Technology

According to Microsoft's website, PlaysForSure is being re-branded to Certified for Windows Vista. Now PlaysForSure was created so you could see if devices would be compatible between different music stores and so on, both have the logo on and they both work together. Simple, it avoided as much lock-in as possible for a DRM system. It was a breath of fresh air from how extreme Apple are, everything of which they do is to lock you into them, and them alone....

With Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC coming out next week for the general public, there are a few issues that they may come up against. The one that I've run up against is on my Motion LE1700 Tablet PC, when using the OmniPass password login software, this issue doesn't just effect SP1, but also some other updates that have been rolled out over the last year. Typically this can be solved by reinstalling the OmniPass software, however that is a lot of work and below is a quicker solution....

With designs like these are think they should. These are some of the different concepts they came up with 2 or 3 years ago, as an example for PC manufacturers to take ideas from. Of course trust the PC manufacturers to bundle bloatware and insist on plain ugly looking boxes instead of producing high-quality machines. Would Microsoft entering the hardware business in the high-end force them to get their act together?...

I'm not going to link to the article in question but CNet have sunk to an all new low. They were doing a 'top ten terrible tech products', it had a few good mentions, Sony's rootkit on music CDs and a bunch of other things, but thrown in just to get some traffic was Windows Vista (in my opinion the best OS to date). They go on to say: Its incompatibility with hardware, its obsessive requirement of human interaction to clear security dialogue box warnings and its abusive use of hated DRM...

Although Apple is already under investigation within the European Union for a number of different issues, I don't think things are moving fast enough in this area. iTunes is forced upon iPod and iPhone users, often this takes place without the user knowing at the time of purchase they need to install this other program. I suppose what bugs me the most is how poorly written iTunes is, it has got a wide reputation for being one of the worst media players on Windows, probably not as bad as Real Player, but nevertheless something most people, if they had the choice would rather not install....

Absolutely pathetic, ever since the Japanese space agency released the footage from their lunar orbiter I've heard the "HD" thing far too many times, it popped up again in more of my RSS feeds today, this time on more mainstream websites, which was the last straw, so it is time to rant. The sole reason it seems to me for them to use this term is to get this mentioned on technology websites, and as such is nothing but marketing nonsense....

From the BBC: The UK "must do everything in its power" to stop the EU's Galileo sat-nav system going ahead until concerns over funding have been resolved, say MPs. They say it isn't a good idea, because EU taxpayers would have to contribute towards filling any shortfalls towards the system. I say the taxpayers should exclusively pay for it, and any private companies should be locked out of running it and its development....

Windows Live Writer was released this week, with new versions of all the Windows Live applications.  I've been following it in beta for over a year.  However all my attempts at using it with b2evolution have not been successful enough to use it for my general blogging. Metaweblog seems to be the most stable API, using Wordpress, Blogger etc, don't even bring up the full list of categories to post to....

Well these guys couldn't of picked a better time to unleash their Mac mouth-foam session. Their article opens up with: Apple has given Microsoft a lesson in software development with the launch of its new Leopard operating system which is faster, slicker and packed with a lot more practical features compared with the slow, underperforming Windows Vista operating system that is prone to crashing or locking-up systems. Well that's a lot of claims chucked into a small space....

So I splashed out a bit this week and brought a new Tablet PC. After having a convertible style Portege M200 for over two years now, I decided I'd rather go for a slate, it is very rare I use the keyboard on my M200. As Motion this year released the LE1700 a slate machine with a 1400x1050 screen there was really no other choice. 1024x768, or any combination of weird widescreen ratios, just don't do the job....