Tag: Microsoft

Laymans take-Trying to look at Nokia and Microsoft move

[tweetmeme source=”nkumar_” only_single=”false”]

February 11, 2011 will be marked as one of the most remarkable day in history as finally against prediction of we all Nokia fans, bloggers and developers, Nokia actually announced a partnership with Microsoft.

Did it

This was being speculated since the day, ex-Microsoft Elop joined Nokia as CEO, but not many of us believed it considering the fact that Nokia just been in a partnership with Intel to develop MeeGo and was going big guns (at least in words) around Qt.

I was much tied up with my own arrangements and office works after a real long holiday just spent but there were still some readers, who wished to read my views on the whole scenario now, so I was push myself for “summarizing” that what’s Layman’s take on Nokia + Microsoft?

  1. Shocked community and outburst of emotions on “End” of Symbian journey
  2. What Nokia and Microsoft said officially on it?
  3. Should consumers bother if Symbian is no more a priority for Nokia now?
  4. What is this “War of Ecosystems” and why there were not much choices?
  5. What still seems to be risky for Nokia? What could go really wrong from here?
  6. Is this the end of Symbian era ?
  7. What about the promises made by Nokia to deliver the updates on symbian 3 platform?
  8. What about the much awaited symbian 3 overhaul?

Continue reading “Laymans take-Trying to look at Nokia and Microsoft move” →

Advertisement

Internet Explorer 6: End of An Era

So, here comes the end of an era …

I was already wondering that how some of the old things we grown up with (even after introduction of many new alternatives) just don’t die. Like Windows XP! do we really had found any real alternative for the same, when the date of support expiration is already near? Now its turn of IE6 to go officially. Thanks for the pics Devilsworkshop

Google just announced that some of features in Google Docs and many other Google Sites and Services wont be available google_dumps_IEover Internet Explorer 6 and it made a big buzz across the blogs that Google made the final push to let this browser die, which still was holding more market share than chrome, IE7 or IE8, around 21% till the last December 2009.

Sure the link goes to the recent hacking incident, which was officially done with exploiting flaws in IE6, for which Microsoft later on released security fixes as well. Still many security experts and companies taken stand against Internet Explorer 6. German Government even issued advice to all of its citizens for not using any version of Internet Explorer including even the recent one Internet Explorer 8.  

Is it really so that only that hacking incident made IE6 pushed away? I don’t think so. Introduction of HTML5 has already pushed IE6 to become obsolete as Internet Explorer till its version 7 didn’t supported HTML5 and like Google sites, many of leading sites have already moved over HTML5 due to availability of wide range of more options. Like Google Gears, many of the services already started mentioning that you can’t use them from IE6. Its just this, Google Docs have became of huge importance in world of cloud computing and by ruling out IE6 shares in it, Google has made it somewhat helpless by now (very few can keep and actively use multiple web browsers).

Internet Explorer 6 was released on August 27, 2001, a few months before Windows XP. This version included DHTML enhancements, content restricted inline frames, and partial support of CSS level 1, DOM level 1 and SMIL 2.0. The MSXML engine was also updated to version 3.0. Other new features included a new version of the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK), Media bar, Windows Messenger integration, fault collection, automatic image resizing, P3P, and a new look-and-feel that was in line with the Luna visual style of Windows XP, when used in Windows XP. Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 offered several security enhancements and coincided with XP SP1 patch release. In 2002, the Gopher protocol was disabled and support for it was dropped in Internet Explorer 7. Internet Explorer 6.0 SV1 came out August 6, 2004 for Windows XP SP2 and offered various security enhancements and new color buttons on the user interface. IE6 updated the original ‘blue e’ logo to a lighter blue and more 3D look.

The biggest reason behind the success of Internet Explorer 6, it was shipped with kind of most successful operating system till now, so if the OS was a hit, so was the perfectly working browser Internet Explorer 6. Later as tabbed browsing became more successful and people started shifting to firefox more, Microsoft pushed Internet Explorer 7 with their Windows Vista, but many experienced it slower than even IE6 and was not that well received. Microsoft still hoping the best to get its shares back with a much better Internet Explorer 8.

I expect more services to come forward to drop support with Internet Explorer 6 in next few days as few already done the same from behind silently. As I read in Devilsworkshop.org as well, is Gmail going to drop support for IE6 in next?

