Displaying items by tag: Microsoft

Sometimes old news is funny news and this one falls into that category. On Friday the 30th of September a new malware definition database for Microsoft’s Security Essentials (that comes with almost every current version of Windows) began mistakenly (?) identifying Google’s Chrome Web Browser as a form of Malware known as Win32/Zbot.  As a result it either blocked or removed Chrome from the “infected” system.

Now Win32/Zbot is a nasty little piece of malware that is known to steal passwords and other personal information. According to information about Zbot in the internet it is capable of grabbing FTP passwords, E-Mail passwords, lowering security on IE, FireFox and other browsers other malicious activities. Microsoft quickly released an updated signature database that corrects the false positive, but it is also worth mentioning that Google released an updated version of Chrome as well.

My question is this, if Chrome was not exhibiting any “unwanted” behaviors then why change it? After all Microsoft released an updated engine to prevent it from being removed unintentionally. Perhaps it has something to do with the way that Chrome scavenges user data and stores browsing history (even if the user tells it not to). Since its release there have been concerns over the way Chrome caches browsing history, passwords and other sensitive user information. In fact in the early releases we tracked the software writing to the System Volume Information folder and then sending this data back to Google serves. We have heard that this behavior is no longer happening but have not tested the latest versions.

Unless I have completely missed the mark I have a feeling that there is a little bit of truth to the accidental identification of Chrome as a Malware and that Google had to respond to prevent other Malware prevention software from finding the same thing. Meanwhile many IT departments still prohibit the use of Chrome for security reasons… you be the judge on this one.

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Now that Windows 8 has hit the “general public” in the form of a developer’s preview we are starting to see the internet community chime in about whether they like it or not. I have been reading quite a bit of this (as you can imagine) and have been struck once again by how people complain about, yet resist and fear any type of change.

I have been working in the IT industry since the birth of Windows 3.0 one of my first large scale projects was implementing Windows 3.11 for workgroups into Fort Riley during my time with the US Army. I can remember the grumbling prior to this “new” software coming in about how the current system was terrible because it could not do this or that. When we brought Microsoft in (we even brought the early components of Office in) the same people that complained about the current UNIX based system were suddenly its biggest fan. I can remember one clerk who complained loudly and often about the system suddenly thought it was the best one we had. She did not like the new Windowed interface and Word was just horrible compared to her usual word processing application (which was called Wordstar).

Now take a big jump forward in time; Windows 8 is a rebuilt OS with a new (although somewhat cheesy) UI. Microsoft has really put in some effort to move with the market and change the OS to meet the needs of the new tablet based consumer. If you think about it more and more people are moving in the direction of the tablet/smart phone for their day to day needs. I am not saying it is there for productivity but for the general computing people do the tablet is the ideal platform. Microsoft HAD to change and reinvent its OS or it would be lost in the stampede of more and more powerful general usage tablets.

I personally own both an Android and Windows based tablet. One is the Asus EEE Slate EP121 the other is the Asus Transformer. When I want to tinker around or just surf the net I grab the light and small Tegra 2 armed (no pun intended) Transformer. When I want to do some work I grab the EP121 with its Core i5 470 UM and 4GB of RAM.   The problem with Android (and even the iPad to a certain extent) is that there are no real productivity applications that truly work. Polaris Office, Documents to Go, and all of the others that I have tried all fall very short of the mark of MS Office or even Open Office. Apple knew this with the iPad so they came up with light versions of their productivity applications for iPad users. Android has nothing like this so it is hard for me to get real work done. Instead I surf the net looking for news and then add it to my Evernote account and pull out the EEE Slate or power up the desktop to get the real work done.

This brings us to Windows 8; Microsoft is taking a leaf out of Apple’s book here with their development of a light version of Windows 8 for ARM. It will give people a consistent feel to their computing experience. It the OS you run on your tablet looks and feels the same as the one you run on your desktop that is an improved user experience. Now you can also bet there is a version of Office in the works for ARM to keep that the same. It will be like the interaction between the iPad and Apple’s OSX clean and consistent.  Microsoft is doing something very smart with this move and from what we are hearing many of the tablet makers are behind this movement. We know that nVidia certainly is.

