<sigh> I wish American Idol would let you vote to boot people instead of keep them. Then Sanjaya would have been sent home a while ago. That's why 13 year olds shouldn't have cell phones. But I digress. Anyway, here's what's been going on with Microsoft in the last 48 hours...
- Second Life has traced their Vista compatibility problems to a bug in ATI/AMD's OpenGL drivers, and a fix will be available by the end of the month.
- For all the crap Symantec dished out about Vista and security, it couldn't help but declare Microsoft the winner in addressing security threats. Windows in general only had 5 fewer vulnerabilities than OSX in the 2nd half of 2006, but Microsoft fixed their bugs 3x faster. [via Roger Halbheer]
- And speaking of vulnerabilities, self-proclaimed Microsoft security guru Jeff Jones has compiled a report on vulnerability disclosures in the first 90 days of OS availability. Vista had 5 issues disclosed and 1 fixed, XP had 14 disclosed and 10 fixed. Red Hat 4 had 181 issues disclosed and 96 patched, while OS X 10.4 had 20 disclosed and 3 fixed. As Jeff so aptly puts it, "[Apple's] data just doesn't support their marketing." [via Jeff's Technet Blog]
- David Lem wonders aloud what Windows 'Cloud' might look like. For those of you that don't remember, Ray Ozzie and Jim Allchin talked last year about more OS services moving into the Internet 'cloud'. No, he's not saying it exists, so don't read too much into it.
- Remember Chris Pirillo's video about Linux's XGL? Chris Salmon has built Yod'm (Yet anOther Desktop Manager) that mimics that functionality on Windows XP and Windows Vista. I wonder if the Vista version uses the DWM. [via Laurent Duveau]
- Microsoft has returned MSN SoapBox to private beta mode, to deal with copyright protection issues. A wise move in the wake of the Viacom-Google billion-dollar squabble.
- Speaking of betas, it looks like Microsoft's not the only company that delays operating systems. Apple doesn't even have a launch date for Leopard. Says one of the sources: "I'd say it's barely beta, not Final or Gold Master." BTW, Leopard will also "break a lot of shareware and commercial software that currently makes use of [the InputManager] control. Looks like incompatibility in upgrades is not just a Redmond specialty.
- Sure to be a hit with the ladies, Microsoft is releasing a Pink Zune in May. Maybe now my girlfriend will want that instead of an iPod.
- Chris Pirillo has a bada$$ demo of a noise cancellation demo from Microsoft Research. The Windows Media Encoder team needs to get that in their product ASAP.
- And finally, Microsoft has been blaming end users for Xbox Live account hijackings, but is Xbox Live Support to blame? Microsoft need to teach it's outsourced helpdesk that pretexting is now illegal. [via Krunker]
That's all for today. Another week come and gone. Dang it. See you next time!