Articles about Microsoft

While many of our young readers may associate Saturday Night Live with people like Andy Samburg, I remember a greater cast -- John Belushi, Jane Curtin and Bill Murray to name a few. One of my favorite sketches, was called "The Thing that Wouldn't Leave". In it, Murray and Curtin play a married couple, who want nothing more than for their guest, played by Belushi, to leave. The wife screams in agony as the guest keeps finding reasons to stay.

Well, sometimes true life imitates art, as Windows XP becomes "The Thing that Wouldn't Leave" for Microsoft. While the world has been preparing for XP's 2014 death, Microsoft today throws a curve-ball and announces a reprieve (at least partially).

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If you're like most other IT pros I know, you're probably already cringing just at the title of this article. And I don't blame you one bit. How many times has Microsoft tried to usher in the post-RAID era? Every previous try has either been met with gotchas, whether it be performance roadblocks, technical drawbacks, or outright feature deprecation.

Native Windows drive mirroring (read: software RAID) has been in every Windows release since Win 2000. And for just as long, it has been plagued by sub-standard read/write performance which is why everyone who tried it always ran back to their hardware RAID.

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January's Patch Tuesday has seen only four bulletins, with no Critical ones (hooray!) and no patches for Internet Explorer. However, the four bulletins are rated Important and users should apply the related patches as soon as possible.

According to security specialist Trustwave two of the vulnerabilities result in a privilege elevation and a third involves remote code execution utilizing an Office document.

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It's been a big year for Microsoft Office, with the release of 2013, the move to subscription-based software and a boatload of wins getting the service into businesses and government agencies. Now the software giant is pushing an update to versions 2010 and 2013 that will add accessibility features.

The update springs from a collaboration with GW Micro. "At Microsoft we are committed to provide everyone access to our technology. A fundamental consideration during product design, development and testing of Office is the level of accessibility of our applications", states Microsoft's Jake Zborowski.

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Libraries have been removed from File Explorer's sidebar by default in Windows 8.1, but fortunately it's easy enough to restore them -- you just need to click the View tab, click the Navigation button and select Show Libraries. However, there is another more fundamental problem with Libraries and -- worse still -- file searches, which BetaNews reader Rob Howarth alerted me to last week.

In an email he explains, "It is now impossible to add metadata to files as a result of a search from within Windows 8.1. If, for instance, I search for files with the tag 'architecture' Windows will return all the files with that tag wherever they are stored on my machine. This is excellent. But, if I try to amend, modify, or add metadata tags via a search [by right clicking a file and going to Properties/Details] I can no longer do so. I have to find the original source file and update from that location. With over 100,000 files to manage, this is a big hassle for me".

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The Enterprise edition of Windows 8.x has a feature called Windows To Go that lets you create a working version of Microsoft's tiled operating system on a USB memory stick. You can boot into this and be instantly up and running in the new OS from any computer. Which is great -- provided you have the Enterprise edition of the OS and a "certified" USB drive. If you only have the standard version of Windows 8.x then the option isn't available to you.

But there is a very easy way you can build a personalized and bootable copy of Windows 8 or 8.1 on a USB drive, for use anywhere. All you need is a USB 3.0 device with at least 13GB capacity (it will run on a USB 2.0 memory stick, but slowly), a copy of Windows 8.x (either an installation disc or an ISO -- you can get the Windows 8.1 ISO by following these instructions but you will need a Windows 8.1 key), and a free partitioning program. Here's what you need to do.

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Jerry Lee Lewis famously sang "there's a whole lotta shakin goin on". Lately, it feels like there is a whole lot of hacking going on. While the world is still reeling from the Target hack, it seems that Microsoft and Twitter have unwillingly joined the retailer as victims.

Today, one of Microsoft's Twitter accounts, @MSFTnews was infiltrated by The Syrian Electronic Army -- a group that claims to be supporters of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. But who is at fault, Microsoft or Twitter?