Between now and the time that Windows 8 Launches (around November 2012) you will hear people taking sides ARM, x86, Windows 8, Windows 7 (much like those that did not want to leave XP), Tablet, Desktop, Laptop; the choices will be just as confused as some of the reasons to be on one side or the other. Just keep in mind that with one move Microsoft has made it possible to cover all of these. Windows 8 will work for ARM and x86. Windows 8 can run with the Metro UI for Tablets and can also run in Desktop Mode for more traditional PC’s and Laptops (giving you a Windows 7 feel).  No matter the camp you are in it looks like Windows 8 could have something for you.


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Now that the Developer Preview of Windows 8 is out on the streets everyone is working like mad to come up with a review of the new OS from Microsoft. Most of these reviews have been run inside virtualization programs like VMware’s Player, or Virtual Box, or… well you know the thing. However, the thing that I (and many others) would like to know about Windows 8 is; how does this work on its intended platform? We know from past conversations and statements with and from Microsoft that Windows8 was built to run on the increasingly popular tablet PC (and also ARM based tablets).  Of course there are no certified Windows 8 tablets yet and our concern over trying Windows 8 out on a real tablet is having to completely reinstall our favorite Asus EP121 all over again if things go south. Thankfully Microsoft is already on the job.

They have quite a few existing Windows 7 tablets in the lab right now and are testing the Windows 8 touch interface to make sure that It is running properly and also that it is not a pain to use. This was something that was left out of previous editions of Windows (going all the way back to Windows XP Tablet Edition). The touch interface was an after-thought and not something that was built into the OS from the ground up. This time Microsoft knew what the market layout would be and has developed Windows 8 more for the touch screen than the keyboard and mouse.  They have a list of tablets that is quite impressive that they are currently testing all of which are currently on the market. We have reproduced the list from their Developing Windows 8 Blog below.

We are very tempted to back a backup image of our EEE Pad EP121 and load up the new preview just to see how it works. We will let you know if we get that brave. For now we will stay in the safety of VMware and will let you know our thoughts on this early preview soon.

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Yesterday all of the news was about Microsoft’s Build Developer conference out in California (Anaheim to be exact). Now this conference is (as you could guess) all about developing applications and software for Windows operating systems and also about Windows in general. So it should come as no surprise that one of the highlights was the talk about Windows 8. Attendees at the conference were treated to a preview of Microsoft’s next OS even though the Developer’s blog on Windows 8 has been very handy in keeping the press and the rest of the world up to speed on things. We have reported on one or two new features highlighted on that site and are looking forward to hearing about more of them in the near future.

However, all that aside, back to the Build conference. The attendees were not only treated to a more in-depth preview of Windows 8 they also heard from some of the manufacturers that are going to support Win8. One of these was nVidia as they talked up their new developer program for Windows 8 on x86 and Tegra. nVidia has been talking about Windows 8 for some time (as have we) and they are looking forward to it launch so that they can begin rolling out the Windows 8 based tablets for their Tegra SoCs.

Windows 8, unlike previous versions of Windows, will be something of a game changer. Microsoft has worked pretty hard to make this OS more hardware friendly including showing that you can run this on an older Atom CPU with as little as 1GB of RAM. Other nice options (very tablet friendly options) are things like full NFC (Near Field Communication) support. This allows you to interact with items like Bluetooth headsets with a single tap, tap-to-share file access, and other items once reserved for smartphones.  We have to wonder if Google and Apple are getting a little concerned about the Windows 8 right about now.

For those of you looking to try things out, there is a developer preview available for download.

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It is a sad day when our lawmakers call a bill designed to trample innovation “reform”, but this is what has happened with the latest version of the “America Invents” act. The new bill has just passed the Senate and is expected to be signed into Law by President Obama in the near future. Now you might be wondering what I am talking about with this new bill. The new bill sponsored by Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy has been lobbied for by the big corporations like Microsoft, Apple and others that tend to use concept patents as weapons to stifle competition instead of real and working inventions. These same companies also tend to “borrow” ideas, names and concepts from different places (like Apples use of the name iPhone which was owned by Cisco at the time).  

What Apple and others have asked for (and gotten) is a change from first-to-invent to first-to-file. Basically what is happening here is that you do not actually have to produce anything anymore. All you have to have is a mountain of lawyers that can force any “concept” you want through the patent office.  On top of all of that they have gotten a flat fee for Patents (although the fee is not actually known yet) which (so far) the Patent Office will get most of. However, that could change as Congress has a way of dipping into this money (having diverted about $900 Million in the last couple of years).  They did tack on a review process for people to dispute patent that have been granted, but the time window for this is only 90 days from the date it is granted. Really the window should be more like one year, but that will never happen.  There were some attempts to make this a real reform bill; some were asking for an outright ban on any diversion of funds, but the Bill’s sponsor said that anything like that would make the bill unlikely to pass (which shows you where some minds in Congress are). Some members of Congress are crowing as if they have just made sweeping reform when all they have done is encourage patent trolling.  

