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Or, if you have an application that isn't written for a system from the 1990's, it will spawn multiple threads and use all the cores to do that one task much faster. You know, things like video compression which is nothing but massive amounts of math - nobody does that on a consumer level at all.

Related to the story, you might enjoy I GPL’ed, a parody about Microsoft contributing code to Linux under the GPL based on “I Kissed A Girl” by Katy Perry,

A Windows machine, even the lowest comes with a video editor, DVD video authoring app, Photo manager and basic editor, Backup solution and media organizer. None are cripple ware or 30 day trials... they all are full retail versions.

The mac guys really want you to ignore that fact.

FTFY

A Windows machine, even the lowest comes with a video editor, DVD video authoring app, Photo manager and basic editor, Backup solution and media organizer. None are cripple ware or 30 day trials... they all are full retail versions.

The mac guys really want you to ignore that fact.

FTFY

Yes. Yes you can. Privacy settings & permissions

http://download.live.com/

Install Windows Live PhotoGallery from the Windows Live Essentials. This is exactly what it is designed for and can do smart tagging.

Even though Win7 doesn't install the 'Essentials' applications, they really are 'Essential' to get the most out of Windows7. There is also a download link for them in the Start Menu, and you can pick and choose what you want easily.

Doing all your tagging via Explorer is functional, but not the optimal way of dealing with Photos in Windows 7. In Photogallery you just drag and drop to tag photos or use the face identification system.

(The June beta of the next generation of Live Essentials and PhotoGallery should be along soon as well with several new tricks that pulls in several of the MS Photo R&D work.)

*Don't waste your time with 'Album' or other tagging software that shoves your photos into their file structure, which is a LOT of them.

Microsoft recently "released" Mesh. It is IE only though (and the reason I will probably stick with LogMeIn).

I use Skydrive. It's 25 GB of free space, simple UI and pretty fast upload/download speeds.

Why you aren't getting modded up, I have no idea, except maybe it's Windows ...

But seriously, you're almost spot on. Why push this OP, admittedly computer handicapped, to a more complex solution? Windows Vista and 7 alone provide:

• Parental Controls on/off per user
• Allowed usage times, including forced log-off
• Block/allow specific programs

Add Microsoft's Windows Live Family Safety (free) to get:

• Web content filtering at the IP level (works with any browser), per user
• Activity Reports for both website visits and application use, per user

and Microsoft Security Essentials (also free) for virus and malware scanning.

There's probably an easy and free solution for most of the other items on the list as well, but they seem more "wish-list" than essential.

In addition windows live has a Family Safety addon where you can see and limit the websites kids visit (among other things):
http://download.live.com/FamilySafety

While it can be done much better in linux, if you are a linux noob I suggest getting something like Windows Home Server, this way when shit hits the fan (as it inevitably will) everything is already automatically backed up:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx

http://tyrendes.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3B5F578C5068731F!266.entry?ppud=4&wa=wsignin1.0&sa=573220466

After seeing this, I made post about our 'honest' auto drivers in India who (mostly) do not cheat at all! I have made the entry at my blog, http://sarin.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!84A33C7E2C38DB8A!309.entry

Really?

XNA.com Terms of Use and Notices

(Revised October 2008)

The XNA.com website is made up of various internet web pages and services operated by Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399 or its affiliates (collectively, the "XNA Web Site").

ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS OF USE.

Throughout the XNA Web Site, Microsoft provides you with access to a variety of resources, including download areas, content, software, communication forums, and product information (collectively the "Services"). The Services include any updates, enhancements, and/or new features that Microsoft may provide from time to time

The Services are subject to these Terms of Use ("TOU"). The most current version of the TOU can be reviewed by clicking on the "Terms of Use" hypertext link located at the bottom of any Web page that is part of XNA.com.

The XNA Web Site may also contain additional terms that govern particular pages, features, or offers (for example, content submission terms, competition rules, or rules or codes of conduct applicable to "chat" areas). Use of the Creators Club Subscription and any activity on Xbox LIVE is additionally governed by the Xbox LIVE: Terms of Use.

Access to some XNA Web Site features may require a Windows Live(TM) ID account. See http://login.live.com/gls.srf?urlID=MSNPrivacyStatement for the terms and conditions that govern the use of Windows Live ID.
Please note that where you submit via the Services a game which you have developed (a "Game") we will ask you to enter into a separate Game Submission Agreement.

