Fw: The Vista Capable fiasco: to hell with system recs!

URL:
http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/BAaf/~3/260964648/20080330-the-vista-capable-fiasco-to-hell-with-system-recs.html

The shenanigans behind the whole "Vista Capable" mess are coming into
focus: the stickering program's technical merits were quickly trampled
by sales and marketing concerns. At least Microsoft is swearing not to
make the same mistake twice.

Read More...

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Fw: Creative Goes After Driver Modder

URL:
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/260188901/article.pl
FreedomFighter writes "Since the release of Windows Vista, Creative has
promised their Sound Cards as being 'Vista Ready'. Unfortunately, as
many unlucky customers did discover, this is not true. What the users
actually found were buggy, feature crippled drivers. Creative insisted
that features such as Decoding of Dolby® Digital and DTS(TM) signals
and DVD-Audio which worked fine in WinXP, would not work on windows
Vista. With Creative releasing less than one new driver a year, things
seemed bleak. Fortunately, a talented user, Daniel_K, was recently able
to 'fix' many of the drivers, enabling the incompatible features and
also fixing many bugs. Just today Creative has decided to put a stop to
this. They removed all links to his modified drivers, and banned
several users who were posting links to the now banned drivers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fw: NVIDIA Drivers Caused Lions Share of Early Vista Crashes

URL: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=11261
Microsoft data shows NVIDIA caused bulk of Vista crashes...

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Fw: Windows 7 Likely Going Modular, Subscription-based

URL:
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/257704067/article.pl
Microsoft CRM writes "When Windows 7 launches sometime after the start
of 2010, the desktop OS will be Microsoft's most 'modular' operating
system to date. That's not necessarily a good thing, of course; Windows
Vista is a sprawling, complex OS. From Microsoft's perspective, though,
there are many possible benefits. The OS's developers can add/remove
functionality module by module. New modules could be sold post-launch,
keeping revenue streams strong. A modular approach could also allow the
company to make functionality available on a time-limited basis,
potentially allowing users to 'rent' a feature if it's needed on a
one-off basis. Microsoft is already testing 'pay as you go' consumer
subscriptions in developing countries."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fw: Pacote de atualização do Windows Vista vira papel higiênico no Japão

URL:
http://redir.folha.com.br/redir/online/folha/informatica/rss091/*http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/informatica/ult124u384965.shtml
O pacote de atualização do Windows Vista, Service Pack 1, ganhou
funções no Japão que vão além da simples otimização do sistema
operacional da Microsoft. Reprodução Loja no Japão vende papel
higiênico inspirado no pacote de atualizações do Vista

Uma empresa do país usou a marca para criar o Windows Vista Ultimate
SP1 Toilet Edition, um papel higiênico com nome e rótulo semelhantes ao
do produto da Microsoft. Leia mais (24/03/2008 - 08h22)

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Fw: University of Penn. Recommends Against Vista SP1

URL:
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/256641945/article.pl At
least one university liberal enough to accept the deeply flawed and
mostly rejected Vista OS is recommending faculty and students stay away
from SP1. "University of Pennsylvania tech staffers are advising
faculty and students not to upgrade their computers to the new service
pack for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system. The school's
Information Systems & Computing department said it will support Vista
SP1 on new systems where it's pre-installed, but added that it
'strongly recommends that all other users adopt a "wait and see"
attitude,' according to a newly published department bulletin." And CIO
magazine doesn't quite go so far as to call on Microsoft to throw away
Vista, but it does ask its readers to weigh in on that topic.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fw: Vista SP1 Problems "Bug" Some Users

URL: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=11164
User reports of Windows Vist SP1 problems are varied, growing...

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Fw: Windows Vista SP1 Meeting Sour Reception In Places

URL:
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/254537117/article.pl
Stony Stevenson writes "A day after it was released for public
download, Windows Vista SP1 is drawing barbs from some computer users
who say the software wrecked their systems. 'I downloaded it via
Windows Update, and got a bluescreen on the third part of the update,'
wrote 'Iggy33' in a comment posted Wednesday on Microsoft's Vista team
blog. Iggy33 was just one of dozens of posters complaining about Vista
Service Pack 1's effect on their PCs. Other troubles reported by Vista
SP1 users ranged from a simple inability to download the software from
Microsoft's Windows Update site to sudden spikes in memory usage. To
top it all off, the service pack will not install on computers that use
peripheral device drivers that Microsoft has deemed incompatible."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fw: Microsoft deve adquirir Yahoo! sem elevar preço, dizem especialistas

