Pirated copies of Vista will have a reduced functionality mode that is enhanced, Microsoft said on its Web site on Wednesday.This feature is already at play in the current Windows XP, displaying a persistent statement in the lower right hand corner of the desktop that reads: “This copy of Windows is not genuine.”

Windows Vista, five years in the making, has been postponed by Microsoft several times.

Microsoft Windows sits on more than 90 percent of the world’s personal computers and the Windows business accounts for about 30 percent of the company’s $44 billion in revenue.

All i know is someone out there will learn how to manipulate this, i am however not advocating piracy.
source

UnBox will allow user to watch movies on their PC in DVD quality and users will have the choice of purchasing the movie/series or renting it.

Content can be downloaded to two different computers and can be stored on up to two portable media players that support Microsoft’s “PlaysForSure” technology. All purchases are stored in the customer’s Unbox account, and they can be re-downloaded on multiple computers.The good thing about it is that downloaded videos can be watched during downloading. According to the company, the “typical” broadband user should be able to start watching within five minutes of ordering a movie.

The bummer though is that at the moment it only works with Windows based PC’s.

When i visited the site it was pretty fast loading and the previews did look in good quality, i’m still hesistant to get an account but if you have one and have actually downloaded a movie than please do share your experience!

Source

“Updating your computer is almost complete. You must restart your computer for the updates to take effect. Do you want to restart your computer now?”

Ahhhhhhhhh…

Anywayz i was really sick of this and began a little Google search to find the remedy..and voila i found it,if you are of the same mind as me and you too hate those pop-up box than click here to solve your problem.

** It will only work for Windows XP SP2 Professional

Enjoy

A trademark or trade mark[1] is a distinctive sign of some kind which is used by a business to uniquely identify itself and its products and services to consumers, and to distinguish the business and its products or services from those of other businesses. A trademark is a type of industrial property which is distinct from other forms of intellectual property.

Quoted from Wikipedia

The list of trademarks registered by Microsoft is growing,among the registered trademarks are:

ActiveX® -technologies, platform, controls, scripting, server framework

Direct3D® – application programming interface

Halo® – video game

Full List

“Microsoft, Encarta, MSN, and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.”

I stumbled upon DropSend today,a file sharing site with a difference.

One of the main thing that instantly caught my attention is the ‘Personalized Interface’ feature.With DropSend’s Business plan,you can personalize the file sharing interface,which is great for small or medium companies,all you have to do is just upload your logo and changed the colors to make it look like part of your site.

Once you signed up with one of their plans, your up and running (in 2 minutes they claim) to send files securely over SSL,Choose your own web address using “groupdropbox.com”. For example, if your company name is “Nike”, you could choose “nike.groupdropbox.com”,Store up to 100 GB of files and more!.

The other beautiful thing is you can use it as an online hardrive,and sending files from your desktop to your online storage is a breeze with Dropsend’s desktop tool,by just using the ‘drag and drop’ technique,it’s that easy.

Desktop Tool

Visit Dropsend Today

The Man Behind It

Ryan Carson

After some minor research,i’ve discovered that DropSend is apart of the Carson Systems Ltd.
And Carson Systems Ltd is owned by Ryan Carson.

A little about Ryan:

Colorado born Ryan has lived in the UK for six years. During that time he has worked as lead PHP developer at several design studios. He developed his first web app in 2003 before founding Carson Systems in early 2004. Shortly after that he built his second large-scale web application, the hugely popular DropSend and he is currently working on his third web app, Amigo, due for launch in July. He is live-blogging the development of Amigo over at Bare Naked App.

In 2006 he organised and spoke at the 800-seat conference, The Future of Web Apps and is a passionate advocate of developing forward-thinking web applications.

Ryan writes regularly on the topic of building web apps. His articles appear on several websites including: for A List Apart, Signal Vs Noise (37signals), Design In Flight, Treehouse, and BD4D
Partners

Taken from : Carson Workshops

Well at least Microsoft thinks so.

New features for those with disabilities take into account three years of research by Microsoft, and is being led by Rob Sinclair.

