Story rating...

Ooooh orgasmic:-)

Confused...

Normally a company will stick to it's knitting. There was me thinking that Microsoft did Office and Windows. Obviously Monkey Boy Ballmer knows different and that taking on the likes of Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola and all the Asian phone manufacturers in their core market isn't going to end in (his) tears.

This smacks of jerking knees more like a politician than the leadership of one of the world's great companies.

I must buy some Microsoft shares so I can sell them ASAP.

Translation:

I think it translates to: "diddley diddly diddley top of the morning bejesus"

Missing helmet

One would think that she's missing a full-face helmet, gloves and decent leathers. All for a maximum of 15MPH. Ooh.

There's a reason for putting wheels in-line. Breaking is a pretty good one. Stability's another.

What, exactly, does Office 2011 have to offer?

Like it or not Microsoft Office is a feature of the corporate world despite it being overcomplicated and containing myriad underused features and used by people who barely know how to format a document. It is vital for any Mac user who lives in the corporate world to have Office 2008 installed in order to interact with other, less fortunate, Windows users. For that specific purpose having Office for the Mac is essential -- it is simply not feasible to use Open Office or iWork to convert, modify and return a document that may well be "broken" from the perspective of the Windows users.

Office 2008 is a bit of a stalwart. Sure, it does cock things up in the formatting department -- inserting screenshots is sometimes fraught with pain. But on the whole it has been fairly reliable and does mean that one can use a Mac on a day-to-day basis in a normal corporate environment.

Personally, I believe Microsoft have a different challenge; they need to be able to add compelling new features that warrant me coughing the upgrade fee. The current Office 2008 "just works". I have no interest in that bloody ribbon or other facile user interface tweaks "just to show we've made some changes". I also don't need any macro language.

Quite honestly I'm happy with Entourage and think it's a great application. It works well and integrates with OSX finder and the iPhone really well. Granted the PST import/export facility could be useful, but I've lived without it for so long that I know it's not a problem. In any case the Microsoft official workaround of installing Exchange and using Public Folders is easy enough: just install a virtual machine with Exchange 2003 and away you go (it was a bloody stupid idea of Microsoft to not support PST in the first place, but after creating the VM once, it's easy enough to use).

Word, Excel and PowerPoint work well when modifying corporate documents, most importantly not breaking things.

Actually, by choice, I prefer Pages as the templates are far more professional looking and it's an easy application to use. Similarly, Keynote's great when placed alongside the clunky PowerPoint. In fact both Word and PowerPoint's templates look dated and utterly outclassed when compared with iWork.

In short, Microsoft have got to be adding some pretty compelling features in order to convince me to upgrade.

I'm sure airheads like Paris will upgrade as Office 2011 has shiny blingy features. Good on her. At least the Mac platform offers choice and Office isn't the complete monopoly one finds in the Windows world.

Greed. Not good.

Ever since Adobe swallowed Macromedia, they've jacked up prices, forced upgrades and done so very little for it. The only reason for upgrading was that operating systems change, e.g. Apple moving to Intel meant upgrading from Macromedia Studio 8 to CS4. Given that this was 4 complete generations, there's hardly anything aside from the re-compile to show for it. For goodness sake, it makes Microsoft's Office upgrades look like true innovation and real value for money:-(

All Adobe appear to be interested in is money. Everything in this article rings true. Adobe utterly deserve the shit-storm that Jobs -- and Microsoft for that matter -- has smitten upon them.

Adobe; you've got a golden chance to clean up your act. Either take it, or suffer the consequences.

IMHO I don't know which I hate most: bankers taking their bonuses after being underwritten by taxpayers; or the havoc that Adobe wreaks upon the web industry.

Quite why there's no real competition for Adobe is a real mystery. Does Adobe fall foul of the anti-trust regulations?

From the department of no shit Sherlock

Teens lie to get into pubs. Well, it would never happen in my day.

The world's falling out of Ballmer's bottom

Tough times for Microsoft. The competition's hotting up and people are as mad as hell and aren't going to take it much longer.