We may from time to time amend this TOU and/or the Code of Conduct. Where we make such an amendment we will notify you via a notice on the XNA.com Web Site. For particularly important changes to the TOU and/or Code of Conduct, we may in addition email you to bring such changes to your attention. Each time you access the XNA.com Web Site or use the Services, you are accepting and agreeing to be bound by the current version of the TOU and the Code of Conduct. Please note that if you are not happy with any change to the TOU or Code of Conduct you should simply cease to use the XNA.com Web Site and the Services.

PRIVACY AND PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION.

To operate and provide the Services, we collect certain information about you. We use and protect that information as described in the XNA.com Creator's Club Online Privacy Statement (http://creators.xna.com/help/privacy and its successors) ("Privacy Statement"), which is incorporated in the TOU by this reference. Please see the Privacy Statement disclosures for more information relating to the collection and use of your personal information. The most current version of the Privacy Statement can be reviewed by clicking on the "Privacy Statement" hypertext link located at the bottom of web pages within the XNA Web Site.

USE OF SITE SPACE.

Any space provided to you on XNA.com is for you to use to participate in the XNA community of game developers. While you may use designated areas of the XNA Web Site to provide supplemental information regarding your own business (provided you do not use spam to provide this information); you may not use the XNA Web Site to sell your goods or services (other than in the form of a Game) or as the primary mechanism for operating your business or providing core information about your business. Any use of the XNA Web Site for commercial purposes is solely at your own risk, Microsoft has no liability for such use, and you agree to hold Microsoft harmless for any claims related to your use of the XNA Web Site for commercial purposes, other than in connection with the submission of a Game.

SOFTWARE AND CONTENT AVAILABLE ON THE XNA WEB SITE.

Microsoft, its suppliers and other users of the Service may from time to time make available software and content to view or download from the Services ("Software"). This Software is the copyrigh

You are right, and there is also the fact that Youtube used a really bad H.264 encoder back then. They have recently switched to x264, so while the SD clips are still encoded in baseline profile that should give them a little boost in quality.

All in all that comparison linked in the summary probably done more to hurt Theora than to help it, because it has given the codec a bad name in the video encoding community. One of the main developers of x264 recently posted about the comparison and Theora in general.
The part concerning Theora having the same quality as H.264:

On the other hand, the Theora devs themselves are strongly against any such claims. gmaxwell asked me to "bonk on the head" anyone who claimed that Theora was nearly as good, as good, or better than H.264, because such claims not only create unreasonable expectations that the devs cannot possibly live up to, but also create the impression that "Theora supporters are liars", which is obviously rather counterproductive to what they are trying to do.

That a free codec like Theora exists is good, and it is estimated that Theora can be competitive with or even a bit better than XviD (MPEG4 ASP) when it is more developed and adaptive quantization (in version 1.2) and other psy optimizations are implemented, but currently the encoder has some problems that need to be addressed. The current Theora encoder is relatively slow. It should be much faster than x264 because of the simpler format, but it currently only has a rather small speed advantage (using the defaults on both encoders; same bitrate) on a single core CPU and it doesn't support multithreading while x264 scales almost linearly with the number of cores. Then there is the fact that the current Theora encoder is dropping frames in 1-pass and 2-pass mode which is unfortunate considering how long the format has been in development.

There are a couple of comparisons between x264 and Theora 1.1 and currently it looks like an up to date x264 revision can give better quality than Theora at half the bitrate with slightly slower (single core CPU) or much faster (multi core CPU) encoding speed using the default settings in both encoders.
Videos; current Theora and old x264 (pre MB-Tree)
Metrics ; on animated content
Screenshots; TV capture and video game footage

This strikes me as a relatively minor feature enhancement to a technology largely developed and popularized by google.

Popularized, yes. Developed, no. This ugly alpha was already online in 2006; Google Street View went live in 2007. The difference is that Google went ahead to develop a working product there and then, while the same feature in Live was only released in production very recently. So, while Google definitely popularized the concept, it doesn't look like the idea was "stolen" from them.

The results are quite different if you compare Theora to a good H.264 encoder like x264.

Some recent comparisons:
Videos Difference especially noticeable on the "The Island" trailer because of the high motion scenes.
Metrics Animated content. Relatively new.
Metrics By one of the Xiph guys. A little older. Huge lead for x264.

