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I’m really hoping that Steven Sinofsky will kick off a discussion about Windows 7 pricing over on the Engineering Windows 7 blog sometime soon. I’m not holding my breath because the chances of seeing an open debate on pricing is highly unlikely, but I can dream, can’t I? My take on the issue of Windows pricing is that as things stand, Vista (OEM, upgrade and new license) is too expensive compared to the price of hardware. When a decent PC cost $1,000+ it wasn’t unreasonable that an OEM copy of the OS system builder would set you back some $100+, but now that you can put together a good quality PC for $260, it really doesn’t make sense that buying Windows Vista …

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Link Reads: 08.23.08

Windows Vista: A better investment for your investments (Windows Vista Blog)Forrester: Windows Vista rejected like ‘new Coke’ by enterprises (ComputerWorld)Windows Speech Recognition Does More (NYTimes)Business PC Buyers Pick Windows XP Over Vista (InternetNews)Windows Vista Gripes Drive 86% Adoption Rate For SP1 (InformationWeek)Tags: Microsoft, Vista, WindowsShare This

Rethinking the Taskbar

Back when Microsoft's Julie Larson-Green demonstrated Windows 7's multitouch framework during the All Things Digital conference, many noted the different taskbar that she was using on the demo machine. When Walt Mossberg asked her about it, she smiled and replied "It's something we're working on for Windows 7 and I'm not supposed to talk about right now, today..." Personally, I was quite intrigued by this revamped taskbar, seeing how static and old the current one already is (Windows 95, people). Microsoft has remained mum on the issue ever since, but last Tuesday, the silence was broken when Microsoft's Chaitanya Sareen posted a detailed entry on the taskbar on the Engineering Windows 7 blog.

Windows Vista August Update from Microsoft

Microsoft has released their August update for Windows Vista which contain fixes for 6 critical and 5 important issues.The following are the critical fixes:Vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Image Color Management System Could Allow Remote Code Execution (952954)Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (953838)Vulnerability in the ActiveX Control for the Snapshot Viewer for Microsoft Access Could [...]

Simple Approach to Linux Wireless

(Column) - Wireless connectivity on any Linux distribution that is not pre-bundled with existing hardware is a bit of a crapshoot. And yet I would be the first to point out that despite much of the nonsense about it being necessary to either compile a driver from source or worse, falling back into a Windows mindset so as to rely on Windows wireless drivers via NDISWrapper is never the only option.

Run, don’t walk, and pick up a REDFLY Mobile Companion for $199.95

I wrote up my first thoughts of the Celio Corp REDFLY Mobile Companion back in March, then I bought my own in May and then the price dropped from US$499 to US$399.95 in August. Well, now you can pick this device up for only US$199.95 and IMHO that is a steal for anyone with a Windows Mobile device looking to be productive on the go. I understand this is a "seeding" price that is only good until 31 October and I guess the intent must be to get the device out there and have people talk it up. Celio keeps working on and releasing device drivers so development is continuing with the REDFLY and I sure hope this major price drop ...