Archive for November, 2006

Antikythera Mechanism, The Worlds First Computer

This is pretty interesting, I saw an article about it a couple days ago, but didn’t get time to read it, the NYTimes has an article on the Antikythera Mechanism now called An Ancient Computer Surprises Scientists, and it details how the first thought it calculated and illustrated astronomical information, particularly phases of the Moon and planetary motions, in the second century B.C, but some now think it is more complex than any device that came after it for up to 1000 years. Apparently, the technology was not spread to any other areas from the Greco-Roman world in which it was created, and it eventually had to be re-created by someone else.

The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the world?s first computer, has now been examined with the latest in high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography. A team of British, Greek and American researchers was able to decipher many inscriptions and reconstruct the gear functions, revealing, they said, ?an unexpected degree of technical sophistication for the period.?

The mechanism, presumably used in preparing calendars for seasons of planting and harvesting and fixing religious festivals, had at least 30, possibly 37, hand-cut bronze gear-wheels, the researchers reported. An ingenious pin-and-slot device connecting two gear-wheels induced variations in the representation of lunar motions according to the Hipparchos model of the Moon?s elliptical orbit around Earth.

The functions of the mechanism were determined by the numbers of teeth in the gears. The 53-tooth count of certain gears, the researchers said, was ?powerful confirmation of our proposed model of Hipparchos? lunar theory.’ Source: NYTimes

This is pretty interesting, I wonder if they are planning on re-creating the device to see if they can make it do what they think it can? They are speculating that Hipparchos created the device, because of an ingenious pin-and-slot device connecting two gear-wheels induced variations in the representation of lunar motions according to the Hipparchos model of the Moon?s elliptical orbit around Earth.

Windows Vista Professional Released Today

This only means something if you are a volume customer with Microsoft, if you buy licenses in bulk, you can start to get Windows Vista today. For the rest of us, January 30th 2007 is the date. May as well be the date for businesses too I would say, Windows XP has been the best operating system to ever come from Microsoft and few, if any will adopt it in bulk, but there will probably be some testers, like the IT guys who will want a copy to play with and get used to before they have to start supporting it, or maybe some of the upper level guys who want to test stuff before deploying, but for the most part, I would say most businesses will upgrade when they replace their pc’s. At least, that is how I would do it, small groups to start, hopefully some of your more “techie” employees.

Microsoft and computer vendors contend that Vista will make Windows machines more secure, powerful and graphically dynamic, especially when combined with other products Microsoft is releasing simultaneously. Those include new back-end server software for businesses, as well as Office 2007, which brings sweeping changes to widely used programs such as Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint.

But even with all the touted improvements, analysts expect Vista to only gradually emerge, especially in big organizations where upgrading can be a costly, complicated affair. Gartner Dataquest predicts that it will be 2010 before Vista outnumbers the previous operating system, Windows XP, on business computers. Source: AP on Yahoo

In the article, Lenovo says Vista will help their data backup tools, and the article sites the availability of many open source replacements for Vista and Office, but I don’t think any of those tools are ready to put much of a dent among anyone other than highly technical users. A USAToday article on Yahoo says,

The dual launch of Windows Vista and Office is among the most significant by Microsoft in years. The Windows and Office product lines are the software maker’s most profitable, accounting for about half of its $10.8 billion in first-quarter revenue. But neither has had a major upgrade in years. For Microsoft to maintain its cash cows, it is imperative that it persuade a large swath of the hundreds of millions of current Windows and Office users worldwide to shift to the new versions, software analysts say.

“For a fat man, Vista is pretty light on its feet,” says Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, a market research firm that tested Vista. “Even though it is larger and more powerful than XP, it runs better.”

“Most consumers follow the same path: They buy computers when old ones break, when prices come down, or when a lifestyle event triggers the purchase,” Schadler says. Source: USAToday on Yahoo

That’s a good quote, and while Vista may be a lot better than XP, the old saying, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it comes to mind. Microsoft still predicts that this OS will be adapted faster than any other they have had and they expect to sell 2 million copies in the first two years. But, like we’ve said, XP is it’s biggest block to upgrading. Maybe Microsoft should make an interim version of Vista that sucks, like ME did, so it will be easier to get users to upgrade from, hehe, talk about reversal of what you are doing. Who would’ve thought that making better software would make it harder to sell your new stuff.

