First Look At Micosoft Pink Phones

These "leaked" pictures below show what Microsofts new line of phones, The Pink Phone, looks like.  It will be probably Microsoft's answer to the iPhone.   The phones, called Turtle and pure will be made by Sharp, the same company that made T-Mobile's Sidekick series.

Techy Tip: Speed up Windows XP's Startup Time

If you have had your Windows XP computer for a long time, like my 6-or-so year-old Dell Dimension, it probably isn't as zippy as when you first got it. Well, today I will show you how to speed up XP's boot time with NO DOWNLOADS REQUIRED.

(NOTE: I have a custom theme one my computer so XP looks like Windows 7)

To start, go to the Start Menu (tee-hee) ans select "Run" from the left side.


Then, type in "msconfig" (no quotes) into the form and click "OK"

After you have done that, a window looking like this should appear.



Then click the "Startup" tab and select the button "Disable All".

Once you do that, unnecessary programs will not run at startup greatly increasing the startup time on you computer. Hope you found this tip helpful!

Xbox Live Post-Maintenance Glitches

Microsoft is having glitches from yesterday's crippling maintenance. Users are unable to preorder the new Ghost Busters game, or find entire games missing from their hard drive. Oops. But, here's Microsoft's excuse-I mean "reason":

"Users may experience difficulties when attempting to use Marketplace and/or making purchases. We are aware of the problem and working to resolve the technical issues. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience."

Xbox Live will be down today

Xbox Live, Microsoft's online gaming service, will be down today for maintenance. Microsoft has said: "On Tuesday, June 16 beginning at 12:01 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. PDT (2009-06-16 0701 to 2009-06-17 0659 UTC) Xbox LIVE and Xbox.com will be offline for scheduled maintenance."
I suspect someone pushed the big red button.

Bing: Microsoft may have got it right this time

A few days ago Microsoft released its new, long-awaited search engine, Bing. It touts video previews, easy business listings, and much,much more. It has a nice, dead simple interface and a nice color palette. Right on the start page non"internet savvy" people will feel right at home, the sidebar on the right directs with large type to Shopping, Travel, News, Images, Videos, and Web search.

One of the nice features is all the ways you can narrow down the image search. You can choose the size, the style of photo, and who is in the photo. There are also options to change how the thumbnails are shown, from only one at a time to many on screen at once. While it can't give you witty humor like Wolfram Alpha can, it sure has some snazzy features.

If you search something in Bing it will give you many options to expand on it, from searching downloads to repairs and games for the Wii or any other product.

When you search for videos it plays a preview of it when you roll over the video, with sound too. If you click on the video it will show a larger preview with the results still under it, along with a link to view the video at its site of origin.

Bing also give phone numbers for businesses when you search for them and search suggestions inside of the results, and probably more that I'm not putting here.

The search results, overall, are comparable to any other engine. It seems like a solid, all purpose search engine that really wants you to use it. I think Microsoft hit it right with this one, bit, it is not the Google-killer we are waiting for, and, it may never come.

Microsoft E3 Summary

Microsoft's Press Conference showed us many things, here are videos of some of the coolest stuff.

Halo 3:ODST Has been rumored for a while now. Instead of taking control of the usual Master Chief, the super-soldier Spartan, you take control of of an ODST soldier, the "ninjas" of the Halo world. They have silenced weapons and incredibly powerful pistols (remember Halo 1?, that, but WAY MORE DEADLY).

Video Games | Halo 3: ODST | E3 09: Press Conference Gameplay HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Project Natal is Microsoft's new baby. It is a camera that you stick to your tv and allows YOU to be the controller.

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Other notable titles include Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and The Beatles: Rock Band (shown below).

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Microsoft also announced new features to the Xbox. They will be adding Facebook and Twitter access from your Xbox, if you have Xbox Live to use it. There will also be changes to Netflix, including HD video and a queue list.

New iPhone May Overshadow the Pre's Release

The Palm Pre, the fabled device that may breath life into the Palm devices, is set to release in "the first week of June"; as the New York Times reports. Whether this is a viable fact, I have no idea, but it is promising. The new iPhone will also (maybe) be launching on June 8th, the day of the Apple keynote at WWDC. The New York Times is now reporting that the iPhone will launch on the 5th, or the 7th, or within the time frame of a year from that(sarcasm). The iPhone may overshadow the Pre's hype, by my guess, the new iPods overshadowed the Zune. But their is still one uncertainty about the Pre. The pricing. The Pre is thought to be selling for $199, but a recent survey now says that Palm may sell it for $542.01; a completely random and insane amount.

