Microsoft Will Never Overcome Windows XP

Microsoft’s upcoming release of Windows 7, or should it be said Microsoft’s attempt to compete with Apple’s Leopard OS X and to recover from the Windows Vista disaster, will continue to offer users the option of downgrading to Windows XP.  Microsoft’s much awaited release of Windows Vista back in 2007 (Only Windows OS released after XP) left users with a multitude of  bug and compatibility issues turning many users back to Windows XP.  Microsoft has been unable to recreate their success had with the release of Windows XP back in 2001 with the release of Windows Vista.  Will Microsoft’s decision to offer users to downgrade Windows 7 to Windows XP leave Windows users ‘partying like it’s 2001′ forever?  Hopefully Microsoft’s Window’s 7 will live up and surpass Windows XP’s success moving allowing users to party in the now.

http://www.dailytech.com/Windows+7+Customers+Can+Still+Downgrade+to+Windows+XP/article14784.htm

Tweeting on the Swine Flu

Twitter is site that’s popularity has grown in the past couple of months. On the site users can type or “tweet” about whatever they want in 140 characters or less. Recently the swine flu has been spreading throughout the world and coverage on the news has been considered fairly decent and not overblown by the CDC. Yet twitter users are tweeting about the swine flu in such a large quantity that its causing people to be unreasonable worried. Brennon Slattery, a contributing writer for PC World believes that this is twitters downfall. That a constant stream of negativity can lead to paranoia. Yet Glen Nowak, chief of media relations at the CDC, believes that twitter is a great way to get the news across. He thinks that its causing more awareness and causing users to look up information.

Twitter can be useful in many ways to find out the latest gossip. But not everything is always true. The recent swine flu epidemic is causing many people to panic and avoid pork products when there has not been any advisory to. This move is causing my pig farmers to become very upset because of the fall in pork stock. Using twitter to follow news broadcast  can help you to keep up to date but when you tweet about it think about how many people will be reading and what reactions you may cause.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/27/swine.flu.twitter/index.html

Computer Virus Conflicker Found on Medical Equipment

It seems that biological viruses aren’t the only thing worrying hospitals.  In an ironic twist, several critical pieces of medical equipment were found to be infected with the Conflicker worm.

This is a surprising case of virus mutation.  Although the Conflicker worm seemed to be devoid of a malicious payload, it is the first reported to have infected such a wide range of systems.  This raises the stakes for the cybersecurity game, because the next virus could literally kill someone.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10226448-83.html

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/30/2127211&art_pos=5

Apple’s new Idea for a Microprocessor

The microprocessors that will go into future Apple will need to be smaller, cheaper and more powerful while using less power. Especially with the current state of the economy, being affordable and attractive (small and sleek) is important to customers. At the core of Apple’s processor issue is the need to put more features and computing power onto a single chip. Standard desktops and notebooks have enough room for all the processors that work with a central processing unit (graphics and memory). However, with the iPhone and iPod Touch available space is limited. Therefore hence the need for stronger systems-on-a-chip (SOCs) that contain all those elements on a single processor is important. However SOCs are known to suck up battery juice and battery life is important to consumers. SOCs are also expensive to develop.

Link To Article: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Apple-Bets-Its-Chips-on-In-House-Microprocessor-Design-66949.html

The Good: I like the iPhone and the iPod Touch so this is exciting to hear about. I like the idea that they are going to improve the iPhone and iPod Touch because I wouldn’t know how to improve them. I just hope that they figure out a way to get the SOCs to work and improve the product.

The Bad: Battery life is VERY IMPORTANT to me! So I don’t want SOCs to be used if it is going to take away from the battery life of the iPhone and iPod Touch. I would rather have the current models with a longer lasting battery than a faster processor with a short battery life.

This topic applies to Informatics because the iPod and iPhone are very popular right now and a newer version will be in high demand. It’s a very impressive electronic device and many people are able to use it. The really impressive thing to me is that even computer illiterate people (like my sister) are able to the iPod and iPhone and that is quite an accomplishment!

Disney Buys Into Hulu. YouTube Should Be Worried.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/30/disney-buys-into-hulu-youtube-should-be-worried/

Hulu the number 3 video site in the U.S., got major buy-in from yet another major media company, Disney. Disney is now an investor, joining News Corp and NBC. Hulu is becoming the preferred distribution channel for the big media companies. That means Youtube is not in good shape. There are many companies that are considering joining as well. But Hulu can’t let them all in because at a certain point it will trigger antitrust concerns. So there is a limit to how dominant and growth Hulu can become.

This is another aspect of Informatics, the media side and shows you how broad Informatics can be and it relates to everything. Where videos are being shared and published in Hulu. I love watching videos and movies online and seeing one of my favorite video sites expand like this is just exciting.

