Microsoft

Upgraded my MacBook Air to Windows /  by Richard

After using a PC and a Mac for the last year, I finally upgraded, yes upgraded my MacBook Air to Microsoft Windows 8.1 thanks to Apple’s Boot Camp. I works great, I have now the best PC ever, in a slick MacBook Air.

For several years, Apple has included a feature called Boot Camp in OS X that lets you create a bootable Windows partition. You can even set up the Mac to boot into Windows by default, making it a Windows PC on top-notch hardware and with Apple's superior Windows drivers.
Maybe I use Boot Camp to install Windows on a new Mac Pro and see what it's like on the 4K screen, what kind of benchmarks we get with Thunderbolt connected drives… 

That must be the best PC ever, in a smart design.

That must be the best PC ever, in a smart design.

Don't get down on me, please /  by Richard

You may or may not know that nearly all Google services went down last Friday afternoon for a moment. This Monday it was Amazon, in an incredibly rare hiccup, its homepage went down for nearly an hour.

Amazon says its homepage was down for 49 minutes, which puts the total sales missed at nearly $5.7 million.

Microsoft confirmed it has finally resolved an issue with SkyDrive and Outlook.com that has been affecting some users from seven-hour to three days outage, last week.

The New York Times also went down for two hours last week,

But one question I find really interesting is, should we actually expect Amazon, Microsoft or Google’s systems to run perfectly all the time?

Or should we rename the services to:

  • SkyDive.com
  • Outage.com
  • Goone.com

Or will the world go bizarre in general, for the next days! 

The sun is about to undergo a complete reversal of its magnetic field. The sun's north magnetic pole will become its south pole, and vice versa, in an event that will reverberate throughout the entire solar system.

The sun is currently going through what is known as solar maximum, when extra magnetic activity translates into greater chances to bombard the Earth with radiation and solar material. These events can trigger auroras and disrupt satellite operations and even damage power grids on the ground...

April 12, 1987 Texaco files for brankruptcy /  by Richard

Texaco`s troubles began in February, 1984, when Pennzoil sued, accusing Texaco of obstructing its plans to buy Getty Oil Co. Texaco later declared the 8th largest bankruptcies in the U.S. history - $67.6 billion by total assets in 2010 dollars.

In November, 1985, a Houston jury awarded Pennzoil $7.53 billion in damages and $3 billion in punitive damages, rather than appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, allowing it to begin planning for its emergence from Chapter 11. Texaco was an independent company until it merged into Chevron Corporation in 2001.

In 87’ was Texaco the eighth-largest industrial company in the United States and was founded in 1902. It had 55,000 employees and operated in 140 countries. For many years was Texaco the only company selling gasoline in all 50 states.

Could we experience a similar battle today between Google, Microsoft, Apple or Amazon as we recently saw in the financial industry also?

Pay us, and we won't sue you /  by Richard

Microsoft announced last week that it has entered into a patent licensing agreement with Nikon for Nikon’s Android-powered digital cameras.

You might be wondering what Android has to do with all of this, since it’s not a Microsoft software. Android is a Google-backed, Linux-based, open-source operating system, but just because it’s free software doesn't mean it has been cheap for device manufacturers to use it on their devices. The reason? Patent claims.

Do we work in an innovative or protective environment? Today companies purchase enterprises partially just for their patents, like Google who bought Motorola. I totally agree that an invention or work of art belongs to the creator and that rules must be followed, but the lawyers shouldn't hijack and rule over the creation.

Microsoft’s Office suite on iPad /  by Richard

Microsoft’s decision to keep Office suite away from iPad may be a good way to protect sales of Windows tablets and especially Microsoft’s Surface Pro and RT, but the company is losing potential revenues. Some recent research from Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Holt showing that Microsoft is leaving $2.5 billion on the table every year by not making the Office suite available to Apple’s tablets. Corresponding to a lite bit more than 10% of Microsoft's Business Division annual revenue of $22 billion, which is home to Office suite.

Another problem is the current app model as supported by Apple. Microsoft is used to produce a new version of Office every few years, having it replace by the older version. But this is not how the ecosystem works for apps, Apple’s iPad consumers expect to receive a continuous updates over time for free. A solution to this could be the cloud version of the Office suite, you subscribe to your Office 365 including an iOS client!

But let’s see what the new version of the Office 365 apps for businesses has on its release on 27 February.