Archive for August, 2006

Windows Vista Pricing and Ship Date Revealed

Yesterday the Microsoft Canadian site accidentally leaked the pricing information for Windows Vista, it was documented here by ZDNet, and was almost immediately pulled down by Microsoft.

It looks like Microsoft has accidentally leaked some details of the price of its next-generation operating system. At least for customers who live in the Great Frozen North.

The Retail Pricing page at Microsoft Canada lets you choose a product name from a dropdown list and see the current pricing. Surprise! It includes a slew of SKUs for Windows Vista.

Surprisingly, or not surprisingly, depending on how long you’ve been on the internet, Amazon has had its prices up for a couple weeks, here, and, drum roll please, they have an expected ship date.

Availability: This item will be released on January 30, 2007. Pre-order now. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

The Microsoft Monitor has this to say about it,

If these numbers stick, Windows Basic upgrade would cost about the same as Windows XP Home Edition upgrade, while the Premium upgrade would be $50 less than the full Windows XP Home and the Ultimate Upgrade would cost $50 less than the full version of Windows XP Professional. The Ultimate version looks like a premium price to me, but the other versions are reasonable compared to Windows XP. The Business version is comparably priced to Windows XP Pro.

For full versions, Windows Basic and XP Home are comparable, as are Vista Basic and XP Pro. Vista Ultimate should compare to something Microsoft never officially offered at retail: Windows XP Media Center Edition, which shipped with new PCs.

Plus there are about 8 more licensing products available. Wonder exactly how many different versions of Windows Vista there will be? What happed to Pro and Home versions, that was enough for me. Now we have Windows Vista Home Basic Upgrade License Pack Additional License, Windows Vista Home Premium License Pack Additional License, Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade License Pack Additional License, Windows Vista Business License Pack Additional License and many others. Talk about overkill.

From Ed Bott at ZDNet,

Microsoft has always had an additional license program, but it’s been practically invisible to consumers. I’ve defended Microsoft’s decision to slice and dice Vista into multiple editions, but this is ridiculous. Go ahead, look at Amazon’s list and tell me the average person won’t be hopelessly confused. Hell, even people like me who study this stuff every day are confused.

Robert McLaws says,

You know what? I think the regular and upgrade prices are totally reasonable. The upgrade price on Home Premium was even $100 cheaper than what I expected. But obviously Microsoft didn’t listen to a damn word I said when I talked about the discount for additional licenses. This is pure and total crap. Microsoft has completely screwed the pooch on an outstanding opportunity to get everyone to upgrade to Vista legally and inexpensively.

I know one family that wants to move to Vista? they have 4 computers. There’s NO WAY IN HELL they’re going to pay $588 for an upgrade copy of Home Premium plus 3 additional licenses. It’s just not going to happen.

I’m not even going to mince words here. Microsoft, you REALLY boned this one up. I’m really glad that 40 influencers in one room telling you about how important the additional license problem was meant absolutely nothing.

Some people just never learn Robert.

Microsoft Releases Internet Explorer 7 RC1

Paul Thurrott gives it four out of five stars.

Internet Explorer 7 RC1 is faster, more stable, and better looking than previous IE 7 betas, so it’s a required update for any users who installed IE 7 Beta 3 or earlier. As for IE 6 users, I think it’s both safe and prudent to migrate to IE 7 now: You’ll be able to upgrade to the final version fairly effortlessly and the security enhancements and new functionality should win over even the most jaded. It’s not a perfect browser, but IE 7 is hugely improved, and even in this prerelease version is worth considering. I don’t think there’s enough there to sway Firefox users quite yet–maybe IE 8?–but IE 7, even in RC1 garb, is looking good. Recommended.

My Posts on JimmyDaniels.com

Here is a listing of my latest posts on JimmyDaniels.com.

Windows Vista Coupon for the Holiday Shopping Season

Microsoft will be offering some sort of promotion this fall that will allow users to easily upgrade to Windows Vista when it is finally availible. Microsoft is being tight lipped about what it is exactly, and are probably not talking about it to keep from killing back to school computer sales.

“This will incent (encourage) that small percentage of people that are waiting to make a purchase,” Bhavnani said.

Microsoft has continued to say that it is still finalizing the Vista offer. Some say, however, that the software maker and PC companies could just be staying mum about it so as not to hurt back-to-school season sales.

Kay said he believes the coupon offer will start in late October, noting that Microsoft probably has no incentive to lay out its plans until the back-to-school shopping season winds down at the end of September.

“Talking about it right now is probably not a good idea,” Kay said. Source: News.com

I don’t know, in the long run it probably won’t hurt pc sales as much, but if you are trying to decide between that plasma tv and a new computer, this could affect those sales, get the plasma now and pc later, etc. But, upgrading the operating system on a pc is not something everyone wants to do and can be a daunting task if you have problems, so it may affect the less technical among us.