URL:
http://redir.folha.com.br/redir/online/folha/informatica/rss091/*http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/informatica/ult124u382768.shtml
A compra do Yahoo! pela Microsoft deve acontecer, apontam
especialistas. O impasse entre as companhias de tecnologia já se
estende há seis semanas, desde que a maior fabricante de softwares do
mundo anunciou sua proposta hostil. O Yahoo! rejeitou a fusão, que em
valores atuais o avaliaria em US$ 41,4 bilhões. A companhia alegou que
a oferta estava "excessivamente desvalorizada". Kimberly White/Reuters
Para analistas, dificilmente Yahoo! terá condições de recusar a
proposta da Microsoft; acordo com o Google não está descartado

Leia mais (17/03/2008 - 16h25)

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Fw: Vista SP1 Consumer Rollout Coming Tomorrow

URL: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=11116
Customers will be able to download SP1 tomorrow; retail versions will
be in stores on Wednesday....

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Fw: All Signs Point to Windows 7 in 2010

URL: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=11074
Microsoft looks to learn from the successes and failures of Vista to
deliver its strongest OS yet...

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Fw: A Second Shot: Windows Vista SP1

URL: http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=3233
After much fanfare, SP1 has hit gold. Can SP1 fix all that ails Vista?
We take a look and find out.

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Microsoft admits big delay on Home Server bug fix | The Register

Microsoft admits big delay on Home Server bug fix

By Kelly Fiveash → More by this author

Microsoft has admitted that it will not deliver a fix to a Windows Home
Server data corruption bug it first discovered late last year until
June at the earliest.

The firm confessed to the massive delay on a Technet blog post
yesterday.

It claimed that only a "small percentage" of people have been affected
by the bug. Apparently it corrupts data on a number of well-known
Microsoft and third-party applications when the programs are used to
edit or transfer files in the firm's latest server operating system for
the low-end, home user market.

The software giant first became aware of the problem, affecting servers
that have more than one hard drive running Windows Home Server in
December last year.

Apps on the tech multinational's data corruption list include Windows
Vista Photo Gallery, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Microsoft Office
Outlook 2007, Microsoft Money 2007, Intuit QuickBooks and BitTorrent
client uTorrent.

"Fixing this issue is the Windows Home Server team's top priority and
the team is making good progress on the fix," claimed Microsoft
tech-bods. "We understand the issue really well at this point – it is
at an extremely low level of the operating system and it requires
thorough testing to ensure that the fix addresses the issue.

"Our current plan is to release beta test versions of a fix over the
next few months, with a final version currently estimated for June
2008, although that date could change as testing progresses. Thorough
testing of the fix is critical and will take time."

However, "truly frustrated" Microsoft evangelist Volker Will, who lost
180Gb of data after his system was downed by the bug, complained about
the problem on his blog back in January.

"I might wait until version 2.0, if I ever decide to install it again,"
he wrote. "The current piece will be permanently banned from our home
by the weekend. Sorry folks, I think it is a GREAT idea, this
implementation is just not ready for prime time."

In fact, the poor guy even fell out with his missus over the data
corruption debacle.

"BTW, thanks to Home Server my wife stopped talking to me as she is now
really mad at me. Not only are some of our pictures gone, I spent
countless hours in my room figuring out what the hell is wrong instead
of with the family," he added. ® --
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/11/microsoft_windows_home_server_bug/

--
Linux 2.6.24: Arr Matey! A Hairy Bilge Rat!
http://u-br.net http://www.abusar.org/FELIZ_2008.html

Fw: Windows 7 Eyed For Antitrust Violations

URL:
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/249021348/article.pl
Preedit writes "The committee that oversees Microsoft's compliance with
the 2002 antitrust settlement now has its hands on Windows 7. The
Technical Committee is checking to see if the software meets the
settlement's terms. Among other things, it's looking at whether Windows
7 favors Microsoft apps over third party programs, according to
InformationWeek. The story also notes that Vista SP1 includes a number
of changes that were added to satisfy the committee. For instance, it
eliminates several browser overrides where Vista ignored users' default
preferences and automatically launched Explorer. Windows 7 is due
sometime around 2010."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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OpenXML: Filosofando sobre o Fast Track e o BRM...

OpenXML: Filosofando sobre o Fast Track e o BRM...

