Can’t keep Midori straight from MinSafe? Unsure how Red Dog, Cosmos and Zurich fit in Microsoft’s cloud OS picture? Tracking Microsoft’s myriad codenames is an (almost) full-time occupation. And Mary Jo Foley knows that better than anyone, as she spends many of her waking hours tracking down the latest names in the hopes of being able to better keep tabs on what’s coming next from the Redmondians. View it now...
Read MoreZDNet recently sent the Windows OSes in a head to head match. Who won? Windows 7 is, overall, better than both Vista and XP. As Windows 7 progresses, it’s getting better (or at least the 64-bit editions are). On a higher-spec system, 64-bit is best. On a lower-spec system, 32-bit is best. We will see how Windows 7 preformance issues get resolved, and I am very excited for the...
Read MoreThis is not related to Techonlogy, but this was fairly funny, so I figured I would post it....
Read MoreWhen we get Windows 7 Starter Edition Build 7068, we are treated to this nice desktop as a default: Pretty, right? No. This is a take off of the fish wallpaper in the beta of Ultimate: Well, you say, I don’t like these very much. I’ll just change them. Wrong! In Windows 7 Starter Edition Build 7068, you may not enter the Display Prefrences control panel section to change the background. You are stuck with a gray fish forever. Even other methods of changing it such as from Windows Photo Gallery do not work. Rafael from Within Windows explains the situation like this: As for the technical side, a new licensing bit was introduced –ChangeDesktopBackground-Enabled. On Starter Edition SKUs, this bit is set to 0, disabling background setting capabilities in Windows Photo Viewer and the Display/Theme Control Panel applets. The infection goes deeper into system files shell32.dll and themeui.dll too, hard-coding the wallpaper to %windir%\web\wallpaper\windows\img0.jpg. As many times before, he has found a workaround, suggesting that one can log in as adminstrator and reset the permissions on img0.jpg, then overwrite the file. Another alternative would be to use third-party software. The inability to change wallpaper now adds on to Microsoft’s list of features to take away or dumb down in Starter.You can view a chart showing full comparison of major features in each of the SKUs here. Here are a few...
Read MoreVerizon Representatives have confirmed the company will be selling the netbooks, but won’t divulge prices or details on partners. The plan is for the company to start selling 3G-enabled Netbooks by the end of the second quarter, or by June. Unfortunately, Raney could offer little else in the way of details regarding pricing or potential PC partners. Crave’s Erica Ogg suggested Dell would be an obvious partnering candidate. Dell already has a relationship with Verizon parent company Vodafone. AT&T already sells Acer and Dell 3G enabled notebooks to it’s customers for a discount if service is purchased. We will keep you up to date on this...
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Robert Schaeffer, Senior Editor
Jamie Welch, Senior Editor