Source PCWold

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Microsoft just announced that they are including Hyper-V with the next versio n of Windows. This now makes the third (in our opinion) most interesting new feature to be included with Windows 8. We have briefly talked about the other two (USB optimizations and the new File Management system). This new feature, however, is something that could have a big impact... on VMware. You see right nowVMware is one of the leading companies in virtualiation and their products are in use by a large number of people (incuding us). Of course Microsoft tried to include a type of Hyper-V in Winows 7 (XP-Mode) but that did not go over so well. This time things are a little different.

The Hyper-V that will be included with Widows 8 includes a llittle more than the XP Mode that is on the current flavor of Windows. For starters you wll not be able to run this unless you have a 64-bit CPU and at least 4GB of RAM. On top of all that you will need to have a CPU that supports Second Level Address Translation. Now this is not a networking term but relates to memory addressing and is a feature that has only popped up in the last few generations of CPUs from Intel and AMD. I wonder, if there is any chance that Microsoft will enable this feature for the ARM archiceture and allow a sort of "dual boot" mode with the guest OS taking the lead in system resources and the Host becoming a background task just to keep the Guest operational. In all honesty I am just waiting to see what tablet manufacturers are going to offer Windows 8 drivers for existing ARM tablets. I will be very interesting to see things a they unfold leading up to November of 2012.

Source Windows 8 Blog

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Microsoft is looking to pull off a reverse of the way Vista was killed. For those of you that remember Vista (and that should be most of you) you will know that Vista was pretty much dead before it hit the market due to several very negative statements that ended up running around the internet like crazy. It created a phenomenon that we call the repeated truth.  What happened was that these statements were linked and sourced by so many blogs that even though some of the original writers had never even seen the OS it became “fact” that it was flawed. I am not saying that Vista did not have more than its fair share of problems but it was not all bad.

To combat this Microsoft has put a much more visible blog online called “Building Windows 8”. This blog has articles about some of the key features and improvements coming in Windows 8. We have already told you about the improved USB 3.0 stack and the accompanying power management layer. Now we are going to talk about improvements to file management system.

According to Microsoft moving, copying, renaming and deleting data accounts for 50% of the commands used by consumers. This data is really not a shock as it only makes sense when you think about the number of songs downloaded, digital images moved and e-mailed, pictures grabbed from sites like Grumpy Rabbit and others. Because they finally noticed this (and because the smaller and move portable tablets and ultra-thins will have limited space) the Windows 8 Engineers decided to revamp the way that files are manipulated. What they did was make your file management look more like the download manager in IE or FireFox with a few nice extras thrown in.

The basic view still looks like the typical copy or move window with the exception of the fact that as you add more files to the queue you do not get another window. Instead the new file shows up in the same window making it easier to monitor. The “More details” option has also gotten a face lift. Now when you click on this you get a real-time throughput graph of each pending job which is pretty cool.The last thing the Windows 8 team did was to revamp the copy and replace window. Instead of the boring single thumbnail you now get a complete listing of conflicts and the option to choose what you want to do with each.

This may seem like a little thing on the surface, but in terms of usability and user experience it is huge. I hope that the improvements keep coming and all are like this one.

Source Building Windows 8

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Apparently it has been something of a tradition for the Internet Explorer Team over at Microsoft to send a congratulatory pastry to FireFox with each new version they ship. However, now that Mozilla is pushing out a “new” release every six weeks the IE gang has shortened up on the size of the pastry. For their latest release MS sent over a small Cup Cake only. The running joke is that because of the smaller update the congratulatory gift is also smaller.

Mozilla’s new rapid release program is supposed to allow patches and fixes to get to market quicker without the normal delay of a major feature update. This decision by Mozilla has cause mixed feelings in the IT community and also the consumer market. Many feel that the short span is annoying and can be inconvenient. IE on the other hand is sticking with the larger full featured releases which, while some times better developed can also throw wrenches into web page performance and compatibility.

Honestly there really is no better way to do this, but I do wish that both companies would address some of the security and performance issues that are plaguing both browsers. FireFox needs to fix the Flash bug that it has while MS really needs to work on securing the way that Plug-in interact with it (especially allowing elevated privileges).

