Technical Support News

Microsoft’s Windows OS Market Share Decreasing

July 4, 2008 – 12:14 pm
Microsoft's Windows OS market share is on the wane, according to a new study releases by Net Applications. A decreasing percentage of the internet population is using Windows operating system with Apple's Mac OS X seen as the main beneficiary from the drop in figures. The data, collected from a base of "approximately 160 million visitors per month", shows that Apple's Mac OS X operating system market share in June came out at a record 7.94%, which is a 0.11 point increase over the previous month. Linux stands at 0.80% market share, an improvement over the 0.68% recorded last month. Windows machines dominate the market and came in at 90.89% - but down from 91.13% the previous month, following a two-year slow, but steady, decline. If this pace continues, Windows users could drop below the 90% in the fourth quarter of this year. Source:pocket-lint.co.uk

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New HP Printer: Color LaserJet CP1518ni

July 4, 2008 – 12:10 pm
HP's Color LaserJet printer CP1518ni is a low-cost color laser printer with a decent design. Compared with such similarly priced printers as the Brother HL-4040CN and the Dell Color Laser 1320c, however, it's a lot slower and has limited paper handling. It's best suited for use in a home or a fairly small office. In our PC World Test Center tests, the Color LaserJet CP1518ni produced plain text pages at a paltry 11.2 pages per minute and graphics pages at 2.0 ppm or slower. At least the results were pleasing: Text looked black and crisp. Though a little dark, photos looked reasonably natural. Grayscale images were free of the green or pink overtones that we often see. HP's own image enhancement technology, called ImageREt 3600 technology, might have helped here: Among other tricks, it manipulates the size and position of the dot within the usual resolution grid, to give images a ...

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No Windows XP sales From Today

July 3, 2008 – 10:37 am
Microsoft Corp is scheduled to stop selling its Windows XP operating system to retailers and major computer makers today, despite protests from a slice of PC users who don't want to be forced into using XP's successor, Vista. Once computers loaded with XP have been cleared from the inventory of PC makers such as Dell Inc and Hewlett-Packard Co, consumers who can't live without the old operating system on their new machine will have to buy Vista Ultimate or Vista Business and then legally "downgrade" to XP. Microsoft will still allow smaller mom-and-pop PC builder shops to buy XP for resale through the end of January. A version of XP will also remain available for ultra-low-cost PCs such as the Asus Eee PC. A group of vocal computer users who rallied around a "Save XP" petition posted on the industry news site InfoWorld had been clamoring for Microsoft to keep selling XP until ...

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Adobe, Google bring Flash Search

July 3, 2008 – 10:27 am
Internet users will now have an easier time finding sites that rely heavily on the popular Flash video format. Adobe Systems Inc, the format's developer, has released a customized version of its Flash Player software that allows Google Inc's search engine and others to see the elements of Web pages embedded with Flash content the same way a human would. Search crawlers, the programs that find and index content for search engines, currently have a difficult time "seeing" non-text formats. Although they can often index static text and links within basic Flash files, many Web pages associated with Flash video are dynamically generated on the fly as visitors are ready to view them. And some Web pages are now designed almost entirely in Flash, with menus and other features embedded within the Flash video. Adobe's new tools help search crawlers navigate dynamic Flash pages more easily. Google's crawlers, for instance, will be able to ...

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Barclays gives online users free Kaspersky software

July 2, 2008 – 12:36 pm
The package from Kaspersky protects from adware, spyware and viruses, and provides parental control and spam filters. Barclays already offers its online-banking customers free antivirus support software, but has now beefed up the package to protect against other internet security threats. Barclays has not disclosed the cost of providing the software to customers for free, but the Kaspersky product usually sells for £51 for an annual subscription. The bank has signed up for two years with the antivirus company, giving the deal a retail value of more than £200m. The software is available to any customers who have signed up to Barclays' online-banking service and can be downloaded from the Kaspersky site. Each participating customer can get a licence that allows the software to be downloaded on three separate PCs. Barclays' director of digital banking, Sean Gilchrist, said in a statement: "For the last two years we have offered customers free antivirus software ...

