Windows Vista

Can you believe this? Microsoft spent $500 million on the launch of Windows Vista?

Microsoft's $500m Windows Vista launch on Monday was the culmination of months of heavy sell intended to persuade the company, as much as everyone else, that not only is the operating systems is essential to users' computing needs, but also that it will translate into sales gold.

If bullishness were revenue, Microsoft is well on its way to a bumper fiscal 2007 and 2008. Windows Vista is supposed to out-ship Microsoft's last client - Windows XP. And Windows Vista will break all records bar Windows 95, by hitting 200 million PCs a mere 24 months after this month's launch, according to Microsoft.

In God's name, why? They're going to sell a copy on every new PC in the world anyway, aren't they? Anyway, me, I'm sticking with XP. Next time I change, I'm hoping that Linux will finally be user friendly.

 

Technorati tags: Windows, vista, XP, Microsoft, Linux

Death of the Floppy

As someone who started with computers using the 360 kb floppies (yes, before hard drives) this is slightly sad:

PC World’s marketing department declared the death of the floppy disk yesterday, generating a wave of publicity that even rivalled Bill Gates’ touting of Vista.

The chain said it would eject floppies once it has cleared existing stock. It reckons that by the summer, none of the laptops or PCs it sells will actually include floppy drives.

It's true that the last two conputers I bought did not have floppy drives.

It's also true that I once sold a few cases of 180 kg drives into the Soviet Union. Ah, those happy days when people would buy anything at all.

 

Technorati tags: PC, floppy, PC World, computers

AMD Processors

So it looks like AMD has some more processors in hte pipeline, quad and dual core ones:

 

AMD yesterday spilled the beans on its processor plans for the next two years, at a stroke confirming much of the info that has leaked out of the company and onto the web this year. On the desktop, the future is HyperTransport 3 and DDR 3. Chipsets will not shift to DirectX 10 until late 2007.

The key transition point, however, will come mid-2007. AMD has already said that's when its quad-core desktop CPUs will debut alongside new dual-care chips that, like the quadies, used HyperTransport 3 and incorporate Level 3 cache shared between the cores - 2MB of it, according to past leaks.

My question about these things is always why? Unloess Microsoft comes out with another piece of bloatware, who's going to need the extra performance?

 

Technorati tags: Windows Vista, AMD, processors

Nokia 7270

The Nokia 7270 is a mobile phone for the US market.

Details and specs are as follows:

Voice
	Conference calling
	Auto redial, speed dialing
	Call log lists dialed, received and missed calls
	Voice dialing and voice commands
	Voice recorder3
	Internal handsfree speaker for convenient communication

Multimedia Messaging Service
	Multimedia messaging for receiving, editing and sending messages with text, audio files, and voice clips, and images1,14

Camera and Video
	Camera resolution: VGA (640 x 480 pixels), Video resoultion: SubQCIF (128 x 96 pixels)19
	Standard, portrait, and night modes
	4X digital zoom
	Image quality options: High, Normal, Basic
	Video streaming1

Connectivity
	HSCSD Class 10 up to 43.2 Kbps1
	GPRS Class 10 up to 53.6 Kbps1,15
	XHTML browser (WAP 2.0)1,2,12
	SyncML for daily synchronization of daytime and nighttime phones1
	Synchronize your phone book, calendar and to-do list with your PC4
	Downloadable games and applications via JAVA™ technology(MIDP 2.0)

Organization
	Phone book with up to 255 contacts with multiple entries per contact†
	Calendar with notes and reminders
	Alarm clock with snooze
	Stopwatch/countdown timer
	Notes, To-do list and calculator

Personalization & Fun
	Changeable, snap-on textile wrap
	Themes including wallpapers and color themes for both displays, screensavers for mini display and ring tones
	Polyphonic ringing tones (MIDI, MP3, and AAC)
	Integrated FM radio
	Preinstalled games

Specifications
	Weight: 4.27 ounces
	3.5 inches long x 1.8 inches wide x 0.87 inch thick
	Main active TFT display supports up to 65,536 colors within 128 x 160 pixels
	Mini display supports up to 4,096 colors within 96 x 65 pixels
	Internal antenna and vibrating alert

Service
	GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 MHz

7270 Battery Life
	Extended Li-Ion Battery 760 mAh
		-- Digital Talk Time up to 4 hours*
		-- Digital Standby Time up to 11 days*

For further information please visit the Nokia 7270 web page.

This is something you could imagine an internet entrepreneur using, really.