According to PCWorld, Japan is high on upgrading and may be some of the earliest adopters,

Microsoft Japan has 57 companies that have said they’ll roll out at least one of the three products. The list includes Sharp, Sanyo Electric, McDonalds Holdings Company (Japan), Nikon, Chubu Electric Power, computer game maker Capcom, and trading company Itochu.

Interest from potential users in Japan has been high, according to Huston. Of 5 million downloads and 1 billion user sessions conducted as part of the beta testing for Windows Vista, about 20 percent have been by users in Japan. The country accounts for about 10 percent of the global IT market.

Speaking in Tokyo, Jay Jamison, leader of Microsoft’s Windows business group in Japan, said, “We are hopeful and optimistic that in Japan Windows Vista will be the most successful business OS release of Windows ever.” Source: PCWorld on Yahoo

Later on today, Microsoft will be holding launch events in Munich, London, Paris, Toronto, and New York, to name a few. Hope I can get my free copy of Windows Vista ordered today.

Microsoft has released a press release on their detailing when and how you can watch replays of the webcast of the news conference. News conference at NASDAQ also marks Microsoft?s 20th year as a publicly traded company.

What: Microsoft Corp. will host a news conference and live webcast to announce the availability of the Windows Vista operating system, the 2007 Microsoft? Office system and Exchange Server 2007 for business customers with volume license agreements. Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer will celebrate this historic product launch, which coincides with Microsoft?s 20th year as a publicly traded company, by ringing the bell to open the NASDAQ market.

Who: Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, Chris Liddell, CFO of Microsoft, and executives from Microsoft customer and industry partner companies

Where: NASDAQ MarketSite event at Times Square in New York, 43rd St. and Broadway; a live webcast of the news conference will be available. Source: Microsoft CEO to Kick Off Launch of New Windows, Office, Exchange Products

According to a post on the Windows Vista Team Blog, they have created a virtual launch site, MSnewday, this site has links to the launch keynote, videos of the Microsoft executives, a Partner Showcase illustrating how other companies are preparing for deployment, live footage from the event being held at NASDAQ in NYC, and a forum for discussing business value. Check it out.

New Version of Windows Genuine Advantage Coming

And it’s bringing new checking abilities with it. Microsoft is preparing to push out the latest version of it’s controversial WGA, Windows Genuine Advantage, tool to Windows XP users in the coming weeks. Some of the things that have changed, are the installation is more clear on what it actually does, and a change to the wording if your PC is found “not genuine”. The new version will state: “Your system did not pass genuine validation.” Oh, yah, that should explain it all to Grandma and Grandpa, hehe.

“We received a lot of feedback that people wanted more information when the package came down through Automatic Updates and was offered to them,” Lazar said. The first screen of the new version gives an introduction to WGA Notifications in plain English, explains the benefit and the possible consequences if the XP copy is pirated, he said.

“It is necessary because we continue to discover new, compromised product keys,” Lazar said. “We want to update our notifications and validation tool from time to time to also check for those compromised keys.” Source: Security at ZDnet

So, we should be expecting a fresh new round of complaints from users, both who pirate and who buy it, since both had troubles on this last version. They plan on updating the tool every 3 or 4 months.

Remote Desktop Connection 6.0 Client Update

Microsoft has released a new Remote Desktop Connection 6.0 client, one that helps you use the new Terminal services features, that are introduced in Windows Vista and Windows Longhorn server, or whatever it is going to be called. They released clients for Windows XP 32 and 64 bit, and Windows 2003 32 and 64 bit. Some of the new features include Network Level Authentication, Server authentication, Resource redirection, Terminal Services Gateway (TS Gateway) servers, TS Remote Programs, Monitor spanning, and some Visual improvements.

Network Level Authentication is a new authentication method that finishes user authentication before you establish a full Remote Desktop Connection and the logon screen appears.

The advantages of using Network Level Authentication are as follows: It requires fewer remote computer resources at first. The remote computer uses a limited number of resources before it authenticates the user. In earlier versions, the remote computer starts a full Remote Desktop Connection.
It uses remote computer authentication that helps protect users from connecting to remote computers that are set up for malicious purposes.
To verify that a computer is running a version of Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication, follow these steps:1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, and then click Remote Desktop Connection.
2. Click the icon that is in the upper-left corner of the Remote Desktop Connection dialog box, and then click About.
3. Make sure that the phrase “Network Level Authentication supported” appears. Source: Microsoft

KB article is here and the Windows XP 32 bit download is here.

Remote Desktop Connection (Terminal Services Client 6.0) provides a way to use any new Terminal Services features introduced in Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Windows Server Code Name ?Longhorn? from a computer running Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1.

