imnuts’ Home

Microsoft said Friday that it was going to start testing a subscription service that combines its OneCare anti-virus package, the home version of its Office suite, and some other features in one package, called Albany, to be sold by subscription. Microsoft already sells OneCare in the form of annual subscriptions, but it represents the first time it will sell Office that way.

This seems like a useful experiment, but dreadfully late. And I’m not sure it confronts the major questions of value in the marketplace. Consumers are used to getting so much free these days that I wonder what they will be willing to pay for. Microsoft won’t answer the biggest question about the bundle: how much it will cost? So let’s think about the options. Right now OneCare has a list price of $50 a year, and Microsoft Office Home and Student lists for $150 in the version you can use forever. (Amazon is currently selling a one-year OneCare subscription for $30 and the home Office version for $120.) Read more »

HP announced a $499 laptop today targeted at the education market. The HP 2133 Mini-Note PC seems remarkably underfeatured to me for the price: it has no DVD or even CD drive; no hard drive (a 4 GB flash module is included); an 8.9-inch display; just 512 MB of RAM, and the Linux operating system (SuSE Enterprise Desktop 10). What gives? It's all about the weight, durability, and market segment. I could go and buy a Dell Inspiron 1525 for $499 and get Windows Vista Home Basic, a CD burner/DVD writer, 2 GB RAM, an 80 GB hard drive, and 15.4-inch screen, among other features.

When I drill into the details, too, I find a lot about the HP model that's particular to this market as well. It's got a sudden-motion sensor for drive safety built into the models with hard drives that start at $549; Dell offers that only as a $150 capacity/feature upgrade on the 1525. The small screen is WXGA--least 1,280 by 768 pixels, which means images and video should be crisp, not blocky. A built-in VGA camera on the HP 2133 costs $25 more to add to the Dell unit. But the biggest tradeoff is weight and size: the Dell starts at 5.9 lbs (2.7 kg); the Mini-Note PC, just 2.8 lbs (1.3 kg). For students and staff alike, that's a lot less to carry, and may be a big part of its appeal, just like Apple's somewhat less-than-fully-equipped MacBook Air that sheds 2 to 3 pounds off similar devices from Apple and other makers. Read more »

Microsoft on Tuesday will resume automatic distribution and installation of a software update that nearly two months ago was reportedly causing technical headaches for Vista users looking to download service pack 1. The so-called Servicing Stack Update (KB937287) is one of two updates that Microsoft requires Vista users to install before downloading service pack 1, and includes tools that handle the installation and removal of software updates, language packs, and service packs.

Microsoft in mid-February stopped offering the Servicing Stack Update through Windows Update after several users complained that their PCs were entering an endless reboot cycle during the installation process. The problem with the Servicing Stack Update stemmed from "a few unknown and rare events" during the installation process, and not the actual update files, which means that users who've already successfully installed it won't need to re-install the updated version, according to a Monday blog post on the Windows Update Product Team blog.

"The [Servicing Stack Update] has special code to check whether there are any pending reboots or other updates to install. If it sees either of these circumstances, it prevents the install from starting," according to the blog post. In a separate Monday blog post, Chris Flores, a director on the Windows Client team, said Microsoft remains on track to begin distributing the English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese versions of Vista SP1 through its Automatic Update system in mid-April, the same time it plans to roll out the initial release of Vista SP1 in the remaining languages.

Source: ChannelWeb

AT&T will soon be the first company to use Microsoft's touch-enabled, tabletop Surface computers as customer-service kiosks in stores. The carrier said Wednesday that beginning April 17, Microsoft Surface computers will be set up in select retail locations in New York, Atlanta, San Antonio, Texas, and San Francisco.

AT&T plans to use Microsoft Surface computers to provide information to customers about mobile devices and other products being sold in its retail outlets. Customers can find out the particulars of a device simply by placing it on the Surface screen; the information will automatically appear on the screen by reading sensors in the devices. Customers also can compare devices side-by-side this way. Read more »

On Wednesday the Mozilla Foundation announced that the fifth beta of its upcoming Firefox 3 browser is now available for download. Remarkably, the new release includes more than 750 changes from the previous release, though beta 4 was widely praised for its improved speed and stability. The beta is thought to be the last before final GA release. Though the media has reported that Firefox 3 beta 4 was ready for general use, it seems that with beta 5 it's still only suitable for developers and testers, and that further enhancements will appear in the final release.

New features in beta 5 include native Windows icons and interface widgets, and on the Macintosh a more native OS X look. In addition, Mozilla is offering Firefox 3 in 45 languages, up from 40. Firefox 3's "Places" feature has once again been updated. This window for organizing your bookmarks, history, and searches has been augmented with full backup capability. Mozilla says performance of the browser's JavaScript engine now makes browsing twice as fast as Firefox 2 for some highly interactive Web applications. For more details, release notes, and the list of known issues, head to the Mozilla Developer Center.

Source: PC Magazine