Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jason Calacanis, Ryan Block, and Loren Feldman

TechCrunch50, Dr. Horrible’s Emmy, gadget theft, iPod Nano, Facebook, Skype, and more.

Show Notes

MacBreak Weekly 158: They Don’t Have That in the US

Hosts: Leo Laporte,Alex Lindsay, Andy Ihnatko, and Wil Harris

Zune HD, iPod Nano camera, cameraless Touch, Apple TV price drop, dream acquisitions, and more.

Show Notes

Security Now 214: Listener Feedback 75

Hosts: Steve Gibson with Leo Laporte

Steve addresses feedback on GSM security, cookies, router admin passwords, proxy servers, and more.

Show Notes

Windows Weekly 123: There Might Be Shrimp

Hosts: Paul Thurrott and Leo Laporte

Zune HD, student pricing for Windows 7, Microsoft Office web application, Bing visual search, and more.

Show Notes

This Week In Google 8: Freckly States

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Gina Trapani, Jeff Jarvis, and Clint Boulton

Google book settlement, Brightcove rumor, Android Click/Hero, Mint, Skype, and more.

Show Notes

iron wil

Hosts: Paul Thurrott and Leo Laporte

Windows 7, Office 14, Zune rumors, MSDN, Software Wars, Roku, and more.

• Windows 7 Beta Fallout
  There is almost universal praise for the Windows 7 public beta which was released on January 9, 2009. After impressive demand for the new beta Microsoft has suspended its previous policy which would place a limit on the downloads to 2.5 million and will allow people to download the beta until January 24, 2009. Paul recommends re-arming rather then activiting to save your license keys. Windows 7 also runs great on netbooks, lower end notebooks designed for portability and low power usage. Paul describes a good experience on a 1.6GHz Atom system with 1 GB of RAM and 16GB of harddrive space. The only big question is: will the positive reviews of Windows 7 be enough to get XP users to upgrade?
• What about Office 14?
  With Windows 7 coming out in mid-2009 many are wondering if Office will quickly follow. Microsoft just started a limited beta test of their server offerings, but there is no news about the client. Sources say that we will have to wait until late 2009 or early 2010 for the new Office.
• Zune rumors
  Rumors abound that Microsoft may be exiting the portable media player business by discontinuing the Zune. However, Microsoft recently stated that rather then discontinue the Zune they are going to be expanding the product line. With Apple offering DRM free downloads from it’s iTunes music store, Microsoft may have their work cut out for them.Paul is going to try to get Rob Greenlee of the Zune Insider podcast on a future episode of Windows Weekly to discuss the Zune in more depth.
• Keith Curtis
  Keith Curtis is a long-time Microsoft employee and the author of “The Software Wars,” a book which states that open source software, not Apple, is the real future competition to the Windows operating system. GNU/Linux has been all but dismissed as a possibility on the desktop, but Keith disagrees and he may have a point. He will appear on a future episode of Windows Weekly where he will discuss his book and his ideas in detail.
• Roku Digital Video Player
  • This just in: Roku Digital Video Player adds hundreds of HD movies and TV shows via Netflix, plus 40,000 movies and TV shows from Amazon On Demand. The latter is coming in a few weeks
  • Netflix HD content
  • Office, 30 Rock, Heroes, Star Trek, plus movies like Elf, Ace Ventura, etc.
  • An amazing list of Windows 7 tips published by a Microsoft engineer.
  • Free Battlestar Galactica webisodes on Zune Marketplace In Season 0: A 10-part episode, Face of the Enemy, that bridges the gap between the last season and the next, plus two specials, “Recap” and “Catch the Frak Up”

A Message From Paul Thurrott”This week I’m going to be in Reston, Virginia on Friday for the ‘D.C.’ edition of the MSDN Developer Conference held at the Hyatt Regency Reston. It’s sort of a mini-PDC that’s going around the country. In DC to visit with Rafael. But drop me a line if you’ll be at the show.”

Tips of the week

• Software of the weekWindirstat: Excellent disk usage viewer for Windows – surprised I haven’t had this one in here before. Thanks to Greg Martin for the tip. See the discussion page for other similar free programs.

• Audible pick of the week: Cross Country, Unabridged, by James Patterson, narrated by Peter J. Fernandez and Dion Graham.

Check out Paul’s blog at the SuperSite for Windows for more information.

get yours here.

iron wil

Hosts: Paul Thurrott with Leo Laporte

Paul gives highlights from Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference this week.

• Reviewers Workshop
• Windows 7
• Windows Azure
• Live Mesh/Live Services platform
• Office 14 Web Applications
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Parties and events

Tip of the week: Shrink and expand partitions with Disk Management (in Computer Management)

Software of the week: PC Advisor

Audible pick of the week: Death in Paradise, Unabridged, By Robert B. Parker, Narrated by Robert Forster. For a free audiobook, visit Audible.com/windows.

