Dell to charge $50 for XP downgrade on new Vostro models

We all know that Microsoft has already set a June 30 end-of-availability on the Windows XP. This means that after that day, Microsoft will no longer market the OS and PC manufacturers are advised to stop offering it as a bundled OS in their machines. But Dell wants to get ahead of the Microsoft deadline and announced that it will stop pre-installing their PCs with Windows XP. Dell’s Vostro PCs will now come pre-installed with either Microsoft Vista Business or Ultimate editions.To answer the needs of their customers who still want the XP pre-installed in their machines instead of the Vista, Dell is offering downgrade option from Vista to XP. But it doesn’t come without a price though. Users who want this arrangement will have to pay $50 to have the Vista OS downgraded into XP when they buy new Dell Vostros. In other words, customers will have to pay $50 more for the Vista OS than when they would let it be the only OS installed in their new Dell machines.Dell knows that this deal might seem short-changing to customers, so it is offering another deal by allowing the Vista to stay in the customers machines so that they can upgrade their machines’s OS to Vista anytime they want to. It goes without saying then that Dell will be selling their Vostro PCs with two operating systems.So, if you don’t mind paying extra to have an additional stand-by OS in your Dell computers, you might as well take this deal. But if you are ready to take up on the Windows Vista, you’ll be better off without partaking of this Dell arrangement. It goes without saying that you’ll get to save $50 from this.

Opera 9.5 now available for your USB drive

We saw the official release of Opera 9.5 earlier in the week, and now Opera fans can rejoice as it has also been ported over to run on your USB drive. Dubbed Opera 9.5 USB it offers all the wonderful features that you will find on the regular desktop version, and only takes up 15MB of space on your flash drive. The USB version will also not leave any data on the computer you choose to use it with, meaning no history will be left behind showing off the odd things you may have searched for.The only drawback that I can see, is that this USB version will run on Windows only, otherwise it should be nice to take a good browser and not get stuck using IE or without your favorite bookmarks when away from your main computer.

Microsoft brings the Surface to Las Vegas

While the initial announcement that select AT&T stores were getting a Microsoft Surface was exciting, when you think about it, they are just in a mobile phone store. However Microsoft has taken the excitement to a new level, that is assuming you are a fan of Las Vegas and Harrah’s. A newly installed Surface is now located in the Rio iBar ultra-lounge, which makes Harrah’s the first to install the Surface in an entertainment venue. In addition, instead of simply installing the Surface they have also created come customized applications that are said to offer “an amusing social experience.” Guests at the Rio will be able to “flirt, play and have fun,” however I am sure that along with all the drinks that are usually flowing the flirting may not always need the additional help. Still a very cool use, keep reading to check out the latest Microsoft Surface video…

Microsoft says XP will live on

Microsoft has announced that it will let XP live on after demand for it surged following the popularity of UMPC’s and sub-notebooks like the EeePC from ASUS. The OS will now be licensed for nettops as well. Nettops are ultra-low cost desktops mainly used for web surfing, email, and instant messaging. As interest in such devices has grown, both manufacturers and customers have shown a strong preference for Windows XP as their OS of choice.“Customers and partners have made it clear to us that they want Windows on their netbooks and nettops,” said Steven Guggenheimer, corporate vice president of the Original Equipment Manufacturer Division at Microsoft. “We are committed to providing Windows solutions for these devices, helping to ensure a high-quality experience for both our partners and customers.”Microsoft is working with over 20 OEM manufacturers including Acer Inc, Dell, Lenovo, Quanta, and ASUSTek.

IBM ready to conduct Symphony

In addition to the release of the generally available public release, IBM has announced for-pay software support help to accompany its Lotus Symphony office productivity software. Lotus Symphony is a direct competitor to the market leading Microsoft Office suite, and joins a legion of alternative productivity suites, including Google Apps. The software itself, which includes full-feature word processing, presentation design, and spreadsheet application, is free, though many companies have expressed concerns about the long term sustainability of free software. IBM’s move lends credence to Symphony as a genuine alternative, by following a more conventional for-profit business model in the deliver of software.