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar

 

Google making its search result Real-time now

“ In today’s running world, many a times, the delay in reaching to the information by a fraction of minutes could cause you loose the gears. After Bing and Google both partnered with Twitter and Facebook, the world was waiting for the concept of real time search to appear in ‘real’ and here Google finally joining the race again (with in-depth preparations), by moving into real time search while Bing was already started with it by Twitter Searches since July 01, 2009. ”

googlelogo_thumb1 bing-logo

As the phenomenon of Twitter risen up, it given strength to concept of real time information search. In early days, any news before getting pitched up in print or television media was hitting the web first via blogs with sometimes more details than other media, but even then there was a delay of hours/ days in getting the information live. Now, the birth of Twitter changed the scenario and now days, whatever happens around the globe, first hits Twitter, Facebook and Orkut updates first then anything else and people were looking for information there than any of news results or blogs.

The real time information search for headlines is moving towards Twitter, Facebook and Orkut updates now days and it’s been inviting the searching giant to move into the race sooner or later. Microsoft became the first to hit the chord by Partnering with Twitter and Facebook by Oct 22, 2009, while Google announced on Dec 07, 2009 its collaboration with Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Identi.ca and most importantly with Twitter.

So, you might be getting the idea that what the real time search is; its the concept of searching for and finding information online as it is produced or in other words it’s the advancements in web search technology coupled with growing use of social media enabled online activities to be queried as they occur.

Let us know that how to use it:

Google’s Real Time Search

For reaching to Google’s Real Time Search, You have to go to normal Google Search, after searching some query press Show Options button (its there at left top of the search results) and then press latest as shown in image given below. You could see results are coming up with time given next to them in seconds, minutes. 🙂

google-bing-search_original1

Note that as per Google’s usual practice in past, this feature is release as a beta feature only and suggestions are always invited to make more improvements in it.

Bing’s Real Time Search

For search through Bing, you need to go on http://www.bing.com/twitter and then you could make your search within Twitter, while I am not able to figure out yet that how its working with Facebook.

bing real time search

Now, there are reasons that why Google Real Time Search is better than Microsoft’s Bing (courtesy CRN) and even if its declared as war between the two, many of us already have declared Google a Winner.

“ Not only Google has a much better and proven search technology than Bing could have, but also Google has designed its search results more better in visuals than Bing and as a final reason, you can see that sure Microsoft hit the chord first by integrating with Facebook and Twitter, but it couldn’t match the breadth and depth Google’s real time search is going to provide by partnering with wide and diverse range of Social Network Sites. ”

So, finally we sure has many reasons to look forward that how much more innovation is about to come from this rivalry between Microsoft and Google.

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar

 

Windows 2000 and XP SP2 Support ending on July 2010

So finally the bad news is about to arrive.

As per Microsoft Lifecycle of the product, mainstream support for Windows 2000 was already ended on June 30, 2005 and now the extended support is also about to expire on July 13, 2010. The same is for Windows XP SP2 which will end on the same day (although support for Windows XP SP3 will remain continued till April 8, 2014).

 win2000advserv SP2

XP Users could relax for a little longer as XP SP3 support will remain continued till April 8, 2014 and only the support for XP SP2 is ending by July 13, 2010. If any more service comes then it will be continued to 24 months more.

windows-xp-services-pakc-3-logo

Before the headline starts a panic, let us know about how Microsoft Support Life Cycle Policy works and what is going to change with the same date.

Microsoft Support consists of three phases:

  2. Extended Support (5 More Years)

With Microsoft Products, once your Mainstream Support expires, you will not be able for claim for warranty support, design changes or new feature requests. Non security hot fixes support will be available via a separate Extended Hot-fix Support Agreement only. Obviously, no more service pack, neither any new license purchase would be available.

Once, your extended support expires, you will not receive security updates or non security related hot-fixes and although the support knowledge base will remain available on site for self help, but one should not expect the content to be updated any more or MVPs to reply queries related to that product in official forums.

Its time to get into migration work for those IT managers (although I guess there must be only few), who might not yet migrated their Database Server/ File Servers/ Domain Controllers etc from Windows 2000 to Windows 2003 or Windows 2008 as having a server without updates security fixes meant to lots of vulnerabilities and is also against security compliances of audit requirements. Check the link in above text and also the migration checklist for the migration related information.

Moreover, it might be a hard time to spend more for those companies, which are yet relying on their older machines with 256MB RAMs and their IT managers are managing the support by keeping the machines with SP2 only for performance reasons.

Now, about our Windows XP Users, who resisted whole heartedly against Windows Vista and still resistance remained against Windows 7 in some way to keep Windows XP Professional continued, it might be their time to think, as even if away, the time will come when they will be forced to do the switch and sure, there are some good reasons to switch over Windows 7 as well.

Moreover, one must get used to the product before be forced to do so. Technology changes for better and you cant expect a manufacturer getting programmers new generation involved with the technology that passed on.

So, the tagline is “Don’t panic right now, but take a step for next future.”

photo of Nitish KumarNitish Kumar