I knew this was coming. After many companies stopped supplying recovery discs with their PC’s, a UK electronics retailer took it upon themselves to help the consumer out and make them a recovery disc and distribute it. What I find odd is that you can make a copy of a recovery disc within Windows for yourself, and you can download an ISO of the OS online legally. The legality comes into play when the product key is legit or not.

While I can see if they were selling them as new or upgrade copies of the operating system, but it appears to be a recovery disc that they include with purchased systems with the OS already installed with a legit product key. I’m interested in how this is going to play out.

Microsoft Corp. today issued proceedings against Comet Group PLC for allegedly creating and selling more than 94,000 sets of counterfeit Windows Vista and Windows XP recovery CDs. The alleged counterfeits were sold to customers who had purchased Windows-loaded PCs and laptops.

Microsoft’s newest entry into flying applications will come as a game, rather than a simulator (although it is promised to appeal to simulator users, too), and will be free of charge for the base game. From what I understand, though, is that you will be limited to the US island of Hawaii. I really don’t see this as a replacement for Flight Simulator at all, unless they can release the game with a worldwide scale.

I’m a bit disappointed, and they have a new “pay to play” model for additional areas and levels (there are no levels in a simulator unless you go from Private Pilot to Commercial Pilot). We’ll see how it goes once it is released, however. But, for now, I’m not as interested as I once was.

Naturally, with a free-to-play model, additional content will cost additional money. At launch, users will have the option to buy the entire chain of Hawaiian islands to fly over and explore – but players won’t be able to strike out for the mainland, as fuel is modeled, too.

Rumors are saying that Microsoft may be supporting and offering Linux as part of their Azure cloud service. Instead of building cloud apps, Microsoft will allow users to create persistent virtual machines – allowing Linux to be virtualized within Azure. Good/Bad? Good for Azure, definitely, but for Windows Server products? Who knows. The customer is always right, and giving them options is another way to win them over!

Adding Linux to Azure would be a big step. Even though Redmond has warmed up to the open source community, Linux servers are still a major competitive threat to the Windows Server franchise. Yet the move is not without precedent: Microsoft and Novell (now SuSE) inked a pact over five years ago to support SuSE Linux, and more recently Microsoft hooked up with Red Hat to support Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

There are some new Xbox Live enabled Windows Phone 7 games coming soon. They seem to be some nice games, but no word on release dates. Age of Zombies looks like a nice game, even if it’s just for the dialog!

For the long run that Windows XP has had, it looks to almost be up. Windows 7 is poised to pass Windows XP in market share. This is pretty impressive as Windows XP was the dominating operating system for nearly a decade now.

For those last few that have yet to upgrade above Internet Explorer 6: Do it. Internet Explorer 6 usage has dropped below 1% in the US. That shows that there are still a few people out there that not only still have IE6 installed, they still use the ancient browser. I’m not sure if it is due to someone not knowledgeable in how to upgrade, or if they are businesses refusing to upgrade to a newer version due to application compatibility. Regardless, when updating to a newer OS, the browser version will be upgraded.

Today the Internet bids another goodbye to Internet Explorer 6, whose U.S. death is inevitable. New data from Net Applications shows that less than 1% of U.S. Internet users choose IE6 as their browser of choice. And when it comes to the mobile/tablet browser market share, only 0.41% use some variation of Internet Explorer, period. iOS devices come with pre-installed Safari browsers, which make for 53.3% of the mobile browser market. Meanwhile, Opera Mini and an Android browser account for 21.66% and 15.87% of the mobile market, respectively.

I use Internet Explorer on my Windows Phone 7 device, but rarely. I don’t really go browsing the internet using my phone too often. I am sure that with the new Windows 8 tablets the mobile browser will gain some share. If it uses a mobile browser, it may just be the same as the desktop version.

This reporter wants to see Microsoft manufacturing it’s own PC’s running Windows. As much as I wouldn’t mind seeing what Microsoft would come up with, I don’t think it would be very successful. Yes, it worked for Apple, barely. The reason Microsoft won the operating system wars back in the 80’s and 90’s was due to it’s open architecture. You could buy any PC, or build your own, and put MS-DOS or Windows on it (or OS/2 Warp, if you wanted).