Hong Kong, China not masters of their domains, says McAfee

Whenever an Internet security company issues a report or study about the state of Internet security, your first reaction should focus on checking the security of your wallet. Fear became a big part of the marketing plans for security companies ever since the Melissa and I Love You viruses hit around the turn of the new century; Sept. 11th cemented the sales game plan by adding cyberterrorism concerns to the mix.Tech journalists have to balance that cynicism with the need to pass along information that helps promote safe Internet practices for businesses and consumers. Companies who have been in this space for a long time and spend a lot of money searching for bad software usually get a long look, as McAfee should with its new report, “Mapping the Mal Web Revisited.” The headline for the associated press release says it all: “McAfee Inc. Names Most Dangerous Domains to Surf and Search On the Web.”McAfee used its own SiteAdvisor software (of course) to investigate the security of global web domain names and found that Hong Kong (.hk) and China (.cn) websites give you the best chance of picking up unwanted spyware, browser exploits, viruses and other forms of malicious code. This casts a potential cloud on all that Western investment money now streaming to China, not to mention the flood of visitors expected this summer for the Beijing Olympics.The safest country domain to search and surf? Finland (.fi).McAfee says your chances of picking up malware from websurfing increased 41 percent year-over-year. Picking up a nasty dose of bad code simply by downloading ringtones or screensavers also went up from 2007. As always, kids, consider the source, whether it’s a ringtone or an Internet security study.

Microsoft advises users to refrain from using Safari

Security flaws in Apple’s Safari web browser are nothing new. Apple has been very good at keeping quiet about security issues regarding Safari, but its giant rival, Microsoft, has been taking a different and more vocal approach. Last Friday, Microsoft released Security Advisory (953818) that warns users of a “blended threat” caused by the combination of a security hole in Safari and the way Windows XP and Vista handles executables located on the desktop.

Yahoo launches Messenger 9 Beta

Yahoo’s Messenger software has been around the block a few times, and the new beta version (9) of the software adds some social features. While the overall look and feel of the app remains very much the same, users can now invite contacts on AOL, Gmail, Orkut, Hotmail, Myspace, and others to connect through to the Yahoo service. The new beta version will also sport slightly larger emoticons, so you can “express yourself with more oomph.” Also present are the ability to play games with your contacts, right inside Yahoo Messenger. The status bar is split into two sections: one for availability, one for a place to share a link or thought.The full version for Windows is due out in Q3 of this year, with a Mac version coming later into the year.

RoboBraille helps blind to explore the virtual world

There are already a fair number of text-to-speech applications that work with varying degrees of success, there are none that have the specific purpose of helping the blind. RoboBraille is effectively a free e-mail service that converts sections of text into numerous languages so they become useful to the blind. One of the most important things that the EU funded project had to address was ease of use, and not only does a simple email provide text-to-speech to numerous languages such as Lithuanian and Greek, but it can also send back documents that can be converted into braille using the appropriate hardware.This fully opens up the internet to the blind as the system recognizes not just plain text, but word documents, HTML and XML which it convert in minutes.Although it is not currently expanded, as they are currently adding Danish to their language repertoire, it is a quick easy to use, effective and free system, that significantly helps the visually challenged.

Splashtop Linux variant to power up Asus notebooks

If you’re one of those PC users who always find yourself doing other things while waiting for your machines to completely boot up, either you’d be glad to hear about Splashtop or feel sad since you might end up not doing those other things anymore. But that is if you are using an Asus notebook as these machines will be getting the Splashtop Linux OS treatment.If you would recall Splashtop has been pre-installed on some Asus motherboards not so long ago, and soon enough it will be powering some Asus notebooks as a full-blown OS. If you think that the Splastop is just your ordinary Linux variant, think again. Well, that’s because Splashtop offers up a unique PC boot up experience. Soon, you can instantly fire up some application even if your machine has not completed its boot up sequence. What makes this possible is the fact that Splashtop will run out of your machine’s RAM. Hence, saving you some precious battery time.In a nutshell, Splashtop offers a fast, secure and eco-friendly way of using your Asus machines. For those who are not using Asus notebooks, this might be a good reason to score one as soon as the Splashtop gets into these machines.