Twitter User Retention Rate Low

Who isn’t on Twitter these days?  Even President Barack Obama and celebrities such as Jon Stewart and Oprah Winfrey tweet.  Back in March Twitter added 5 million new users growing by 131%.  Although many users enjoy the social environment of Twitter to update their people in their social network of what’s going on and vice versa, approximately 60% of users quit Twitter after a month leaving their retention rate in the 30 to 4o percentile range.  Although the retention rate is low, users come and go every month.  Reasons people may leave after a month may be because they are quitter or do not take liking to the social environment offered through Twitter or that the desired options are not offered.  Either way Twitter’s popularity is growing especially after receiving endorsements from celebrities such as Oprah.

http://www.dailytech.com/Report+Finds+Twitterers+to+be+Quitters/article15001.htm

Seal flex

Seal Shield late last year began shipping the now famous washable, antimicrobial keyboard and mouse. Now Seal Shield has unveiled their newest keyboard. A Flexible key board which is water proof, and dish washer safe. Keyboards tend to collect dust, but not much can be done. Now, one can just throw this keyboard in the dishwasher and have a clean keyboard. This keyboard is also antimicrobial; it has built silver ions in the plastic, these silver ions naturally neutralize bacteria over time as the ions are slowly released. This anti bacterial Keyboard can greatly aid combat the spread of diseases to name one, swine flu.

This is important to informatics as it is yet another solution for human and IT interactivity. Public libraries and hospitals could very well use these keyboards to keep from spreading diseases. The reason for this is that one is most likely to attain the flu by using an infected keyboard, to attaining it by other means.

I think with this keyboard the user can feel assured that bacteria is not building up on the keyboard. If the urge to wash the key board ever comes it will be easy enough to just put it in the dish washer. However more importantly, spilling coffee over the keyboard wont ruin the keyboard anymore.

Silver Seal Flex keyboard is washable, antimicrobial

Nokia’s Ovi To Rival Apple’s App Store

Apple entered the cell phone market nearly two years ago.  To say that Apple has succeeded would be an understatement.  With over 20 million iPhone units sold, Apple has also made massive profits because of the launch of their app store that not only enables iPhone users to download all kinds of apps, but as well as iPod Touch users.  Since the launch of Apple’s app store less than a year ago, over a billion apps have been downloaded by users.  Apple’s success in the cell phone market with their revolutionary phone and app store leaves other cell phone companies such as Nokia scratching their heads in how to compete against Apple.

Officials at Nokia think that since their existing costumer base is over 50 million users, launching their own app store, Ovi, would give them the competitive edge against Apple.  Ovi has yet to be launched and success is questioned.  Only time will tell if such a service would make Nokia competitive against Apple although Nokia has a much large starting customer base unlike Apple.

http://www.dailytech.com/Nokia+Readies+Leaner+Ovi+Store+to+Fight+Apple/article15000.htm

BuddyPress – One upping social networking sites?

BuddyPress , the side project of WordPress that has been in development for over a year, recently launched into 1.0. It’s essentially a social layer that you can lay on top of your WordPress blog to add some of the now familiar social network features from larger social networking sites.

Version 1.0’s features include : Extended profile, private messaging, friends, groups, “the wire” (a function that allows viewers to leave messages) activity stream, blog tracking and forums.

Future updates in 2009 include: Status updates and photo albums.

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg makes sure to indicate that BuddyPress is not meant to be another typical “social networking site” (such a Myspace or Facebook) so much as provide an alternative that provides “friendlier” terms of service, a framework that allows more customization to your personal site, and goes on to suggest that “maybe even someday you’ll be able to connect your BuddyPresses to each other and to the existing monolithic social networks”.

However, for the moment you have to be using WordPress Mu in order to install it. Mullenweg has made comments that imply that that BP will eventually be available to the larger WordPress community.

Social Networking sites have already proven to be rapidly changing how people interact with each other, and create connections. Prior to these sites, blogs made a similar revolution. I have long been anticipating something that combined the best of both worlds, and BuddyPress might be going in that direction. I also enjoy making my profile my own, as an expression of me, without the arbritary and mistake-like issues that a site like “Myspace” creates, and BuddyPress seems to provide that as well.

Regardless, the internet in general, whether it be instant messaging, blogging communities or social networking sites, is completely revolutionizing how tomorrow’s generation will move forward and communicate amongst themselves.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/30/buddypress-launches-may-a-thousand-social-networks-bloom/

Microsoft 7 Release

Microsoft isn’t confirming just when Windows 7 will launch, but it is hoping that the fact that not changing much between the beta version and the release version will convince people that the product is nearly ready. Among the changes from the beta release are a more final version of Internet Explorer 8. Microsoft intentionally made the alerts less frequent in Windows 7 than they were in Vista, but some people complained that the specific changes Microsoft made also made it less secure. Also, Microsoft is making a beta version available of “XP Mode,” an add-on to Windows 7 that uses virtualization to run programs that run in XP but not in Windows Vista. Windows 7 is expected to be released with plenty of time for this year’s holiday shopping season, although Microsoft has not promised that.

Link To Article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10230336-56.html

The Good: Microsoft is improving their Microsoft 7 product and (hopefully) making it superior to both XP and Vista. I use Vista and do not many of the things about Vista so I am hopeful that Microsoft is successful in accomplishing their goal of “pleasing the customer” because I am not pleased with Vista.  I don’t know a lot about software but just from what I read, Microsoft 7 sounds like an excellent product for me to have.

The Bad: Can I really trust that Microsoft 7 will live up to its expectations and all of its hype? When Vista came out I was told that Vista was far superior to XP so I installed it on my brand new laptop. After using Vista for a few weeks, I wished I had kept the XP on my computer instead of getting Vista.

This applies to Informatics because Microsoft 7 is made to make the average computer user capable of doing tasks on their computer with ease, no matter if they are computer illiterate or not. Many people (including) me are counting on Microsoft 7 to be good and worth the money and with everything I’ve read, I am getting pretty excited about it.