Sinclair is the new director of Microsoft’s Accessible Technology Group. “Developing new ways to make technology easier for people to use has always been one of my passions,” he says. “I’ve really been pursuing the same goals throughout my career.”

Source & More: BetaNews

“IE7+” is diffrent from IE7 (Windows XP),The special branding is designed to highlight the additional features IE7 will receive in Vista, including Protected Mode, parental controls, and improved network diagnostics.

source and more

You would have come across many problems as well in downloading files, such as time limits,one download at a time from a IP address,etc…

But rejoice!, there’s tips,tricks and hacks out there to overcome this problem.

for example:

Byepass the Rapidshare data download limit

Rapidshare limits each user to a certain amount of downloading per day based on the users IP address. You can easily cheat rapidshare by showing a different IP address.

1. Clear your browser cookies.
2. Open the command prompt (Start – Run – cmd.exe)
3. Run the following simple commands:
ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
4. Type exit to close the DOS window. Restart the rapidshare download job.

This trick may not work if your ISP has assigned you a static IP address. (BSNL assigns a dynamic IP)

Free Rapidshare Premium Account

To login into the RapidShare – PREMIUM-Zone without using your credit card or PayPal, During certain periods, Rapidshare provides free premium account to normal users. The free premium rapidshare links are valid for 24 hours. The URL to try is rapidshare.de/cgi-bin/freeaccount.cgi It may be possible that all rapidshare free premium accounts are taken so try again later.

More Rapidshare hacks – Search for files on megaupload and rapidshare

Search Video on Megaupload: avi|mpg|mpeg|wmv|rmvb site:megaupload.com
Search Audio Music files on MegaUpload: mp3|ogg|wma site:megaupload.com
Search Software Warez ISO Programs on MegaUpload: zip|rar|exe site:megaupload.com
Search ebooks and magazine on megaupload: pdf|rar|zip|doc|lit site:megaupload.com

Search Video on rapidshare.de avi|mpg|mpeg|wmv|rmvb site:rapidshare.de
Search MP3 Music cds files on Rapidshare: mp3|ogg|wma site:rapidshare.de
Search full software programs on Rapidshare zip|rar|exe site:rapidshare.de
Search pdf files, documents, ebooks, magazines: pdf|doc|lit|rar|zip site:rapidshare.de

For megaupload and rapidshare searching, narrow down you search for what you want by putting your query at the first part.

Say if you want to search for da vinco code ebook use the query
da vinci code pdf|doc|lit|rar|zip site:rapidshare.de

Say if you want to search for madonna mp3 files and music videos use the query
madonna mp3|wmv site:rapidshare.de

Full List

There are two levels of recommendations for Windows Vista, those dubbed “Vista-Capable” and those dubbed “Premium-Ready.” Microsoft has now revealed the specs in each category, and here they are:(Excerpts from arstechnica)

Minimum Requirements (Vista-Capable PCs):

* 800 MHz Intel-compatible processor
* 512MB of RAM
* DirectX 9.0-Capable Graphics Processor
* 20GB HD

Recommended Requirements (Premium-Ready PCs):

* 1 GHz Intel-compatible processor
* 1GB RAM
* DirectX 9.0-Capable Graphics Processor, with 128MB graphics memory. (64MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor less than 1,310,720 pixels [no more than 1440x900]; 128MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions from 1,310,720 to 2,304,000 pixels [no more than 1920x1200]; 256MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor at resolutions higher than 2,304,000 pixels [more than 1920x1200]).
* 40GB HD with at least 15GB “free space”

Read more about Windows Vista on Microsoft’s New Page : Windows Vista -Get Ready

It’s a step by step “tutorial” and would be useful if you want to reinstall Windows or just for showing off sake….hey,who knows if one of this days, a gal pops up your life and complaints she’s doesn’t know How to Reinstall Windows Without Losing Her Data?

