Posted by Matthew Guay on Nov 10, 2009 | 0 comments
Bookworms around the world, rejoice! Amazon’s Kindle for PC is now available, making over 360,000 books only a click away for millions of PC owners worldwide. Announced during the Windows 7 launch event, Kindle for PC has now been released as a beta program today.
Amazon sparked worldwide interest in the eReader market, which is now an increasingly crowded market where the Kindle competes with the Sony Reader, Barnes & Nobel’s Nook, Plastic Logic’s Que, and more. Barnes & Noble and Sony both offer programs to read ebooks from their stores on your computer and 
other devices. Amazon initially only offered the Kindle program as an iPhone app, but they have now expanded and plan on supporting more platforms in the future. Similar to Microsoft’s Zune, which is a device, a store, and a program for Windows, Kindle is now simply an eBook ecosystem that works with its standalone eReader as well as iPhones, PCs, and more.
Kindle for PC sports a clean, simple UI that integrates nicely with Windows 7 (including support for jumplists and multi-touch on new touch-screen computers) and allows you to easily read your favorite books. After downloading the program, which works on Windows XP, Vista, and 7, you simply sign in with your Amazon account name and password. If you already own a Kindle device or use Kindle on an iPhone, Kindle for PC will automatically download your books complete with your bookmarks, notes, and current reading location in the book. Otherwise, you will be presented with an empty interface that shows helpful popups to highlight Kindle’s features.
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Posted by Matthew Guay on Nov 3, 2009 | 0 comments
When checking for the latest updates on a Vista computer today, I was amazed to see Windows Update look almost just like Windows update in Windows 7!
Windows Update has been refreshed in Windows 7 to show you more details about available updates and clearly identify optional updates and addons. Microsoft has made a platform update for Windows Vista available that adds APIs for features such as the scenic ribbon and DirectX 11 from Windows 7 into Vista. This is exciting because it makes sure that new programs aimed at Windows 7 will still run in Windows Vista, essentially extending it’s longevity. However, this update did not include an update to Windows Update. Puzzled, I looked through the update history, and quickly found an update to Windows Update listed.
This link redirects to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949104, which says it was last revised on September 28, 2009. The update to Vista’s Windows Update, which changed it to version 7.4.7600.226. Interestingly enough, 7600 is the build number of Windows 7. While the description does not mention anything about Windows 7, it does list the following improvements that have been made to Windows Update in this update:
Improvements made to version 7.4.7600.226 of the Windows Update Agent
- Improved scan times for Windows Updates.
- Improved user interface for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 computers running Windows Update.
- More visible and detailed description of updates.
- Improvements in how users are notified about service packs.
These are definitely welcome improvements, as I had already noticed that Windows 7 seemed to check for updates much quicker than Vista did. Strangely, all Vista computers do not seem to be showing this update in Windows Update, so if you’d like to go ahead and get it, you can download the update directly at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949104. After installing the update and rebooting, you will have the new Windows Update ready for use!
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Posted by Matthew Guay on Oct 29, 2009 | 0 comments
Windows 7 marks the shift of desktop virtualization programs from a tool for IT pros to a standard program on every desktop. Virtualization software enables users to run additional operating systems, such as XP or Ubuntu, as a program right inside their standard desktop, which enables users to test new programs or run legacy programs in a separate OS. Microsoft has offered a free desktop virtualization solution for Windows 2000 and newer ever since 2006 with the release of Virtual PC 2003, but still it was only commonly used by IT pros and computing enthusiasts. However, with the release of Windows 7, Microsoft has made XP Mode, a virtual copy of XP running in Windows Virtual PC, a standard feature for Professional and higher editions. Additionally, Windows Virtual PC is available as a free download for users of all editions of Windows 7, and any user can add their own operating system or migrate their old computer into it for free. Finally, in the range of products that affects consumers without most knowing it, Microsoft has added hypervisor-based virtualization, Hyper-V, as a free component of Server 2008 and Server 2008 RT that can also be downloaded as a free standalone product.
While these moves are great for consumers, it has increasingly made Microsoft at odds with a company who has built their entire business around virtualization solutions: VMware. Many consumers know VMware for their Fusion software, which allows Mac users to run Windows programs seamlessly in Mac OS X. But that is far from their only product; VMware offers a wide range of desktop and server virtualization products. Most of their products cost, and are often fairly expensive; this immediately puts them at odds with their larger rival who is giving away their virtualization products for free.
However, today VMware has struck back at Microsoft with this week’s release of VMware Player 3.0. Although VMware Player formerly only let users run existing virtual machines, this new release allows users to create and run their own virtual machines, just like Windows Virtual PC does. VMware Player also supports video acceleration, including Aero desktop effects, inside virtual machines. And this product is totally free, which puts it in the same market as Microsoft’s Virtual PC.
It also puts VMware in closer competition with Sun’s VirtualBox, another free desktop virtualization offering which works on Windows and Mac OS X. VirtualBox, while lacking the polish of their competition, offers advanced features such as Remote Desktop Protocol and snapshots of the virtual machine.
This competition has heated up over the past couple years, and now that consumers are starting to use virtualization on a daily basis, it only appears that the competition will increase. So while Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Opera, and Apple compete in the Browser Wars 2.0, a new tech war is brewing. Consumers have benefited greatly from the competition in web browsers, as companies have worked harder to make their browsers faster, stable, and user-friendly. It will be exciting to see what the competition in virtualization does to this exciting new branch of software!
Check out my comparison of desktop virtualization solutions at Digital Inspiration – http://www.labnol.org/software/free-virtualization-software-comparison/10968/
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Posted by Matthew Guay on Oct 27, 2009 | 0 comments
While adding a new account to my Hotmail account this morning, I noticed something new in the address bar … Hotmail was using a favicon that looked just like Windows Live Mail desktop’s icon!
The main Hotmail inbox page still has the old XP-style Windows logo as its favicon, but it’s interesting to see the new Live Mail icon in the settings pages. Could this point towards changes in preparation for Windows Live Wave 4? If so, can someone please tell Microsoft that I’d really like Hotmail to group messages by conversation like Outlook 2010 does? I know Outlook + Hotmail = Better Together, but I’d really like that feature in Hotmail (and in Live Mail desktop too, by the way 
).
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Posted by Matthew Guay on Sep 22, 2009 | 2 comments
I haven’t been able to post much here lately, but I’ve still been busy writing … in fact, I’ve been writing more than ever! I have been writing articles for Digital Inspirations for over a month now, and it has been great. A number of my articles have been published, which I will list below, and I am also now making a new sidebar listing of my articles at Digital Inspirations. Hope you find these articles helpful, informative, and enjoyable, and keep looking for interesting content both here at Digital Inspirations!
Is there something you’d like to see me write about? Let me know in the comments, and it just might get covered! 
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other devices. Amazon initially only offered the Kindle program as an iPhone app, but they have now expanded and plan on supporting more platforms in the future. Similar to Microsoft’s Zune, which is a device, a store, and a program for Windows, Kindle is now simply an eBook ecosystem that works with its standalone eReader as well as iPhones, PCs, and more.
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