Related: Access Your PC from Anywhere - Free 30 Day Trial

Free Copies of Windows Vista and Office 2007

This sure sounds too good to be true, but it looks like Microsoft is giving everyone a chance to get a free copy of Windows Vista Business(Ultimate) and Office 2007 Professional. All you have to do is register at the website, www.powertogether.com and participate in three (3) qualifying web casts and/or virtual lab sessions within 30 days to get Windows Vista and the to get a copy of Office 2007.

The Power Together Campaign consists of two (2) offers, the Windows Vista Business Offer and the Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Offer, and is open only to legal residents of the 50 United States (includes District of Columbia) 18 years of age or older. You are not eligible to receive these offers if you or your employer is a participant in the Microsoft Partner Program or the Microsoft Developer Network. To be eligible to receive Windows Vista Business, you must register at www.powertogether.com and participate in at least three (3) qualifying web casts and/or virtual lab sessions within 30 days of registration. To be eligible to receive Microsoft Office Professional 2007, you must register at www.powertogether.com and participate in at least three (3) qualifying web casts and/or virtual lab sessions within 30 days of registration. In order to register at www.powertogether.com, you may be asked to provide personal information including name, telephone, and address. All personal information gathered during registration will be subject to Microsoft?s privacy policy. Limit one gift per person per Offer. These offers are non-transferable. These offers expire on February 28, 2007, or while supplies last, and are not redeemable for cash. Taxes, if any, are the sole responsibility of the recipient. If you are eligible for and register to receive both gifts, you must complete a W-9 (Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification) form prior to receipt of the second gift. Any gift returned as non-deliverable will not be re-sent. Please allow 6 – 8 weeks for shipment of your gift(s). Source: Powertogether.com

It says on the website “Windows Vista and Office are great on their own, but with each other, it’s the power of together. Learn how to tap their power.” So, I guess that explains the website name, hopefully the web casts will be something good and useful. Some users have reported they think this is to good to be a Microsoft site and that is probably a phishing site, since it’s not registered to Microsoft, but it looks like it using their name servers, and you do have to login to Microsoft Live. I’m going to login and see what happens.

Added: A post at Channel 9 confirms it, here.

Added: I have officially given up trying for today, I may try later tonight, but I’m getting tired of seing “Sorry, a System Error Occurred”. It says at the bottom of the page, This site hosted for Microsoft by Ascentium, well, I guess they can’t handle being dugg and a bunch of people trying to sign up, I just hope Microsoft rethinks how they do this the next time.

Added: Looks like the posters over at Neowin.net are having trouble too.

W32.Spybot.ACYR Testing the Waters

A new bot is appearing on University networks, here and there and in small numbers, which is surprising since many of the computers are vulnerable and only a few are being infected. Someone could be testing setting up their new botnet by sampling small groups of computers spread around the nation. The programs have been spreading by exploiting a 6 month old flaw in Symantec corporate edition antivirus and Client Security products and five patched vulnerabilities in Microsoft software. Most home users should not be affected.

The bot program, identified as W32.Spybot.ACYR by Symantec, has compromised a small number of systems at various universities, including about 30 systems at the University of Arkansas and another 150 systems at the University of New South Wales in Australia. The spread of the bot software became noticed because of an inordinate amount of traffic to the network port number used by Symantec’s software–both the Internet Storm Center and the Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC) reported spikes in traffic to port 2967. Source: Bot spreads through antivirus, Windows flaws

Symantec has only had four reports submitted, all from educational institutions, and their network analysis system has detected a couple spikes in traffic on port 2967. The bots connect to an IRC channel, Internet Relay Chat, and await commands, it tries to detect if it’s in a honey pot by looking for signs of debugger or virtual machine software, and it uses ftp, file transfer protocol, programs to copy itself to other machines.

As always, keep your antivirus, spyware and windows software updated, and you will almost always be fine. Through in some good computer practices and you should be good to go.

Another Bad Review for Zune

Just read this post at iTWire called Why consumers are angry with Microsoft over Zune where he describes his experience with the Zune MP3 player from Microsoft, the Zune marketplace software installation he had trouble with because he was using Firefox and goes on to describe why he thinks consumers are angry with Microsoft over the Zune. I say he thinks because he just references himself, so I don’t think he is talking for a group of people.

