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Filed under: Microsoft

Filed under: Design, Internet, Features, Microsoft, Search

MSN.com gets its first major redesign in a decade

MSN.com, Microsoft's search, news and services portal page, hasn't weathered the years well. Tweaking the same basic design for a decade left it far behind the times in terms of design and usability. With today's clean, whitespace-friendly, reimagining of MSN.com, Microsoft ditches the spectre of MSN search and delivers a site that's a little more worthy of showcasing the company's new search hotness, Bing.

A prettier, less cluttered layout and a prominent Bing search bar aren't the only upgrades to the homepage. In a touch that says Microsoft actually knows what year it is after all, you can add your Facebook newsfeed and your Twitter stream to an area on the right side of the page. The news is still there, but it's more customizable, and the layout presents fewer stories at a time than the cluttered old MSN.com did. There's also a local focus, with local weather and a Bing-powered local news widget at the bottom left.

I have to say that, compared to the MSN of old, this new design looks attractive and functional. Speaking of comparisons, though, have a look at our gallery of MSN.com designs since 2001. Looking at how slowly the site changed over the years only underlines how much it just changed overnight.


Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Microsoft

Windows Live Sync finally gets an update for Snow Leopard

It's been a long, long wait for Snow Leopard users (myself included) who are dancing with the devil and using Microsoft's Windows Live Sync (formerly Foldershare), but Microsoft have finally announced an update for the application that resolves a long running compatibility problem with Apple's finest.

Wearing version number 14.0.8096.0903, the new release fixes a problem with internal security certificates that completely prevented Snow Leopard users from logging into their Windows Live Sync account.

Announced on the Windows Live Sync blog, the update only includes the aforementioned fix and does not include any new features - existing users who have not migrated to Snow Leopard do not need to upgrade.

I'm pleased to report that i've installed the update and it works great!

Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft, How-Tos

How to fix a Windows 7 upgrade from Vista that is stuck at 62%

A number of message boards around the net have been receiving comments from users upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 who have been unable to complete the upgrade install.

Once the installer hits 62% complete, it locks up. You can sit and wait as long as you want, but it's not going anywhere.

The problem occurs when the Windows IPv6 helper service (which allows automatic IPv6 connectivity over a much more common IPv4 network) stops responding . Microsoft has posted a fix to this particular problem, and it's not terribly complicated.
  1. Restart the computer - your system will automatically roll back to Windows Vista.
  2. Click Start, right-click Computer, and then click Properties.
  3. System Properties will open. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Environment Variables.
  4. Click the New button.
  5. Enter MIG_UPGRADE_IGNORE_PLUGINS into the Variable name field.
  6. Copy the following bold text: iphlpsvcmigplugin.dll and paste it into the Variable value field (or type it manually)
  7. Click OK three times to close the dialog boxes.
  8. Re-launch your Windows 7 Upgrade installer!
Please note that this fix won't help if your install is stuck at some percentage other than 62. Strange but true. This is a specific fix for a very specific issue.

You may also want to run the System Readiness Tool for Vista and Windows 7 before trying the upgrade again. It can detect and correct certain issues that may cause trouble during the process.

Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Productivity, Apple, Microsoft

iWork files are really just zip files, and contain PDF previews

iWork 09Have you ever received an iWork file created in Pages, Numbers, or Keynote on a Mac, and not had any way to deal with it? Next time, try changing the file's extension to .zip, then unzip it with your favorite zip utility. Inside you should find a PDF preview document containing a nicely formatted version of the document in question.

It seems strange that Apple doesn't promote this fact more, as it's a real usability win for iWork users that want to share their documents with non-Mac users. Wouldn't it be nice if Word, Excel, and Powerpoint did this?

[photo by *keng]

Filed under: Microsoft, Mozilla, Browsers

Firefox 3.6 has juicy Superbar integration with Windows 7 (and you can disable it)



Yesterday I told you about the new Firefox 3.6 Beta -- and today, I can show you a neat bit of Windows 7 integration. Windows 7 uses Microsoft's Aero window manager and theme -- you've probably heard about it, or learnt to hate it in Vista -- and in it there's a cool technology called 'Aero Peek'. As you can see in the screenshot above, in Firefox 3.6 Beta, Aero Peek is now fully enabled, and smoother than its implementation in 3.6b1pre.

