stuart test blog

The rumour mill is buzzing around Microsoft’s plans to release their own portable media player which will compete directly with the iPod. I’m losing track about what is fact or fiction here so take the following with a pinch of salt, bu this is what we know so far:

• The media player will be released by Christmas
• It will have a larger screen than the current iPod with video
• It will have a wireless connection to allow downloads on the go
• Microsoft will match the songs that you’ve purchased from iTunes with songs provided by them for free

This does sound pretty exciting and I do think that Microsoft have the ability to pull it off, but whether they succeed or not will be determined later. Their recent release of the UMPC showed how they can build up great buzz around a product which could never be able to live up to the hype.

I personally think that Microsoft already have the iPod killer – the PocketPC. If they can somehow squeeze a mini hard drive and a solid 10 or more hours of battery life, they will have a device that can not only play music and videos, but also have a built in camera, wireless access which provides internet and email connections, as well as the raft of other PocketPC apps that are already out there.

To celebrate the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Google have released a memorial logo depicting the figure of Sherlock Holmes.

From Wikipedia…

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who made his first published appearance in 1887. He was devised by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Holmes is famous for his prowess at using logic and astute observation to solve cases. He is perhaps the most famous fictional detective, and indeed one of the best known and universally recognizable literary characters.

Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories featuring his creation. Almost all were narrated by Holmes’ friend and biographer, Dr. John H. Watson, with the exception of two narrated by Holmes himself and two more written in the third person. The stories first appeared in magazine serialization, notably in The Strand, over a period of forty years. This was a common form of publication at the time: Charles Dickens’ works were issued in a similar fashion. The stories cover a period from around 1878 up to 1903, with a final case in 1914.

This is big news for those of us down here in New Zealand – Google Maps have just released a major update which includes street-level maps for all of New Zealand. Unfortunately the satellite imagery leaves a lot to be desired, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Although Google Maps doesn’t come close to the functionality provided by local site Zoomin. This has probably the best search feature that I’ve seen in an online maps service and also has friendly URL’s to make it easier to remember your maps, like this: http://www.zoomin.co.nz/nz/wellington/brooklyn

Links:

• Google Maps
• Zoomin

I noticed this on Niall Kennedy’s blog: Apple’s new TV ads. I think they are really good, you should check them out.

Apple – Get a Mac – Watch The TV Ads

I won’t write too much about this as there is so much being blogged already, but Apple have just released a product called Bootcamp which gives users of the newly updated Mac operating system a graphical utility to repartition your disk and prepare it for the installation of Windows XP.

No more needing to hack the bios or anything else like that, and although Apple isn’t supporting Windows XP on new Intel Macs, they are providing the tools to do it for free. More reading here…

• On Memeorandum
• Boot Camp Beta Installation & Setup Guide (PDF)
• Apple’s official announcement

This was widely accepted to happen sooner or later, but Microsoft have today announced that Virtual Server 2005 R2 will now be available as a free download. As both the Enterprise and Standard editions will now be free, the Standard edition is becoming redundant as there is no reason why you would run Standard instead of Enterprise. So only the Enterprise Edition is being made available as a free download.

This definitely makes the virtualisation game a lot more interesting now. VMware recently discontinued the GSX line of their software, instead releasing a free version called VMware Server. This version only runs on server operating systems and provides a similar feature set to Virtual Server. VMware though, are still selling VMware Workstation and the top-of-the-line ESX server – Workstation is designed for use with desktop computers, whereas ESX Server is designed to run on large, enterprise-level servers. Microsoft doesn’t yet have a competitor for ESX – ESX includes a Linux kernel that it boots off so there is no need to run ESX on a server operating system.

In my own tests, VMware has always outperformed Virtual Server or Virtual PC, so I don’t think that VMware is any trouble at the moment. But the recently introduced support of Linux operating systems under Virtual Server, definitely makes the Microsoft package more attractive to those Microsoft-shops out there.

Microsoft have finally taken the wraps off their much-hyped project, Origami. Turns out that it’s the same device that Intel showed yesterday and Samsung today. Microsoft are calling it the UMPC and I am very under-whelmed with it.

It’s a small, touch-screen computer that runs Windows XP Tablet PC edition. It has 2 – 3 hours battery life and has built-in wi-fi, etc. I’m not sure what the market is for these devices – they are too big to be ultra-portable (i.e. it won’t fit in your pocket) but are too small to replace a laptop. The poor battery life also means that it’s not that portable either – more than a couple of hours use and you’ll be needing a charger. I’d like to know what the battery life is if you’re using the wi-fi as well as playing media files??

Microsoft may have fallen victim to their own hype here – I think people were expecting The Next Big Thing, but instead we have a small, expensive tablet pc with low battery life. I’m not even going to link to it because no doubt you’ll see the link on every other blog/news site you read.

It’s official – Windows XP boots on a MacBook, screenshots included!!!

Read more here

Just found this article via the Digg site: Web users ‘only visit six sites’.

Interesting that I read this just after posting an article on my beta @ amanzi website called: “Best, new web services available.” There’s eight sites there that I visit all the time, but only another few that I would visit on a daily basis which are localised to NZ: Stuff, Trade Me, and of course my stats site to keep track of my websites.

I’ve created a new blog where I’ll be sharing my experiences with new, beta software. I’ve just created the first article here: http://beta.amanzi.co.nz/2006/03/04/how-not-to-design-a-webmail-service/