It can't be long before a major Government finally bites the bullet and weans themselves off the treadmill paying Redmond for the same old shite in a different package. People don't need Office -- OK, granted that a *very* few power users may use 50% of the features, but the vast majority need to do very simple things.

When a major Government does switch over, others can't be far behind and the whole house of cards will come tumbling down into a mixed pile of metaphors.

Flash, hargh . . . . What is it good for?

Adverts, eye candy, distraction, rubbish UI, hot CPU, short battery life, security risks, upgrades, fixes...

Absolutely nothing. Yeah.

A good news story

This story is nothing but good news. The fewer people using that festering IE browser, the better it is for the Internet. We need a heterogeneous Internet browsing experience based upon standards and consensus, not monkey-boy's flawed vision for total domination.

The only good thing about any version of IE is that web developers get paid good money to create sites that work on all the common browsers. IE 6 and 7 being the worst offenders by far.

Security on IE will always be inferior all the time it includes OLE^H^H^H AxtiveX and comes as part of the core "OS". I'm sure it would be more secure if MS had to release *nix and Mac versions.

It's not as if this is new news. Microsoft have never listened. Reap what ye sow.

What's that smell...?

You mean that 43% OF THE 42%, eg 20%, are going to deploy Vista II before VIISP1?

I hope for Microsoft's sake that they're going to get that number of businesses in the first half of 2010.

The trouble is that in 9 out of 10 surveys people make things up, both the respondents and the analysts. They very rarely talk to the people who will make the upgrade decision.

As for that utter rubbish about a 9 year old OS being a problem... Are you a Microsoft marketing department shill? There's nothing wrong with driving a 10 year old car, and there's little wrong with running an older operating system where the costs are all sunk. If Microsoft are that sure that companies will get savings if they pay Microsoft et al heaps of cash, then why don't they do some kind of leasing deal tied to savings.

Could we have a festering turd icon please.

One percent if you're lucky

Most average users of Office products that I know don't even know how to use the most basic of features such as styles. With the hundreds or thousands of features in Word, I bet most people won't use 1% of them let alone the esoteric features.

What's the point in paying £100/year to Microsoft for Office updates (3 years at £300 give or take - and that's ignoring the real TCO uplift of support & training costs) for a word processor that people don't use.

Stick with Office 2003 and be done with it. There's no need to upgrade.

In any case, how do you print from the Ribbon? They seem to have forgotten to put that icon in. Oh, it's in the odd circle icon, WTF?

It's all change purely for the sake of milking the cash cow.

Ballmer sets the barrier pretty low

Oh well, at least Ballmer will set the barrier at a height that the forthcoming Apple tablet will be able to hop straight over.

Who wants a tablet version of a vanilla operating system? What's needed is something far more akin to an iPhone in terms of ease of use, especially when it comes to running the myriad applications from the app store.

Ballmer; we know you're tired. Please just go away and play with your wearisome cronies. There's a new kid on the block that's far more in tune with the Zeitgeist than you ever were.

New Year's Eve

Does anyone know if the New Year's Eve outages are being monitored?

I'm sure this year won't be just text messages that are be blocked for a few hours:-(

We need to know which is the best and worst network -- we have iPhone contracts to move from O2 in a couple of months!

For release when?

Makes sense that applications aimed at the iPhone would work on a larger device. I wonder how the text input would work - both a virtual keyboard and some other fold-out docking device?

The smaller form factor be excellent for simple tasks such as browsing and running iPhone+ apps.

When's the release date? My money's on it being announced to the world in Jan and allow time for application developers to develop/alter their iPhone applications for release in April.

Will it be yet another device like the iPhone that grabs the market and pushes it forward into the 21st century?

Apple gets the headline

So, the two largest manufacturers, Dell and HP, have worse reliability figures.

But we all love Apple, so because of the Apple headline, I'm reading this.

