The battle should now become more notorious
Now that Microsoft starts to show off it’s more recent operating system, and because it should be cross-platform, which means it will run on PCs, slates/tables, phones, etc. and also, one of the biggest news, on ARM architectures.
So…it was time to see Windows 8 and iOS side-by-side.
The WinRumors website tested both, of course not their performance but to a functionality level.
Take a look:
The first step for freedom…
It was launched last week the last “must have” service from Google.
Google Wallet it’s service based on Near Field Communication (NFC) that allows users to make theirs payments using their smartphone.
If the store its equipped with this technology the person just need to pass it’s smartphone near a dispositive and a PIN number will be asked to allow the charge and pay the bill.
For now, and as expected, this service it’s only available for who has bought a Sprint Nexus S 4G smartphone, and from them just a very reduced number of users were selected to use the service.
Also, for now it’s only available for Citi MasterCard owners.
There are obviously a tremendous number of security issues and problems that Google must, and I believe will, be very observant.
This technology should be rolled out in a very slow way but can be a very very nice to have in a very near future although there are not yet any kind of dates for expanding.
First Windows Phone major update takeoff
This update has more then 500 new functionalities and was yesterday officially launched.
According to Gizmodo website, Microsoft has not yet reveled the first smartphones to receive the new release but it will keep their owners up-to-date through a website that will tell them how it’s their update.
When their model appears on the website Windows Phone users just need to connect the smartphone and sync with Zune software and follow the installation wizard.
More news should be available soon.
Bugs detectors created by Portuguese university
Portuguese investigators from a Portuguese university (Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologias da Universidade de Coimbra (FCTUC)) have created a new software that detects bugs and security holes on the various phases of a software development.
The software, called Code V, was already tested on 40 of the most popular open source applications.
Dognaedis (the start-up created) states that already detected up to 28 bugs on that applications and will make them public when a fix for that bugs get created.
A public demo should be available soon.
Take a look on the start-up website:
DOGNAEDIS
When MSI installations make you angry!
The above image was to me one of the most frustrating messages when creating unattended/silent installations.
”Encapsulating” an installation on an InstallShield unique file (ex.:Samsung New PC Studio 1.5) should be “a crime”. It can sometimes give so much headaches the we just want to get ride of the software or do something radical like that installations where you take snapshots…
Well, after a lot of work, usually there are 2 or 3 ways to get to the full installation unpacked, and for the sake of this article, finally get to our MSI file.
So, the most common ways are cleaning the %temp% directory, run the setup file and get the unpacked files form the %temp% folder. Some lucky times the setup file itself has an extract option.
After all the hard work, and when you think you just need to get your MSI files and launch the installation using the common msiexec switches (ex.: /passive) you get stopped by the above image…saying the you cannot run the *.msi file directly and you need to install from the setup.exe file.
I can’t tell you how much frustrating that is.
So, because I don’t what you to have a nervous attack here are the 2 ways that I think covers over 95% of the times to get the job done.
#1 – Use with a transforms (*.mst) file
I’ve found out the a lot of times we just need to launch the MSI with a transforms file (ex.: yoursoftware.msi TRANSFORMS=yoursoftware.mst) and you get your goal.
#2 – ISSETUPDRIVEN
This one was reeeeally helpful.
Launch you msi like this: yoursoftware.msi ISSETUPDRIVEN=1 and the message disappears. Obviously your msi file need to support that property but it usually does.
Well, I hope this helps a lot of people that like me sometimes gets stucked with this kind of “traps”!
Please come in…
After a couple of months in “invite-only mode”, Google decided to open the doors of it’s social network to everyone.
I admit that because of the historical services launching policy from Google, that G+ would be lot more time in beta, but it seems that they are pretty confortable with what they have right now. That, and obviously, they need to try to catch they’re rival Facebook as soon as possible.
Also, it seems that there’s a possibility that Hangouts functionality will be available on Android smartphones really really soon and in a near future also for Apple’s iOS (iPhones and iPads).
So, if you didn’t received an invite earlier while in beta version and want to try the final version, take a look: Google+
A new never ending story…
It seems that 2011 will definitely be marked in the technology history has the year of the patents fight.
Apple vs. Samsung; Apple vs. HTC; Everyone vs. Google and Google vs. Everyone.
In it’s strategy to defend it’s smartphone/table operating system at all cost, Google continues to buy intellectual property from everyone interested in selling it.
