Great Green Guidance Gratis

Wouldn't you know it? I just wrapped up a monster cover story about green computing for the June issue of Redmond magazine, when Microsoft released its top 10 green tips.

I won't walk through all 10, especially since the virtualization tip is rather obvious. Instead, I'll highlight a couple of surprises, such as the very first tip: Compensate IT for datacenter efficiency. Now most bonuses, raises and SLAs are based on speed and uptime. This often leads IT to overbuild, and thus wastes precious watts.

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Posted by Doug Barney on June 22, 20090 comments


All-Terrain Mouse

Microsoft has always had an odd approach to PC hardware. First and foremost, the company doesn't want to compete with its OEMs. But Redmond wanted a few dollars so it started building mice, which in the early days Windows enabled character-based PCs. In a similar vein, Microsoft sold an add-in PC accelerator card, again aimed at running Windows.

While Microsoft has branched into Zunes and Xboxes on the entertainment side, its PC hardware business still revolves largely around mice. Not too exciting, right? Wrong!

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Posted by Doug Barney on June 22, 20095 comments


Free Anti-Virus Nearly Here

When Microsoft entered the anti-virus market, I knocked it for competing against the partners that saved Windows in the first place, and also sold something that should be part of the OS, anyway (the same way seat belts are part of our cars).

Now that Microsoft is on the verge of launching a free anti-virus tool, I have nothing bad to say. Microsoft Security Essentials will be ready for testing tomorrow. Just make sure you have a legit copy of Windows; otherwise, you're out of luck.

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Posted by Doug Barney on June 22, 20092 comments


Microsoft Finds Bug in Google Exchange-Killer

Recently, I described a Google app that allows you to use Outlook to connect to e-mail in the Google cloud. I made the simplistic determination that if it worked, and was indeed far cheaper, then many in IT would switch. Those of you in the IT trenches corrected me posthaste (really fast!). You worried about compliance, archiving and security. This newsletter always lets me know just how little I know!

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Posted by Doug Barney on June 19, 20090 comments


Windows 7: You Can Go Back

When Vista came out, many new users clamored for the right to move back to XP. Unfortunately, going back wasn't always easy and wasn't usually free. With that lesson in mind, Microsoft just announced that new Windows 7 customers will have a year-and-a-half to move back down to XP or even Vista (however, the plan only applies to high-end versions of Windows 7).

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Posted by Doug Barney on June 19, 20097 comments


Wolfram Challenges Google? Not So Fast

There's a lot of hype over a new search engine Wolfram Alpha, which uses new techniques to give richer results. It's supposed to understand the context of what you're researching, get the relationships between the search term and other data, and simply blow Google out of the Web water.

Wolfram may be the future of search, but its soft launch isn't overly impressive. I gave it the Doug Barney Search Test, which is me searching for my own name. Wolfram basically told me how popular my first and last names are. Not much of an ego boost, eh what?

Posted by Doug Barney on June 17, 20096 comments


IT Good and Bad

Redmond magazine has covered the good and not-so-good sides of IT. I got interested in the seamy side of IT after meeting with about a thousand security vendors. The idea was about selling IT tools that kept out hackers. But more and more, those security players talked about internal threats, with employees themselves doing the hacks. And now, those tools were being given to IT to keep out internal hackers.

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Posted by Doug Barney on June 17, 20091 comments


Security at the Forefront

Microsoft has so much going on that it's easy to forget about Forefront. If you're a fan of ISA Server, pay attention to this release: ISA Server is evolving into the Forefront Threat Management Gateway, which the company said will be out later this year (it's in Beta 3 as we speak).

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Posted by Michael Domingo on June 15, 20090 comments


Dell Pushes Soft(ware) Sell Approach

Dell's Download Store this week has started selling Microsoft Office applications for download at discounts slightly lower than Redmond's retail.

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Posted by Michael Domingo on June 15, 20092 comments


Netbooks Are No. 1

Laptops have long been the preferred machine for many shops. Personally, I can't image buying a desktop, as I work from a number of locations (I'm writing this from a comfortable chair in a comfortable house on Cape Cod). And laptops that can be taken home dramatically increase -- often to our detriment -- the number of hours we all work each week.

The same set of circumstances is driving sales of netbooks, which now outnumber the sales of PCs and laptops combined.

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Posted by Doug Barney on June 12, 20091 comments


Google Wants To Take Over Exchange Mart

I always laughed when I heard that Google was about to squash Microsoft. Google had search, a bunch of ad programs and low-end online apps. That wasn't enough bulk to squash a fly.

But sometimes, if you say something long enough, it comes true. Now Google has a real OS in the form of Android, and a real browser in Chrome. And it wants to take over the lucrative e-mail server market with a new tool, Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook.

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Posted by Doug Barney on June 12, 20093 comments


Windows 7 Bucks Up Against Recession

When it comes to financial projects, Microsoft is more cautious than Neville Chamberlain in 1938. For years, Gates and Ballmer would warn analysts about the next quarter, then promptly blow projections away. The same approach is being taken with Windows 7.

Recently, a Microsoft official warned that sales may be depressed by our current, uh, depression. One factor is that many enterprise budgets are locked down for the year. That means many shops can't move to 7 even if they wanted to. Microsoft is less down on the consumer market, for which 7 should be done in time for the holidays.

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Posted by Doug Barney on June 12, 20093 comments