After spending a few minutes on Google, I was not able to find a direct post by anyone on how to set up Live Mail with Google Apps for Domains. Just in case anyone else is interested, here it is. Instead of describing the configs line by line, let me just present some pics, yeah?
Hope some of you find this useful.
I’ve been in a kick recently to consolidate tools I use online, and am feeling rather rebellious about using all online-only UI’s. It’s also probably because I am procrastinating on a few more important issues, but I decided to give Microsoft’s Live Tools another chance.
So I’ve managed, in a few hours, to consolidate all my email accounts under Live Mail and decided to do a test post on Live Writer– and you are reading the result. If this works out well, I may just start up on the blogging efforts again.
The interface is classic Microsoft, so it’s instantly familiar. I feel like I am using Word and Outlook again, which isn’t a bad feeling I suppose.
On top of all this, I am also giving Live Mesh a spin. It’s been working great so far, even on a Windows 2003 server. Great, job, MS.
That’s all for now. We’ll talk again soon. Promise.
Check out this report from Gizmodo. Resistance is futile, baby. A foreign entity who has complete control over your OS, leaving you little ‘presents’ without your knowledge. All you blackhats have nuthin’ on the Borg.
MS is suffering one PR blunder after another recently. No wonder Apple stock has gone through the roof. Not only are people being drawn and pulled by Apple’s design prowess, MS has also been intentionally pushing users toward the other camp with these fiascos. With the way the trend is going, I should really consider readjusting my portfolio and sell some MSFT for AAPL.
In the meantime, I’ll just sit here quietly and read the news on my Fedora Core VM. 🙂
Check this out. FSJ pointed out that this Microsoft dude bought an Apple, and he’s happier about it. Funny thing is, and I quote:
For now, at home, I just run XP on my Mac with most of the automatic features turned off.
And I like it that way.
For most of the post he went on to praise how much more intuitive OSX is vs. Vista/XP. But he ended the blog post with those two lines. Kinda ironic, don’t you think? So the guy got Mac hardware to run Windows. That’s got to be the dumbest thing I’ve heard. PC’s main strength is its ability to run on cheap hardware. Buying overpriced hardware to run in his opinion an inferior OS is just beyond me.
Sorry FSJ, but this guy’s decision is nothing to be proud of. Like you said, he’s a Microtard. Unfortunately, he’s now converted himself to an AppleMicrotard.
Short answer? Yes. If you don’t believe me, then read this article. Granted, the technology was developed while memory is still somewhat pricey. Nowadays though, you’d be much better off running at least 1gb (most of us run 2gb) of RAM– at which point, there is absolutely no point in having that extra stick of memory funkiness sticking out of your computer. All it accomplishes is suck up power.
Looks like Microsoft will be releasing its newest OS soon. See this post. To learn more about this product, check out its page, or download the pdf provided by MS which probably includes more info than you want to know. Depending on price, it could be a hit, or not. Linux will work just fine for the same intents and purposes– MS just packaged these services together in a prettier package.
VMWare rocked the market today, and that really is no surprise. With the most comprehensive product offering of all the Virtualization solutions (and also the priciest), this is THE VM solution to go with for the enterprises that are adopting it. For instance, the company that I work for has already been steadily migrating racks into the ESX environment. If these other competitors don’t shape up soon (and it doesn’t look like they are), EMC’s toy project is looking to become the de facto player in the Virtualization game.
Let’s briefly look at the competitors:
Amazon EC2: This service shows great promise in taking away many of the start up business that VMWare would have had. Can’t see established big corporations utilizing this much though.
Microsoft’s Viridian: So far, it can still be considered vaporware. It may be too late of an entry for Microsoft once it gets released.
SWSoft’s Virtuozzo: Slightly different approach to virtualization, OS based. A little late in getting into the Windows space, but looks to be a decent contender. Unfortunately, marketing doesn’t seem to be doing the product justice.
SWSoft’s Parallels: Toy for the Mac fans. Unfortunately, VMWare’s Fusion is looking pretty capable in stealing quite a bit of this small piece of pie as well.
Xen: Not quite as polished or robust in terms of management as VMWare, but it’s coming along quite nicely. Could be a cheaper alternative than VMWare. Could also benefit from better marketing.
Virtual Iron: Already positioning itself as VMWare’s cheaper alternative. Shows promise, but it’ll probably never overtake VMWare.
The rest of the smaller players out there are probably not even being considered by big enterprises at this point.
As the market currently stands, VMWare seemed to have captured the hearts and the pocketbooks of the majority of the enterprise markets out there.
My verdict? I see great promise in VMW, though at today’s valuation, I would wait a bit before I’d consider picking some up.
What are your thoughts? Which one of these are you a fan of?
UPDATE: Looks like Citrix read my article last night and decided to buy XenSource this morning. 🙂 Check it out here.
So Enderle wrote an article on the state of the console war. With the upcoming Holiday shopping season, one can only expect things to heat up from here. Like he said, we can really expect to see the competition get kicked into overdrive– with all three platforms released and production stabilized, this is the first holiday season where demand will dictate the sales numbers.