This time the seller was IBM. The “Big Blue” sold 1.023 patents to Google. This patents goes from methods to fill integrated circuits holes to file management systems.´
The Engadget website notices that Google will provide the use of the new acquired patents to its various partners so they can be protected against new lawsuits.
It’s alive….!
Since yesterday…ready, live, hyped enough!
Microsoft launched a site to download the Microsoft Windows 8 Developer Preview, a pre-beta version of Windows 8 for developers.
Like Microsoft stated, this version ships with prerelease software that may change without notice.
There’s to types of download both with x86 and x64 versions, one it’s a “vanilla” install and other called developers tool which includes:
.: 64-bit Windows Developer Preview
.: Windows SDK for Metro Style Apps
.: Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows Developer Preview
.: Microsoft Expression Blend 5 Developer Preview
.: 28 Metro style apps including the BUILD conference app
The system requirements at least for this build, but probably the final ones…are, like Microsoft said, the “same” that were for Windows 7:
. :1GHz or faster x86 or x64 processor
.: 1GB RAM (x86) or 2GB RAM (x64)
.: 16GB available hard disk space (x86) or 20GB (x64)
.: DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
.: Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch
It’s expected that the downloads run slower for the next days but…give it a try:
Microsoft Windows 8 Developer Preview Download
Bigger,Colorful, Better
Yes, the image seen above it’s the new and redesigned Windows Task Manager that will ship on the also new and redesign Windows 8.
With Microsoft stating that 35% of Windows users normally use task manager on a weekly basis, the Advanced Windows Task Manager it’s a nice addition to the new or redesign features of the next Redmond’s operating system.
This new Task Manager comes with some additional tabs, new options and a new UI.
The processes tab will include the Windows 8’s tablet applications, but, if the user is using the Windows 8 desktop experience and not the “tablet experience”, which includes the Metro Style appearance, this tablet applications will be “frozen” on their current state, using very very little resources.
The performance tab also has a new look, with no more green and black graphics of memory and CPU usage.
There’s now individual colorful graphics for CPU, memory, disk usage, Bluetooth, WWAN and wireless devices usage.
For tablet/slates users there’s also a new feature on Task Manager that’s called App History. This tab consists on a detailed history of used applications, amount of time it has run and, for example, how much bandwidth the app has used.
And for everyone that thinks this is just to much more information in Task Manager that you’ll ever need, Microsoft also thought on that guy and available a “compact version”.
All eyes on California!
Today (and for the next 2 or 3 days) the technological world were almost all looking right to what was happening at Anaheim, California.
Finally Microsoft’s most waited event of this year, BUILD Conference, has started and the much anticipated first look to a almost finished and more stable Windows 8 version was showed off.
First things first, just to remind what we already know about this new OS.
.: Compatibility with ARM processors
.: A completely redesigned interface inspired on Metro (err..optional by the way…)
.: The same core to be used on PCs, tablets/slates, smartphones, etc.
.: Windows Store (the Microsoft App Store)
.: More “cloud integrated” services
.: More languages supported
.: Internet Explorer 10
So…what was told on the conference?
One expected but now official insurance from Steven Sinofsky: Every computer that today runs Windows 7 will also run Windows 8.
Internet Explorer 10:
Also news about Internet Explorer 10 that was designed for total support to a full touch-driven browsing, maintains the “in-private” browsing and the hardware acceleration.
Windows Live/Cloud:
The new Windows 8 will have a better integration with Microsoft cloud services like being able to more easily access to SkyDrive functionalities or the unification of contacts and calendars.
ARM:
Microsoft really wants to get access to the enormous market of ARM processors, so like told before this is one of the major flagship of the new OS. Maybe one important note was that Windows 8 running on ARM will only allow application that run with Metro interface.
Slates/Tablets/Whatever:
All Windows 8 approved equipment’s must have only one button on the front and the button will be used only to get to the home screen.
Windows Store:
It will be Microsoft’s App Store and the big emphasis here, it’s to create application thinking on Metro interface.
Another information about Windows Store makes reference that it will not be available to all countries at the same time. So, when you buy your Windows 8 copy you may not have immediate access to Windows Store.
Other Stuff:
Reboot and Refresh are a new concept. The reboot it’s almost has the actual reboot but it works…faster. The reset it’s like a refresh to the system (maybe a big “taskkill” ) the resolves almost every problem happening at that moment.
The Keynote!
To view the keynote, just follow the link to the official website:
Build Windows Conference - Keynote
Well there’s for sure a lot to come and I’ll be posting information so…stay tuned!
Another step to vanish 3rd party software
This was a rumor that was now confirmed officially through Windows 8 Blog.
