10. August 2009 by admin.

Windows 7 Upgrade Chart Sparks Spat
Gregg Keizer, Computerworld

Aug 9, 2009 1:15 pm

A chart Microsoft provided to a Wall Street Journal columnist that spells out which versions of Windows and XP can be upgraded to Windows 7 without a cumbersome “clean install” is causing a dust-up between bloggers and prompted Apple users to poke fun at Microsoft’s upgrade process.

The chart, which Microsoft provided to Walt Mossberg, who writes the popular “Personal Technology” column in the Wall Street Journal, consists of a 66-cell matrix that details what XP and Vista users face when upgrading to Microsoft’s next operating system.

Only 14 of the cells indicate an “in-place” upgrade, one that retains all data and applications, but simply swaps out the OS. Vista Home Premium, for example, can be upgraded in-place only to Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Ultimate.

The remaining 52 cells show where users must do a “custom” install, also often referred to as a “clean” install. That process requires users to back up data and settings, install Windows 7, then restore the data and re-install all applications.

Ed Bott, a noted Windows blogger and author, called the chart a public relations mistake — “Someone at Microsoft is secretly working for Apple,” he said in a Thursday post — but said concerns over the size of the matrix, and the overwhelming number of “custom” cells, is overblown.

“Most customers considering an upgrade will be running one of a handful of Windows products,” Bott said. “If they are using Windows XP, they’ll need to do a custom install to move up to Windows 7. That was announced ages ago. Most Vista users will have clear and logical upgrade paths from their current edition to the same edition of Windows 7.”

(more at the link above.)

Alan Spicer’s Note: In other words the Upgrade Chart is over-complicated for most users. If you have XP you are going to be doing a Wipe of your Hard Drive and Re-installation - including all the software that you need to use on a daily basis, and you better back up your data, favorites, emails, pictures, business or personal business files, address book (Outlook Express or Outlook) - because you will have to put it back.

Vista users will have a (supposedly) easier time because they will get to upgrade Vista to Windows 7 (equal version of Windows 7 to their version of Windows Vista) - supposedly saving all of their data, settings, and programs.

P.S. Alan Spicer does Laptop and Desktop service - so if you need an upgrade to Windows 7, or any other kind of fixup on your laptop or desktop please contact me. I do a lot of these for my marine / sail and motor yacht customers.

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net

+1 954 683 3426

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10. August 2009 by admin.

Malware is Evading Detection, Researchers Say
John E. Dunn, Techworld, Techworld.com

Saturday, August 08, 2009 2:00 PM PDT

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/169891/malware_is_evading_detection_researchers_say.html?tk=nl_dnx_h_crawl

Many Windows Vista antivirus programs struggle to detect new and unusual malware, Virus Bulletin’s state-of-the-art Reactive and Proactive (RAP) tests have found.

The latest figures report an average detection rate for the period between February 2009, when the tests were first introduced, to the end of July.

The resulting ‘RAP Quadrant’ shows that several well-known products fall in to the lower left hand quarter of the graph, including PC Tools’ Anti-Virus, Fortinet’s Forticlient, and CA’s Internet Security Suite, all of which achieved detection levels below 50 percent on both axes when configured in their default mode.

Even the best performers, including those from Kaspersky Lab, BitDefender, Sophos, Check Point and Microsoft, showed mixed performance across some aspects of the RAP test regime. (See “Top Internet Security Suites.”)

The February to August quadrant can be viewed on the Virus Bulletin website.

Virus Bulletin is best known for its VB100 Certification, which rates software products against the independent but limited WildList collection of malware samples. The RAP is an attempt to pioneer more demanding tests that measure how products react to new malware sets in each of the three weeks prior to a pre-defined test deadline (the Reactive dimension) and in the week immediately following it (The Proactive).

Generally speaking, the older a sample, the more easily it will be detected due to vendors obtaining their own copy and using it to update a product’s signature database. This shows the effectiveness of a vendor’s ‘rapid response’. The proactive samples, by contrast, will be far less likely to be have been detected, and therefore this part of the test measures the underlying heuristic capabilities of a product to spot a new or unknown threat without looking it up.

(more at the link above.)

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net

+1 954 683 3426

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10. August 2009 by admin.

Microsoft Should Follow Apple’s Lead on Windows 7 Pricing

Michael Scalisi, PC World | Sunday, August 09, 2009 8:47 AM PDT

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/169899/microsoft_should_follow_apples_lead_on_windows_7_pricing.html?tk=nl_dnx_h_crawl

Apple’s upcoming Snow Leopard upgrade currently occupies two of the three top spots on Amazon’s software top seller list. The pre-sale prices are $29 for a single computer and $49 for a 5-user family pack.