I've had this discussion with him and he went straight for the ad hominem with me too.

The trailer for "The Island" I linked in that post encoded with Theora 1.1 and an x264 revision from around the time it came out clearly shows heavy blocking in the Theora encode. The clips are 1280x528 encoded at 2 Mbit/s. Even in the first seconds which only contain the green "The following preview has been approved..." screen the current Theora version has noticeable problems in the form of different colour blocks. I assume this is a problem with the current implementation and not with the standard itself, but it's clearly visible that Theora exhibits blocking throughout the trailer, especially during high motion scenes.

People just need to accept that H.264 is a newer spec that offers more advanced compression features and therefore a good H.264 encoder is going to reach transparency at significantly lower bitrates than a good Theora encoder.
Comparing Theora 1.1 with current revisions of x264 the former needs somewhere around twice the bitrate for the same quality. I'm sure Theora will improve in the future to narrow that gap, but H.264 will retain a significant advantage regardless.

Must be a typo. I think you'll find most seem to be pretty favourable to H.264. Unless that is you could provide a single link that shows a Theora video with higher quality than H.264 at the same bitrate?

I could give you about 10 that show otherwise. here's one

Once you compare Theora to a high quality H.264 encoder it looks pretty bad, unfortunately most people here only seem to know that one comparison done by Xiph themselves against the (relatively crappy) Youtube H.264 encoder with animated content where differences are generally harder to spot. The differences at the same bitrate are obvious in other comparisons.

Here are some more:
Videos Encoded with Theora 1.1 and x264 r1259. The "Island" trailer shows the differences well because there are lots of high motion scenes.
Metrics Animated content. Relatively new.
Metrics By one of the Xiph guys. A little older. Huge lead for H.264.

Can't, sorry:

XML Parsing Error: not well-formed Location: http://cid-bee3c9ac9541c85b.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public/ Line Number 77, Column 184:

It appears you're using Microsoft's flavor of Javascript, which has notorious issues with my brower/platform of choice (Firefox/Linux).

There might be an apt analogy here to the situation between x264 and h264, but I'm too tired right now to explore the idea further.

By the way, I'm a professional videographer/photographer/editor/graphic designer. I personally have made use of x264 (in VLC), but I would be extremely hesitant to use it on a professional project, where I was prominent as the author, due to it's extremely shaky legal foundation in the US. I'm not a lawyer, but I have three decades of experience plowing through IP/copyright law (with the help of lawyers) as practiced in the US. Frankly speaking, I feel that the x264 implementation doesn't have a legal leg to stand on in the US and the EU, and if you'll do some basic research you'll find that there are many IP lawyers on both continents who concur with my view. You're exposing yourself to huge risks by using the x264 libraries, and distributing the works thereof...at least where I live.

The recent FAT32 fiasco where Microsoft lowered the boom on TomTom is a direct compare. TomTom assumed they were in the clear since an open source reverse-engineer (dosftools) had been in use for quite a while by many vendors, until Microsoft's legal team educated them otherwise.

http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/x264-devel/2006-August/002052.html

And while Jobs is an avid competitor, I seriously doubt that the has any animus for Microsoft.

Google, on the other hand, is threatening Apple in its biggest growth market: mobile devices. Google offers an alternate ecosystem to Apple, to .Mac and now iDisk. Google is encroaching, encroaching, encroaching more into Apple territory than Microsoft is. Apple probably feels betrayed by Google (and vice versa, after the rejection of Google's app in the AppStore.)

All three are competing with each other in various sectors, but I think if there is bad blood anywhere right now, it is between Apple and Google.

Well then Apple has something coming to them if they don't see that they will have just as much (if not more) beef with MS as they do with Google. Let's go through your list:

- alternate ecosystem to Apple on mobile devices: check (wait until WinMo7 later this year for a bigger surprise)
- .mac: check (hotmail, msn, etc.)
- iDisk: check

They will still be competing in the area of phones, tablet devices, notebooks/netbooks. And we didn't even get started on desktop/laptop operating systems where MS has anywhere from 80% to 90% market share.

Oh and they've got something else coming to them - MS' motto is NOT "do no evil". In short, they should be aligning themselves with Google even if they get half the "deal" they think they are getting from MS. I thought they'd been burned before by the same company... fool me once....

You went here: http://mail.live.com/?

