Students Get Awesome Deal on Windows and Office

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If you are a student, you should jump on this deal from Microsoft. A lot of college courses require Microsoft Office (some can be done with OpenOffice, too), including some business classes. There are some entry level computer science classes that use Excel and Word. And a lot of software packages that are needed for classes are Windows only (the big exception is art majors… They insist on Mac’s!). You can’t really beat this deal.

Forums Now Open

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Our forums are now open. You need to register to post, but anyone can browse and read them. We are planning a few giveaways in the new few weeks, and will be giving away some awesome prizes. Get registered, do some posting (anything goes!), and have a good time! Prizes so far will include software, books and some hardware for your PC. You gotta register to enter, but it only takes a few seconds! Right now, our forums have just started so there won’t be many posts, but we hope they will grow in time with some very knowledgeable visitors and guests. So, bring your most difficult questions, or answer what’s in there, or just chat!

To stay up to date with the giveaways, make sure and sign up for our newsletter (powered by Feedburner), which sends out an email only when we add new content on the front end (not the forums or knowledge base), once a day (in the morning).

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New Multi-Touch Mouse from Microsoft

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Nothing official from Microsoft yet, but word is that they are working on a multi-touch version of their arc mouse to work with Windows 7 built in features. I have been waiting for something to make it a worthwhile feature. I like the touchscreen monitors, but couldn’t own one because I can’t stand fingerprints on my monitor. 🙂

If this product does exist, what can we expect from it? Windows 7 does have multitouch functionality built right in, but most consumers don’t have the hardware to take advantage of it. Even if the Arc Touch is just a PC clone of the Apple Magic Mouse, it will allow PC users a new set of experiences without buying an expensive multitouch PC.

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New Features

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You may have noticed the new design of the site. I am still working on a few things to make it easier to navigate, read and find what you are looking for. Look for a few aesthetic changes in the next few days. You will also notice that the FAQ’s are gone. I have moved all the FAQ’s and have started a new Knowledge Base for Windows and Office information. It is easier to update and easier to navigate than the older FAQ’s. I look forward to bringing some more changes and some more features to this site. I am also looking for another person to help with new and KB postings, if anyone is interested. At this time, it is only a volunteer position, whenever you have the time.

Thanks for all the returning visitors and to all the new ones! Thank you for your support!

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Death of the Kin

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Surpise! The Microsoft Kin was discontinued by Microsoft, and Amazon is clearancing the leftovers for a penny (with contract, of course!). I guess they just didn’t like it.

Amazon’s sales data sheds some light on why Redmond decided to axe the KIN phones. KIN Two is ranked 1,575 in the retailer’s cell phone category, while the less powerful KIN One is ranked 7,094. In other words, both phones turned out to be massive sales flops.

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Microsoft’s Proving Browser NOT Part of OS

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Previously, Microsoft has said that Internet Explorer is deeply ingrained in Windows, with both being dependant on one another. Well, with the death of IE6 coming soon, and IE7 & 8 able to work with Windows XP, it’s obvious that it isn’t THAT much a part of the OS as Microsoft has stated… Not at all.

Microsoft officials wish the company didn’t have to support IE6 any more. It’s time-consuming, costly and fraught with incompatibilities. But Microsoft can’t simply pull the plug on IE6 for the simple reason that many of the company’s most powerful business customers are still using it. These customers know IE6 doesn’t comply with standards. They know that it’s nowhere near as secure as later iterations of IE or some other more recently introduced browsers from Microsoft competitors. But there are some harsh realities surrounding IE6.

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10,000 XP PC’s Hit By New Virus

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The XP flaw that the Google engineer found last month has finally been exploited by the bad guys are it is spreading across the Internet now. Make sure to keep your system patched and your anti-virus current!

Microsoft reported Wednesday that it has now logged more than 10,000 attacks. “At first, we only saw legitimate researchers testing innocuous proof-of-concepts. Then, early on June 15th, the first real public exploits emerged,” Microsoft said in a blog posting. “Those initial exploits were targeted and fairly limited. In the past week, however, attacks have picked up.”

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Windows from 1983

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Talk about a blast from the past. A Windows review from 1983. Gone are the days of the 320KB floppy disks. Although, the 192KB of RAM requirement is pretty awesome! 1MB was considered a LOT back then. A great PC sporting an Intel 8088 or 8086 at 5 MHz. Windows had to fly! Especially coupled with the new MS-DOS 2.0! AWESOME! I remember running my Commodore 64 back in the day, and thought that it would be the leader in PC’s. Until 1986 rolled around, and I got my first PC. Been using them ever since!

This keeps most of us staring a the MS-DOS or CP/M command line and hoping that a sudden fall in the prices of RAM and hard disk will open the way to metaphors and mice. With the introduction of Microsoft Windows, however, the company that brought us MS-DOS promises a mouse-and-window show running off two 320K-byte floppy disks and 192K bytes of RAM. (More RAM is required, of course, with each additional application.) To make Microsoft Windows even more attractive to personal computer users, Microsoft promises to price Windows “as an operating-system component” – that is, inexpensively.

Odds are Increasing that MS Could Collapse

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While people have said that Microsoft is too big to fail (same with the banks, mortgage companies, etc.), these guys think that Microsoft’s cash cows are becoming obsolete with the increasing competition from the Internet applications. Google, Apple, Palm have all been competing with Microsoft for different segments. They have some solid points on some issues, but neglect the fact that many organizations aren’t going to throw away their whole infrastructure to go with a cheaper alternative. Most hardware and software is designed for Windows compatibility, telling so many developers to switch to a open architecture would be catastrophic. Sure, it would happen slowly, but I don’t see it causing Microsoft to collapse. Windows has evolved over time to become what it is. The iPad is a niche product. Sure, it has Apple’s followers grabbing it and loving it (they do the same with all Apple products, so this isn’t any different). I don’t see the iPad becoming a replacement for the low end PC. What do you think? Will the new OS from Google and the iPad dethrone Microsoft, killing Windows?

The world has changed radically in the past few years.