Interestingly, he somewhat agreed with my view that it is Nintendo that may have the most to lose this winter– I am sure the Wii will still sell like hotcakes, but with a somewhat lackluster title lineup compared to the other two, it may be in a precarious position to lose the demographic that prefers more mature and involved titles.
Another thing that we cannot overlook is that the PS3’s price drop now pits it as the best value for those who may be looking into getting into the HiDef game. Microsoft still hasn’t start building the HD-DVD drive into the Xbox 360, so for someone who will also be getting an 1080p present this winter, the PS3 could turn out to be a cooler complement.
Just to toss this out there– I don’t own any of the new consoles, and don’t plan on getting one anytime soon. I don’t even have a display that is over 1600 x 1200 pixels. My media center and the ps2 are hooked up to a projector in the living room, and so far DVDs and Xvid satisfy me just fine. 1024 x 768 is a decent resolution for me still, but I am itching for a 1080p LCD or Plasma– maybe I’ll treat myself to a HiDef bedroom display this winter.
As far as the consoles are concerned? I believe at the end of this console era, most of the consumers will have both a Wii and either the Xbox360 or the PS3. Keeping in mind that the next next-gen is at least 4-5 years away, we still have plenty of Christmas shopping seasons for the surprisingly wealthy Americans to indulge on multiple consoles. For this winter though, I am seeing a lot of people who’ll be Wii-lling to open their pockets for their Nintendo fix.
Return of the Toadstool, baby.
With videos like these floating around, why is Microsoft even paying those big bucks for their PR firm?
and this:
And this:
We are seeing many posts in forums and blogs lately about people’s dislike for Vista. In fact, ComputerWorld reported that Microsoft System Builder team had to RTM Windows XP SP2c to replenish the dwindling XP product activation keys. After being submitted to Digg, user feedback on this subject is frequent and passionate, as can be seen here.
But if you look a little deeper at the feedback and the published numbers, you can see a pattern. As vocal as the users are who would prefer to stick with XP, according to Microsoft, they are only a small number. Sure the Vista/XP breakdown shows that MS did not expect such stickiness from XP, but this merely shows that there are plenty of people who dislike Vista, but perfectly willing to stay on XP– the rampant reports of MS defectors are actually only a small subset of the Vista haters, the rest are still sticking with Microsoft.
But is Vista really that foul? I propose that the reason some think XP is better than Vista is that the users are still unfamiliar with the more advanced features introduced in Vista. At the core, Vista is not really all that different than XP. Combing through the user reviews and feedback, it is pretty evident that the majority of the users who dislike Vista boil down their preference over XP because of:
So is XP really better than Vista? At this point, maybe. Many users are still unfamiliar with Vista, so sticking with XP if you need to be productive is a good idea. But are the above problems going to become Vista’s Achilles’ Heel? I don’t think so.
These purported shortcomings within Vista can actually all be tweaked, either through obscure menus or via the registry. How easy would it be for Microsoft to “fix” these user complaints? Easy as pie. With a simple update release, they can really introduce a UI picker which allow you to switch Vista’s appearance to completely mimic XP’s. And the resource requirement/speed? Aero can easily be disabled and classic menus be used, but many users prefer the prettier UI and complain about speed. With the speed at which faster hardware is being introduced, I do not believe we will be hearing a lot of complaint about Vista being a dog in speed.
So which OS do I use?
Hmmm that’s probably both. I have recently upgraded my XP Media Center PC to Vista. My personal desktop is a XP/Vista dual boot. I have an old Dell 600m running Ubuntu Studio which stays at home and another laptop that I bring around to work and visit client that is still on XP. Most of the VMs that I am running are Debian/Ubuntu based, but there are some that are based on Redhat/CentOS.
Which OS do I use more? at this point, probably still XP. But that’s because I haven’t rebooted my desktop in 3 months (gotta love Hibernate) and I have 20 windows open in XP. Do I hate using Vista? Not at all. At this stage in the computing life, most of my time is spent in Firefox and PuTTY, and they both run fine on either OS– in fact, they both run fine in Linux. Do I have a preference which one I use these apps in? Nope.
I can see why normal users would prefer to stick with XP at this point, but I believe this is due to the fear of the unknown. Vista can easily be tweaked to conform to most users’ tastes, but it’s easier to complain and stick with the familiar. If push comes to shove, Microsoft can easily tweak Vista for the users with a released update. As the situation stands however, an XP user or a Vista user, you are still a Microsoft user. Most bloggers/users now think the desktop game is Vista vs. OSX, but fail to realize that it’s actually Vista+XP vs. OSX vs. 100’s of flavors of Linux, with Vista+XP’s market share at 90+%. Can Microsoft afford to lose some market share? Most definitely, and here’s to hope that Leopard and Ubuntu can make the market more competitive, as cheaper and better OS’s all around can only benefit us users.
But Vista becoming Microsoft’s downfall? Only if Microsoft wills it.
Leaving my "logs" on the web. 