It's not slow at all...but maybe that's because I'm using Chrome. It's also a really clean UI. But yeah, their spam filtering sucks.

you can easily see for yourself that, when comparing Theora and h.264, you get pratically the same quality with the same file size

Please, look at some videos and tell me that again with a straight face.

I love the discussions every time Theora comes up. Every comparison, except the ones by Xiph themselves, are automatically FUD. Xiph doesn't do comparisons between Theora and H.264. They do comparisons between Theora and youtubes H.264 encoder. It doesn't use some of the important features in the standard in order to support older hardware and even disregarding these restrictions it's not a very good H.264 encoder quality wise. Even then Xiph usually uses easily compressible sources (animation) in their comparisons, sources where differences are harder to spot.

Microsoft is moving into the ad-supported online hosting biz with SkyDrive. Looking at my SkyDrive right now, it tells me I have 24.99GB available space (I'm not really using it for anything). Among other uses, once Office 2010 ships, SkyDrive will be a portal to the Office 2010 Web Apps. If you upload Office documents to your SkyDrive, you will be able to click on them and view/edit them in your browser, without owning your own copy of Office.

Hey Symbolset :)

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Were all back form the Hollidays at work and Ive been a bit busy.

Got it - thats what I thought you meant by Telepresence. Yes, thats going to be a killer feature in phones and other highly portable devices. I actualy use it often for personal stuff via Windows Live Messanger quite a bit. On a scale of 1 to 10, its about a 6.5. Sometims its a bit glitchy and the audio-video sync slips a bit. The WLM team is working on this and they understand the major issues.

Microsoft Office Communicator R2 also supports telepresence. It works very well, about a 7 or 8 on a 10 point scale. It uses a different stack than WLM. This is used day to day inside MSFT. Almost everyone has a decent web cam on the main desktop and/or in the laptop. For example, we have a team in Beijing - we use this as our primary way to work with them.

Ya - the only reason I need to use iTunes is to backup my phone. I use Napster for most of my music purchass, also in MP3.

Yes, office for he MAC is still around. Its pretty much the only viable office suite for the MAC. Apple doesnt sell one any more. Its quite compatble. The MAC-BU (Macintosh Business Unit) removed VB from Office 2008 for the MAC. This all had to do with the Macintoshs move from PowerPC to the Intel Architecture. You can find all the gorey details here. Here is another related article. It seems like they are putting back in for the next revision.

Agreed on the Tablet front. Things are getting interesting. Apple may be able to do what we havent - spark the tablet market. Well see.

Ill stick with my prediction - if the new iSlate (or whatever it is they are calling it) is Intel based and is essentilay a MAC, then it will be sucesfull. If its ARM based, and thus really a big iPhone, then it will be a very cool, but niche product. this has nothing to do with ARM, and everyitng with what people can do with it.

Best Regards
-Foredecker

Second Mr. Silver! There is nothing new here. You can do this in XP too and had been discovered a long time ago. Just rename the folder with the appropriate class id and away you go. Reference: http://windowstricks.spaces.live.com/?_c11_BlogPart_pagedir=Next&_c11_BlogPart_handle=cns!BAFA39A62A57009C!141&_c11_BlogPart_BlogPart=blogview&_c=BlogPart

Well, someone sure is getting a jump on the pre-CES media hype. A conspiracy theorist would suggest that this Corey Halverson dude over in Seattle was slipped some info by his buddies over in Redmond working on a competing product, and looking to exclude a VC-funded startup right when they start gaining traction. That would explain why his blog only has three posts, and why he brought this up right before CES.

Me, I take this as an object lesson for what happens when you dump your product on woot, and when you don't bother to make even the slightest effort at security.

This truly is a PR nightmare, but will make a good plot mechanic in next season's procedural dramas.

A lot of the techniques used by Microsoft are discussed here. Other TE sites (Google it) will give you plenty of insight about how opinions are being manipulated in online discussion.

It's not really secret, but discussion IS discouraged on target sites. Some of the methods used include "Poisoning the Well" - pre-emptively ridiculing postings which might raise unwanted issues, and "False Association" - falsely linking people who try to discuss online marketing to discredited groups like conspiracy theorists. .

A very restricted SPF TXT record that specifies _precisely_ which IP addresses an incoming SMTP for a given domain an email _must_ come from cannot hurt. At best, your IT admins have wasted a half hour, at best they have significantly improved the chance of your outgoing email being not treated as suspicious by bulk email handlers such as yahoo, gmail and hotmail (especially hotmail).