Microsoft’s multitouch

At the D6 Conference yesterday, Microsoft’s chairman and founder took the stage to present the world with a glimpse of Windows’ future. A brief demonstration of the forthcoming Windows 7 showed a multitouch interface that is, according to Julie Larson-Green, VP of Windows Experience, built in throughout the OS. During the demo, there were hints that the Windows Dev has seriously considered how the Widows UI needs to adapt to support multitouch. This begs the question: Is multitouch Windows a true interface revolution, or is it merely another niche add-on to the system, much like it’s less-than-stellar cousin the Tablet PC ?

Microsoft brings the multi-touch to the PC

There they are again, Bill, Steve and the rest of the Microsoft group have just wowed the audience at the opening of the All Things Digital D6 Conference with a demonstration of what could possibly be the coolest version of Microsoft’s proprietary OS - the multi-touch enabled Microsoft 7. Could we just say that if this new technology goes mainstream it could also possibly be the coolest thing to happen to our Windows powered PCs?Borrowing the multi-touch capability of the Surface which incidentally was previewed during last year’s All Things Digital event, Microsoft’s Corporate VP Julie Larson-Green showed Mr. Gates and Mr. Balmer how the multi-touch functionality works on a machine running on Windows 7. The technology is somewhat similar to the functionality of the iPhone wherein you can zoom in and out when viewing photos, drag objects, run an application and other cool things which you can do with the power of your fingers.

Sun beats Microsoft to ODF compatibility in Office

Want to use MS Office to open and save ODF spreadsheets, word processing, and presentation documents, but don’t want to wait until 2009 to do it? Sun has got you covered. Microsoft recently announced that native ODF support would be coming to its popular Office 2007 productivity suite with the release of Service Pack 2, currently scheduled for early to mid 2009. Users who either can not or do not wish to wait that long have an alternative though, and it comes from one of Microsoft’s chief competitors in the market for office productivity software: Sun Microsystems.Sun has taken the open source OpenOffice suite of productivity applications, and offers a branded version called StarOffice 8. The productivity suite, which includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, and database capabilities (think Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, and Access) costs far less than typical licenses for MS Office, and offers nearly the same functionality. Major advantages include full compatibility with both ODF and popular MS Office formats, including .doc/.odt, .xls/.ods, and .ppt/.odp, as well as significant cost savings versus a typical installation of MS Office.

GooSync adds Gmail contacts synchronization feature

GooSync, a useful tool that lets you sync your Google appointments and tasks to your smarthphone, has just added support for synchronizing your Gmail contacts as well. What’s even better is the fact that GooSync works both ways. That is, whenever you add new contacts from your Gmail accounts, it automatically updates your mobile phone’s directory the next time you run the syncing process and vice versa.But before you get too excited and go on a syncing frenzy, there’s one catch however. Gmail contacts to mobile phone synchronization only works if you have a GooSync Premium account. To upgrade to premium account, just log-in to your GooSync account and hit the “Upgrade” button. If you’re not yet using GooSync, head over GooSync’s website and find out what you’re missing for not using this cool application.

MSI Wind to offer Windows XP, SUSE based models

While the MSI Wind is expected to be available shortly, new details are clearing up the operating system options and pricing. We have already learned that the Wind will feature (in the US) a 10-inch display with a 1024 x 600 resolution, and have other options to include a built-in 1.3-megapixel webcam, 4-in-1 card reader along with Wi-Fi 80.211 b/g and an 80GB hard drive.It is now clear that the Wind will also be offered with your choice of either Windows XP or Novell’s SUSE Linux pre-installed. The Windows XP based model will retail for $549 and offer a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, Bluetooth and a six-cell battery that is expected to give up to six-hours of life. The SUSE based model will be priced a little lower, coming in at $399 and offer up 512MB of RAM, however it will be missing the Bluetooth and also come with just a three-cell battery which is expected to give around two and a half hours of life.

