Microsoft is starting to release security advisories for third party developers. The will do this only after working with the developer to fix the bugs before bringing the knowledge to the public. So far, Chrome and Opera have been given the shout out.

The advisories were the first ever from Microsoft for bugs in third-party products. According to Reavey, they will be followed by others, as necessary. "If we’re in a situation where we find a vulnerability in some other vendor’s product, we will release an advisory ourselves," said Reavey.

Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system has sold more than 350 million licenses in the past 18 months. That is very good news for Windows and for Microsoft.

We’ve done a lot in the last 18 months that improves upon the experience people have on their PCs with Windows 7. We launched Windows Live Wave 4 (which included Windows Live Essentials 2011 and enhancements to Hotmail), released the first service pack for Windows 7, and recently launched Internet Explorer 9. And we’re hard at work on further innovation for Windows. At CES this year we announced the next version of Windows will support System on a Chip (SoC) and last week at MIX11 we released the first platform preview to developers for Internet Explorer 10.

In Microsoft’s attempt to make Windows 8 touchscreen friendly, for the tablet crowd, they have created a login screen that uses a 4×4 grid.

Caution: The video may be offensive to some, so beware.

One big complaint people are having with the new update for Windows Phone 7 is that they get errors when attempting to actually do the update. Microsoft has published a support article for the situation. Check it out if you are having problems applying this update to your phone. I don’t have the problem, probably because Verizon is SLOW at bringing out new phones.

Microsoft has released a gadget to countdown the days until Windows XP officially drops support from Microsoft. Available for Vista and Windows 7, due to the fact that Gadgets and the Sidebar are only supported for those operating systems.

Microsoft is having a upgrade to Xbox Live this weekend for European users to help with a  Guinness Book of World Records attempt. Although Europe is the only region to get the free upgrade, they still need the help from anyone else, worldwide. So, what’s the record? Largest Online 100m Sprint using Kinect Sports. It will take place on Saturday, April 23rd at 1pm ET. I hope to see you there! I don’t have the Kinect Sports game, so I’m heading to my sisters to play two player. Should be fun! All participants get a cool T-Shirt for their avatar, as well.

Marking a free weekend of entertainment on Xbox LIVE, dubbed Xbox Nations, Kinect Sports players around the globe will join together and attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the ‘largest online 100m sprint’ at 1pm ET on Saturday, April 23. (Find out what time in your region) Players can participate by jumping on Xbox LIVE, firing up Kinect Sports, and running a 100-meter dash event at 1pm ET. Each and every runner will be rewarded with an exclusive Xbox and Guinness World Record Avatar t-shirt

For all those that preach storing your files offsite using a “cloud” service, you may want to make sure you also have an onsite backup as well. Both Amazon’s EC2 and Microsoft’s Azure have suffered several recent outages, causing all sorts of mayhem for different sites. Personally, I wouldn’t mind being there to help fix it. I’m good at that stuff!

I’m not posting this to downplay what’s going on with Amazon’s EC2. Nor am I doing so because I’ve heard Microsoft or Microsoft partners trying to use Amazon’s EC2 outage as a way to paint Azure as superior. (In fact, one member of the Azure team tweeted today that he hoped no one at Microsoft would do such a thing.)

Microsoft team members in Pittsburgh have gotten together to donate Xbox consoles to the local children’s hospital. Way to go!

The video from the Transplant Ward donation was shown at the Microsoft Mid-Atlantic States District meeting in September 2010 right before the kickoff of the company’s Giving Campaign. I was shocked and humbled with the response that we received from the district; we received more than $7,500 through employee donations and Microsoft matching. With this money, we were able to outfit every room on the Adolescent Medicine Ward with an Xbox which were installed on April 12.

Employees at Microsoft should have something to celebrate. Steve Ballmer has said that the employees are going to get raises! Ballmer says "Today we’re announcing changes that will benefit our employees by sharpening the clarity of our performance review process and increasing compensation. These changes represent the most significant investment in overall compensation we have ever made.". Sounds great! Details have not yet been finalized and no further comment on how much the increased compensation would be, but it still is a great step in this economy.

Employees currently receive a stock award, and some of that award will be converted to cash instead. Microsoft’s stock has changed little over the past 10 years, something that investors and employees have been grumbling about.

The company is also changing its performance review system, so employees will be ranked by a single rating system of 1-5, rather than having multiple ratings for different measures.

Ballmer wrote that Microsoft is making the changes to stay competitive in the job market: "The changes we’re rolling out today will help ensure Microsoft continues to be the place that top talent comes to change the world."

For as long as the Xbox 360 has been out, there have been rumors, suggestions and news surrounding the replacement for the great Xbox 360. Recently, the Kinect accessory was released for the console. Now, there are rumors that they are already working on the successor for it, according to NowGamer and Microsoft job postings.

"BINC is onsite at Microsoft’s Bay Area Campus in Mountain View helping the Xbox HW organization ramp up their Silicon Architecture and Development team to build the next generation Xbox and Kincet devices," reads the description on a BINC employee’s LinkedIn page. "With 8 million Kinects sold in the first 60 days of launch and 50 million Xbox consoles sold it is an exciting time for Xbox. The team is innovating in graphics, audio, and video architecture, 3d sensing, natural user interface, and fabless semiconductor technologies."