Extremely interesting article I read today. Link courtesy of Jamaipanese. Seems the blue scren of death commonly referred to as B.S.O.D has evolved into something the software pirates will hate. Acronymed.. B.S.O.D (wtf its no different), this translates to Black Screen of darkness.

Here’s a letter describing whats instore for the pirates (argh!!)

Good afternoon, as of this week, Microsoft has activated a function in Vista called ‘Reduced Functionality.’ This is a specific function in Vista that effectively disables nongenuine copies of Windows. Therefore anyone who has a pirated copy of Vista will experience:

A black screen after one hour of browsing
No start menu or task bar
No desktop

Please communicate this antipiracy initiative from Microsoft to your resellers — note this function has only just been activated in Vista worldwide and therefore any issues with nongenuine versions will start to arise from now onward.”

Microsoft’s new tough antipiracy move also proves the company still controls its software releases with an iron fist, but it marks the first global use of heavy-handed tactics for pirated copies of Windows.

The e-mail message also included what resembled an advertisement of the new antipiracy initiative.

Titled “Don’t let this happen to your customers,” the advertisement indicates nongenuine copies of Windows Vista will lose access to key features, have limited access to updates, and thus risk attack from viruses, malware and spyware.

“If Windows Vista is not activated with a genuine product key, your customers will experience reduced functionality,” according to the ad. “The blocking of nongenuine product keys is an ongoing process, not a one-time event. To help protect honest partners and fight piracy, Microsoft will continue to block product keys that are determined to be pirated, stolen or otherwise deemed nongenuine.”

The ad concludes with “Don’t risk it!” and “make sure your customers always get genuine Windows Vista preinstalled.”

Original content (letter) courtesy of computer world

The other day my supervisor asked me “when last have you visited msn” I said ages my home page is google. Meaning I got no reason to visit msn. I mean I haven’t even checked my hotmail account in ages only reason i still got one is because i use msn messenger. If google did a proper instant messenger client I’ld stop using it instantly.

So out of curiosity I point my browser (firefox of course) to www.live.com after seeing it i instantly opened www.google.com in another tab. After looking at it I had to laugh, however on further investigation I was wowed. Microsoft has taken googles simplistic plat form.. wrapped it in their pretty blue and added some pretty nifty features.

The Image search is my favourite. after running the search. you can hover over to get image details. there aren’t any text to cluttere up the page.. that is all presented on hover over. And they added some ajax niceness to the Mix. You can drag images from the search result into a side bar on the page called “my collection”. This just goes to show that Microsoft isn’t sleeping They’re actually trying to improve them self with what the people apparently want. How flattering this must be to google though.. After all imitation is the deepest form of flattery.

The land of the rising sun for years now has been quickly evolving more and more into a “cashless society.” In japan you can buy a sports car, a train ticket or a big mac by using your cellphone, it seems cellphone sizes are not shrinking fast enough and a more “convenient” way is needed to pay and Hitachi has been developing new technology that requires no special equipment (at least for the customer). The system uses biometric technology to identify the veins on a person’s finger, which can then serve as a credit card, ID or ATM card. Cool huh? Read more

My twisted mind has already hatched a couple plans for stealing…no not money…but Fingers!!!! mwahahahahahaha!!!

I watched Microsoft’s E3 coverage the other day and I was quite impressed with their Christmas holiday line up. they promised to deliver the 3 games that locked the industry in 2004 in the same season. Those games being Xbox’s Halo 2, Grandthenft auto 3 and Madden 2004. This Year microsoft has promised to deliver the same package with Grand Theft Auto 4,Xbox’s Halo 3 and madden 2008. Lets see if the sales value will really sky rocket.

Despite all the huffing and puffing microsoft put on at E3 the fact of the matter still remains that right now the wii is outselling both the xbox 360, and Sony playstation 3.

Leaving the gaming scene Lets touch on the web analytic tool that microsoft is working on. They plan to have a beta release open by Christmas 2007. This is a direct taunt at google from microsoft. I”m all for the competition though, Cause end user like me always benefits.

Leave it to the media to take a perfectly good effort which could better the lives of many children, and turn it into a nightmare. Some asshole reporter wrote an article about nigerian kids using the OLPC’s (one laptop per child system) to view pornagraphic websites. Any computer could be used to do this you clown.. Would it be better to not let them have pc access, stay computer illiterate in a computer dependent world? Anyway the OLPC group have decided to install filters to block such websites from being viewed.

Now in all honestly this is a negative yes.. well maybe.. that nigerian kid could be the next ron jeremy, but along with that negative comes loads of other positives early exposure to computer usage, lowered computer illiteracy and just increased knowlege in generall (wikipedia).

Ontop of that intel seems to wanna cut in on the OLPC project with their “classmate” pc. I respect the movement / concept of the OLPC and hope it all works out. As for that reporter. go get bent you asshole.

This video had me rolling around on the floor. This guy is Great.

Windows clearly did not copyt he mac’s features / functionality everything they did originally.

I have a random google syndrome where i just sit and search for random stuff,, or check random domain names. As of lately I’ve been appeneding the word ized to almost everything i say. or do… did you create that new module yet cyberpunk my reply would be. Yep “donerized”. etc. Out of curiosity a friend and i were talking bout how odd it is that i do that n we checked if there was a ized.com.. to my surprise there was.. it was a single page website. the content.. was really surprising though. another GW bush joke.

Check it for your self

This guy has a really sad life yknow. H’es been google bombed before as well. see here. funny as hell though.. i went into histerical laughter for a few minutes when I saw this. Who buys a domain to just dis the president. A really upset / concerned citizen appaerntly.

A friend of mine heard me creating a commotion over light touch and surface so he figure’s I’d be interested in this. One of the most fun profile’s I’ve read in a while. Even though its only 1 line that cracks me up. head over to Microsoft surface, Sadly its a flash site so i can link directly to the persons profile.

Click about then click “meet the team” the profile should be the first thing you see.

Anusha S, User Experience Researcher. Read her profile. Her heroes should be quite funny to you. Provided that you’ve seen the nbc tv series heroes. If you haven’t seen heroes go fix it now. Best thing that ever aired on television in my opinion.

I chose the title for a reason. The application looks really simple to use but the functional efficiency is amazing. I saw him do something that generally takes me for ever. I’ld would generally

1. Print screen
2. Then open photoshop
3. Crop Image
4. Save image
5. Upload image to photobucket

From photobucket i’ld be fine becuase it gives you the various kinds of links you might need such as. Forum, Direct link etc. Take alook at how skitch does it

Skitch definitely kicked it up a notch. Its just a beta now? I wonder if we could expect added functionality before final release (though this generally isn’t the case). Boohoo for the windows users not to mention the unix platform people becuase currently skitch is only for mac. There is a windows version in development not a bleep about linux however.

Looking at youtube you can definatly see that its a google owned entity. Google has started to apply its simple but useful updates now. The new features are great, Clean and definatly up your efficiency on the site. They’ve created new applicationss to work with youtube such as the youtube video editor which uses adobe premier as its base as well as the mobile version of youtube which serves up 3gp (mobile video format) to cellphones via rtsp protocol so as long as your device has a 3gp player it’ll play the videos.

The other feature i like is what everybody’s watching at the moment. An ajax block at the top of the page which shows the videos that are mostly being watch in real time. Because of the use of ajax it can switch out the videos without reloading the page.

I started to look at youtube’s biggest competition in my eye “Daily Motion” and i found this pretty inteeresting video. Its kinda long but it does identify youtubes weakness’s Maybe one of the google staff reesponsible for youtube should really see this.

Dailymotion vs competition
Uploaded by Dailymotion