You want proof? Check your shit. http://postmaster.live.com/Services.aspx . And no, I don't work for MS, but damn they provide the best postmaster tools on the interweb for monitoring shit like email deliverability. Don't even talk to me about the pestilence that is Yahoo!, those pricks remind me of my evil DM who used to make up pointless forms just to pass the time.

Or have you seen the price of Windos "converge" in any meaningful way? Have you missed the article a few stories down about price fixing in the LCD market? The many other examples of price manipulations?

Have you read about netbooks? Originally Microsoft did not even want to sell Windows XP anymore because they wanted to boost Windows Vista sales numbers. Asus releasing the Linux Eee PC netbook was enough for forcing Microsoft to not only continue selling Windows XP, but lowering the price enough to be competitive with the Linux desktops. Market distortions are older than dirt. The "father" of capitalism, Adam Smith, wrote The Wealth of Nations as a protest against mercantilism economics. He specifically mentions cartels as things to be avoided. Also notice that unlike the Windows Vista release, the number of Microsoft promotional offers, rebates, etc, increased a lot for the Windows Vista 7 release meaning they are in fact lowering the product ASP even if they do not specifically say so. Even "official" retail prices dropped.

The thing about this patent is that "price information" itself is manipulated. Your price information is meaningless to me, because I can not get it.

The more users there are, the higher the chance price information will leak out. Microsoft does not exactly run a business amenable to these tactics. You are also assuming resale of product is impossible. Most businesses I know running highly differentiated pricing schemes do services, not products.

Also, I just noticed a cool feature in Bing. It has "related searches" in the side bar along with the results. This just helped me refine my search. There is also a "search history" in the side bar! I wonder how this is stored or purged. Hmmm I don't keep any history in my browser settings. There are clear and a turn off features. At least they are transparent about what they are storing. I am not sure if you can retrieve your search history from Google.

More info
http://help.live.com/help.aspx?mkt=en-us&project=wl_searchv1&querytype=keyword&query=gnolyrotsih

Everything?

If you're saying that because it runs on Windows (for thick-client apps), you can point the finger at Apple just as much or more, too.

If you're talking about providing software for Windows or online services...

• Hotmail
• SkyDrive
• Live Mesh (pretty cool, actually)
• Live "Spaces" or whatever they are called
• Windows Messenger
• NetMeeting (I think?)
• Microsoft LiveOffice or whatever it is called... Office Live...
• Live Photo Gallery
• MovieMaker
• Live Writer (actually quite cool/useful)
• Live Mail (I've heard this is actually a very good client)
• ...

Some of the above can be seen here. There services can be seen here. Zune is also free (the software, anyways). Media Player is free, I believe, and actually plays back better than iTunes on Windows, I think.

Nope. Nothing free!

Everything?

If you're saying that because it runs on Windows (for thick-client apps), you can point the finger at Apple just as much or more, too.

If you're talking about providing software for Windows or online services...

• Hotmail
• SkyDrive
• Live Mesh (pretty cool, actually)
• Live "Spaces" or whatever they are called
• Windows Messenger
• NetMeeting (I think?)
• Microsoft LiveOffice or whatever it is called... Office Live...
• Live Photo Gallery
• MovieMaker
• Live Writer (actually quite cool/useful)
• Live Mail (I've heard this is actually a very good client)
• ...

Some of the above can be seen here. There services can be seen here. Zune is also free (the software, anyways). Media Player is free, I believe, and actually plays back better than iTunes on Windows, I think.

Nope. Nothing free!

OK - if your a developer - or anybody who is - please tell me something...

I just made a big jump from Win XP Pro and MSVC 6 to Windows 7 64 bit and VS2008, and I am trying to get up to speed. I created a very simple benchmarking console app on the old system and compiled a release build under MSVC 6, and then compiled exactly the same code under VS2008 on the new machine. No matter what optimizations I used, or whether I created a 32 bit release build or a 64 bit release build with VS2008, the exe created under the old MSVC ran about 25% faster on my new platform than the new build on my new platform. Question - what is it with VS2008? This is intolerable!

Try it yourself and get back to me.

