Archive for June, 2010
How Good is Microsoft Free Antivirus Software
Microsoft has officially unveiled its long-awaited consumer antivirus offering. Formerly code-named “Morro,” it’s now been christened Microsoft Security Essentials, and it will enter public beta testing next week. If you have a licensed copy of Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or above), Windows Vista, or Windows 7, you’ll be able to download and install the software at no additional charge. No subscription is required for ongoing definition updates, either. The final release is scheduled for this fall.
The public beta will be limited to 75,000 downloads, Microsoft says, and the targets are global. The initial beta release is limited to the United States, Israel (where a core development team is based), and Brazil. Next month, the beta will open up for users in China. It’s no coincidence that Microsoft is rolling out early in Brazil and China, which are large-scale vectors of malware infections because of the sheer number of Windows users running without antivirus protection. According to Microsoft, barriers to adoption of paid security software are especially high in developing markets, where internet access is slower and credit cards are unavailable to a large percentage of the population.
Over the past few days I’ve been testing recent builds of Microsoft Security Essentials on two machines, one running a 32-bit edition of Windows Vista, the other running a 64-bit copy of the Windows 7 release candidate. The software I describe in this post is a more recent build than the current beta that has been floating around back channels on the Internet.
Microsoft Launches Office 2010 Ad Campaign
Today, June 15, is the day Office 2010 goes on sale at retail. Microsoft is marking the occasion by launching an $80 million ad campaign.
The “Make it Great” campaign is focused on “real people” who were among the 9 million beta testers. Microsoft officials told News.com that about 70 percent of that ad push will be via online channels, with the rest spent on print ads and billboards.
The main Office 2010 “Make it Great” site also features links to buy the product, as well as for free limited-edition trials of various SKUs of Office 2010. Microsoft is highlighting examples of school, home and work users and uses for its latest Office suite there.
Earlier this year, Microsoft began preparing its retail and reseller partners for its Office 2010 onslaught, suggesting the top 10 features they should plug when selling the product. Here’s that list of the 10 top ways Microsoft planned to hawk Office 2010 via its channel partners.
Today, Microsoft is circulating a different list: The Top 7 Reasons to Try Office 2010. There’s some overlap with the previous top 10. But here’s what’s on its latest, more consumer-focused list:
1. Outlook Social Connector, providing a “people-centric view of e-mail”
2. Linked Notes in the OneNote note-taking program (enabling users to “dock” OneNote to the side of the screen, take notes and map those notes in the presentation.
3. Sparklines in Excel which are charts that fit into a single cell to show a trend at a glance
4. Photo editing in Word
5. Video and broadcast capabilities in PowerPoint
6. Office Web Apps, which are the Webified versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Microsoft is beginning to roll out a new version of Hotmail today (Windows Live Wave 4 Hotmail) that allows users to share these Office Web Apps documents via Hotmail
7. A Ribbon you can personalize by adding often-used commands (or by collapsing it to take up less space)
Microsoft’s biggest competitor to Office 2010 is Office itself. Its biggest challenge is getting users of Office XP, Office 2003 — and to a lesser extent, Office 2007 — to upgrade.
Gmail Now Supports All Microsoft Word Docs
Google has added Docs support for Microsoft Word (.doc and .docx). When you receive an attachment with a document in one of these formats, you now have the option to open them in Google Docs. I could have sworn this feature already existed, but apparently that functionality only worked with other document types.
The new feature works in the vanilla Gmail, as well as in Google Apps (all editions). To use this feature, simply click “View” at the bottom of a message that contains one of these documents, and you will be whizzed off to the Google Docs viewer for your attachment.
It’s great that Google is building out support for all these document types — it really does make “Going Google” easier. If Microsoft wants to combat this, they are going to have to start offering similar features — like the ability to open Google Docs directly into Word.
The Best Malware Program to Run for Viruses
Use an anti-virus program for removing viruses. Malwarebytes supplements anti-virus programs, it isn’t designed to remove all viruses.
Some free ones (for home use only):
http://free.avg.com
http://www.avast.com
you may want to add malwarebytes (www.malwarebytes.org) and spybot to the list. I use Ultimate boot cd for Windows (ubcd4win) its a Bartpe based cd/usb os that allows you to clean up windows systems as well as alot of other grat utilities.
http://www.ubcd4win.com/
Sony Reveals PlayStation Network Plus Details
When Sony announced PlayStation Plus at E3 there was a lot of confusion as to what the paid version of PSN would offer users. Yesterday evening, Susan Panico, Senior Director for PlayStation Network, clarified the features of PSN Plus in a blog post to the PlayStation blog.
At launch subscribers will get full access to the PlayStation Network game WipEout HD; PSP minis; as well as PS One classics like Fieldrunners, Age of Zombies, Rally Cross; and a game trial of Infamous. There’ll also be free monthly episodes of Qore.
Other features of PSN Plus are free monthly games that once downloaded, are yours as long as you remain a subscriber. If you delete the game and decide you want it back, you can redownload it for free (as long as you’re still a subscriber). You’ll also get exclusive PlayStation Store discounts ranging from 20 percent to 50 percent. Members will also be included in demos and betas before anyone else.
There’ll be free trials for users, which will allow you to download an entire game and play it for a set amount of time (usually an hour) as a ‘try before you buy’ option. If you decide to buy, you can pick up where you left off when your free hour expired.
Lastly, Susan talking about a feature that will download patches and updates automatically if that’s your desire.
Pricing is $49.99 for a year and $17.99 for three months of service. If you purchase a year, you’ll get three months free.