CRN reports (via anonymous sources) that Windows Vista and Office 2007 will have a tandem launch during the last week of November in New York City.
I’m thinking maybe a parade, some balloons, a little television coverage?
Author: Ed Bott
Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006.
Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/
Yahoo jumps the gun with IE7 download
Adrian passes along this link to Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP optimized for Yahoo!
Optimized might be too strong a word. This version is tweaked a bit with the Internet Explorer Administration Kit to have a pair of custom home pages and different default settings for search engines (Guess ya-who is the default?) But I suspect if you go in and change those settings you’ll end up with a de-Yahooed version that will be indistinguishable from the official Microsoft release. So if you absolutely can’t wait, go get it.
And I hear that the real deal is coming out later today. I’ll have more thoughts tonight.
A fix for Windows Live Messenger sign-in issues
About a month ago, Brandon LeBlanc wrote about his problems signing in to the Windows Live Messenger network. Last week, it began happening to me. I was able to install the Messenger client software on another computer and sign in, but on my main system, even uninstalling and reinstalling wouldn’t fix the problem. And Brandon says he’s still getting “tons of comments” left on the original post.
Yesterday, I sent a note to support and got the suggested fix within a few hours. Open Regedit and delete the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSNMessenger\Policies
After doing that, I was able to sign in again. If you’re having this problem, maybe the same fix will work for you.
Update 8-Feb-2007: OK, I’ve now closed the comments on this post. If you’re still having problems after following the advice in this thread and in the comments (in particular, see comment #79), this is not the place to complain about it. Call or e-mail Microsoft support. That is, after all, how I got the information originally posted here.
Technorati tags: Windows Live Messenger
No class in Cupertino
So, Apple ships a bunch of iPods with a virus. And who do they blame?
We recently discovered that a small number – less than 1% – of the Video iPods available for purchase after September 12, 2006, left our contract manufacturer carrying the Windows RavMonE.exe virus. This known virus affects only Windows computers, and up to date anti-virus software which is included with most Windows computers should detect and remove it. So far we have seen less than 25 reports concerning this problem. The iPod nano, iPod shuffle and Mac OS X are not affected, and all Video iPods now shipping are virus free. As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it. [emphasis added]
Hey, Apple, you shipped it. Show some class.
I’m back, sort of
OK, filial duties are all taken care of, so I’m back, with a brutal pile of work to get cracking on.
Oh, and sometime this week we’ll have a new arrival here:
He’s a rescued English Springer Spaniel, 13 weeks old. Currently, his name is Webster, but we’ll probably rename him Macchiato (Mac for short – who says I don’t have a sense of irony?).
… More details about English Springer Rescue America.
Away for a few days
Mom’s in town for a visit, so I’ll be playing tour guide and dutiful son for the next few days.
Talk amongst yourselves.
The rebate scam
My ZDNet colleague Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has a fascinating post on how rebates work:
A rebate puts a number of obstacles between the customer and their rebate. The idea is that the customer stumbles at some stage (maybe they forget about the rebate, or they make a mistake when filling out the form, or maybe they lose the sales receipt) and the store of vendor wins. When a customer fails to claim their rebate, this is known in the trade as a breakage. When a breakage occurs, the customer loses out and the store or vendor wins (because they get to keep the money!).
What I find most interesting is that some of the tricks the big companies use are documented in a U.S. Patent Office application that Adrian quotes liberally.
I make no secrets of my feelings about rebates, but it is possible to increase your odds of collecting what’s due you.
The return of the random 10
Good heavens – have I really not done this in eight months?
While I’m working on the digital media section of Windows Vista Inside Out, I get to poke around in my music library. I clicked a few buttons today and wound up with this eclectic list for reasons that are unfathomable to me. But it sounds pretty good:
- Yakety Axe, Chet Atkins, Neck and Neck
- Beautiful and Strange, Shannon McNally, Geronimo
- Popstar, The Pretenders, Viva El Amor
- The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss), Cher, The Very Best of Cher
- Twilight, Garth Hudson, The Best of Mountain Stage Live, Vol. 1
- Loose Fit, Happy Mondays, Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches
- Tombstone Blues, Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited
- Two for the Road, Bruce Springsteen, Tracks Disk 3
- I Believe in You, Luther Allison, Blue Streak
- Sunday Morning/Sunday Evening, Joe Zawinul, World Tour
And a bonus track:
Get Down Moses, Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros, Streetcore
The Office 2007 UI Bible
Patrick Schmid has done a public service for anyone just getting started with Office 2007. He began at Jensen Harris’s superb Office User Interface Blog
The title is not very exciting, and could easily be mistaken to be a blog by an Office user. I personally like to think of it as the “Office UI Bible” or the “Ribbon UI Bible”. Jensen’s blog is the definite resource and word on the new Ribbon UI. Jensen is the program manager in charge of the Office UI team.
Patrick correctly calls it “a must-read for everyone interested in UI design, a should-read for everyone developing add-ins for Office and a recommended-read for everyone.”
The only problem is that Harris has written so much that the content can be overwhelming, and trying to follow it in chronological order isn’t really productive. So Patrick created a custom category index of the most important posts he found there.
The number of posts though has been so voluminous, for several months e.g. there was a new post daily, that it is difficult for someone just joining the Office 2007 frenzy to find the pieces he or she is interested in. With this post, I’ll attempt to provide an index to the most important posts on Jensen’s blog. Whenever I have a post that talks about a particular category, you can get to it by following the link behind the category title itself.
If anyone wants to do the same for this site, just let me know. 😉
Tip of the day: Add Google (and more) to the IE7 search box
Using IE7? Go here:
Click the Google link.
Click Add Provider. (Click the optional checkbox to set this as your default search page if that’s your pleasure.)
There, you’re done.
I’ve also added Yahoo, Wikipedia, Amazon, and CNET to my list.
Took about 15 seconds, total.
I could add a custom search link to this site, I suppose.
Ed Bott 