I had a buddy on my team, Mike Tauty, take a look at your results and here is what he got:

"Ok – took a look at it. Results I got on my Dual Core T9600 at 2.80GHz were;

Original executable from the guy’s website;
                              4 minutes, 27 seconds, 840 milliseconds

Rebuilt code from his website built with a “Vanilla” C++ console application (VS2008 SP1) changing no settings at all;
                              4 minutes, 13 seconds, 639 milliseconds"

Below is the link to the VS project on my Skydrive:
http://cid-8240a465deae9c2e.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/WebGuy.zip

Mike doesn't really know what you're doing wrong but he offered a suggestion to "parallelize this on .NET with PFX and see what results that gives him :)"

If you still have doubts, email me (viralta@microsoft.com) and I'll connect you to Mike OR just contact him via his blog. http://www.mtaulty.com/

Bejeweled. MS Word. MSN Messenger.

isn't caused by running familiar apps slowly, it's caused by being forced into inferior and unfamiliar facsimiles.

You could make that case about Bejeweled -- the official web version is deliberately crippled compared to the desktop version. However, the other two are very serious attempts by Microsoft to expose that functionality online. And I haven't covered alternatives -- Meebo and Google Docs come to mind.

Just in case it disappears from the cache, too:

I’ve never bought anything using Bing Cashback, but the balance of my account is $2080.06. Apparently, I placed two $1 orders on January 24th of this year, and spent another $104,000 on October 24th. Let’s see how these transactions might have “accidentally” got credited to my account.

First, we need to try to figure out how transactions get into Bing Cashback. Microsoft posted some documentation here. The explanation of how a merchant reports transactions to Bing starts on page 20. Merchants have a few options for reporting, but Bing suggests using a tracking pixel. Basically, the merchant adds a tracking pixel to their order confirmation page, which will report the the transaction details back to Bing. The request for the tracking pixel looks something like this:

https://ssl.search.live.com/cashback/pixel/index?
jftid=0&jfoid=&jfmid=
&m[0]=&p[0]=&q[0]=

This implementation, while easy for the merchant, has an obvious flaw. Anyone can simulate the tracking pixel requests, and post fake transactions to Bing. I’m not going to explain exactly how to generate the fake requests so that they actually post, but it’s not complicated. Bing doesn’t seem to be able to detect these fake transactions, at least not right away. The six cents I earned in January have “cleared,” and I’m guessing the remaining $2080 will clear on schedule, unless there is some manual intervention.

Even if Bing detects these fake transactions at some point in the future, the current implementation might have another interesting side effect. I haven’t done enough work to say it with confidence, but a malicious user might be able to block another user’s legitimate purchases from being reported correctly by Bing (I only tried this once, but it seemed to work). Posting a transaction to Bing requires sending them an order ID in the request. Bing performs a reasonable sanity check on the order ID, and will not post a transaction that repeats a previously reported order ID. When a store uses predictable order ID’s (e.g. sequential), a malicious user can “use up” all the future order ID’s, and cause legitimate transactions to be ignored. Reporting would be effectively down for days, causing a customer service nightmare for both Bing and the merchant.

Based on what I’ve found, I wouldn’t implement Bing Cashback if I were a merchant. And, as an end user and bargain hunter, it does not seem smart to rely on Bing Cashback for savings. In our next blog post, I’ll demonstrate some other subtle but important reasons to avoid using Bing Cashback.

like this you mean?

Breaking Bing Cashback
Posted November 4th, 2009 by Samir

I've never bought anything using Bing Cashback, but the balance of my account is $2080.06. Apparently, I placed two $1 orders on January 24th of this year, and spent another $104,000 on October 24th. Let's see how these transactions might have "accidentally" got credited to my account.

First, we need to try to figure out how transactions get into Bing Cashback. Microsoft posted some documentation here. The explanation of how a merchant reports transactions to Bing starts on page 20. Merchants have a few options for reporting, but Bing suggests using a tracking pixel. Basically, the merchant adds a tracking pixel to their order confirmation page, which will report the the transaction details back to Bing. The request for the tracking pixel looks something like this:

https://ssl.search.live.com/cashback/pixel/index?
jftid=0&jfoid=&jfmid=
&m[0]=&p[0]=&q[0]=

This implementation, while easy for the merchant, has an obvious flaw. Anyone can simulate the tracking pixel requests, and post fake transactions to Bing. I'm not going to explain exactly how to generate the fake requests so that they actually post, but it's not complicated. Bing doesn't seem to be able to detect these fake transactions, at least not right away. The six cents I earned in January have "cleared," and I'm guessing the remaining $2080 will clear on schedule, unless there is some manual intervention.

