Archive: October, 2006

This got silly along time ago. The story is a writers’ curse because there’s just nothing new to say and no possible combination of words to make it original. Ok… here goes.

(At the risk of being redundant) The release of Microsoft Vista is likely going be be delayed past January 2007.

UK based Times Online today quoted Microsoft research manager David Vronay writing Microsoft was trying to get, “… lots of people spending time tracking down the minor errors and glitches that haven’t historically been ‘ship-stopping’ but certainly contribute to a feeling that things are not polished.”

The piece, titled, “Microsoft’s Vista faces delays as public tests continue” also suggests,

“there is increasing speculation that testing of the new product will reveal unforeseen problems that could delay the launch.”

Duke Nukem Surrenders

In May 2006, Amazon announced it would be replacing Google as a search results provider with Windows Live from Microsoft. Earlier today, Amazon announced it was, basically, replacing A9 with Windows Live.

Dave Utter from WebProNews wrote a good review of the revamped A9.com search engine.

“The partnership between Amazon.com and Microsoft for search services has led to a massive overhaul of the functionality for A9.com, the search engine operated by Amazon.”

In the piece, Dave notes that A9 has given up a number of once important features that overlapped with services Microsoft offers such as the A9 Toolbar, “… which should be uninstalled now”.

A9 has also sacrificed its hybrid Maps and Yellow Pages service that featured the ambitious BlockView project that displayed a street-level view of blocks from city street maps. In 2004 Amazon had hired students to spend the summer capturing images of every business storefront in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Chicago, Manhattan, Denver, LA, Seattle, Portland and the Bay Area.

The move is good for both companies, giving A9 a deeper search database to pull from and Microsoft a high traffic partner to serve paid advertising to. As Dave notes in his piece though,

CNet news provides reviews and video of the new version of Firefox scheduled for public release in late October.

While a version of Firefox2 is now available, the Mozilla Foundation suggests it would be best for typical users to wait for open-source developers to work with if for a few weeks to spot and eliminate as many potential bugs as possible.

The new Firefox browser earned high marks from CNet’s reviewers who noted;
- Translucent buttons that appear to glow as the mouse hovers over them,
- Microsummeries of sites included in users’ bookmarks folders,
- Phishing or scam-page detectors (lower marks from reviewers),
- Enhanced RSS feeds,
- Saved-user sessions in case of browser crash (Firefox 1.5 still crashes frequently)
- In-browser spell checker

The full release should be available for download in late October.