If it were HP and Dell less reliable than Asus, I doubt if I'd bother reading it. Apple sells:-)

Goodbye. We won't miss you

Excellent. The back of the Sun. And the upmarket version, The Times. Gone. I wonder how many people, Murdock aside, who will miss them on-line?

I suppose Murdock does deserve some credit for this brave move which relies heavily on all other news operations moving down the same paywall strewn path. Interesting with the BBC though; they can't put up paywalls. And what of the 'merkin operators, will they?

The really sad thing is that the world isn't generally that bothered with news per se. Look at the amount of "news" in the Sun; mostly so called entertainment and ranting drivel. Although it would be nice to see The Mail and Express disappear down the same plug-hole.

Can Rupert put the genie back in the box? Unlikely, but time will tell.

Vista II == VII == 7

Interesting or stupid?

@Tony Smith

<ctl>Scroll normally zooms a browser window (on IE and Firefox).

<cmd>Scroll zooms the whole screen (on a Mac). This is *extremely* useful when doing demonstrations, when developing web pages (you can turn off font smoothing to see the pixels if you use <cmd><alt>\), and trying to see some websites where the text is too damn small.

I've used the Mighty Mouse for years and really like it. It's such a pain that you can't remove the ball without major disassembly. It's stunning how much crap accumulates in the ball area (scrotum?).

I'm going to buy a Magic Mouse as soon as I can get one.

BTW, the Logitec mice have one or two great features, then spoil it by shunning Bluetooth or having rechargeable batteries that last a week (and chargers that are bigger than the mouse!). And they're ugly IMHO.

Just added my no vote

When I was told Father Christmas wasn't real, I couldn't believe anyone who reckoned that God existed. Can't see much difference between the two.

How do you delete IE?

I found it bloody difficult to get Firefox installed and Google as my search provider in IE.

Just how do you delete IE from Vista 2 / Windows 7?

Not overly impressed thus far. But then again it's installed as a VM on my Mac. I wonder if it'll be used more than the Vista VM; a couple of times a year to check that websites work.

Aside from that, can't see the point.

Nice

Why is it that Apple stuff is so damn gorgeous? Super design. Wonderful ergonomics, smooth lines, no unnecessary design detailing. Minimalism is beautiful.

People who whinge -- you know who you are... If you can't appreciate good design, you shouldn't be looking. You're sure to find some lovely plastic bling from Sony and Dell which'll be much more to your taste and budget. Or some super-cheap tat from PC World. And Windows to for such panache.

We don't need you to criticise Apple.

Or maybe you should, as it just confirms all Apple user's innate feelings of superiority as they look down on you grubby band of oiks; why don't you go back to your trailer and watch some more X-Factor?

What about adults?

Not sure I feel comfortable having my privacy invaded in such an intrusive way.

At least if they're patting you down you can slap them.

Civil servants ...

All civil servants (and contractors) carry ID cards. Most have been security cleared and all their details includng their credit history have been stored.

That is all

Love it!

What a great design. I really like it.

It's fresh and new and definitely not a clone like so many cars these days.

And to those who don't like it. Fine. Beauty's definitely in the eye of the beholder.

Halifax hidden security measures

Halifax: "The vast majority of our fraud defence is not visible to customers and we deliberately seek to provide security which does not adversely impact our customers' ability to bank with us online,"

Oh, is that security by obscurity per chance?

Halifax, the bank that went titsup. Given their financial track record, it doesn't inspire much confidence in their IT/security skills given the absence of any real front-end measures.

The (UK) banks need their heads knocking together to come up with a unified response, probably giving Secure ID tags (or equivalent) to *all* account holders.

@@Thinkpad X61

X61: XGA screen - how 1990's. Bit of a small trackpad, oh, there isn't one. And it's a bit of a minger in the looks department - what's the old saying about ugly people having nice personalities! As for Vista... Just Say No.

Then compare it to the MacBook Air; sleek, light, superb looking and postively oooozing quality with its beautifully crafted solid metal case. Even the port door flap feels rock solid. Just what's required for a lightweight meeting machine. And it runs OSX extremely well with it's proper graphics card.