Full Article

The PW201 comes integrated with a 1.3 megapixel Webcam, it’s also a 20.1” widescreen LCD display with a 16:10 aspect ratio capable of a 1680×1050 resolution. What sets the PW201 apart from other 20.1” LCD monitors is the integration of a mega-pixel webcam towards the top edge of the bezel, eliminating clunky stand alone USB webcams. Aside from the convenience of an integrated webcam the PW201 has pretty standard specs including an 800:1 contrast ratio and brightness levels of 300 nits.

Some Groovy facts about the PW201:

1.3M-pixel webcam – Video conference capability built in

Vertical for web surfing and horizontal for viewing panoramic photos

SPLENDIDâ„¢Video Intelligence Technology

Designed with user experience in mind

BD (0 bright dot) policy for LCD panels

Source & More Specs: ASUS

PCstats has done a review on the Asus EN7800GT TOP Silent 2DHTV/256M Videocard.

Part of the review:

ASUS has caught on to all of this, so instead of shipping its Geforce 7800GT videocard with a noisy VGA heatsink and putting consumers in a position where they’ll spend another $50 on a silent after market heatsink, this Geforce 7800GT comes completely silent right out of the box. The new ASUS EN7800GT Top Silent 2DHTV/256M costs a bit more than the stock ASUS EN7800GT 2DHTV/256M/OSP/A, but with its ‘SilentCool’ heatsink it’s well worth it.

Full Review Here

Microsoft will continue to provide Windows 98 and Me help topics through its Web site until at least July 11, 2007. However, without additional security updates, customers will be left unprotected from potential vulnerabilities.

Via : Microsoft News

Microsoft is to introduce it’s own range advanced graphics software set up a potential showdown with Adobe Systems.

Microsoft executives provided technical detail and anticipated ship dates for a product code-named Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere (WPF/E) at the Mix ’06 conference last week.

The goal of WPF/E, which should be available in the first half of next year, is to bring a significant portion of the slick look and feel of Windows Vista — the update to Microsoft’s Windows client software — to other operating systems and non-Microsoft browsers. WPF/E software can display video, two-dimensional vector graphics and animations, but stops short of the full 3D graphics and document-rendering capabilities available in Vista, according to the company.

Source & More: CNET

Giga-byte’s iRam is a PC add-in card with four DDR DRAM (double data rate dynamic RAM memory slots) that’s designed to be used as a PC drive. Because the iRam uses DRAM rather than a hard-disk to store information, data can be retrieved from the drive up to 60 times faster than is possible with a hard drive, according to Giga-byte, which showed the board at the Computex exhibition in Taipei this week.

You can watch a preview of the amazing speed HERE

more…

Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin in a conference call said that the company decided to push back the release date of the consumer version of the operating system because computer manufacturers required more time to test and prepare their systems.

Source: Vnunet

Windows Live Search utilizes advanced Web features to create a dynamic search experience. For example, users can preview search results on the site, adjust a slider bar to reveal more information on a result, and a “smart scroll” feature to display results without moving from page to page.

Live.com itself has also been bolstered with new themes, support for multiple pages based on interest, along with new and updated Gadgets. Gadgets are mini-applications that can run either in the Windows Vista Sidebar or on Live.com directly.

via: BetaNews

The Web is abuzz with guesses as to what the Redmond company plans to unveil at origamiproject.com on March 2.

The site, registered by Microsoft and “discovered” early this week, provides few hints. A Flash animation pops up three questions: “Do you know what I can do? Or where I can go? Or how I can change your life?” It ends with the text, “Learn more on 3.2.06.”

:more:

from source:

Microsoft has a new trick up its sleeve. Microsoft has tried various times to block pirates from downloading software and updates from them, but now they are integrating ways to block invalid keys into there software. Starting with Microsoft Defender Beta 2, formally Windows AntiSpyware, they include this protection. Upon installing invalid keys are prompted that their key is invalid and to install the software, you must, have a valid k

more…….

About half of the development will be completed by 2009, the company said, adding that the newly expanded headquarters will be one of the largest corporate campuses in the world.

Coupled with leased spaces, the 14 new buildings will be able to house 12,000 people based on the current layout. By June 2009, 290,000 additional square meters (3.1 million square feet) will be available.

more….