Category: Microsoft

  • Zune DRM hacked

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    Tom Raftery
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    The Zune has hardly been launched a wet week when an article has appeared on Gizmodo detailing how to share music over wifi without the Zune applying its DRM to the shared music. The hack involves a little bit of work and I wonder just how much longer it will be until someone releases a…

  • Too much choice is not (always) a bad thing

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    Tom Raftery
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    Joel Spolsky has written an interesting critique of Windows Vista where he points out that there are up to 15 ways to turn a Windows Vista computer off (I can think of a 16th – don’t license it and Windows will automatically disable your computer!). He goes on to suggest ways to trim the number…

  • Microsoft Belgium gigs

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    Tom Raftery
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    The presentations I gave to Microsoft Belgium this morning went really well and I received tremendously positive feedback. I have been asked not to talk about the content of the talks so I can’t say anymore about those. I met some cool people there. Dave and Tom organised the event, and ran it really smoothly,…

  • Busy couple of days

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    Tom Raftery
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    I have a busy couple of days ahead – expect light posting. – today I have a couple of CIX-related sales meetings – I have an it@cork pre-conference podcast with Eddie Hobbs to edit and publish – tomorrow I have several meetings in Dublin followed by the Netvisionary Awards night – Friday I have an…

  • Critical vulnerabilities or a clever marketing ploy?

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    Tom Raftery
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    Microsoft released updates for critical vulnerabilities in Windows (2000, XP and 2003). This includes fixes for three vulnerabilities that “criminal hackers are already exploiting” according to Brian Krebs. The patches fix vulnerabilities which can allow remote code execution (it doesn’t come much worse than that!). Personally, I think they are trying to scare people into…

  • Microsoft Vista finished

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    Tom Raftery
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    With the two simple words “It’s time“, posted on the Windows Vista blog, Jim Allchin announced to the world yesterday that Windows Vista has been released to manufacturing. Via Rob (well done Rob, you beat Scoble to the post by 48 minutes!). Vista is Microsoft’s new operating system, replacing Windows XP The official Microsoft press…

  • Microsoft Office? Oh yeah, I remember that…

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    Tom Raftery
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    Via the Google Blogoscoped site comes news of Google’s integration of Google Spreadsheets and Docs into Gmail. Now, anyone receiving an Excel spreadsheet as an attachment in Gmail will be offered the option to open the Spreadsheet in Google Spreadsheets (see below). Similar functionality has yet to be added for Word documents but, no doubt,…

  • Another Microsoft gig

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    Tom Raftery
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    On the strength of my last presentation to Microsoft in Switzerland in September, I have been invited to give a presentation to Microsoft Belgium on Web 2.0 The presentation is scheduled for November 17th. There will be a blogger’s dinner in Brussels on the evening of the 17th – more details on that as I…