When one's out and about do you really need DVDs, wired network connections, and multiple USB connectors? After all you could just unplug the iPhone to write to a memory stick, or just shove in a small adapter.

The only thing really lacking is memory. 4Gb would be great for when you have to run a VM for the odd bit of development or Vista testing.

As for those who think that a £300-400 netbook is equivalent, please think before you type. The MBA, X61 and Vaeieios are in a completely different market segment occupied by people who earn enough money to buy a decent second machine when they want/need. They don't want/need horrid plastic slow machines with tiny screens.

Web stats are difficult to determine

Always a challenge to say which browser's more popular. Depends on the content. I would lay a wager that Firefox is very popular on this website!

This isn't bad:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers

Look who *chooses* Apple over Microsoft

Apple may be insignificant in absolute turnover terms, but look at the people who *choose* Apple over Microsoft: senior people and independent consultants. Look in any Airport lounge.

No mention of VMs as a source of competition for Microsoft; VMs tend to remove the need to upgrade as they're often installed as one-trick-ponies, e.g. for a specific task. Then the OS really isn't significant any longer.

Balmer's away with the fairies on this one

Balmer's sadly mistaken if he thinks that this will raise the profile of Microsoft: Apple = purveyors of prestige high-end hardware, Microsoft = manufacturer of commodity mass-market low end software**.

They'll need security guards akin to a daytime telly chatshow to throw people out of the shop when they come in shouting "I bought this PC from xxxxx. It's running your software and it doesn't work...."

** Sure, MS do professional software, but that's not the aim of a publicly accessible shop.

Not everybody takes part in the recession

Look like they're good value for money machines.

At last I can replace the current 17" MacBook Pro with a more portable 13" machine that has the memory (expandable to 8Gb), hard disc (500Gb) and decent graphics processor. Will be far easier to lug around and use on public transport. As most offices now have decent resolution monitors so with a Bluetooth keyboard & mouse, and the £20 adapter, it'll be developer's heaven.

One of life's great pleasures is to go into an Apple store, look at the machines, then go into a Sony store (wearing sunglasses) to behold the shiny plastic wannabes running Vista. Ugh.

BTW it's the more expensive machine that's in demand and is short of stock.

Excellent upgrade

Why can't all software upgrades be this simple.

Interesting that the first sync after the upgrade took an age to do the backup.

Great to see landscape emails. Much easier to read these useless HTML emails that many companies insist on sending.

Well chuffed. A great device that's maturing nicely and is so much better for this upgrade.

And why can't Microsoft create the same amount of positive feelings for their devices?

PHP ~ professional?

Have to agree. As a professional developer, I often see a trend for neophytes to use PHP without any understanding of the art of coding. It gets rather disconcerting to hear that they can implement the world in a few minutes, until you see the results.

Bit like Access. Say what you like about it, but it is a useful little database for smaller web applications. The problem is when put in the hands of someone with no knowledge, it runs like a dog. In the hands of someone experienced with building database applications, Access is fine.

With so many numpties opting for Azure, its performance will no doubt suffer.

Question: will Microsoft get the blame, or will they work like Billy-oh to put in more servers? Two-edged sword you see.

Lots of browser windows, lots of tabs

Tabs work well for research. Open a new browser *window* with Google, type a search term, then <cmd><click> to open up a dozen or so 'answers' in new tabs. By the time you get down a couple of screenfulls, the first couple or three tabs are ready to view.

Click on the first tab. Quick glance to see if the content's relevant, then either read on or close the tab and move on to the next one. It only takes a second or two to assess the page.

It's fantastic when used in conjunction with adblock and flashblock, there's little crap and fast page load times. Once you've found the info you need, close the entire browser window with all its tabs.

I just don't understand how the "I don't use tabs" people get by without them. After all every time you <shift><click> on a link, it opens in a window above the current one. Little wonder you complain of poor user interfaces; all the browser windows (20, 30, 40...) look the same and there's no grouping. Using the technique above, it groups related info together. Or am I missing something?