Venho estudando e acompanhando de perto o ODF desde 2003. E como
representante da IBM nos órgãos de padrões, como a ABNT, faço parte da
Comissão de Estudos que vem avaliando a proposta do OpenXML em se
tornar um padrão ISO.

Na minha opinião, um fato extremamente preocupante tem sido o processo
"acelerado", chamado de Fast Track no qual a imensa e complexa
especificação do OpenXML vem sendo debatido. Na semana passada
aconteceu uma reunião de cinco dias, o BRM, onde os mais de 1100
comentários, apresentados pelas diversas entidades de padronização
mundiais, (compactados dos 3522 originais) deveriam ser analisados. O
resultado não poderia ser diferente: mais de 80% dos comentários não
foram sequer avaliados. Como a proposta do BRM seria de avaliar a
especificação, debatendo os comentários e as sugestões de correção e
melhorias apresentadas pelo Ecma, é lógico e racional afirmar que o
resultado não foi positivo. Nenhuma reunião onde não se avalia 80% dos
itens propostos dificilmente poderia ser chamada de "um
sucesso"...Imaginem um hipotético projeto de software onde 80% dos
itens que deveriam ser analisados pelos usuários não o são....Quais
usuários aprovariam tal projeto? Portanto, o processo "acelerado" tem
se mostrado totalmente inadequado para avaliar uma proposta deste nível
de complexidade. E a pergunta que faço é: porque optou-se por um
processo tão acelerado? Porque não se adotou o processo normal, que
permitiria uma melhor análise e correção dos problemas?

Outro fato preocupante...Estamos caminhando cada vez mais rápido para
um mundo plano, onde o intercâmbio de informações eletrônicas é cada
vez maior. A Internet está se tornando o meio padrão de comunicação do
planeta. E isto só está sendo possível porque existe um padrão aberto e
reconhecido por todos, sejam estes usuários dos EUA, Brasil, China ou
Uganda, que é o TCP/IP.

Para mim, interoperabilidade passa a ser a palavra chave em um mundo
cada vez mais interconectado. Interoperabilidade é a base para o
compartilhamento de informações e conhecimento. Quando esta
interoperabilidade é prejudicada e até impedida pela incompatibilidade
entre os formatos dos arquivos, temos um grande problema. Diante da
crescente digitalização de informações, precisamos agora de um padrão
TCP/IP para documentos.

E já existe tal padrão, que é o ODF, que desde maio de 2006 é um padrão
ISO. Uma proposta de um segundo padrão não contribui em nada para
aumentar a interoperabilidade, tão necessária a este mundo plano. Basta
ver os problemas que teríamos se tivessemos dois TCP/IP...

Vamos imaginar um cenário hipotético: alguns países adotam o ODF como
seu padrão de formato de documentos e não aprovam o OpenXML por não ser
um padrão ISO. Outros adotam o OpenXML e em princípio não usariam o
ODF. Temos então um problema: ao enviar documentos de um país para
outro (entre empresas destes países), teríamos problemas de conversão
de formatos. A interoperabilidade plena estaria prejudicada. Negócios
internacionais seriam prejudicados...

Ora, se avaliarmos o OpenXML vemos que pelo menos uns 90% a 95% de sua
funcionalidade está incorporada no padrão ODF e os 5 a 10 % ausentes
relacionam-se com características específicas de um único software, o
Office da Microsoft. Imagino que todo o esforço, tempo e dinheiro
investido por dezenas de países em analisar o OpenXML fossem
canalizados para refinar o ODF, inserindo novas funcionalidades e
harmonizando-o com o OpenXML, seria muito mais útil e produtivo para a
sociedade.

Fonte: blog Cezar Taurion - IBM --
http://www.softwarelivre.org/news/10904

--
Linux 2.6.24: Arr Matey! A Hairy Bilge Rat!
http://u-br.net http://www.abusar.org/FELIZ_2008.html
Cage The Elephant - "In One Ear" (cage the elephant)

Fw: Lock Your Workstations, Or Not: New Tool Bypasses Windows Logon

URL: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=10972
New Zealand hacker releases source code to utility that reads password
directly from memory...

