nation can’t manage to get a single copy. And it gets even worse when the guy asked the Manager to buy a copy from him now since it’s not available anywhere, and the product manager responded NO in kind. There is nothing I can do to help now! I can only feel sorry for the long nights those programmers spent on their software to end up like this.

Win-XP Dumbrep.exe

Bashar — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:27:38 +0000

Software crash and failure are indispensable part of Windows since the very beginning. When it happens I usually immediately click close and restart my program, and NO I do not Send Error to Microsoft. Why? Once I did for some media player and the solution came back quick:

Problem Cause: Media Player

Problem Solution: Remove media player

My Solution then: Remove whole Windows!

Now the problem is not over with your program shutting down. After that I usually start hearing my computer creating noise like it’s about to launch into space. Checking running processes I see lots of Dumprep.exe. A Microsoft non-essential process for 3rd party applications that writes errors to text file and request to send it to Microsoft. The problem is that these non-essential logging-only processes take over all CPU resources and just keep running until you kill them.

Funny thing is Microsoft have an article on how to remove it, but it claims that this is a workaround to overcome most likely hardware issues or damaged registry entry. It doesn’t explain however why the process keeps running forever and not die! I am following their article and yet the two methods didn’t help :P.

Hotmail generousity doesn’t amuse me

Bashar — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 08:52:02 +0000

I found out Hotmail have upgraded my account size to 5 GB when I was not utilizing %5 of the 2 GB i had. I don’t know if this upgrade is based on location, or they are giving it for low volume users who will not use it anyways. But for me, this doesn’t cover up all the deficiencies in Hotmail and still won’t push me further to use it. It would just make me more relaxed when I sign-up with non-trusted sites that I can hold up more spam mail :). Yahoo have also upgraded me previously to infinite size. Only Gmail aren’t. They didn’t even accept my payment for extra space! If only Yahoo! was as good as Google.

A Live Image Search Review

Bashar — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 05:30:36 +0000

A very unlikely review from me I know, but I was looking for a Nokia phone brand name one day and Nokia site did not help me. I thought the best way is to search Google Images for Nokia until I find my phone and know it’s name. So I went on, and on, and on. Clicking Next after Next after Next. This was a bit tedious really and wasn’t helping. I wanted a faster way to search mass amount of images, and I thought about Live.com. The fact that you can resize image thumbnails in the results, and scroll down for more makes it easier and more efficient if you need to search huge amount of images. So I did that, and eventually got the phone I want. Result of this I can sum up the Pros and Cons of Live Image Search as:

Pros:

Ability to resize thumbnail size in the result to get more in a single page.
AJAX powered scroll-down for more feature is really nice, especially for the case that you want to scan large amount of pictures.

Cons:

Stability: Sometimes Live search simply does not respond to my queries anymore, and I have to refresh the page to make it work.
Again Stability: Trying to resize images on Firefox sometimes results in scary results, as the one shown below:

It seems to lack in rendering the page sometimes, and then gradually does it resulting in this scary image!

Not convenient in opening result link in new tab. Ctrl+Click image opens the image result in new tab plus the current one. I hate it I have to click back then every time.

It’s really rare that I don’t find my result on Google, and it almost never happened that I find it on Microsoft Search engine instead. So this makes me think, Google must seriously start restudying search result usability. I know they have option to browse results with shortcut keys, and they also have Searchmash, but that one also requires to click Next to fetch the results on the fly. Not easy as Live interface here let’s be honest. It’s more stable though :).

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What’s the most searched for term on Microsoft Live?

Google

No seriously…

And How Many People Do it?

1% of all Live.com Search Queries are “Google”!

And what’s number 2?

Yahoo!

Seems most people just use Live.com to find a way out.

So Microsoft, please just help make the world a better place and default your browsers to Google!

You can file it under a Green Environment initiative, since every bit consumes a bit of energy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/apr/30/google-yahoo

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