My favorite gift is IE8 passing Acid2. That will save a lot of web page development time once IE6 and IE7 can be ignored.

1. Laptop makers announce high end laptops will now come with 4MB RAM as standard. Finally!! The "tail" finally read the Microsoft memo that said Vista would be the last 32-bit OS. Windows 7 will be 64-bit only. It will still take 2-plus years for retailers - not the brightest candles in the church - to stop selling 20th century laptops. Yes, Vista is a transitional OS. The transition is needed because the hardware half of the PC equation moves so slowly.

Puting 4MB RAM in laptops should sound the death knell for desktops. In this go-go era, why would anyone want a computer that is attached to your desk?

Roger, I do agree that Laptops are going to take over however I like my desktop- it's expandable.

Yeah Laptops are great and everything, my tablet is a great tool to use, however desktops are still king in my book. I think there still needs to be a change in how we use them though- things like Media centre and Windows Home Server these things are the future for the home PC. Laptops are great for video editing etc but a proper keyboard, mouse and monitor combo, with all that customisation ability? That's perfect in my books- look at Bill Gates, he has a tablet but his main PC is three screens, mine here is two screens and a couple of TVs around the house hooked up via 360s.

If PC manufacturers move quickly enough to these steps:

+ More all-in-one solutions (suitable for 90% of users)
+ More multiscreen displays
+ More emphasis on media

Then there will be a place for the desktop for years to come.

The most glaring omission on your list:

The free Visual Studio Express 2008 (and its full version sibling).

I also use Visual Web Developer Express 2005 on a daily basis, and the free upgrade to 2008 is a welcome addition. You just can't find another free standards-based web editor that also features that kind of programmability with ASP.NET.

Also on the development front, .NET Framework 3.5 was released at the same time as Visual Studio.

One of the nicest side-effects of deploying it? It includes .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, and Service Pack 1 for both of them, making it a one-stop download for updating both client and server machines.

Windows 7 will be 64-bit for servers only. Microsoft will still release a 32-bit version client OS for laptops and desktops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7

Deepak:

The 32-bit version will be the Windows 7 version of Vista Home Basic. No one will buy it. It will be there just so Microsoft can feign backward compatiblilty. By 2010, a new 32-bit version of Windows would bring gaffaws of laughter.

I just got a buy one get one free offer for Vista Ultimate in my e-mail.

Quote:

Happy Birthday Windows Vista!

As we approach the one year anniversary of launching Windows Vista� we want to remember you as one of the many people who downloaded and tested one of the Windows Vista Beta or Release Candidates through TechNet or MSDN�.YOU were a significant contributor to the development of Windows Vista. Your participation was extremely valuable to Microsoft, and we would like to say, �Thank You!�

===========
Ouch! They sure know how to hurt a guy -- I was a significant contributor to that??!!

@Roger

You can't slap four NICs in an old lappy and make it a DIY firewall, router, IDS.
:-p

#1 Will Windows Home Server be Microsoft's next flop?

Man quit hating, yeah M$ has a lot of issues both software and social wise, but this article is as slanted as any anti-M$ stuff you find out there. For example - Connect is to interact and get feedback from M$ on their apps, right. So you mean to tell me that you would skip on that cause the site is not all eye candy - or the fact that the majority of Gate's article was on Office not his monitor layout or ThinkWeek project - c'mon. Hey I love openness and fairness - I personally prefer Ubuntu over Vista - but Don't knock M$ cause their M$.

Waethorn wrote: "The most glaring omission on your list: The free Visual Studio Express 2008 (and its full version sibling)."

Hi, Weathorn,

VS 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 would have topped the list if Microsoft had released them in December.

Joe

HI JOE, IT IS TIME TO GIVE GIVE THANKS TO MICROSOFT FOR ALL THE GIFTS!!!

1. YOUR JOB!!!

NOTHING ELSE !!!!!

MERRY CHIRSTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.

(THE SPIES ARE CHECKING YOUR EMAIL!!!)

For Roger and Northerngeek;

As for the Notebooks vs Desktop computers debate.
Since laptops are moving to 4 gig of ram, I thought this link would be appropriate.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/22/076211

Quoting from the link;

“The proposed move is especially interesting, given that 32-bit Vista and XP cannot access 4 GB of memory. They have a practical 3.1 — 3.3 GB limit. With Vista SP1 it seems that Microsoft has decided to fix the problem by reporting the installed memory rather than the available memory."

I guess this means buy 4 gig of ram and run MS OS and you really only get about 3.1 or ram.

On another point, the real advantages of desktops computers over notebooks has been; 1. cutting edge games 2. easier to repair.

Since fewer people are now doing cutting edge games, and you can check this out by looking at cutting edge games sold numbers, which is different than looking at retro games, or older games being sold for the PC. Also, Notebooks are now moving into the power range with 4 gb of ram and better video cards that they will be able to do what cutting edge games still come out. Vista with DirectX 10 has not helped those who release cutting edge games, in fact, Vista is probably one of the main factors that is killing what is left of the cutting edge games for PC's, with its terrible speed problems and compatibility issues, most gamers have gone back to XP.

If games are to become the domain of gaming console machines, (I believe this is happening now) then Windows will lose the one small advantages it has, cutting edge games for PC's, as most retro games, and some cutting edge games will run on Linux, with the addition of Wine, Crossover, or Cedega.