Even if Bing detects these fake transactions at some point in the future, the current implementation might have another interesting side effect. I haven't done enough work to say it with confidence, but a malicious user might be able to block another user's legitimate purchases from being reported correctly by Bing (I only tried this once, but it seemed to work). Posting a transaction to Bing requires sending them an order ID in the request. Bing performs a reasonable sanity check on the order ID, and will not post a transaction that repeats a previously reported order ID. When a store uses predictable order ID's (e.g. sequential), a malicious user can "use up" all the future order ID's, and cause legitimate transactions to be ignored. Reporting would be effectively down for days, causing a customer service nightmare for both Bing and the merchant.

Based on what I've found, I wouldn't implement Bing Cashback if I were a merchant. And, as an end user and bargain hunter, it does not seem smart to rely on Bing Cashback for savings. In our next blog post, I'll demonstrate some other subtle but important reasons to avoid using Bing Cashback.

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Ok, lets be fair. If you're going to compare Gmail to Exchange, at least compare it to an Exchange implementation of similar scale - such as Hotmail. A cursory search turned up an outage from March and one from earlier this month.

Ok, lets be fair. If you're going to compare Gmail to Exchange, at least compare it to an Exchange implementation of similar scale - such as Hotmail. A cursory search turned up an outage from March and one from earlier this month.

and to get the damn Live-Mail, you almost have to use IE and jump through a lot of hoops just to get it.

That is completely and blatantly false.

Windows Live Essentials includes all the "extra" programs they previously shipped with Windows (Messenger, Movie Maker, Mail, etc) but now come packaged as a separate download. When you run the installer, it asks which of the programs you want to install (you can install all or one or any mix) and it does it. That's it, you're done.

It's a small 1 MB standalone "web" installer you can download with any browser. Running it means it downloads the real installers and runs them. No hoops to jump through.

Went through that the other day and it was a real PITA as the Live Downloaded wanted to install a whole rash of other crap

That would be all the other components to the Windows Live Essentials package. All you have to do is uncheck the half-dozen or so boxes for things you don't want. Was that really too challenging for you?

What on earth are you talking about? The steps required are:

1) Click on the "Get Windows Live" link in the start menu (http://get.live.com)
2) Click "Download", "Run" and "Accept"
3) Choose which applications you want to install from a very clear list (Mail, Messenger, Writer, etc)
4) Click "OK"

That's it. No sneaky installs, nothing dubious, nothing more than you need. Just uncheck the boxes if you only want Mail. There's a screenshot here:

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/ff_wlessentials.asp

MS discontinued OneCare around a year ago genius (see here). The free Security Essentials release we're discussing in TFA is what the OneCare team got spun off into..

"Sounds like a racket to me."

It is a racket. Microsoft does not allow its programmers to finish their jobs, apparently. Then Microsoft tries to sell protection against the vulnerabilities that Microsoft top managers caused to be there by their management policies. See this web page: Windows Live Onecare, $49.95. The "free" software helps get those who have little technical knowledge become accustomed to the idea that they need protection. Then Microsoft can sell its expensive "protection".

I made a few samples using the latest versions of x264, VC-1, and Theora, testing both offline VBR and real-time CBR encoding.

http://cid-bee3c9ac9541c85b.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public/Theora%5E_1.1

Theora is defintely improved, but I see a lot of basis pattern throughout these samples. Theora would be well-served by a postprocessing filter. Theora's 1-pass CBR encoding definitely needs a LOT of tuning before it'd be viable for real-world content; I don't think we'll see it used effectively for live encoding this version.

"OneCare has been discontinued. The scanning engine it was based on, along with definition updates, are now available free."

OneCare Live costs $50, according to Microsoft. Didn't you read what I wrote?

"... it's lowering the cost of using the platform without lowering the income of Microsoft."

Microsoft charges for protection against problems in Microsoft sofware: Microsoft Windows Live OneCare.

Here's a problem with ESET's Nod32 discussed on March 9, 2009: NOD32 was deleting very critical and required Windows files.

The fundamental problem is that Microsoft makes more money if there are security problems in Windows.