Still it is sort of funny to find out that the IE team sends over a (cup)cake every time a new version of FireFox ships.

Source CNET

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We have heard all kinds of rumors and rumblings about Windows 8. So far we have heard all about how it is much more tablet friendly, designed to work with ARM CPUs and that it will be the best user experience that MS has done yet. We have had a look at a few of the demos (not any of the Betas yet though) and can say that it looks interesting, but I am not sure how it will work as an OS. As Windows Vista showed, just having a nice looking UI means nothing if you cannot back it up with performance.

Fortunately it seems that Microsoft is looking into that. They are talking about making their USB 3.0 stacks more efficient while changing the power profiles to help make battery life a little longer. Microsoft is citing an increase in USB 3.0 devices on the market and user demand for these peripherals as the reason they are working on this. If their claims are true then you might actually see something close to the speeds we were promised from USB 3.0. Personally, I would like them to fix the networking and disk drive stacks first before they worry about peripherals, but that is just me. Still Microsoft is trying I guess, and to make sure their customers know the hard work they have put in they have developed a USB Test Tool called MUTT (Microsoft USB Test Tool). This is designed to show you that USB 3.0 is working. So if you get different results, hey the tool works properly so it must be you right… Be sure to check out the video at the source link.

Source MSDN

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Apple has been having a blast dropping patents for vague concepts and even an entire device type (with their pending Pico Projector patent) regardless of prior art and at times regardless of if the patent is actual technology or not (the look and feel of something). Then they take these patents and wave them in the face of judges that have no real idea of what the patent is (or is not) covering asking for injunctions and outright bans on products from companies that are relatively underfunded in the legal department. If you ask Apple about this they will stand and say that they are protecting their Intellectual Property (which in many cases was “borrowed” from another company that cannot afford a legal fight with Apple like S3). This abuse of the patent and copyright system is detestable, but is an article for another day.

The question I am wondering is, why has Apple not gone after Microsoft? Windows 7 on a tablet has Pinch to Zoom, finger gestures and even the same “look and feel” when you scroll with your finger. Now, I could be wrong, but if Apple is trying to protect their IP you would think they would be going after Microsoft in a big way. I am also pretty sure they would be adding Asus (who has one of the best-selling Windows Based Tablets on the market right now) to their legal wish list as well. So, why do they leave these two obvious copy cats out of the litigation arena?

Well, here are a few reasons that we were able to come up with based on research. Microsoft is safe simply because they have bailed out Apple multiple times in the past and also have several patents and items that Apple needs to survive (Office for Mac is still a huge seller). Whether the Apple faithful and Steve Jobs want to admit it or not Apple owes it very existence to their rival; without Bill Gates and Microsoft we would be talking about Apple in the past tense. Right now Adobe is wishing they had dropped money into that bailout instead of just spending time and money making their products work on Apple’s RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) based systems (the PowerPC days). If they had, they perhaps they would have some leverage in the whole HTML5 Vs. Flash competition. This also applies to Microsoft’s net generation operating system Windows 8. In fact is applies even more as Microsoft is writing it to work on ARM based CPUs. The previews that we have seen also make it very tablet friendly and an obvious threat to Apple’s weakening hold on the tablet market. Yet, we have heard no call to arms from the Apple legal team over this.  

So, what about Asus and their tablets? Asus is also untouchable right now because they also have something that Apple wants; A manufacturing facility. Apple has been looking for alternatives to Foxconn due to the bad press surrounding the company’s many suicides. The world now knows that the iPhone, iPod and many other Apple products are assembled there and with the many deaths over working conditions at these plants the eyes are turning to look at Apple. The question has already been raised by many humanitarian groups “why has Apple done nothing about this?” You would think that a company that claims to be so “Green” and Earth Friendly would be appalled by what is happening over there. However, other than a few press releases (which usually tame the faithful) Apple has done nothing. At least on the surface, we have heard rumors that Apple is courting Pegatron as an alternative manufacturing site for the next generation of iToys. If this is true (and as of now we have no evidence to the contrary) then Apple would not want to get Asus upset. After all Asus owns Pegatron. It is their manufacturing company.

So then next time you hear an Apple press representative standing on the soapbox and loudly declaiming how they are protecting their Intellectual Property from the masses of thieves and copy-cats out there, just remember that they are only throwing this around at the companies they feel they can bully into submission. In the end no one likes a bully, and bullies usually reap what they sow in the long run.