Apple locked their OS into their own hardware. This left out us hobbyists, as well as many of the third party manufacturers. People like to have choices (except for the Applites, they want the same thing as everyone else) and alternatives. Android is successful because there are so many different models. Microsoft is successful because there are so many different models of PC’s to buy – from entry level, low cost office PC’s to high end gaming machines. Apple tried to allow clones at one time, but it was already a Microsoft dominated world. They didn’t do as well as they needed to, and they felt the bite.

I don’t think Microsoft should enter into the PC manufacturing industry. It’d be cool to see what they came up with, but it would kill many of the third party PC builders.

While starting a PC business might seem insane given the state of the market, Microsoft isn’t starting from scratch. It already has a hugely successful PC hardware business in the form of the Xbox – which is a PC in all but name. Yes, there were “red ring of death” issues early on, but that bit of hardware has helped the entertainment division contribute $9 billion in quarterly revenue, and proves the public will happily buy made-by-Microsoft kit.

I’m signing off for the long weekend. Everyone enjoy your New Year celebrations! Remember to be safe. If you’re going to be drinking, find someone else to drive. Here is to the last day and a half of 2011! Here’s to many more prosperous years ahead!

Due to a vulnerability in several programming languages, ASP.NET being one of them, Microsoft has released an Out of Band security update (MS11-100) to fix the problem. This vulnerability can bring down a website by using a small, bot-free, program sending HTTP requests. If you are running a web server, make sure you update your machines!

The problem that caused a stir in the security community exists in many of the Web’s most popular application and site programming languages, including ASP .Net, the open-source PHP and Ruby, Oracle’s Java and Google’s V8 JavaScript, according to two German researchers, Alexander Klink and Julian Walde.

Klink and Walde, who presented their findings at the Chaos Communication Congress (CCC) conference in Berlin on Wednesday, traced the flaw to those languages’ — and others’ — handling of hash tables, a programming structure used to quickly store and retrieve data.

Unless a language randomizes hash functions or takes into account "hash collisions" — when multiple data generates the same hash — attackers can calculate the data that will trigger large numbers of collisions, then send that data as a simple HTTP request. Because each collision chews up processing cycles on the targeted server, a hacker using relatively small attack packets could consume all the processing power of even well-equipped servers, effectively knocking them offline.

Microsoft confirmed that a single 100K specially-crafted HTTP request sent to a server running ASP .Net would consume 100% of one CPU core for 90-110 seconds.

Many investors are scared of Microsoft for a variety of reasons. It is very curious as to why, however. It is a good performer in a business, yet it’s stock shows none of it and portraits a failing company. It should be a definite buy and a huge money maker. Dividends are up, sales are consistently up,  profits are up. Why is the stock low and not rising?

Some say that the number one reason is the CEO after Bill Gates left: Steve Ballmer. I tend to agree to an extent. Nothing personal against the guy, but he isn’t a nerd. He’s a salesman (and not a good one at that). New management would go a long way at  Microsoft. In a previous news post, I mentioned some of the questionable treatment of the employees. This is a HUGE deal breaker at Microsoft and why people are flocking towards Apple and Google. Employees like to feel needed, wanted and valuable. At a place like Microsoft, they should be and they ARE extremely valuable to the company and to it’s products.

What do you think? Should Steve Ballmer be replaced by a more capable CEO candidate? Should they bring in a technical fellow rather than a salesman? Do you own Microsoft stock and feel let down, or are you holding out on buying the stock due to it’s stagnation? Let us know in the comments. Yes, I am a small stock holder in MSFT, and I am happy to own it, but I’d like to see it perform a bit better. I’m not too horribly disappointed as I haven’t lost any money and have gained some, but it just isn’t aiming too high. It’s more like a cruising Cessna than a jet heading for the clouds.

The reason Microsoft has been so successful stems from the basic nature of its business model, which for years has been relatively simple. Developing software requires large upfront costs for R&D, but after that, each unit sold is almost pure profit. Add in the fact that Microsoft had (or has, depending on who answers) a virtual monopoly on the PC market. This is why Microsoft has risen over 25,000% since its IPO in 1986. The business model worked almost perfectly, making billions for shareholders and Microsoft employees, all while changing the way the world works and plays. But the stock has flatlined over the last decade, and the days of stellar returns are long gone. Why? It is because Microsoft’s business model is under attack from all sides. The very core of the company, desktop software, is slowly eroding.