Microsoft's new Useless Ad: Ipod's Cost $30,00 to fill up

Microsoft's new ad for the Zunepass (fork over $14.99 a month for unlimited music) takes aim at iTunes. It's states that it costs $30,00 to fill up a 120gb iPod. There are a bunch of problems with this theory though, and, apparently Microsoft is unaware of an invention called the internet. For starters, many people borrow friend's Cds to get free music. Also, ever since Napster, people illegally download music off of P2P(peer-to-peer) networks such as Limewire. Also, many people don't buy 14 songs a month from iTunes so paying Microsoft in advance for something (as usual) is pointless. Also, the Zune is barely alive anyway, so why would anyone care?

Weekly Time Waster: Wizard Defense

Wizard Defense is free online game by the BigPark (recently acquired by Microsoft). Wizard Defense is a tower defense game with a magical twist. It has solid design and the graphics are top notch. It has blistering fast load times, no lag, and has a learning curve of about a minute. When you first start the game you can choose to sign in to an account to play (to save scores and such and such) or you can just get right to the fun part. Once you first start playing (and choose your character) you can choose to take a short tutorial. The tutorial is incredibly simple and will have you playing in about a minute. Once you finish the tutorial you will be plunged right into the magical, and incredibly addicting, world of Wizard Defense. You can play this game, and see your productivity drop by about 75%, at wizarddefense.com.

Game Consoles Get X Rayed (NOTE:most likely not a word)

You probably have opened (or broken) game consoles to see there guts before (I haven't , well, on purpose anyway). Technabob has an interesting post that shows game consoles in a way you've never seen them before. You can see the splendor here.

Microsoft's future world is better then iRobot

This is the coolest video I've seen in a while. If this is what the future holds, I want to be there to use all the awesome tech.

Malware attacks both Mac and Pc versions of Excel

There is a new Trojan horse virus is going around using Microsoft Excel files. It affects both Mac and PC versions of the software though. Named the Trojan.Mdropper.AC it hides in a .xls script file. When Excel opens, the file creates and executable, then that executable runs and allows the hacker to code basically anything he or she wants. That means almost complete control of your computer. The attack only effects the old .xls files, not the .xlsx files that are used in Vista. But, since the new Excel can open the .xls files you should still be careful, Vista users. The versions as old as 2000 are vulnerable and all Mac versions are in danger. Microsoft (of course!) has still not issued a patch to fix the vulnerability, but, hopefully it won't get too out of hand. Mac users should be especially careful since most virus blocking software is ineffective on Mac and many Mac users don't use it.

Cool Software 2/21/09: OpenOffice Suite

If you have switched from Windows to Mac, you know how frustrating it can be to go without the Microsoft Office Suite. Or, you don't feel like paying to upgrade your old software (especially in this economy). But, there is a free alternative to Microsoft Office, and, in many ways it is better. OpenOffice is an open-source (meaning anyone can get the code for the software) suite of applications. It's made by Sun Microsystems (the same company that makes the widely used Java platform) and is completely free. It has Writer, a text editor similar to Microsoft Word. Calc, a spreadsheet management tool (similar to Microsoft Excel). Impress, a presentation making software (similar to Microsoft Powerpoint). Draw, a drawing application (similar to MS Paint). Lastly, there is Base, a database managment tool (similar to Microsoft Access). Base, though, can use SGL databases, because it is made by Sun Microsystems, that also makes MySQL, the premier SQL database tool, it is far superior to Microsoft Access. Draw is also better in many ways. It can manipulate images, like Photoshop of the Gimp can. Calc, also has a special Scenario MAnager, somethin Microsoft Excel does not. Overall, if you want a new, easy to use, and powerful office suite, or don't like Microsoft, this software is for you. 10/10

You can learn more and download it here.

The Xbox 360 "Arcade"

No, I'm not talking about Microsoft's ploy to get the Xbox to compete with the Wii. I'm talking about a full-fledged arcade cabinet with an Xbox 360 inside of it. This retro system is a 1990's midway cabinet modified for an Xbox. Inside of it is a 60gb Xbox 360 with a wifi adapter, and is able to play and 360 game. If you get tired of the retro joysticks and buttons you can always use a wireless controller with it. But, at $2,250 and only a standard definition screen, I wouldn't rush out and by it all that soon.

Microsoft PhotoSynth

Tired of the same old boring, flat, 2d photographs of all the cool places you've been to? Microsoft PhotoSynth is the solution. Though I'm a big supporter of Mac, this is the most innovative pieces of software I've seen in a while. PhotoSynth takes your photos and finds the angles they were taken at to make one 3d image. You can move scroll around like you were actually in the place of the photo. PhotoSynth uses software called Sea Dragon to activally adjust megapixels as needed. You can also view other peoples "synths" and upload your own using PhotSynth's smooth interface. When the software first launched about a week ago the servers got overloaded with all the downloads.


Also, I ordered Spore so when it comes out, I'll most likely have it. You can expect a review in a week or so.