MakeMeAdmin is a small batch file which allows a regular Windows User to act as an Admin without the hassles of adding and removing the User to Admin group, whihc in turn require each a login and a logout.
Microsoft team has done a lot of work for the new Windows Media Player. They haven’t upgrade and re-invent the codecs, but they did a lot of artwork and integrated better MP3 seller services (I had no idea that Wal-Mart sells MP3’s). The list of MP3 dealers is even updated through the internet at every launch of the player. Now, that’s service!
But changing font resolution proved to be a little too tricky for WMP devs.
"Microsoft will start charging for a Hotmail feature that allows users of the Web-based e-mail service to access their e-mail using the Outlook e-mail client." The stated reason is that Outlook scripts were easy triggers for spam. My opinion is that it might be a good reason, but setting up a local SMTP server and using Outlook scripts to send spam without Hotmail would not be a big issue.
One of the undeclared reasons might be that upgrading Hotmail size, as the market was pushed by Google, would create the possibility of abuse and use of mailboxes as supplements for HDD GBs, as Gmail is facing already with the advent of GmailFS.
For those who haven’t heard, GmailFS is an Linux app that makes a Gmail account to look like a local folder. GmailFS is written in Python, an obvious mark for guys who hate paying for computing. Now they found a way to avoid paying for HDDs. My bet is that such use of the Gmail storage is breaking Google rules, which are strictly against applications that prevent their ads from reaching the users’ eyes.
If my idea about Microsoft trying to avoid a new HotmailFS is true, it should be added that the protocol that won’t work for free, WebDAV, was never interesting for quick hacks and all the applications I can remember that automates the access to Hotmail are using the classical HTTP, are mimicking a web browser and will continue to work after Outlook’s WebDAV will mostly disappear.
On the other hand, no Hotmail for free in Outlook means less Outlook buyers, less lock-in into Microsoft and the death of Outlook plugins such as the fancy RSS readers.
Via PCWorld
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Oh, not again!
An interesting take on the challenging new functions of the F1-F12 keys (Sav, Print blablabla), added in Microsoft Natural Keyboards and its clones. By default, each time the computer goes on, the new functions are on and home users are troubled - they are told to press F1 for help, but the help never appears.
The F key, which toggles between old and new meanings of the F1-F12 keys, is a hardware switch and it cannot be accessed programatically. But you may alter the "enhanced" function keys in order to make them send the old known message to Windows. This may be done in Windows since 2000 and links to helper software and pre-made settings’ files can be found on Jason Tsang’s article, found via Bertrand Le Roy’s blog.
On a footnote I’ll add that Linux desktops need such tools.
SP2 vs. the plug-ins is the by-product of the rested mind of Paul Festa, "Staff Writer" at CNET.
First of all, we learn that Microsoft decided to put a hold on the Internet Explorer plugin architecture called ActiveX. My point is that plugins are those things used by Netscape Navigator and they were supported until Internet Explorer 5.5. Therefore, plugins have died around 2000. ActiveX are not plugins for Internet Explorer, because ActiveX controls can be inserted in Office documents or Corel drawings. If Paul really wants, we may call them Windows plugins.
But the most funny thing we learn is that Microsoft is breaking the ActiveX mechanism with the declared will to break the security troubles, but with the undeclared and mean aim of pushing .NET framework, because the small ActiveX gadgets downloaded faster (and allowed an increased income for independent ISVs) that the "bulky" .NET framework. This pearl of wisdom was offered by Alex St. John, who worked at Microsoft during the ActiveX debut (1995).
May I add that ActiveX needs a runtime? That runtime was provided by files bundled with operating system. Installing that runtime was mandatory, and I bet they were close to the current .NET framework size (cca. 20 MB). Updates came (DCOM 1.3 for Windows 95 sounds familiar?) and ISVs did their best to distribute them. Microsoft bundled .NET in its latest Windows product (Windows 2003 Server) and it will be bundled with the upcoming Longhorn (even its Windows Explorer is written in .NET, I saw him running with snail speed and crashing with large and explicit message boxes). In the mean time, devs who jumped on .NET bandwagon are doing their best to spread the framework, exactly as they did with the update for DCOM. Indeed, that update was 10 times smaller and the basic ActiveX was already there, but it is basically the same thing.
Anyway, the bundling issue has become a little more sensitive now than 9 years ago, but Microsoft is still spreading their new technologies with their team of evangelists, each with their lured groupies.
St. John, for example, noted that by switching from common Web technologies to Microsoft’s .Net framework and the C# programming language, he would be able to bypass the new ActiveX security protocol.
Of course that’s happening, because sandboxed .NET gadgets won’t hurt a thing, while installed ActiveX can do a lot of damage. I find Microsoft’s decision to block the dummy dialog "Do you want to install this worm?" is a good one.
Searching news.com.com for "activex" and "threat" gives 400 results in Google. Now there’s another threat, probably the danger of missing an easy bash on Microsoft.
ABC News Online, an Australian news corporation, features this story. Thanks to @rgumente, Dragos Novac’s blog.
I got my Gmail from Channel9 GetOrGive (MSDN hosted) wiki page. Now the request list is empty and people are signaling on the Channel9 forum that GoG list needs more people to send invites to.
A Computer With the IPod’s Bloodlines (bloody and free registration required) is a column written by David Pogue. Oh, how he praises the G5! It sounds even better than Apple’s advertising campaign, like OS X it’s also 100 percent free from viruses, Trojan horses, spyware. As I can recall, OS X had serious exploitable flaws and users were supposed to hundreds of dollars to get them patched.
But listen here: a CPU is “on most computers, that’s the big plastic box containing disk drives and connectors”. Yeah, right! If on this easy one he failed, I bet you, reader o’ mine, can do a better job. And is getting even better - if you check his website, he’s an author and editor.