Software utilities

Aaagh! What is up with Microsoft? Do they perhaps need a technical equivalent of a shrink? No sooner did they withdraw their billion-dollar takeover bid for Yahoo, and now they go ahead and change their minds. On Sunday afternoon, they announced that they’re putting in a fresh bid for Yahoo, but apparently this time, it’s not for all of Yahoo’s assets, just some (whatever that means).

How is Microsoft to be taken seriously with the back-and-forths? I wouldn’t. Especially as they were the ones that pulled out of the negotiating table in the first place.

Maybe it’s best for different parts of Yahoo to be owned by more than one company, anyway. It might be healthier that way. I hear Google are working on a deal with Yahoo (for Yahoo to utilise Google search ads on their network).

In other news, did you know that a fifth of Americans, over 20 million of them, have never used email? Ever?

I find that amazing.

Maybe it’s ignorant of me as I’m so used to using the web / emailing, but I do find the findings intriguing especially coming from a developed country, an apparent super power.

My immediate hunch was that age plays a factor in this. And I was right. According to the survey, half of those surveyed were over 65 years old. Education also comes into play with 56% not having gone beyond high-school level. (It’d be interesting to find out the breakdown of the other 50%.)

There were other findings such as 30% of Americans never having created a document on a computer before.

I expect that a lot of this isn’t necessarily down to age and education. Some people who’ve never touched a computer or have never been online might simply be scared of the unknown.

The era of all for free is almost finally dead.

Dozens of programs are issued free of charge, but you must accept advertising, which rewards (and pays) the author of the Software.

MSN Messenger and the Banner
Microsoft MSN Messenger works like this, but using a particular technique you can block and completely remove Banner Ads.

You need to edit the HOSTS file of Windows.
Go to the folder:

C: \ Windows \ System32 \ Drivers \ Etc.

and edit the file.

Add the following line at the end of the file:

127.0.0.1 rad.msn.com

The address rad.msn.com corresponds to an address that sends banners to MSN Messenger. With this technique, we determine that this address must be resolved with the IP 127.0.0.1 which corresponds to the localhost IP. The result is that MSN Messenger, unaware of this, trying to connect to its servers, will look for the banner in our computer, but not finding any active service, will not receive any banner, thus leaving the ads space empty.

Ethics and problems of this solution
Although it is not an illegal move, it could be wrong. We use a useful service but at no cost; a little advertising is a way to repay the activity of those who built the software and therefore in future we can expect improved versions. Commercial television has always adopted this model.

Any problem stems instead from the fact that this address may vary over time, and then at some point the banner could reappear. Following a thorough investigation, however, it could again be traced back at once and added to file HOSTS to restore the situation.

A more effective solution might be to activate a firewall and block outbound packages that have as destination the IP addresses of advertising servers to obtain the same effect.

TV shows? Now watch them on Messenger TV. The project has just been launched through the creativity of the Italian team of Microsoft, which has united in a single instrument the two main activities of most web users: online videos and Windows Live Messenger chats. With the new TV, more than 12.5 million Italian Msn users, can experience a more “social” web tv on-demand, based exclusively on high-quality video. The range of content available includes the entire catalog of clips from MSN Video, the free video channel of the MSN portal.

For the occasion Microsoft has close some strategical partnerships.

If you ask me, the whole Microsoft bid to takeover Yahoo is getting to be a bit of a joke, don’t you think?

After 3 months of negotiations, you’d think that the finest minds in the technology world would be able to wrap up a deal – but nope, Microsoft and Yahoo are right back where they started (which was where exactly? Maybe they were never anywhere in the first place. Maybe Yahoo was never interested in giving up their goodies and were merely interested in getting some inside information on Microsoft.)

First of all, there’s the embarrassment of looking ‘stoopid’ when things don’t go according to plan – which is exactly why Microsoft should have kept its pretty lil digital mouth firmly shut and not blubbered to the whole world and their mama that they were looking to buy Yahoo out (who does their PR for god’s sake?). I call it cockiness. Serves them right.

In terms of a super-duper advertising network, Yahoo is almost Google; almost, but not quite, but will do very nicely for Microsoft, because Google sure as hell ain’t gonna give up their golden jewels to Microsoft. (Maybe Microsoft was never really looking to take over Yahoo anyway, but were just trying to puff up their chests to Google, i.e. ‘We’ve still got the technical funk, itty bitty Google. And you’d do well to remember that, or else next time we try bedding Yahoo, we’ll win. WO-HA-HAAA.’)

As much as I don’t particularly like Google (or Microsoft, for that matter), I think Google should try stirring things up a bit with their pocket change and make a Yahoo bid of their own. That should take the heat off Britney for a while!

Ah well, I guess we’ll have to watch this space and see what ole’ four-eyed Billy boy’s next move will be.

(Update: Well, it looks like Microsoft have dropped their bid altogether. Apparently, Yahoo asked for a $55bn minimum to the $47.5bn Microsoft offered (up from the $44.6bn previously offered), but neither party could agree on a final figure. Oh well, Google, here’s your chance …if ya think you’re hard enough).

Principied technologies produced a few reports on speed tests for Windows XP and Vista.

From these tests it seems that Vista SP1 and XP SP2 have comparable speed on office tasks. Difference is around half a second for most of the tests, and only 9 out of 128 tests resulted in a difference of 1 sec or more; XP led in 8 of them. Vista SP1 was more responsive than XP SP2 and Vista after rebooting. Vista and Vista SP1 had substantially the same performance. Similar results were derived for home tasks, with comparable results from all the 3 systems. Home tasks included using Adobe Acrobat, Office Professional 2003 and Word (Adding and resizing a JPEG image was one of the tests). Office tasks ranged from using Excel (document management, charts, data handling) to advanced use of Word and Powerpoint, to Acrobat document management.