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EU Launches Green Driving Campaign

July 2, 2008 – 12:25 pm
The European Commission yesterday launched a Europe-wide publicity campaign designed to promote greener driving habits. More than 45,000 petrol stations across 29 European countries will take part in the "Save More Than Fuel" campaign, distributing millions of leaflets across the continent designed to encourage more fuel-efficient driving. Energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs said that green driving practices – such as checking tyre pressure regularly and closing windows at high speeds to reduce drag – could make a major contribution to cutting carbon emissions and saving drivers money. "To reach our ambitious targets of CO2 reduction and energy savings we have to make a big effort in all sectors," he said. "In certain cases this will require high-tech solutions, but in others we just need to apply some common sense. This campaign provides a set of simple tips to reduce CO2 emissions and save money, simply by driving more intelligently." The campaign, which is being supported ...

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Microsoft, HTC Announce Mobile Internet Service Platform

July 1, 2008 – 10:27 am
Microsoft Taiwan, mobile phone maker High Tech Computer (HTC) and several other companies on Thursday announced a mobile Internet service station in Taiwan called Planet. The mobile Internet service platform puts a host of entertainment and shopping options in users' hands via their mobile phone, including news, travel planning and purchase, as well as concert tickets and content from Warner Music. Several Internet shops well-known in Taiwan also signed on to Planet, including an online bookstore run by Eslite and the HappyGoCard, a shopping discount and point card. Pl@net formally launches on July 1. HTC also announced the release of HTC My Connect 2.0, a new version of mobile software that puts a button on a handset's touchscreen that users push for quick software downloads, to share pictures, and more. One button on My Connect sends users right in the services and entertainment offered on Pl@net. HTC is the world's largest maker of smart phones ...

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10 Things You Need to Know About the End of Windows XP

July 1, 2008 – 10:13 am
Just a few things to keep in mind amid all the hubbub today: - 1) Microsoft isn't "pulling" anything. Windows XP could still be available on retail shelves (real and online) if inventories exists. Search Gateway for Windows XP and you can find Win XP SP2 for $299 (you'd then download the SP3 update). 2) Microsoft will supply patches (mostly for security) until 2014 and offer per-call support (once you're past your two-free-call limit--and not counting unlimited installation support) for $59 a call, also until 2014. 3) Virtually all versions of Windows XP are covered by Extended Support 4) Some low-cost PCs and laptops can still ship with Windows XP until perhaps as late as 2010. 5) A fair amount of Windows 95 and 98 software didn't work with Windows XP. 6) Windows XP ...

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Windows Vista Finally Made to Play With Dell Printer

June 30, 2008 – 11:01 am
Windows Vista has its share of compatibility problems, but when a senior Microsoft employee is dispatched to a customer to fix a driver issue, things are bad. The average consumer will never get this level of help but one Charles Walling did get it. The SeatlePI must be reaching for stories because this isn’t really news; in fact, it’s not much of anything. Yet here I am writing about it. The headline “Man gets Windows Vista to work with printer” reads like something The Onion would print. Charles Walling was trying to get his Dell 942 printer to work in Windows Vista but it wouldn’t. He had installed the XP drivers at first which were not compatible with Vista. Then he installed the proper Windows Vista drivers which also did not work. The problem was not that the drivers for XP did install but installed to the wrong ...

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HP Launches Designjet 5100 Printer

June 27, 2008 – 10:07 am
HP India has launched its Designjet 5100 Printer aimed at print service providers (PSPs). The new printer, built on the same platform as its Designjet 5500 Printer series, retails for an estimated street price of Rs 4,90,000, HP said in a statement. "PSPs will benefit from the printer's superior quality prints and value-pricing to offer complete peace of mind," Jaideep Dahiya, business manager, Large Format, Imaging and Printing Group, HP India, said. Printing up to 60 inches wide, the product produces prints at speeds of up to 52 square metre/hr (569 square feet/hr), which also dry instantly – thereby eliminating drying periods between printing and lamination. Customers can also achieve reliable and consistent printing performance with the firm's patented ink technologies. The 705 Designjet ink cartridges and the 705 Designjet print heads have been designed to produce vivid colours and images through high-density nozzles, HP said. The printer has an in-built intelligent technology, which works interactively ...

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