MIcrosoft Office to gain PDF, ODF support

The good news: MIcrosoft has announced its flagship Office productivity software will gain support for more open formats, including PDF v1.5, PDF/A (the ISO standard for archival PDFs), and ODF v1.1. The bad news: Users will have to wait until 2009 and Service Pack 2 to get it.In a press release, MS detailed the intention to increase the interoperability of Office 2007, and reaffirmed the commitment to delivering ODF support for older versions of Office through support of the OpenXML-ODF open source translator project. This move comes after Microsoft’s recent success in establishing its own Open Office XML (OOXML) as an ISO standard, and provides significant backing to Microsoft’s pledged support of interoperability. The media spin that Microsoft is using goes something like this: Step 1: Innovate. Step 2: Create partner opportunities. Step 3: Profit. But is this really a move for greater compatibility, or simply a move to maintain dominance ?

Amazon currently offering Microsoft OneCare 2.0 for free

Our personal choice for low-cost, well actually free Windows anti-virus has been AVG for a long time now, which as you can imagine is directly related to the price. There are lots of great alternatives and I cannot or will not attempt to tell you which is the best, however if you are looking for another alternative to AVG, that you can also get for free, check out Microsoft OneCare 2.0, which currently is free after rebates. Amazon is offering OneCare 2.0 for $30 along with a $30 mail-in-rebate, which will in turn lower the cost to $0. Similar to other subscription based services, this $30 will offer one-years worth of protection, after which it will have to be renewed.

Windows XP, Vista SP’s once again back as an automatic update

Microsoft has released Windows XP SP3 to the masses and also re-added Vista SP1 as an automatic update. After having some recent compatibility issues, Microsoft had delayed SP3 for XP and although SP1 for Vista remained available, it had to be manually downloaded.It seems everything has been fixed and both updates are now available and waiting to be installed. Simply wait for Windows Update to kick in, or if you feel like you cannot wait any longer lunch the Update get the satisfaction on having an up to date system, at least for a little while.

Windows XP, Vista SP’s once again back as an automatic update

Microsoft has released Windows XP SP3 to the masses and also re-added Vista SP1 as an automatic update. After having some recent compatibility issues, Microsoft had delayed SP3 for XP and although SP1 for Vista remained available, it had to be manually downloaded.It seems everything has been fixed and both updates are now available and waiting to be installed. Simply wait for Windows Update to kick in, or if you feel like you cannot wait any longer lunch the Update get the satisfaction on having an up to date system, at least for a little while.

Save $620 on Microsoft Office Ultimate with your .edu address

Microsoft has brought back their “Ultimate Steal” promotion, and once again are offering a great deal on Office Ultimate. Microsoft is currently running the promotion for students which will allow them to save $620, which is 91% off the retail price of Microsoft Office Ultimate. The office suite normally retails for $680, however up until May 16 anyone with access to a .edu address can take advantage of this deal.Based on the website for the promotion, you must be an active student, meaning you are currently enrolled in a class, however the New York Times is reporting that all you need is an active .edu email address. Well, I have a spare $60 lying around, just a shame I don’t still have access to my old .edu address.

HP now offering the Mini-Note 2133 with Windows XP

Following up on the earlier rumors, HP has begun to officially offer the Mini-Note 2133 with Windows XP. Although HP has commented that Windows XP will be pre-installed they are doing it by way of the free Vista downgrade option, so when the notebook arrives it should include an install disk for both XP and Vista Business.In addition to the Windows XP offering, HP has also added a few new configurations to the Mini-Note line-up. Instead of the original four configurations to choose from there are now eight. This should sound like welcome news with more to choose from, however it makes the XP downgrade offering seem just a little on the shady side.

Gates dangle Windows 7 details, analysts ho-hum

Thinking of jumping to Vista? If Bill Gates is to be believed, maybe we should all just wait.Gates, once again is revealing some details on Microsoft’s next operating system as he told an audience in Tokyo attending the Windows Digital Lifestyle Conference, “We’re hard at work … on the next version, which we call Windows 7. I’m very excited about the work being done there ... to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone.”While analysts were relatively ho-hum about Gates’ latest pronouncements, his earlier statement in April put industry observers into a buzz when he allegedly said that Windows 7 would be out in the next year or so. Microsoft did not clarify whether their Founder and Chairman of the Board was talking about the beginning of alpha or beta testing, or whether he meant actually releasing Windows 7 on a quickened schedule.

