Anyway, below is another article that came out today, re Vista. I'm still waiting for a promised test laptop (no, not a free one), which I gather is being upgraded to handle it better (the ones we tried in Tagaytay were rather inadequate), along with an interesting presentation that by Ivan Franco, MS Consumer Marketing Manager, re customer buying habits. I can probably make ten articles alone from his findings, so I'm raring to get my hands on that.

So here's my article, in orig form. The published one was cut around a fourth of the orig wordcount, and I don't even wanna know where they got the title for that one.

Things To Know About Microsoft Windows Vista

Remember the tail - wagging dog that pops out when you use Search on Windows XP? Apparently his name is [tag]Search Assistant[/tag], and if you look closely, he's actually reading a book backwards, which might explain why your computer is taking so long to look for something. He isn't on Vista anymore, and while that may be sad to some, a better, indexed Search has replaced him that promises to be faster than ever.

But that's not all that's new with Windows Vista. Here are some of the many other innovations to let you know what else is new when it's released next February:

Four Vistas to choose from - There are four types of Vista for retail distribution named according to its intended use. These are Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, [tag]Vista Business[/tag] and [tag]Vista Ultimate[/tag]. Some applications such as the highly touted [tag]Windows Media Center[/tag] is available on the home models, while applications that help sharing documents like [tag]Windows Meeting Space[/tag] is for the Business model.

Same Price as XP - Rumors of higher prices are false. Windows Vista Full Package Product (comes in a box with everything) costs as much as XP, with Home Basic priced at $199.00, Home Premium at $239.00, Business at $299.00 and Ultimate at $399.99, prices from the Microsoft website. Like before, there are special pricing schemes available for upgrading, volume purchases and academic editions. XP will continue to be available for a time, as will support for it.

Parental Controls - Vista Home Premium and [tag]Home Basic[/tag] includes a powerful feature that lets parents decide such things as how long kids can use it, what games they can play, what websites they can view and even reports of what they had been doing. So technophobe parents better get tech savvy already, otherwise your computer adept kids can block you instead.

Access basic info without turning your PC on - You're late for a meeting but forgot where it was and will have to turn your laptop on just for that. Annoying right? Windows Slideshow is a feature on [tag]Vista Home Premium[/tag], Business and Ultimate that can display recent email messages, addresses and telephone numbers on an auxiliary display without turning your computer on. This innovation will probably spawn a whole new generation of 'Vista - ready' laptops and PCs with small LCD displays on their casings, keyboards, remote controls or other devices.

Powerful Vista needs Powerful PC - If you purchased your PC or laptop two or more years ago, I suggest you get a new one to run Vista properly. If you bought one more recently, then you might get by with an upgrade. The 'premium specs' on the Microsoft website require a 1 GHz 32 or 64-bit processor, 1 GB of RAM, a DirectX 9 capable 128mb. video card, and a DVD-R drive amongst other things. Of course you can get by with the 'minimum specs' listed on their site, but if you want to really enjoy Vista's great new features, then go for the above.

Windows [tag]Aero[/tag], Live Taskbar, [tag]Flip 3d[/tag] - Windows Aero is the name of the terrific, slick new interface on Vista, highlighted by a transparent glass - like elements. It will also note your PC's specs and will adjust depending on what's best for it. Live Taskbar Thumbnails will give you a small window of a running application in the taskbar, and Flip 3d is a godsend for people who run multiple applications like me. Like with what Alt + Tab used to do before, you can now use Flip 3d to give you a 3d view of the open windows using your mouse's scroll wheel.

Security - Long known as XP's waterloo, [tag]Microsoft[/tag] strikes back with a stronger [tag]User Account Control[/tag] to help better manage who gets to tinker with a computer's inner workings, a new [tag]IE7[/tag] that can run in a 'protected mode', data encryption that makes a stolen laptop's data useless to anyone but the owner, and a toughened firewall that checks both inbound and outbound traffic.

Sidebar and Gadgets - Where you used to get a plain wheat field in XP, the Sidebar and Gadgets interface gives you quick access to gadgets like picture slide shows, [tag]Windows Media Player[/tag] controls, or news headlines. You pick the gadgets you want to see in Windows Sidebar, and expect to see websites develop some of their own for you to download to keep you updated.

Finally Vista, and other Tech Predictions
Gabriel H. Mercado

Coming into next year, look forward to gadgets that are friendlier to each other, an Internet with more to see and hear than just read, and a big Scandal or two, all the while wondering if you should upgrade to Vista. Here are my predictions.

[tag]Vista[/tag] Everywhere – Microsoft’s Vista is scheduled to launch by February, so you’ll get swamped with Vista publicity, Vista love, Vista hate, and Vista Oohs, Aahs and Bleechs for most of the year. See, Vista is BIG news not only for Microsoft but good for business as a whole. Big computer manufacturers will get to release special Vista models at the same time, while software developers get to release Vista versions of their products. And since the deafening hype can easily lead to confusion, the press will have a field day explaining many of the wizardry behind it, which means even I will benefit too.