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Fw: Com manobra no conselho, Yahoo! ganha tempo contra a Microsoft

URL:
http://redir.folha.com.br/redir/online/folha/informatica/rss091/*http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/informatica/ult124u378937.shtml
O Yahoo! prorrogou o prazo de nomeação de diretores para seu conselho,
o que lhe oferece tempo para procurar alternativas à oferta de compra
hostil pela Microsoft de US$ 44,6 bilhões. O prazo original, 14 de
março, poderia ter colocado a Microsoft e o Yahoo! em uma disputa de
acionistas. O Yahoo! tem explorado possíveis uniões com diversas outras
empresas de mídia e internet, o que lhe permitiria deter mais
independência. As negociações quanto a um possível acordo com a divisão
America Online da Time Warner também se intensificaram. Leia mais
(05/03/2008 - 16h14)

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Fw: Aging Security Vulnerability Still Allows PC Takeover

URL:
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/245496125/article.pl
Jackson writes "Adam Boileau, a security consultant based in New
Zealand has released a tool that can unlock Windows computers in
seconds without the need for a password. By connecting a Linux machine
to a Firewire port on the target machine, the tool can then modify
Windows' password protection code and render it ineffective. Boileau
said he did not release the tool publicly in 2006 because 'Microsoft
was a little cagey about exactly whether Firewire memory access was a
real security issue or not and we didn't want to cause any real
trouble'. But now that a couple of years have passed and the issue has
not resolved, Boileau decided to release the tool on his website."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fw: Dell Documents Reveal Microsoft's Pre-launch Vista Errors

URL:
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/245100810/article.pl
twitter writes "The New York Times has a piercing analysis of documents
from the Vista capable lawsuit. The documents show that Microsoft seems
to have put a wrench in Vista's driver situation only at the last
minute. 'Late OS code changes broke drivers and applications, forcing
key commodities to miss launch or limp out with issues,' said one slide
in a Dell presentation dated March 25, 2007, about two months after
Vista's launch at retail and availability on new PCs.' We have all
heard the lazy vendors don't believe Vista will launch excuses but few
of us have heard Steven Sinofsky, chief of Windows development, second
and third opinions. 'Massive changes in the underpinnings for video and
audio really led to a poor experience at RTM,' he said. 'This change
led to incompatibilities. For example, you don't get Aero with an XP
driver, but your card might not (ever) have a Vista driver.' Finally,
said Sinofsky, other changes in Vista blocked Windows XP drivers
altogether. 'This is across the board for printers, scanners, WAN,
accessories and so on. Many of the associated applets don't run within
the constraints of the security model or the new video/audio driver
models.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fw: Pirates Find Proper Way to Crack Vista's Activation Schema

URL:
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/244847891/article.pl
El_Oscuro writes "A genuine crack for Windows Vista has been released
by pirate group Pantheon. The exploit allows a pirated, non-activated
installation of Vista (Home Basic/Premium and Ultimate) to be properly
activated and made fully-operational. 'It seems that Microsoft has
allowed large OEMs like ASUS to ship their products with a
pre-installed version of Vista that doesn't require product activation
— apparently because end users would find it too inconvenient.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fw: 185 Pages of Microsoft's Dirty Laundry

URL:
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/243885534/article.pl
KrispyRasher writes "Even internally, Microsoft couldn't agree on what
the base requirements to run Vista were, but that didn't stop it from
inaccurately promoting the OS as running on some hardware. 158 pages of
Microsoft internal emails reveal scandalous truths about the squabbles
that took place in the lead up to Vista's launch."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fw: Especialistas vêem abertura de códigos da Microsoft com desconfiança

URL:
http://redir.folha.com.br/redir/online/folha/informatica/rss091/*http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/informatica/ult124u377593.shtml
A decisão da Microsoft de publicar parte dos detalhes de seus programas
com o objetivo de facilitar a criação de programas para o Windows é
vista com desconfiança por especialistas consultados pela Folha. Jorge
Stolfi, diretor do Instituto de Computação da Unicamp, acredita que "o
anúncio da abertura das APIs [a grosso modo, um conjunto de instruções
que orientam a utilização de funcionalidade de um software] tem o
objetivo de influenciar a votação iminente na ISO [Organização
Internacional de Padronização]". Ele se refere a uma disputa entre dois
formatos para definir qual será o padrão internacional de documentos de
computador. Um deles é o ODF (OpenDocument Format), que foi criado em
2005 por consenso de várias empresas e é livre, ou seja, não é
propriedade de nenhuma delas. O outro é o OOXML, criado pela Microsoft,
que estaria tentando pressionar os integrantes da ISO a votar a favor
de seu formato. Leia mais (01/03/2008 - 12h09)

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