M$ $anta;
"What would you like for Xmas little one? Ho Ho Ho!"

How about open standards for Office?

Norwegian minister: closed formats, vendor lockin are unacceptable

http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2007/12/21/norwegian-government-mandates-open-standards

"the government of Norway has established a new policy mandating use of HTML, PDF, or ODF for government documents that are made available to the public", starting in 2009"

n0neXn0ne wrote:
#1 Will Windows Home Server be Microsoft's next flop?

WHS is getting good reviews at newegg. Its hardware requirements are reasonable. It will likely run on that old 98SE machine sitting idle in a closet. For $170 for the OS and another $100 for a 500 GB hard drive, you get a machine that automatically backs up all of the (Windows) boxes on your home net. If you have a disk crash on one of your other boxes, it's paid for itself. Seems to me that WHS is one of the few things that Microsoft has done right.

and gift from MS for the Holidays;

Microsoft files for no-skip video ad patent

http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/12/21/ms.no.skip.video.ad.patent/

Microsoft is attempting to secure a patent for technology that would prevent users from skipping ads in downloaded videos, according to a new filing with the US Patent Office. The technique would insert a digital rights management (DRM) token inside the file that would prevent users from playing the intended video until relevant ads are viewed. It would also allow a content producer to insert ads into a downloaded video at its own discretion.

Without end
As the largest software company on Earth, one which easily outranks in profit the majority of computer hardware manufacturers, Microsoft is far from hitting any real problems any time soon. Not even another three desktop operating system fiascos will truly hurt it. It has squeezed itself in too many areas. The truth is simple: The Microsoft Machine will be around for many more years and even the skeptics and anti-fans should be well aware of that. However, you can all help to balance things a bit by looking over to the Linux camp where Compiz makes Vista’s Aero look like amateur work and where a warm community welcomes and helps any newcomer. And as soon as more developers realise that coding for Linux is not as hard as it looks (check out QT), things will probably get a lot better.

The trouble with Microsoft

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/12/20/inside-microsoft-machine

"Merry Christmas and on earth peace, good will toward men"

karl Says :
"Seems to me that WHS is one of the few things that Microsoft has done right."

@karl :
Maybe, but, a commercial flop/failure is a product that does not reach expectations of success, failing to come even close. A major flop goes one step further and is recognized for its complete lack of success.

"There has been only one Christmas -- the rest are anniversaries."
'W. J. Cameron'

"From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist it would be necessary to invent it." 'Katharine Whitehorn'

Christmas gift suggestions:

To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.
'Oren Arnold' quotes

Have a 'Merry Christmas' and a 'Happy New Year' to ALL!

karl Says :
"WHS is getting good reviews at newegg".

@karl :
"Now, I see this scary little Microsoft knowledge base article (When you use certain programs to edit files on a home computer that uses Windows Home Server, the files may become corrupted when you save them to the home server). As you might imagine, I use several of those applications. All my data is stored on the home server. Are you seriously telling me that my personal photo collection might be corrupt, Microsoft? Really? Sorry. But this is scary. Really scary."

karl Says :
"If you have a disk crash on one of your other boxes, it's paid for itself. ... Seems to me that WHS is one of the few things that Microsoft has done right."

@karl :
When you use certain programs to edit files on a home computer that uses Windows Home Server, the files may become corrupted when you save them to the home server
...

"Additionally, there have been customer reports of issues with Torrent applications, with Intuit Quicken, and with QuickBooks program files. ....
...

Make sure that you have a backup copy of any important program files before you store these files on a system that is running Windows Home Server."

@karl :
Is this the best "done right" that Microsoft can do right?

All my posts are about VCSY insofar as VCSY built the Apollo Industries smartcard system with the XML over http collaboration system claimed by patent 7076521.

It's all about VCSY insofar as Adobe acquired Macromedia and retired the Central system and built their Apollo system brand new.

What you can't answer for the reader is how to resolve the striking sameness between Adobe Apollo and VCSY Apollo.

That means you don't know what Microsoft is facing that causes MSFT to delay shipping Silverlight 2.0.

That means you have no idea what's coming ahead. That means all your speculation is uninformed. These aren't imagined problems for Microsoft. They are demonstrated problems in Microsoft as anyone who's studied Feed Sync and the rest of Microsoft http system efforts realize Microsoft has not shown the can provide client-side determinism in their transactions.

Simple problem... if you own something like 7076521. If not, it's impossible and you can't make something that "almost" works like DCOM become good enough to do what Silverlight 2.0 is supposed to be able to do.

Local live.
The maps, esp. sat pictures, are quite impressive.
Here's one of a church of a town I live in:
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=sw2z5jhjdn42&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=10770753

All of the Netherlands has been put into a lot more detail recently.

It's a nice present if you ask me :-)

Do a comparison of googlemaps and local live: local live is quite often a lot better.

"There has been only one Christmas -- the rest are anniversaries."
'W. J. Cameron'

"From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist it would be necessary to invent it." 'Katharine Whitehorn'

"Merry Christmas and on earth peace, good will toward men"

"Merry Christmas and on earth peace, good will toward men"

They are demonstrated problems in Microsoft as anyone who's studied Feed Sync and the rest of Microsoft http system efforts realize Microsoft has not shown the can provide client-side