Aero Peek lets you see what's going on in a particular program without having to actually click anything -- you can just mouse-over it on the alt-tab running-programs menu or on the Superbar. In Firefox 3.5 this works for the Firefox window itself, but not the tabs within. Now, in 3.6 Beta, you can see what's going on in any tab by hovering your mouse over the thumbnail. I do wonder if this requires massive disk-swapping though, or if it takes snapshots -- but I'm pretty sure Aero shows you the window contents in real-time. Either way, it's cool, and beats the hell out of tabbing through 20 different tabs to find what you're looking for.

Those of you that are already using 3.6 might have noticed another neat thing: when you have a bunch of tabs (10+ in our testing) open, you get a "buttonized" list of favicons and page titles, instead of thumbnails. You can still jump straight to a tab or see a preview from the Superbar.

Don't like the Aero Peek integration? You can easily disable it -- if you're worried about the potential performance hit -- just whack about:config into your Firefox address bar and set browser.taskbar.previews.enable to false.

[Download Firefox 3.6 Beta here]

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Windows, Microsoft, Freeware, Windows x64

Microsoft Security Essentials rated best free antivirus for Windows

Thousands of downloads. Countless positive reviews on software blogs around the Internet. It's been quite a ride so far for Microsoft Security Essentials.

In AV Comparative's most recent report on malware removal, MSE was the only free antivirus rated Advanced+. That ranking placed it alongside big names like Norton, Kaspersky, and F-Secure. Security Essentials also beat out technician favorite ESET, which managed only an Advanced rating.

It's also worth noting that only three antivirus apps - Norton 2010, eScan, and Security Essentials - scored marks of good or better in removal of malware and removal of leftovers. So not only has MSE beaten free competitors like AVG (version 8.5 tested, not 9.0), Avira, and Avast, it also posted test scores equal to or better than a dozen antivirus programs you'd have to pay for.

Well done, Microsoft!

[via Ars Technica]

Filed under: Business, Microsoft, Commercial, Freeware

Microsoft to discontinue Office Accounting next month

Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008
Microsoft is killing off its small business accounting product, Office Accounting. The company will no longer distribute Office Accounting Professional or the free version, Office Accounting Express after November 16, 2009.

According to Microsoft's FAQ, the company as determined that free templates that work with Excel are a better option for small businesses than the Office Accounting application. That's kind of true, in that you can customize Excel templates any way you like. But Office Accounting provided a full featured suite of accounting tools that would be pretty difficult to replicate by building or tweaking your own spreadsheets. Really, Microsoft has determined that it's not worth continue developing this product for one reason or another, and I suspect more people will switch to using QuickBooks or another competing package of accounting software than will choose to use Excel.

Microsoft will continue to offer 5 years of support for Office Accounting, and users will still be able to bill customers using PayPal, although eBay and credit profile information from Equifax won't be available after December 15, 2009.

The move comes less than half a year after Microsoft discontinued its personal finance application, Microsoft Money.

[via ZDNet]

Filed under: Games, OS Updates, Microsoft

Gamers: Save $100 and get DirectX 11 for Vista!

At long last -- and some would wonder why now, after the release of Windows 7 -- DirectX 11 is finally available for Windows Vista.

This means, while still taking a performance hit for running Vista, you could in theory divert that $100 you would spend on Windows 7 into a new, DirectX 11-enabled graphics card!

To obtain it, you need to download the 'Platform Update' which includes a lot of other updates for the Windows Vista and Server 2008 operating systems -- but other than the addition of DirectCompute (which I discussed in my previous feature on DirectX 11), there isn't a whole lot to report. Currently there is also no redistributable package -- something they have always done for previous versions of DirectX. I'm sure it will follow soon.

[via DailyTech but by God, be warned: their site takes about 5 minutes to render...]

Filed under: Utilities, Features, Windows, Microsoft

A bunch of fun and productivity-boosting gadgets for Windows 7

The number of gadgets for Windows 7, both made by Microsoft and third-party developers, has skyrocketed. Only a few months ago there was little choice and almost nothing worth calling home about -- but today, you're spoilt for choice! What you have here are a bunch of the most useful (or interesting) gadgets usable with your shiny-new OS, Windows 7.

Note: If you're going to be installing third-party gadgets, you'll be faced with a confirmation dialogue before they can install:
Just hit 'Install'! With that out of the way, on with the show!

1. Weather Bug: One of the things you'll soon notice about the gadgets I'm sharing here is that they all do one specific thing, and they do it well. I hate feature-creep. If I want to know the current weather -- then show me the damn weather.