OpenBSD doesn't require anti-virus and anti-spyware programs partly because it was written to be secure. Apple's Mac OS X is based on BSD, and users rarely have problems with that operating system being insecure.

Amazingly, Microsoft is not only supplying insecure software, it is charging for programs to fix the insecurities!!! See Windows Live OneCare.

Microsoft charges Microsoft Windows users $50 for software to fix problems in Windows! Windows Live OneCare has "Antivirus and antispyware all in one". More: "Two-way firewall helps stop hackers in their tracks". Hmmm, Microsoft, if Windows needs a "Two-way firewall", and it certainly does, why do you supply a one-way firewall with Windows???

See Windows Live OneCare Gripes. Quote: "Create the problem, then charge people money to solve it." Another quote: "Why should Microsoft profit from the plague of viruses and Spyware? Shouldn't it have designed Windows better to begin with? And if it has indeed found a way to protect Windows, isn't it a tad exploitative to charge for it? Microsoft has no convincing answer for these questions . . ."

Another quote: "McAfee, Symantec and Microsoft (with Windows Live OneCare) all set your credit card up for automatic renewals when you purchase their security software on-line. ... the gripe is that you can't opt out of this during the purchase. OneCare is the most difficult of the three to opt out of. In fact, you can't. Instead you must must cancel your subscription altogether by calling 866-663-2273."

To me, it seems like this: Testing... Testing... How much abuse will computer users accept?

Here's a problem with ESET's Nod32 discussed on March 9, 2009: NOD32 was deleting very critical and required Windows files.

The fundamental problem is that Microsoft makes more money if there are security problems in Windows.

OpenBSD doesn't require anti-virus and anti-spyware programs partly because it was written to be secure. Apple's Mac OS X is based on BSD, and users rarely have problems with that operating system being insecure.

Amazingly, Microsoft is not only supplying insecure software, it is charging for programs to fix the insecurities!!! See Windows Live OneCare.

Microsoft charges Microsoft Windows users $50 for software to fix problems in Windows! Windows Live OneCare has "Antivirus and antispyware all in one". More: "Two-way firewall helps stop hackers in their tracks". Hmmm, Microsoft, if Windows needs a "Two-way firewall", and it certainly does, why do you supply a one-way firewall with Windows???

See Windows Live OneCare Gripes. Quote: "Create the problem, then charge people money to solve it." Another quote: "Why should Microsoft profit from the plague of viruses and Spyware? Shouldn't it have designed Windows better to begin with? And if it has indeed found a way to protect Windows, isn't it a tad exploitative to charge for it? Microsoft has no convincing answer for these questions . . ."

Another quote: "McAfee, Symantec and Microsoft (with Windows Live OneCare) all set your credit card up for automatic renewals when you purchase their security software on-line. ... the gripe is that you can't opt out of this during the purchase. OneCare is the most difficult of the three to opt out of. In fact, you can't. Instead you must must cancel your subscription altogether by calling 866-663-2273."

To me, it seems like this: Testing... Testing... How much abuse will computer users accept?

Ignoring the tremendous improvements in the Thusnelda branch, if YouTube suddenly switched from severe H.26whatever overcompression to stock Theora with optimal settings (and everyone had libtheora and HTML 5 browsers), no one would notice the difference.

Untrue. Xiph has made heroic progress with Theora, but it's still a decade-old codec design and bitstream, and it's hard to imagine it catching up with xvid, let alone a good H.264 implementation.

YouTube certainly has quality issues, but things can be bad in more than one way at a time. There's nothing that less efficient codec would help them with. Note their top bitrate is 1280x720p30 at 2 Mbps.

Some samples compared Xiph's latest demo clips, with the same source encoded with VC-1 and x264 are here:

http://cid-bee3c9ac9541c85b.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.Public/BBB%7C_Compare

x264 can do 640x352 with higher per pixel-quality than Theora can do at 400x224 at the same bitrate.

Automatically assuming someone is a shill because they speak positively about Windows is just plain retarded.

Without commenting on whether it's actually "retarded" or not, I'd like to point out that if Microsoft didn't have so many paid shills, then maybe people wouldn't be quite as quick to assume that fans are paid shills.

In fact, in general, if Microsoft were more prone to act ethically and legally, people might not be so quick to assume that the things they do are unethical or even illegal. And you might want to remember: people know you by the company you keep.