Windows 7 Compatibility Test

Windows 7 is about to launch. For new Wndows 7 users it might be interesting to find out if your hardware will be supported by Windows 7. As a rule of thumb, you can say that everything that worked on Vista will also work on Windows 7.

To simply the process of finding incompatible hardware, there’s a official compatibility test site from Microsoft. This site allows you to quickly find out what will run on your system and what not.

The Windows 7 compatibility test site is live now and can be found over at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/windows-7/

Microsoft is still working hard on completing the database, so you won’t be able to access the real database right now, but I expect that the site will be completed soonish.

Whenever you are buying new hardware now, you should check for that little logo above. That is the official “Windows 7 compatible” logo. Thousands of products will be added to the database of Microsoft. Of course it is impossible to add all products and if you find a product without the logo it doesn’t mean it won’t work with Windows 7, but it will be tricky to make it work.
For example, I installed a Linksys Wireless card on Windows 7 x64 that normally wouldn’t work, but with some tricks you can make many things run flawlessly.

Have you found any hardware that isn’t working on your Windows 7 RC/RTM build? If so, please post a comment and we’ll try to find a solution to make it work 100%!

Apple & Psystar try to avoid trial in 2010

Apple and Psystar this week both requested summary judgements in the ongoing legal battle about Psystar's legal right to produce and sell macintosh clones.

In its motion for summary judgement, Apple has requested that Judge William Alsup find that Psystar infringed its copyrights, thereby violating the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, when selling its unofficial macintosh machines. Apple claims that by circumventing its operating system disc protection methods, Psystar is in breach of the law.

Psystar, on the other hand, asked in its motion for summary judgement that Judge Alsup consider a range of evidence inlcuding exerpts from dispositions from several Apple executives, including Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller, and end user license agreements (EULA) for both Mac OSX 10.5 and Mac OSX 10.6.

Two hearings have been booked for November 12. Depending on the outcome, these hearings may determine whether or not Apple and Psystar will need to go to trial, currently scheduled for January 2010.

Psystar have generated a lot of media coverage in the case, particularly in July when the business hired a new legal defense team after emerging from bankruptcy earlier in the year.

Earlier this week, Psystar announced its intentions to license its virtualisation technology to third parties, which will allow other manufacturers to produce machines capable of running Mac OSX.

Indie labels priced out of the iTunes LP market

A recent discussion between Gizmodo's John Herrman and Brian McKinney who runs boutique record label Chocolate Lab Records, suggests that Apple's newiTunes LP feature may be just a pipe dream for most musicians.

According to Herrman, Mickinney researched the idea of making iTunes LPs for his artists after realising how simple they were to create. Ready to rock 'n' roll, McKinney contacted the digital distribution manager at his label's distribution office who then spoke with an iTunes representative about the idea.

Apparently, the iTunes representative explained that LPs are not being offered to independent record labels, and that in reality there are only around 12 LPs being offered for sale at the iTunes store at present.

The iTunes representative continued by stating that iTunes charges a production fee of $10,000 for the creation of an iTunes LP.

Herrman reports that such a fee is prohibitive to independent labels, and in effect pushes them out of the iTunes LP market. Hermann also goes on to state that with the higher price of LPs compared with regular iTunes files, no lossess audio and only limited device support (i.e. Apple devices), the iTunes LP service is likely to be "a hard sell".

If this particular iTunes representative is reporting accurate information, then its likely that albums from artists that work with independent labels will never see the light of day. Time will tell.

iTunes LP currently offers a limited range of albums in 256kbps AAC format, which are DRM free, together with a range of extras including photos, videos, visualizers and interviews.

Apple releases new update beta to developers

Apple has released a second beta version of the next Snow Leopard update (10.6.2) to its developers, according to AppleInsider.

According to users of this beta build, the new update has improved almost 150 "general focus areas" since the last update, 10.6.1, was released only weeks ago. These include updates to core services like Time Machine, Spaces and Front Row as well as several applications including the new QuickTime Player, Photo Booth and Address Book.

AppleInsider also reports that the update particularly focuses on Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) support for mobile data services and adds enhancements to MobileMe, iDisk, Exchange support and NTFS and WebDAV filesystem support.

Finally, the new update fixes performance and stability issues that are largely tied to drivers and OSX's OpenCL compiler, includes a number of security patches and bugs including updates to thesoftware update service, printing and parental controls, and fixes a bug caused when switching between applications using the Dock.