Microsoft plans to giveaway Hyper-V with Windows 8 since launch, which will allow users to create virtual machines on their desktops with the need to install 3rd party software like VMware Workstation.
Although this is not yet cleared out, it’s expected that Hyper-V will be available only on specific versions of the OS like Professional and Ultimate versions and we as expected only for x64 versions.
The VM Console will be able to support a single monitor view with 1600x1200 resolution in 32bit color. The new Hyper-V in Windows 8 will also support the creation of virtual machines directly from an ISO File.
Together with this announcement, Microsoft also released a video demonstration:
http://media.ch9.ms/ch9/cddc/8b132177-428a-4b5d-8267-9f560134cddc/HyperV09062011_low_ch9.mp4
For more information about Hyper-V on Windows 8 please visit:
Building Windows 8 - Bringing Hyper-V to "Windows 8"
This of it’s just for the cuteness of it..
Yoong Seng Lai decided to try this one with really good results.
Just keep in mind that this is not anyway supported by Microsoft.
View the video and the post from Yoong Seng Lai:
Running Android on Hyper-V
Nice article/document from Aidan Finn.
After the launch of Microsoft Windows 7 and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1, one of the most hyped and important new features for Windows 2008 R2, it the new Hyper-V Dynamic Memory management.
On a very basic understanding, Dynamic Memory it’s used to make sure that the virtual machine is not using memory it doesn’t need.
So, take a look to Aidan Finn’s whitepaper, which really describes and helps in a very effective way:
Aidan Finn Blog – Hyper-V Dynamic Memory Whitepaper
Instant error on a nice GUI
Everyone that usually uses Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) know how difficult is to find out what happened wrong on a deployment process just by looking to the default log files from MDT.
With this on mind, the Deployment Guys developed a tool to instantly and user-friendly show what went wrong.
This version 2.1 resolves minor bugs detected on 2.0 version.
To download this tool and find out more:
Deployment Guys – MDT Debugger 2.1
Another excellent Xtreme Consulting tool for deployment
The Xtreme Consulting guys frequently launch nice tools and tutorials specially for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.
This time they’ve developed a tool that facilitates the hard work to create a Bootable USB WindowsPE.
This tool has the objectives to:
.: Automatically find USB Flash Drives
.: Find any local MDT 2010 litetouch.wim files
.: Automatically mark the drive/partition active (if not already set)
.: Add/Remove multiple *.wim files to a single USB Flash drive if there is enough space
Simple and very useful tool this one.
Download it from:
Windows Deployment – USB Boot Tool
To find out more about this tool and other tools from the Xtreme Consulting Team:
Xtreme Deployment – USB Boot Tool
Another step from Microsoft that avoids 3rd party software installation
It happened with Windows 7 (specially on deployment areas) and it’s now happening again with Windows 8.
Microsoft it’s looking to what kind of software it’s a huge number of people installing, with special focus to software that enhances their operating system to work better.
A very good example from the past was the ability for Windows XP to open compressed (zipped) files and also to compress them.
Another example it’s the ability for Windows to burn CDs/DVDs without the need of installing any additional software for it.
In this new era where everything it’s getting from physical to virtual, also the demand for using physical CDs and DVDs are rapidly decreasing. Nowadays it’s common for a very large number of people to use ISO files and for a less number, but rapidly increasing, to use Virtual Hard Disks (VHDs).
So, most of the people has installed some kind of software the enables them to mount this files (special focus to ISO file).
A good example of this kind of software it’s SlySoft Virtual Clone Drive.
So…looking at this, Microsoft decided that it would be nice that their new operating system could mount ISO files and also VHD files.
They did the thing, and now they’ve launched a new video talking about it.
Take a look here:
Engineering the new Windows Explorer
It was almost 3 months ago (in June) when Microsoft started to show off information e images about it’s new operating system codenamed Windows 8.
In this 3 months there was a lot of talking about metro-style UI, strange partition types, tablets and PCs versions, etc.
Last week, the information was a little bit deeper. New Windows Explorer images started to appear all over the Internet and some people where really happy,other not so happy, to see that the famous ribbon, that debuted on Office 2007, was now also everywhere on Windows.
Later, on Microsoft official Windows 8 blog, called Building Windows 8, there where a lot of details about how engineers at Redmond have redesigned Windows Explorer based on telemetry data collected from millions of logged sessions from a broad range of Explorer users.
So here are some sheets about what Microsoft has discovered. More detailed information can also found on Building Windows 8 blog:
