Microsoft are going to be releasing Security Essentials later today, for those that don't know this is their free anti-virus, anti-spyware, well anti-malware in general application. I've been running it for a few months now on all my systems, and the short review is this: it's the best anti-malware software ever, it doesn't slow your system down noticibly and it isn't constantly bugging you with pop-ups like other anti-malware software....
The guys over at Macworld seem to think Microsoft have fallen into some kind of trap because they're experimenting with new Tablet PC form factors. All right, Microsoft, we get it: you’re taking on Apple on every front. You’ve rolled out a touch-screen media player. You’ve taken pot shots at Cupertino’s laptop line. You’re opening up your own retail stores, with staff that may or may not be poached from Apple’s....
Gizmodo has the scoop on Microsoft's new tablet device, currently codenamed "Courier" Looks pretty good. I've been wanting a Tablet the size of a 9 inch netbook for a while, yet the Gigabyte M12 and other similar devices were either too expensive for what they were, or underpowered, a Dell Mini 9 with a convertable screen, with a Wacom behind it would be awesome, but it seems we've had to put up with dumb-touch screens....
A new build of WorldWide Telescope has gone up, for both Windows and Silverlight platforms. Grab it from here. Cosmos view has been re-worked and looks a lot better, the Solar System view has had a view changes, eclipes now work on other planets, the Sun looks a bit better from a distance, although the planets all seem to still be spheres /facepalm I was really hoping that would get sorted in this release....
David Pogue well known Steve Jobs fanboy has wrote a gushing article on the New York Times over Apple's new pay-ware service pack. He writes: In any case, Snow Leopard truly is an optimized version of Leopard. It starts up faster (72 seconds on a MacBook Air, versus 100 seconds in Leopard). It opens programs faster (Web browser, 3 seconds; calendar, 5 seconds; iTunes, 7 seconds), and the second time you open the same program, the time is halved....
This is a pretty swish looking netbook. More details will be announced next month. But it looks like its got a 10 inch screen probably around 1280x720, GPS built in, 3G built in plus 12 hours of battery life weighing in at 1.25kgs and running Windows 7. Nice.
Those using the pre-release version of Microsoft Security Essentials may have noticed a new update being pushed down lately. There's a few couple of changes of note. It now reports itself to the Action Center / Security Center as Microsoft Security Essentials, previously it reported itself as Microsoft Antimalware. It also features a new set of icons, here's the old set: And the newer ones, which are much clearer.
Carrying on from my preview post about how Internet Explorer and Pen Flicks are somewhat broken, next we come to the even more annoying issue. RSS feeds don't reliably update in Windows 7. I haven't worked out exactly what is going on with this one yet. But since I've been running Windows 7 I've noticed after logging onto the machine in the morning, that the RSS feeds in Internet Explorer - well any that are stored in the Common Feed List - aren't automatically updating....
Now that Windows 7 has RTMed, it's time to look at where we are exactly from a bug standpoint. Last week we had a lot of fuss over the so-called check disk bug, where check disk would use up all but 50MB of RAM. When was the last time anyone here ran check disk? And as I've always said, unused RAM is wasted RAM. I'm sat on my machine at the moment and it’s got 2GB unused, come on use that RAM....
CNet had a look at the Zune HD last Thursday. The mood seems generally positive. Donald Bell: The Zune's coolest music trick, though, is that it automatically pulls in a gallery of band photos, biographical information, and similar artist recommendations for any currently playing song--regardless of whether the track is from Zune Marketplace, your friend's hard drive, or torrents. It's feels a little more like digging through Last.fm now, instead of just a straight-up music directory....