Users across the internet have reported several issues with Snow Leopard since its release in August 2009, with the first update, 10.6.1 being issued to users just days after launch. This initial update fixed numerous issues including an outdated version of Adobe Flash that shipped with the operating system.

No expected release date has been issued for the 10.6.2 update at this time.

Is Valve's Steam service growing too dominant?

Gearbox Software's President and CEO, Randy Pitchford, has expressed his concern about Steam's domination of the digital distribution market and its potential exploitation of small developers.

During an interview with Maximum PC, Pitchford acknowledged the benefits of digital download game services, including the ability to log-in to any computer to download purchased content. However, when discussing Steam in particular, Pitchford said "I just don't trust Valve".

Pitchford noted that most of his concerns with Valve comes from the "conflict of interest" of the company competing in the first-person shooter arena, much like Gearbox, while also holding complete control over the Steam service. Pitchford continued, "...I, personally, trust Valve. But I'm saying, honestly, I think a lot of the industry doesn't...It's actually really dangerous for the rest of the industry to allow Valve to win".

Later in the interview, Pitchford stated, "I love Valve games, and I do business with the company. But I am just saying, Steam isn't the answer".

Should Valve choose to spin-off Steam into a new business entity, Pitchford acknowledges that his concerns would be quashed, and the potential conflict of interest could be eliminated. At present, however, Pitchford believes that, "Steam helps us as customers, but it's also a money grab, and Valve is exploiting a lot of people in a way that's not totally fair. Valve is taking a larger share than it should...It's exploiting a lot of small guys..."

Gearbox has a history with Valve, working together with the software company to create addons for the successful Half-Life series of games.

Valve are reportedly not responding to requests for a response to Pitchford's statement at this time.

Roboform Got Online - Now Save, Sync And Use Logins Across Multiple Computers

Roboform is a well-known secure password manager and form-filler utility helping users remember online forms and login information saving time by automating login's securely, the good news is Roboformnow keeps your passwords in sync between multiple computers and web-browsers allowing you to access your login's anywhere in world from any internet connected computer or device.

RoboForm Online is free and supports synchronization from both Free and Pro flavors of the utility, also keep in mind that using online synchronization make sure you have a copy of you login data secured online in-case something goes bad with your local data.

Follow the steps below to create your free Roboform Online account and start synchronization your logins :

1. Sign Up for your free Roboform online account here.
2. Install the latest version of RoboForm from here.
3. Now goto Options -> User Data -> Sync RoboForm Data from RoboForm Toolbar in your browser, or the RoboForm System Tray Icon.
4. Follow onscreen instructions to complete the setup.
5. Once setupped RoboForm will automatically synchronize your logins, identities and safenotes to your RoboForm Online account, which can beaccessed from anywhere by simply logging at https://online.roboform.com.

Download RoboForm Free >>

Let the Office Winter Games begin!

Yet more Microsoft Office news today, this is a more lighthearted piece regarding a Winter Game competition that the Microsoft Office team are running. The website for the Office Winter Games can be viewed through this link.

Two bloggers will be able to win the chance to blog live from the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, BC as a credentialed member of the press. Supported by the U.S. Olympic committee, the Office team have kicked off the Office Winter Games contest today - looking for one student blogger and one female blogger who will get to use the latest technology Microsoft has to offer to blog live from the games.

In order to be eligible for the contest, female and student bloggers who are interested in giving it a go and have had an active blog for at least three months should hit the Office Winter Games website.

Once there, bloggers will be required to submit a short 250-word sample post on why they are the best candidate to cover the Vancouver Games. Entries close on November 1.

Once registration has closed, a panel of judges who include five time Olympic gold medalist Bonnie Blair and CollegeHumor.com stars Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld, will select the top five semi-finalists from each category. From there it is up to the public to decide who has the honour to blog for Microsoft Office on the Winter Games. Think of it as the blogging X-Factor. This is a great chance for bloggers wishing to get into journalistic careers to test their skills blogging at the Olympics.

Prizes for the chosen two don't stop there though. The full list of prizes for the successfully chosen pair include: trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in January, a week at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, BC, press credentials at the Olympics, and the latest technology including Microsoft Office 2010, Office Web Apps and a fully equipped Acer Aspire 4810 Timeline laptop.

Bloggers in the US need only enter this competition, only US based bloggers are eligible. Hit the website if you are interested where you can view the prizes and find out a little more about the judges Bonnie Blair, Jake and Amir. Happy blogging, good luck to all those who enter.