Catching Up With Headlines

I’ve been under a mountain of news to catch up on since I was ignoring the feeds this week. Here are a few that caught my ear. 

Update To Windows Update: About once a year Windows Update gets an overhaul. This article from Ars tells you what to expect and what to do to avoid the update if you so desire.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2008/07/03/update-to-windows-update-will-improve-scan-times

July's Patch Tuesday Fixes: Speaking of Windows Updates, here is the list of fixes coming in this month’s Windows Update.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2008/07/03/microsoft-patch-tuesday-for-july-2008-four-bulletins

Office Update Changes: And not to be outdone by it’s Microsoft Windows cousin Office has made some changes of their own. Read about the move to Cumulative and Emergency Hotfix releases.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2008/07/01/new-update-schedule-change-revealed-for-microsoft-office

Security Changes In IE8: Oh look. IE8 also has some security changes coming as well. I am starting to detect a pattern this week.

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/ie8_security.asp

10.5.3 Woes: It seems that the Jobbs Reality Distortion Field has waned a bit and the crushing weight of some miscues in this last refresh of the OS are taking hold. Check out this rant on the problems with OSX.

http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/leopard/index.html#d28jun2008

And this one is very ironic when you compare it to the critical mass on Vista.

http://www.fortheloveofgeeks.com/2008/06/28/apples-snow-leopard-whats-the-point/

Google On The Enterprise: Here’s one take on Goggle’s shortcomings from a former Microsoft employee who just left Google only to return to Microsoft. 

http://blogs.zdnet.com/SAAS/?p=545

XP And The Future: The Windows Super Site Blog has a good collection of the articles surrounding the last days of Windows XP public availability.

http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2008/06/30/hasta-la-vista-windows-xp.aspx

LCD Screens Worse Than Cars?: This is an interesting article about the gases that come from the use and creation of LCD monitors versus the emissions from automobiles as it applies to the Greenhouse Effect.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/07/03/nitrogen_trifluoride_tv/

12,000 Laptops Lost In US Airports: Check out this survey on the staggering number of lost laptops throughout the US Airport system.

http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=158099&f_src=drdaily

Textbook Companies After Torrent Sharers At Colleges: This ought to make you happy to pay your Bookshare subscription. The Textbook Companies are going all out to stop file shares of their products. See the article below to know more.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080701-campus-copyright-battle-moves-to-textbook-torrents.html

Microsoft Equipt: I believe this was code named “Albany” last year. What is Equipt? Well it is a bundle of Windows Live OneCare, some Windows Live services and Office 2007 Home and Student Edition all in a single box. It also just so happens to be $70 a year. That’s right. A subscription based version of Office bundled with a Security Suite that you can run on three computers at once. Check the link to learn more.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080702-microsoft-equipt-a-software-bundle-costing-70-per-year.html