Piracy eats $48 billion revenue sales of software companies

Piracy in the software industry continues to grow, this time slashing $48 billion in the revenue of software companies in 2007. This is in contrast with the dip of piracy rates in most countries. Piracy rates decreased in 67 out of 108 countries. Despite that, an $8 billion overall loss growth is being experienced worldwide by the software industry. It has been noted though, that half of the increase in losses are attributed to the depreciation of the dollar.The Business Software Alliance or BSA, have reported in their fifth annual report that there are “emerging markets”, like Brazil, Russia, China, and India, which grow in PC sales per year. However, the rate of growth of PC sales does not correspond directly to the number of software shipments. BSA President Robert Holleyman stated that these emerging markets report to have 46 percent of new computer shipments last year, yet the percentage of software shipments is just 17.That clearly tells how the number of software products lags behind PC sales, and this provides evidence of piracy. The BSA provides in-depth reports of the effect on revenue sales of firms due to software piracy.

MS Surface: breathtaking or boring?

I do not know Emil Protalinski, of ars fame. Outside of one danceclub scuffle in Philly, we don’t know each other; and that may or may not have been him. But I couldn’t disagree more with his take on how Microsoft is getting it right with Surface.I don’t think you can argue that the Surface is a very cool product/project. Is it the future of computing? Darned if I know. But what I do know (along with the fact that you should never, ever start a sentence with but) is in typical Microsoft fashion well become interested and time will suck the excitement right out of us like a pool vacuum. It happens all the time and is happening right now. Bill, please tell us more about Windows 7 as I bunker down here keeping XP going, praying I won’t have to move to Vista… Check the numbers man, customers are jumping ship to Macs, who four years ago we were all making fun of.

Get cashback by using Microsoft’s Live Search

Worth about $20 billion, the search engine industry no doubt belongs to online giant Google. According to the market research firm comScore, Google currently holds 61.6% of the search engine market, while Microsoft only holds 9.1%. After failing to buyout Yahoo, it appears Microsoft is shifting its game plan. In an effort to gain market share from Google, Microsoft has now launched a cashback program to users of its Live Search, the company’s online search engine. The program works by offering visitors rebates on products they buy through using the search engine. Microsoft says that 700 merchants offering over 10 million products are participating in the program. Merchants include: Barnes & Noble, Circuit City, eBay, Foot Locker, Sears, OfficeMax, Home Depot, and Hewlett-Packard, to name a few. The participating merchants have agreed to pay Microsoft a fee for each purchased product generated through Live Search. Microsoft will then forward the fee to the user (buyer) in the form of a rebate (up to 30% of the purchase price).

AVG updates their Anti-Virus Free Edition, now at version 8.0

AVG announced that their Anti-Virus Free Edition 8.0 is now available for download. This free edition combines an anti-virus and anti-spyware engine to protect users machines against spyware attacks aside from the usual viruses that threaten your computer on a daily basis. The software also provides real-time searching protection with AVG’s LinkScanner technology which was incorporated into the new AVG Security Toolbar.An English version of the Anti-virus software will be released first, to be followed by other language versions over the next few months. The software can be freely downloaded and used only on single computers which are running on Windows 2000, XP or Vista.

Linux-based Eee PC, Microsoft Office bundle

British online retailer BT Shop is currently offering a bundle that is sure to make just about everyone scratch their head. Lets just hope that some unsuspecting person does not take advantage of this offer thinking its going to save some money, because in turn it will just waste it, that is unless they have another Windows-based computer lying around that needs Office. Sadly the bundle, aside from being incompatible only saves the user £1.76, which is around $3.50 US.

Windows temporarily shuts down XP, Vista Automatic Updates

It turns out that April 29 was not the day for Windows XP SP3 to be officially released. However it was not just SP3 that was delayed, all of the updates for both Windows XP and also Vista have been stopped temporarily. The issue is due to another product called Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System, which was causing some incompatibility issues. In addition to XP’s SP3, the SP1 for Vista is also being affected. The update for XP was put on hold, while the update for Vista is still available, its just not available as an automatic item. Microsoft is encouraging anyone who is running Microsoft Dynamics RMS to not install Vista SP1.

