Microsoft

New XBox Items for Spring

Peter Stathakos — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:56:29 GMT

Another April fool's site. The helmet had me going for a bit though...

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/promotions/2008/spring/

Worldwide Telescope Announced

Peter Stathakos — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:04:07 GMT

So, now we officially know What brought Scoble to tears a few weeks ago. As has been speculated it is the Worldwide Telescope which will revolutionize the way we look at the universe.

I am really looking forward to playing with this, it looks gorgeous. Congratulations to everyone who is involved.

BTW, I have to second Robert on his review of Building 99. It really is a great building with lots of glass and open workspaces. It is a bit weird to have the meeting rooms so exposed but I think it works really well.

Life at Microsoft

Peter Stathakos — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:12:31 GMT

I got a huge laugh at this video from On10. Yup, it's really like that here ;-) ...

Life At Microsoft, The Truth Revealed

I've got to say that I did have to stop using Google as a verb and use search a lot more, as in search.live.com or course.

Thanks to Rory for the link...

Geek Dinner Tonight

Peter Stathakos — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:59:44 GMT

Are you in the Bellevue/Seattle/Redmond area and looking for something to do tonight? One last geeky blast before you make it all up to the significant other via chocolates and flowers tomorrow?

Well then head on down to the Crossroads Mall in Bellevue where Scott Hanselman is hosting a Seattle/Bellevue/Redmond nerd dinner, come one come all!

Details on Scott's blog...

The New Zunes Are Coming Tomorrow

Peter Stathakos — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:31:56 GMT

The Zune 2.0 will be available tomorrow, as well as the upgraded software for the original Zune 1.0 and the new Zune software. One of the coolest things for the new Zunes is the option to get free laser engraved artwork and custom text on the back of the Zune.

Check out the details at Zune Insider and Cool Hunting.

Lots of other cool info at Zune Insider.

What's Wrong With Gmail?

Peter Stathakos — Thu, 03 May 2007 11:53:47 GMT

It's been a long time since I last posted, I have been really bad lately I know. Work, life, changes on the horizon. You know how it is...

Every once in a while for the past two years I have been getting comments about Gmail problems which I wrote about in the past. However, in the past few weeks I have been getting hammered with comments and mail concerning Gmail. It seems like people are having connectivity problems that last for days(!) and it's not only affecting overseas users but lots of people in the U.S. as well.

This is crazy in my opinion. People really do depend on Gmail for all sorts of business and personal communications. I know in the past I've replied to comments with things like "it's a Beta, what do you expect" but to be in Beta for three years and still have these kind of outages? I mean come on people! If this was Microsoft, you'd never hear the end of it. But that's just the thing. Microsoft has been serving up Hotmail (now MSN Hotmail) for years. Sure there have been some issues, but Hotmail has been much more stable as far as my unscientific polls can tell.

I seriously think that Google needs to take a step back and really fix Gmail and stop hiding behind the Beta badge. As for me.. I think I'll be moving everything over to my Hotmail account once and for all...

Windows Home Server

Peter Stathakos — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 14:21:00 GMT

I was pleasantly surprised to hear about the Windows Home Server today On10 and on Charlie Kindel's blog as well. This is a great idea, an easy way to unify and administer all the resources of a multi PC home. The ease of backup, storage "cloud" and access over the net will be the big selling points (for me at least).

So it looks like Rick Hallihan was on to something when he wrote about a "Windows Home Server" back in 2005. It's also interesting to look at Charlie's post at that time. Was Charlie being coy? Probably, and I'm sure it was tons of hard work by the whole team, I'm just glad it's going to be a reality soon. Can't wait to get my hands on one.

Currently listening to: Los Angeles, I'm Yours - (04:18)
The Decemberists, Her Majesty

Windows Defender Service Failing

Peter Stathakos — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 12:16:00 GMT

For the past few days we've been getting the following error on our machines at home:

Application failed to initialize: 0x800106ba. A problem caused Windows Defender Service to stop. To start the service, restart your computer or search Help and Support on how to start a service manually.

A quick search lead me to this post by Paul Wu regarding the Windows Defender error. It turns out that Windows Defender is out of Beta and a new version is available. Simply follow the instructions on Paul's post and install the new version of Windows Defender and you're golden.

I agree with Paul, this was a terrible error message. The whole point of Windows Defender is to make it easy for home users to protect their machines without having to bog down in administrative tasks. Most home users could not care less what a service is, let alone how to figure out why this particular service is now failing.

Anyway, it's easy enough to fix, once you know what the issue is.

Thanks Paul!

Currently listening to: So Says I - (02:49)
The Shins, Chutes Too Narrow