The first time I tried to download the Zune software, it wouldn’t let me even though my system met the Zune software standards – Win XP SP2, a processor that runs at least at 1.5GHz, memory of at least….hang on what is this nonsense anyway!? I got none of this minimum hardware requirements rubbish when I installed iTunes 7, which installed without hitch in exactly five minutes.

Of course he is comparing 1st generation to 7th generation software, if you go by the version alone, I didn’t do any searching to confirm it, but I remember problem reports with iTunes when it first came out. But you would think Microsoft would try to convert everything they find using the PlaysForSure DRM that windows media player uses, its common courtesy. So, this is not a good comparison, even though Microsoft should’ve had it more polished to start with, being that this has already been done well somewhere else.

The point of all this is that Microsoft seems to have taken the one major thing that consumers don’t like about iPod and iTunes – the DRM restricted closed system – and ignored all the good things. Instead of presenting Joe and Jane consumer with a viable alternative to iPod, Microsoft Zune has given consumers a poorer imitation of the same. That’s why consumers are angry and Zune players, despite massive publicity are still sitting on store shelves.

This is definitely closer to the truth. But I wouldn’t pay for a first generation anything, if I wasn’t getting a Zune from somewhere for free, I would not end up with one for probably a couple years anyway. Heck, I think I bought my first iPod a little over a year ago, so, I really haven’t been any early adopter of much, although that is changing.

The Asteroid’s Revenge

If you were an Asteroids fan, for you young people, it was one of the first video games consisting of a triangle blasting rock shaped asteroids into nothing, you should play The Asteroid’s Revenge, and see what it’s like when the Asteroids fight back.

First Zune Hacks Released

I’ve posted before, Share a Song with Zune and Get Credit Back and iPod the Pong of Digital Music, about the Zune DRM and how it will probably be cracked soon after release, well, this isn’t a crack, but someone has developed a complicated hack to bypass the DRM, and while this is pretty much the same thing as copying a file to a USB drive and then to another computer, this just shows you how quickly something will probably be coming. How hard would it be to write a little program that does this for you? Not to hard I don’t think, and while Microsoft could probably fix this easily in a future update, would they really want to?

How great would it be to have an MP3 player that can send other MP3 players songs without restrictions? I think that would be a popular MP3 player, and if Microsoft has tried to create the Zune to block such sharing, with their DRM, they have tried right? This could definitely help Microsoft get a jump in market share, it’s not their fault these Zune Hacks have been released.

Now, I’m not saying they are up to anything, I’m just trying to come up with a reason for Microsoft to not block such hacks, or at least not for awhile, and in an update that we don’t have to load, so we could choose not to block that hack, etc.

Anyway, this started as a way to use the Zune as a portable hard drive, and then all they had to do was bypass the DRM, and they did that by renaming file extensions on the music files to jpg, transferring with at least one actual jpeg file to another Zune and renaming to the actual extension again. There’s already one program created to make it easier to do, check the Zune Boards with the tutorial there once you sign up to the board. This was also posted at Gizmodo here and here and at Zune Scene.

The Zune can be used to store and transfer various file formats such as zip files, PDF files and word documents. No Zune hardware or software changes are required at all. This technique will not bypass any DRM on any protected files.

Instructions are included below. The Zune device will appear in “My Computer” and visual access to files is available. Please make these registry modifications at your own risk to your PC. Source: Zune Scene.

Zune tips or Zune hacks, whatever you want to call this one, there will be more on the way.

Free Photo Screensaver

Click here to get the Google Photo Screensaver for free. It is part of the Google Pack and you can download all of it or just the screensaver, it’s up to you. Picassa is also included and can help you organize and locate all of your image files for you.

The Google Photo Screensaver will allow you to enjoy photos from your personal collection in full screen or as a collage. To configure your screensaver:

Right-click on your desktop and select “Properties” from the menu that appears
Select the “Screen Saver” tab from the “Display Properties” dialog
From the “Screen saver” drop-down, select “Google Pack Screensaver” then click the “Settings” button
From the settings window, you can select the transition, timing, and selection of photos in your screensaver.

The Google Pack Photo Screensaver makes it easy to display your favorite photos when your screen is idle. To enable it, go to Start menu > Settings > Control Panel > Display and select the “Screen Saver” tab. From the “Screen saver” drop-down, select “Google Pack Screen Saver” then click the “Settings” button. From the settings window, you can select the transition, timing, and selection of photos in your screensaver. At this time, the Google Pack Photo Screensaver is only available through Google Pack. Source: Google Pack Help