Walter Bender leaves OLPC

Walter Bender, Former President of Software and Content for the OLPC project, has stepped down due to his disagreement with founder Nicholas Negroponte, who wants to abandon Linux in favor of Windows XP in order to increase the marketability of the XO laptop. Bender had led the development of XO’s Linux OS, called Sugar. Before his resignation, he had been reassigned to oversee deployment of the organizations low cost laptops to children in developing countries. He had this to say in his exit statement:

Dell to continue to offer Windows XP until 2010

Despite the several deadlines Microsoft has set for Windows XP, Dell will continue to support and ship computers loaded with XP until 2010 (when Windows 7 is expected to make its debut). Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that it was extending the life of Windows XP on ultra-low-cost computers, like the Eee PC. However, Microsoft has issued June 30th as the date for PC manufacturers to discontinue shipping machines with Windows XP.So the question is, how is Dell able to continue supporting the aging, yet still popular operating system? Simple...by taking advantage of a “loop hole” in Microsoft’s system builder license. The “Windows Vista Downgrade” clause essentially states that PC manufacturers are able to ship and preinstall PCs with XP Professional to consumers who select Vista Ultimate or Vista Business as their operating system of choice. The fine print grants PC manufacturers the freedom to determine how to implement the “downgrade.” In Dell’s case, after June 18, the company will factory-install XP Professional for customers who choose “Vista Ultimate Bonus” or “Vista Business Bonus” as their OS configuration option. Those that choose the latest Windows operating system will be given installation DVDs of both Windows XP and Vista; thus, allowing users to “upgrade” whenever they are ready. Technical support for both operating systems will continue to be offered by Dell.

OLPC might ditch Linux for Windows XP, says Negroponte

Resigned OLPC project founder Nicholas Negroponte says that the OLPC project might shy away from open-source soon enough, given that this platform has made their much-talked about project hard to pick up. He further adds that insistence on open-source software has actually scared some people away. And while I don’t think Linux is so bad that it scares people away, I agree with Negroponte when he says that using open-source software hampered the usability of their small computers.Take for instance the lack of support for the latest version of Flash animation; this kills all possibilities of letting the children visit fully-Flash enabled web sites that are easy on the eye and offer to educate children using animated graphics, among other things. So the logical thing to do would be to trash Linux and just opt for Windows XP like Asus seems destined to do? Not yet, because they’re still toying with the idea of having a dual-boot option which lets users run either Windows XP or Linux on the same machine. Think of it as a downgraded boot camp software for Mac OS X. But don’t expect it to be released any time soon. They’re having a hard time making good on the current version already.

Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” now available

If you’re reading this, you’re probably not a Ubuntu user, as today, April 24, 2008, marks the release of the latest update to the most popular Linux distro out there. Avid users of the open source platform probably already know what today means, so I’ll fill the rest of you in.As Linux is open source, it is made available to changes, freely, thusly resulting in multiple distributions, or distros. Ubuntu, developed by a group called Canonical in South Africa, is probably the easiest to use among all the distributions of Linux out there. In my opinion, it has eclipsed Windows in almost every facet, gaming being the one category where it falls slightly short.Nevertheless, the newest version is, as you will probably find out tomorrow, a great upgrade to an already stellar operating system. Go ahead and download it now and see for yourself. Also just in case you have some Linux phobia, version 8.04 has a great new feature called “Wubi,” which allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu similar to how you would any other Windows application, meaning you can install it and test it out without having to worry about losing your Windows operating system.The now current version 8.04, HardyHeron is replacing version 7.10, Gutsy Gibbon.

Microsoft reports an increase in Trojan horses

According to Microsoft’s latest Security Intelligence Report for July through December 2007, web attacks are on the rise.With more users becoming cautious about downloading and opening email attachments, hackers are now looking for new ways to “trick” users into downloading malware. The most popular attack is the embedding of malware into websites, especially through banner advertisements. In fact, adware has increased by 66 percent. The most common type of malware removed by Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) are Trojan horses, which disguise themselves as innocent software but contain hidden malicious code within—which can be used to create a back door or collect personal information, for example. Microsoft reports that the number of Trojan horses has exploded by 300 percent during the second half of 2007. In all, the software giant says that the number of malicious software removed by its MSRT has increased by 40 percent. Another attack gaining popularity is phishing, which is the act of tricking users into visiting a legitimate looking website and entering their personal information