Weather Bug lets you select a nearby weather station and shows you everything you might need to know: current temperature (Celsius or Fahrenheit), forecasted high and low, wind speed, and the current cloudiness (or lack of).

There's also a link for extended website-based information, and even a webcam stream if your weather station has one!
2. UEFA Informer: Here's one for the non-Americans (do Canadians like soccer?) -- a football gadget! Keep track of every major football (soccer) league in Europe, from Italian to English to even the Champion's League.

The greatest thing about this gadget is you can even pull up the recent results and upcoming matches in a given league, or for your favourite/most hated team.

There's an option in the settings to show even more leagues, so I assume it will be be kept updated -- perhaps to show the World Cup when that finally ticks around next summer?
3. Gmail Reader: There isn't really much I can say about this one. It tells you when you receive new mail. It tells you how many unread mail you currently have. It shows you the subject and sender of your unread mail.

What more do you want?
4. TweetZ: Apparently created to do away with the annoyances inherent to Twadget, TweetZ is a full-featured Twitter tool disguised as a desktop gadget.

Unfortunately its default setting is to tweet some birdsong annoyingly every time someone twits, but it's easy to turn off. As you can see in the screenshot, links are replaced with [link], and you can mouse-over them to see where they link to -- it even expands the link-shortening services, so you can actually see where you're going!

And it doesn't seem to steal away all of your CPU cycles like Tweetdeck does...
5.Facebook Explorer: Now you can stalk your friends without constantly alt-tabbing back to your Facebook browser tab! Not only can you see pending friend requests or event invitations but you can also see if you've been poked -- life-altering, I know! All of your friend's updates are here too, with a break-out box popping-up to give you more details if you click on an update.

You can't seem to comment on or 'like' anything though -- perhaps that will come at a later date? Or maybe this gadget has been designed with the idea of improving your productivity at work...? So there is a God...

Either way, confining Facebook to a gadget would seem like a sensible thing to do. I imagine most of us know what it feels like to be sucked into the Facebook Void, sometimes never to resurface.

Some gadget niches are missing; most notably: an RSS reader! There are still relatively few gadgets compared to other computer customisations and, perhaps surprisingly, there are no decent RSS readers as a result.

The only good one seems to be Google's own gadget which only works with Google Desktop. If someone out there wants to design an RSS feed-reading gadget that can log into Google Reader... you'd be a very popular man.

The best I can offer you is a system-tray notifier called GRaiN that was featured over on Lifehacker in July. Or, if you want to subscribe to a few individual feeds, the Hermes RSS reader gadget might satisfy you.

I've also not mentioned the thousands of system-diagnostic gadgets, or the Google Search gadgets -- I figured I would try and show you some new gadgets that you might not have seen before!

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Filed under: News, Microsoft

Trial/crapware banished from PCs bought from Microsoft store

Ask just about any technician or hardcore PC user, and they'll tell you that the unwanted bloat shipped with many new PCs is a major annoyance.

I'm blown away by just how slow it is to boot some of the new Windows 7 systems my store has received. HP, Toshiba, Acer, MSI - they're all guilty of excessive bloat. Not a single one of these pre-packaged systems boots as fast or is as responsive as those I've built in-house with Windows 7.

That's not really a great way to show off your new OS. After all, customers are expecting to get their new machines home and see performance from the get-go. While Microsoft can't control what makes it out the door at other retail stores, they're putting PCs they sell at their own store on an application diet.

According to Electronista, all systems sold at Microsoft's newly-launched retail stores will have their bloatware demons exorcised.

Yes, yes, I hear you, Linux fans. No, I don't mean they're uninstalling Windows from said systems.

Are you paying attention, OEMs? Even the company providing you with the primary OS on your hardware thinks you've gone too far with the crapware. Whatever happened to shipping systems with nice, clean desktops?

Maybe we'll start to see a shift here. I certainly hope so.

On a good note, if you purchased a bogged-down Windows 7 system already, it's an easy process to get rid of the crud and replace it with awesome, free programs.

Filed under: Games, Windows, Microsoft

Valve's Steam now has Windows 7 support!

If you're fortunate enough to be running Windows 7, you have probably already noticed its best new feature: the new reworked quick-launch-cum-easy-access-taskbar -- or 'Superbar' as I like to call it.

What you might not have noticed is that some applications now have new context menus if you right-click them on the Superbar. Usually these menus have quick-access links to documents you've recently edited, or tabs you've closed in your web browser.