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This was a week dominated by CES, and there were a huge number of announcements about upcoming hardware. Lenovo took the wraps off the (slightly) heavyweight ThinkPad Tablet 8, but any excess weight was countered by the ultra-light ThinkPad X1 Carbon ultrabook. HP's range of business desktops even included one device running Android, while Nvidia's new Tegra K1 promises much for the mobile market.

Competitor Qualcomm revealed two processors designed for entertainment while Pure's Connect platform opens up the possibility of using any streaming music service with its wireless speakers. Smart TVs are set to benefit from the addition of Roku software, but it seems that the technology du jour is 4K, with a new 4K laptop from Toshiba joining the streams of 4K TVs and monitors.

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We’re generally a Macintosh shop here in Santa Rosa. I have Windows and Linux PCs, too, but most of the heavy lifting is done on Macs. Next Wednesday I’m expecting a delivery from B&H Photo (no tax and free shipping!) of four new iMacs plus some software totaling $5,407. I fully expect these to be the last personal computers I will ever buy.

How’s that for a 2014 prediction?

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You're probably expecting me to write a scathing exposé on how I've come to dislike Google Apps. That's quite far from the truth behind why we left Google. There is a lot more to the story than meets the eye. It goes way farther than just a decision based on boxes checked off on a spec sheet. After more than one month since making the move to Office 365 full time, I can comfortably say we made the right decision as a company.

And of anyone who can make an honest dissection of Google Apps against Office 365, I'd say I'm as well suited as anyone in the IT blogosphere to be passing such critical judgement. Notwithstanding my own personal usage of Gmail since 2005 and Google Apps for my IT company since early 2010, I've likewise been both a Google Apps Certified Trainer and Google Apps Certified Deployment Specialist for years now. And I've personally been involved in Google Apps transitions for numerous small and large organizations in both the public and private sectors. So to say that I've been deeply invested in Google-ism for some time now is an understatement.

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Following my #1 prediction yesterday of dire consequences in 2014 for Microsoft some readers challenged me to say what should happen this year in Redmond to right the ship. Is it even possible?

So here’s my answer which isn’t in the form of a prediction because I doubt that it will actually happen. But if it actually does come to pass, well then I told you so.

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Yesterday, I reported that the PlayStation 4 is massively outselling the Xbox One. Inevitably, this sparked a debate in the comments. Is the PS4 really outselling the Xbox One? Yes, unquestionably -- the numbers speak for themselves. But at the same time there are lots of factors that should be taken into account which I didn’t cover in my original post.

Price (which I did mention) is a big factor in these uncertain financial times, and the PS4 is $100 cheaper than its rival. But the number of markets and supply chain issues all also have a huge part to play.

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A couple of days ago, Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President of Marketing, Strategy and Business, Xbox, announced that Microsoft had sold over three million Xbox One consoles to date, across 13 countries. "It’s been incredible to see Xbox One selling at a record-setting pace for Xbox, and we were honored to see Xbox One become the fastest-selling console in the US during our launch month in November", he said. A million consoles were purchased on 22 November -- launch day -- and the second million was racked up 18 days later.

However, while Microsoft still has plenty to celebrate, Sony’s just dropped a rather large bombshell at CES. Its rival console is not only selling slightly better -- it’s selling an awful lot better.

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The start to any new year is always slow, and 2014 is no different. As the tech world struggled to shake off its New Year hangover, it was a pretty quiet week. The pace should start to pick up again, though, as CES is just around the corner!

The New Year wasn't the only cause for celebration; it was also Linus Torvalds' 44th birthday. Tablet makers were popping the champagne corks as it was revealed that such devices were among the most popular Christmas presents. Microsoft was also celebrating Windows 8 gaining a 10 percent market share, but Windows 7 also continues to grow in popularity.

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Computers are constantly being upgraded at a furious pace. It seems like as soon as you buy one, a new model is ready to make your purchase obsolete. Quite frankly, you may almost prefer not to know about the new models and upgrades -- in other words, ignorance is bliss.

If only there was a company that would upgrade its product, but not tell anyone, then no one would get that bad feeling. Guess what? That company is Microsoft, the time is now and the product is the Surface Pro 2.

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