Check out Paul’s blog at http://www.internet-nexus.com and the SuperSite for Windows http://winsupersite.com for more information.

get yours here.

iron wil

Hosts: Paul Thurrott and Leo Laporte

Topics:

• Office Will Support ODF and OOXML
• WHS Power Pack 1
• D-Link Media Extender
• Napster MP3
• Fiji Update Windows Media Center Feature Pack 2008
• Google Docs

Audible Pick: The Man In The Black Suit by Stephen King

Vista Tip: Vista Upgrade Advisor

Software Pick: Firefox 3 RC 1 and Microsoft’s Worldwide Telescope

get it here.

iron wil

I have to give kudos to Mark Shuttleworth for his post regarding the situation. He has provided additional insight and some information on what to do to help defeat Microsoft’s attempt to push itself into the arena instead of accepting the ODF standard. His final point is that this is like HTML, one standard with many implementations¹. One can use Firefox, IE, Safari, or Opera to surf the web. Why can’t we have a document format like this?

We have a good solid standard. We need to support the ODF standard and get others on board. Speaking of which, Malaysia just announced their support and backing of the ODF standard². You would think after the ZD Australia article and the commenting and criticizing of Microsoft across the web, including here, that they would see some of this and get a clue as to what the people want. But as we know, they are more concerned with their bank account.

I believe that the better standard has ‘won’ and that OpenXML will follow in the footsteps of things like Passport and Bob.

iron wil

Notes:

(1) Mark Shuttleworth’s Blog, Emerging consensus in favour of a unified document format standard?

(2) ZD Net Asia, Malaysia formally embraces Open Document Format.

it is nice to get backup from a major company like that!

iron wil

I have to be honest, I like Office, but as you know, I don’t like the price (cough – arm and leg). I covered this in enough detail in a previous article. In the story on ZDNet Australia, the writer conveys the thoughts of both Microsoft and OpenOffice.

Microsoft has been pushing OXML through the system to get it approved as an Open XML format for savings different document types [like .doc, .xls, .ppt etc.] the struggle comes in that ODF has already gained approval [and acceptance]. A nice feature of ODF is that the suite of software does not take precedence over the document itself; meaning that I can use several different text or spreadsheet programs to edit my file, like StarOffice, Google’s Writely, and Lotus Notes¹.

The point here is that many companies are getting on board and Microsoft’s complaint is that they will have to make changes because ODF is getting the support that they are after. Several governing bodies, including Massachusetts, California, the Department of Defense, Belgium, and Denmark, have officially made ODF the standard for their documents¹. This means that they will have to be able to read and save in these formats. They are not dictating what software package will be used to do that job! This is an important note, because Microsoft could drop OXML and implement ODF and probably stay in their cushy desktop domination position. Instead, they want the rest of the world to adopt their implementation.

I feel that it is imperative that access to your documents and spreadsheets are more important than what Office Suite you are using to edit them. I mean that is the whole point, isn’t it? Look at websites, we have HTML, it is the standard that allows all browsers to ‘read’ the internet pages and display the content². Granted ODF is not perfect and it has its short comings, however, it has a strong support base and they are working to improve ODF³.

Before to long it will be a strong and well defined standard & many will flock to ODF because it will provide a way for everyone to send, read, edit, and return documents.

iron wil

Notes: some content has been used from the following articles

1) What Is OpenDocument, by Sam Hiser.

2) When Standards Are Political — ODF (the Open Document Format), by James Love.

3) Open Document, Wikipedia.

And so, I came across a blog post by a teacher that praised the price point and functionality of the Office Suite named OpenOffice. Some are now wondering why I am writing this, I am getting to my point. Mr. Grondin focuses on 2 points in his comments; (1) the cost of OOo is free and MS Office costs his school 50 to 100$ per computer, (2) that OpenOffice is mature enough to replace MS Office in the school systems. I have to agree with his opinions in this matter, because I have been using OOo on my PC for about 4 years. Yep for 4 years! The price of a new copy of Microsoft Office was just too much for me as a poor college student, yes even the Education Edition.

I had to work and get student loans to make my way through college. I used the campus computers for the first year, but after that I got my own computer so that I could get more work done. I had access to questionable versions of Office XP, however after I came across OOo, I downloaded & installed it. I came across 2 real problems after this switch; (1) when moving something to/from Word, I would have to do some reformatting [since Word ≠ WYSIWYG]; and (2) Calc [OOo for Excel] was not ready for Statistics.

These are things I adapted to & was able to plan for them. I will have to admit that my confidence in using it is very high, even back then. In college, I prepared a presentation [Impress in OOo] and saved it as a PPT & walked into class & ran it straight off. I only checked it to make sure that PowerPoint would read the file; but I didn’t need to change it. My professor was impressed by my seemingly bravado. He didn’t recognize the background that I used and asked where I got it & that is when he learned that I created it in OOo and saved it for PPT.

I have to admit getting used to the OOo toolbar took a little time. I like the layout & have become much more proficient at using the OOo products over the MS Office products. I feel that one of the biggest contributing factors is that it is a WYSIWYG application with built in PDF creation! I felt that it was easier to find functions and do tasks and I am much better at it today than I was with Office.

I have used it to save a company money and put off the cost of Adobe’s CS2 suite. I have used it in my home for years and will stick with it for my PCs and work computers as long as it is around. It is multiplatform, very functional, and it has a clean design. I think that any user can make the transition back & forth between the 2 products.

Overall, OOo is a robust and reliable office suite for the everyday and office user. It not only saves users money, but is a good replacement for Microsoft Office, especially because you can save your work in the MS format that is its equal. The only way to really test it – is to switch & stick with it for a few months.

iron wil