Microsoft to deploy Windows XP SP3 on April 29

If you have not yet made the switch to Windows Vista and are still running XP, Microsoft has Service Pack 3 (SP3) waiting for you just around the corner. After three years since the release of Service Pack 2 (SP2), Microsoft plans on unleashing its delayed SP3 to the public. PC manufacturers and volume license customers will be given access to SP3 on April 21, while the rest of the public will be able to download the new update on on April 29, via Windows Update and Microsoft’s website. By June 10, the company intends to force the update on all XP users through Windows’ Automatic Update. Feature wise, SP3 adds only minor improvements, mostly improving security and network related capabilities. Nothing major.

Microsoft tests subscription based Office

Let’s face it, Microsoft Office is one mighty expensive software package. Costing hundreds of dollars for each Office iteration, it makes upgrading to the latest MS Office a difficult and sometimes impossible task. Not everyone can afford paying hundreds of dollars every few years. Fortunately, Microsoft is attempting to make it easier for users to migrate to the latest and future versions of its highly popular productivity suite. Currently in private beta testing, Microsoft’s “Albany” program is a subscription based model of Office. Specifically, Albany bundles Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 (containing Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote), Office Live Workspaces, Windows Live OneCare (online virus and firewall service), Windows Live Mail, Messenger, and Photo Gallery all into one package with one single installer.Unfortunately, details regarding the program are sparse; whether the subscription model will be monthly or annual remains unknown. Pricing is also unknown. Microsoft is quick to point out that the subscription-based model is not the “next” version of Office. Instead, its a new way of experiencing and purchasing Office. Interestingly, the company has announced that each subscription is valid for up to three computers, allowing families with multiple computers to share one single subscription.

Apple ends sneaky install of Safari, sort of…

After all the cries and complaints over Apple’s deceptive ploy to boost its web browser market share by installing its Safari browser on Windows PCs as part of an “update”, the company has now made a slight change to its latest Software Update. The new Software Update 2.1 now provides two categories: ‘Updates’ and ‘New Software’. So, instead of of deceiving Windows users by listing Safari as an “update” to existing software, the Software Update 2.1 now clearly marks Safari as brand new software. However, the install check box is still marked by default, but users can uncheck the box should they not want Apple’s web browser.Mozilla’s CEO John Lilly, the most vocal critic of Apple’s sneaky Safari install, calls the new update “a good change” but he says he’d like to see Apple “do a bit more”, hinting that the company should unmark the install check box by default.

Microsoft Surface hitting select AT&T stores today

Just a little reminder for those lucky enough to live close to one of the five AT&T store locations that is getting a Microsoft Surface installed, that today is the day. Those five lucky stores will be a mix of two locations in New York, two in San Antonio and one in Atlanta.1. New York City381 Madison AveNew York, NY 100172. New York City350 Park AveNew York, NY 100223. Atlanta3429 Lenox Road NEAtlanta, GA 303264. San Antonio13127 San Pedro AveSan Antonio, TX 782165. San Francisco1206 El Camino RealSan Bruno, CA 94066As we previously mentioned, the Surface will allow customers to check out the available phones, and also purchase digital content such as ringtones, wallpapers, and videos. If you are planning to head out, make sure you snap a few pics and send them our way.

Sony Mylo 2 gets 1.100 software update

It may have been a bit slow to come out, but Sony’s one-of-a-kind Mylo 2 portable communicator has received its very first software update, with version 1.100 now available for download from Sony’s eSupport web site. The update adds “system stability” improvements, as well as support for WMV files, quicker access to installed Flash games thanks to a Game item in the home menu, and something new - compatibility with a new SHOUTcast widget.

MyloForums users also note that there are several other improvements, including:

* Faster launch/load of camera
* Improved memory management
* Smoother YouTube playback
* Ability to view YouTube videos in full-screen mode

Unfortunately, I haven’t had the chance to confirm these claims, but Jenn Lee over at Pocketables.com says she can vouch for them, although she has so far failed in making that last feature work—full screen Youtube video viewing.