Networking News, Tips and Advice

Here are some great articles on networking news, security tactics, new ethernet white papers, internetworking white papers and network security news, advice and technical information. Get the latest on hardening the network, controlling network access and the best security strategies, technologies and products.

VoIP News, Tips and White Papers

Here are some great Voive over IP resources from SearchVoIp.com, including News on networking, mobility and voice, breaking news, expert advice and exclusive analysis about the VoIP and IP telephony industries and Telecommunications New White Papers.

Top 10 iSeries Commands

Here is a nice wrap up article from techtarget featuring the top 10 iSeries commands, with relavent information and articles on each command. The commands include.

>> WRKSYSACT (Work with System Activity) (Search400.com) 01 Aug 2006
>> WRKOBJPDM (Work with Objects using PDM) (Search400.com) 01 Aug 2006
>> DSPFD (Display File Description) (Search400.com) 01 Aug 2006
>> WRKCFGSTS (Work with Configuration Status) (Search400.com) 01 Aug 2006
>> NETSTAT (Network Status) (Search400.com) 01 Aug 2006
>> WRKOBJLCK (Work with Object Locks) (Search400.com) 01 Aug 2006
>> DSPPGMREF (Display Program Reference) (Search400.com) 01 Aug 2006
>> DSPPGM (Display Program) (Search400.com) 01 Aug 2006
>> WRKACTJOB (Work with Active Jobs) (Search400.com) 01 Aug 2006
>> DSPPTF (Display PTF) (Search400.com) 01 Aug 2006

What iSeries commands could you not live without? You told us what your favorites are, and we found tips and articles to help you get more out of them. Check them out.

Windows Live Drive Info Released then Pulled

A Microsoft developer, named Stuart Padley, apparently posted some info on Windows Live Drive and then pulled the post, a big mistake in todays blog world. This was noticed by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch who posted the following info in a blog post.

Stuart Padley is a Microsoft developer who keeps a personal blog here. He doesn?t post very often (his last post was October 2005), but on Sunday he wrote a post called ?Working on Live Drive?? and says that he was hand picked by Ray Ozzie (or Ray Ozzie?s technical assistant, it isn?t clear) to join ?a small team of renegade hardcore architect/developer/test types? and work on Windows Live Drive. The post was quickly deleted, but was noticed. Source: TechCrunch.

Robert Scoble Called this breaking into jail,

One thing Microsoft will have to learn on its own (I used to play one of the cops internally against people who tried to do stupid things like pulling down posts that pissed off someone) is never pull down posts. Especially if you don?t want someone like Mike Arrington to notice. That?s called breaking into jail, for those of you keeping PR scorecards at home.

Here is most of what he posted,

After a year of silence, I am coming up for air. We shipped SQL Server 2005 towards the end of last year, I was pleased with what we did in that team. However, I was looking for a challange beyond building server software (I had previoulsy led teams/groups that shipped Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Exchange Server 2000). In my search around the company, Ray Ozzie’s Technical Assistant (Kartik) pointed me towards a small team of rengade hardcore architect/developer/test types who had had success in Windows Server land and XBox — who were all united in wanting to tackle a really big problem. So, I moved to this new team, which is all a bit hush hush at the moment, but I guess wikipedia seems to think it knows about it.

I don’t think either of these descriptions are correct. But there are elements of truth. I am very passionate about allowing home users to be able to store and share their digital memories in a seamless, reliable way. It was this passoin which brought me to the team I am working on now. We do have that ‘small team magic’, which is one of the great things about working at Microsoft. Small teams that click can achieve massive amounts, and this company has got the balls (and resources) to back them and make it happen.

There are a bunch of questions I have seen out there which I would like to start answering, so this blog will now focus on the aspects of Windows Live which I am helping to solve.

What did we learn today kids? Leave your posts up, unless you want some extra coverage.

Latest News from Consumer Affairs

Here are links to the latest articles from ConsumerAffairs.com.

Gmail coming out of Beta? Can it be True?

Australian and New Zealand residents are the first in the world to be able sign up for Gmail without having to scrounge for invites from existing users.

As of today, users can sign-up to Google’s Web-based e-mail program by simply registering on the site www.gmail.com.

According to Google?s Australian press spokesman, ?We have strong internal metrics for what it means for our product to be in or out of beta, and we will take Gmail out of beta once we feel we?ve met these metrics. However, users should know that Gmail is reliable and is quickly becoming more widely available. In fact, tens of millions of users around the world already depend on Gmail every day.?

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