And with Steam, the one-stop shop for all your gaming needs (really, it's the best place to pick up casual-play, $10 games. Give Braid a go, if you want to play the best puzzle game in recent years) -- you can now access Steam's innards directly from your Superbar! Recent games, favourite games, your friends list -- you name it, it's all there and easily accessible.

Now, if Valve would pull their fingers out and release the next episode of Half Life, I'd be a very happy man. I guess I'll have to make do with yet another round of Peggle Extreme for now ...

[via Long Zheng of Istartedsomethingsomething]

Filed under: Windows, Microsoft

Microsoft ducks out on Family Guy, proves they still don't get "hip" marketing

...is that your surprised face I see? No?

In yet another blunder by the Microsoft PR team, they have pulled out of a planned variety show written by the creator of Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane, and Alex Borstein (the voice of Lois). In a dull, think-of-the-stockholders turn-up for the books, they've decided that the Windows 7 brand does not quite fit inside the Family Guy universe -- and promptly pulled the plug on their sponsorship (though the show will still be aired).

How boring is Microsoft trying to be exactly?

First the house parties -- man, they were coolest events since sliced bread! Now the canned Family Guy episode -- obviously too cool, too risque for ol' grandpappy Microsoft. And here I was thinking Microsoft was trying to appear younger, more hip, cool, and fun. More, well, Apple.

I mean, you saw their store-opening video, right?

Microsoft need to get with it. The lumbering, bureaucratic beast needs to put on some sunglasses and be that cool kid everyone liked at school.

The last thing they needed to do was piss off Seth MacFarlane -- remember what happened last time, after Fox stepped on his toes? Imagine how many jokes in Family Guy are now going to be at Microsoft's expense.

I guess that's publicity, of a sort.

[via CNET]

Filed under: Security, Microsoft, Freeware

How to make Microsoft Security Essentials check for updates more often


I've had plenty of good things to say about Microsoft Security Essentials to this point. On my own systems, it's been a good, lightweight layer of protection.

However, the folks over at H-Online have noted a bit of a problem. There are what H-Online refers to as "certain circumstances" under which Security Essentials seems to be forgetting to 1) update definitions and 2) notify users that their definitions may be as out of date as yet another Kanye West interruption joke.

By default, MSE only checks for updates once per day - when it's working, of course. Fortunately, making it check more often is a fairly simple task.

If you're comfortable editing your registry, read on after the break. If not, it might be best to wait for Microsoft to release a fix.

Read more →

Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft

Save $80 on your Windows 7 purchase - the Upgrade does full installs, too

Paul Thurott and a friend over at the SuperSite Blog have worked out how to perform a clean Windows 7 install using the upgrade disc. Come again?

That's right: save $80 and buy the Windows 7 Upgrade disc, because you can use it to perform a clean, full-featured installation. Awesome!

The instructions are as follows:

1. Perform a clean installation using the Upgrade disc -- this should work without a hitch.

2. Make sure there are no Windows Updates pending -- if there's an orange shield icon next to the Shutdown button in the Start Menu, that means you need to reboot before attempting the next steps.

3. Open 'regedit.exe' from the Start Menu -- just type it in there, where it says: Search programs and files. Accept the User Account Control dialogue that pops up to give yourself Windows 7 superpowers.

4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/

5. Change MediaBootInstall from '1' to '0'

6. Open the Start Menu again and type 'cmd' -- use ctrl+shift+enter to run it as an elevated-permissions user

7. Finally, type slmgr /rearm -- and press enter.

Your computer will now reboot and run the Activate Windows utility. Type in your product key aaaaaaand, as the SuperSite Blog says: voila! Much love, Paul.

Filed under: Games, Video, Features, Microsoft

Windows 7 and DirectX 11 - not just good news for gamers!



Let me begin with some common knowledge to put us on some common ground. Vista sucks. By association, DirectX10 sucks. In fact, you might not even know what DirectX is -- and you would be forgiven!

DirectX is the piece of software that sits between your computer, and your video games. If you don't play games, you won't have heard of it. When you play a game on your PC it goes through DirectX. And until now, that's all DirectX did.

It's true: DirectX 10 premiered some nice new technologies. But because they were only available on Vista, which as we all know sucked more than a Hoover with a fresh, high-suction bag, DirectX 11 will be the first time most of us get to experience these new, funky technologies.

Read more →

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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