Nine Baud Tech News

Giggles. Another reason to love my Mac.

Windows Vista’s built-in file versioning (which I raved about not so long ago) will do the backing up in the Basic and Home Premium versions of Vista, but you can’t restore the data from backup unless you’re running Enterprise, Business or Ultimate.

I’m not sure what to say about this except that when Vista takes a whoopin’ from the new Mac OS, Leopard (with Time Machine), it’ll be that much more deserved.

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Tags: Vista Backups, Vista, Mac, Leopard

Microsoft has been caught in the act by John Gruber for ripping off Apple. First there was the graphic pinch Microsoft

Can you see the difference? But, to make matters worse it would appear that spellcheck didn’t work out so well for the good folks at Microsoft. Business is not spelled “Busines”

I guess it might be a new marketing angle. They could also try Bidness, Da Biz or Cash Only. Whatever it happens to be there is no doubt that Microsoft web site folks use Macs for their work. But, that won’t help them with revisionist history.

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Windows Vista is coming out shortly and there is a bit of an oops factor involved. No one thought to try and get Zune to work with the new operating system.

“This operating system is currently not supported by Zune,” reads an error message when trying to install Zune software on the latest versions of Microsoft’s own Windows Vista operating system.

In an official Zune support document, Microsoft, which will begin selling Vista to business customers in two weeks, confirms that the system “is not supported at this time.”

Caption: “Gawd DAMMIT!”

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Tags: Zune, Vista, Ballmer, Zune Problems

Now this is a rather amusing piece. Microsoft accidentally inferred that Macs, namely Powerbooks, are virus free.

Some things are just too good to be true and too honest not to be. A MacDailyNews reader turned up this quirk of the Microsoft Security page, which showed a happy Powerbook user identified with the label “Click. You’re Clean.” They’ve done a great job proving that it is, indeed, a Powerbook, as seen above.

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Tags: Mac, Microsoft Oops, Microsoft Security

The European Commission has had just about enough of Microsoft. They are making plans to jack up the daily fine to 3 million euros a day if the Redmond crew continue to ignore the antitrust decision.

The penalty, likely to run into hundreds of millions of euros, comes on top of a record 497 million euro fine the Commission already imposed in its landmark antitrust decision against Microsoft in March 2004.

It signals the Commission’s determination to force Microsoft to obey its decision as well as a loss of patience after the company has had two years to comply and has used every available legal avenue to spin out the process.

Squirm as they might I think that Ballmer and the coolaid-set have run out of room. The EU appears to have finally said enough is enough.

Um, hey Steve Jobs? Google? You there? I would think this would be a great opportunity to go nuts in Europe. Just a thought.

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Tags: Microsoft Antitrust, EU, Antitrust Fines, Google, Apple

Microsoft is pulling together their monthly bag of fun with the rollout of this months Black Tuesday patches.This month there are seven critical patches. That’s it, no mediums or high.

Security Updates

• Four Microsoft Security Bulletins affecting Microsoft Windows. The highest Maximum Severity rating for these is Critical. These updates will be detectable using the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer and the Enterprise Scan Tool. Some of these updates will require a restart.
• Three Microsoft Security Bulletins affecting Microsoft Office. The highest Maximum Severity rating for these is Critical. These updates will be detectable using the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer. These updates may require a restart.

When don’t they require a restart?

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Tags: Black Tuesday, Microsoft, Patch Tuesday, Patching, Vulnerabilities

OK, so here is even more proof that Microsoft is coming unglued at the seams. This Christmas the Redmond cartel is planning to launch an ipod challenger…um, ok.

Record companies are expected to be receiving prototypes to test in the coming weeks, said the first source. The sources said Microsoft will be throwing significant marketing dollars behind the launch.

“They’re proposing an iTunes model approach,” the first source told Reuters. “They’re now interested in controlling the whole vertical stack of technology from the device to the service to the software.”

Where the hell have these guys been? Talk about showing up late to the party. I would imagine they would want to be concentrating on getting Vista out the door before Apple and every Linux distro mops the floor with them.

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Tags: Microsoft, iPod, Christmas, MP3 Player, Apple, Linux

I can’t help but be amused at the following story. The European Commission has OK’d a fine against Microsoft for its failure to comply with a 2004 antitrust ruling.

The company faces a new fine of hundreds of millions of euros. The Commission, which acts as the main competition authority in the European Union, told Microsoft in December that it had failed to comply with the March 2004 ruling. Since then it has said that the company could be fined up to €2 million ($2.6 million, as of Monday) a day, counting from last December.

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Tags: EU, European Union, Microsoft, Fine

The bleeding continues. Microsoft has lost another exec to the Google juggernaut according to Business Week magazine.

Vic Gundotra, a 15-year veteran general manager at Microsoft Corp., has left the company to join rival Google Inc. in one year.

Gundotra’s departure was first reported by Business 2.0 and confirmed by Mountain View, Calif.-based Google. A Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp. spokesman wasn’t immediately available for comment.

The cracks continue and I’m quietly enjoying myself.

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Tags: Microsoft, Google, Executives

AUGH!!!! Nooooooooooooooooo! Make the bad man stop! This will really screw up my Skype.

The latest rumor to sweep the world of high tech claims that Microsoft has its eyes on eBay for a possible buyout. Last week, a report in the New York Post said that Microsoft has engaged in preliminary talks with eBay about acquiring the online auction company and merging it with MSN.

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Tags: Microsoft, eBay, eBay buyout, Skype, MSN