Microsoft occupied the same two spots last month when it was pre-selling the Windows 7 Home Premium edition upgrade for $50 and the Professional edition for $100.

There’s a profound difference between the $29 Apple is charging, and Microsoft’s $50 offer: Apple’s price won’t expire.

That same Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade will now set you back a solid $120. While one might ask why Microsoft would need to lower its prices when its current prices are more aggressive than what they asked for Vista. I have the answer; Consumer’s expectations have changed.

People now expect to be able to buy netbooks for $300, notebooks for $500 and premium desktops for a few hundred more.

For the person running XP on a $300 netbook, spending an additional $120 for Windows 7 is exorbitant. Ditto for the person who bought a laptop running Vista two years ago. Many people would rather put that money toward their next computer purchase that will be much more powerful than they already have.

A person could argue that regardless of whether people buy Windows 7 upgrade or just buy a new computer, Microsoft sells an OS. This is technically true, but MS has to be much more aggressive with its pricing for OEMs than consumers. It is much happier to sell you an upgrade to your existing computer where they pocket more cash.

Microsoft is smart to sell a family pack for $150. This allows users to update up to three computers to Windows 7 Home Premium. This makes sense for households and small businesses that actually own three computers. However, there is a huge market for people that only own a single computer that is powerful enough to run Windows 7.

For the chunk of change that Microsoft is asking, these folks might just continue using XP or Vista, which still work fine for the overwhelming majority of computing tasks.

Michael Scalisi is an IT manager based in Alameda, California.

(more at the link above.)

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net

+1 954 683 3426

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10. August 2009 by admin.

Twitter Continues to Battle DDoS Attack

Tony Bradley, PC World | Saturday, August 08, 2009 2:39 PM PDT

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/169897/twitter_continues_to_battle_ddos_attack.html?tk=nl_dnx_h_crawl

More than two days after experiencing a complete outage as a result of a distribute denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, Twitter and other social networking sites such as Facebook are still battling a surge in traffic related to the attack. Twitter has taken some steps to mitigate the spike in traffic and ensure that the site is not knocked offline again, but some of those steps are having an impact on third-party tools that link to Twitter through API’s (application programming interface).Evidence gathered thus far from Twitter and other sites targeted by the DDoS attacks seems to suggest that the attack is actually a politically motivated attack aimed at silencing a Georgian activist. The victim, known by the online handle Cyxymu, uses blogs and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to express views related to the tensions between Russia and Georgia. In a blog post, Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer of Internet security firm F-Secure, said “Launching DDoS attacks against services like Facebook is the equivalent of bombing a TV station because you don’t like one of the newscasters.

To defend itself against the ongoing DDoS attack, Twitter has implemented various defensive actions, some of which are blocking third-party Twitter applications from being able to connect with Twitter API’s. The mitigating steps are also affecting the ability of many users to post to their Twitter accounts via SMS (short message service) text messages.

(more at the link above.)

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net

+1 954 683 3426

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10. August 2009 by admin.

Social Media Outage Proves Our Addiction
Sharon Gaudin, Computerworld

Aug 9, 2009 10:44 am
http://www.pcworld.com/article/169881/social_media_outage_proves_our_addiction.html?tk=nl_dnx_h_crawl

The attack that knocked Twitter offline and slowed access to Facebook Thursday morning offered a quick lesson in how dependent millions of people have become on social networking sites.

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack took the microblogging site Twitter offline for about two hours yesterday morning. The same attack also hit Facebook and a few Google sites, but they didn’t collapse as Twitter did. Facebook reported a slowdown and a spokesman for Google said that while Google search, Gmail and docs were unaffected, some users experienced problems with custom URL redirects in both the Google Blogger and the Google Sites wiki.

(more at the link above.)

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Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net

+1 954 683 3426

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10. August 2009 by admin.

Google Voice Can Sneak onto iPhone

Paul Suarez

Aug 9, 2009 9:32 am

http://www.pcworld.com/article/169898/google_voice_can_sneak_onto_iphone.html?tk=nl_dnx_h_crawl

Despite recent drama, Google Voice will soon be available for iPhone — as a Web-based app, says The New York Times.

The all-things-phone-management application (which was widely speculated to have been rejected for threatening AT&T profits on calling plans) will be remade as a stylized Web site that offers everything the rejected app would have.

(more at the link above.)

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Get yourself a W35 and you don’t have to sneak VOIP onto Cellular - it just works.

Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net

+1 954 683 3426

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