PS3 Rulez!! – At approximately $600.00 for the top model, the Sony PlayStation 3 is more expensive than some mid-range laptops. But when it comes to gaming gear it’s fairly hard to beat. While the Xbox has more games and the Nintendo Wii is cheaper, the PS3 offers Blue Ray movies, high definition games, backward compatibility with older models and is just plain easy to use. While it’s not going to wipe the floor with them, the PS3 is looking pretty good, and looks like it’ll lord over the competition.

Connected without cables – Wires are so early 2000s. While Bluetooth or Wi-Fi has been around for some time, look for future tech to go even further with digital cameras and cellphones that auto – magically detect and connect with each other, your PC or your laptop quickly, easily and completely without wires. Our previous experiences with wireless was dampened by slow connection speeds, limited range and a variety of other ills, all of which I expect to be ironed out next year. Now if they could only do something about the power cable.

DSL is the new landline – Since everyone has cellphones, the landline has been on the way out since the start of the decade. So why would one still want to go through a landline application? Because for some telecom companies, it’s the only way to get DSL. DSL is arguably still the fastest, most reliable and practical broadband solution for the home user, and is much preferred over Cable and Wi-Fi. Telecoms that offer DSL without need for a landline obviously understand the customer, and should enjoy an advantage.

My Blog, the Movie. – As blogs are mostly text driven, writers with their wit, personality and strength with the written word have a natural advantage. However, they’re not the only ones with an opinion they want to voice out. Fortunately, faster, more accessible broadband, cheaper video and images recorders, bigger storage, and easier blogging tools are becoming available to help future bloggers express themselves using graphics, images, video and audio for a more varied experience.

The Great Internet Scandal – No thanks to camphones and cheap webcams, people’s private moments, called ‘Scandals’, have been broadcast over Internet mailing lists and websites at a volume unlike any before in 2006. If [tag]Time Magazine[/tag] considers the content generating user as the Person of the Year, then it’s obviously to the benefit of the voyeur. Just ask any group of males with camphones for their ‘video collection’, and at least one of them will oblige with something juicy for you. 2007 being an election year, not only will we have more ‘Scandals’, but someone really famous and / or influential will get caught doing something nasty. I’m not talking about mere actors or personalities, from whom such behavior is actually expected, I’m talking people in power, someone really BIG, performing either a private or illegal act. It’s happened several times in other Asian countries and more recently to a Congressman in the US, whose email advances to an intern was broadcast on his blog. It can be in the form of email, pictures, or videos, but it will definitely be damning, and because we’re all voyeurs, quite entertaining.

Paypal, or something like it – There’s hardly anything as ironic as the fact that the Philippines, while heavily dependent on OFW money, doesn’t have PayPal support. While I’ve heard they’re on its way, I expect either they, or someone like them, will finally see the light and get some sort of reliable payment gateway going. [tag]PayPal[/tag] will allow us to market services and compete internationally without leaving our shores, empowering hundreds of thousands of businesses. This is something we should have had yesterday, so if only for that fact, I predict this year it will come true.

Well guess again. Here it is in its full, unedited version, fresh from my hard disk into your monitor, the pixels burning into your eyes, onto your brain, and into your deepest subconscious. And remember. As you sleep at night, that there is no escape, NO ESCAPE, from me and my articles. I am like... a cockroach. A COCKROACH I tell you.

Tech Roundup 2006
Gabriel H. Mercado

T’was the year of the Apple, 3.2 mpx cellphones with gigabytes of memory, Celebrity Bloggers, and channeling our inner [tag]Spielberg[/tag] for the whole world to see. Here’s my roundup of the tech world, 2006.

Itube, YouTube, WeAllTube – [tag]TIME Magazine[/tag]’s [tag]Person of the Year[/tag] is the User who generates content. An almost direct tribute to YouTube’s legions of loyal users who view up an incredible 100 million times and upload 65,000 videos of their own EACH DAY. Varying from videos of kids goofing off to snippets of t.v. shows and thousands of amateur productions, YouTube stole hours of our time and captured the imagination of anyone who’s ever wondered what it would like to be to produce, direct or act in a video for a mass audience. [tag]Andy Warhol[/tag] once said we’d all have our 15 minutes of fame. [tag]YouTube[/tag] gives you 10 (unless you have a paid account), and 100mb.

[tag]Pro Blogging[/tag] – Professional bloggers are people living the dream. While dishing out their thoughts and opinions on their online journals, they have gotten so famous that they command advertising rates that compete with news websites. Blessed with wit, tons of personality and an often strong point of view, this year has seen the arrival of a new type of celebrity, the Pro Blogger, with earnings that allow them not only to quite their jobs, but to live quite comfortably from their blogs.

Intel’s [tag]Core Duo[/tag] – Unlike years past when the arrival of a new processor was a much-heralded affair, these days it’s almost run of the mill. In spite of that, this latest version from Intel gained hype. Once again, it goes faster, runs cooler, and does more than recent models, but as previous models developments have shown, we should expect a replacement would likely be on its way approximately mid next year.

Intel based Macs and [tag]Boot Camp[/tag] – In a move that had Mac faithful frothing at the mouth, Apple allowed Mac users to run (gasp) Microsoft Windows on their machine after they adopted Intel processors for all their computers. Apple CEO [tag]Steve Jobs[/tag] hoped to lure Windows users and allow Mac users run applications made for Windows, such as many popular games. While controversial at the start, after the initial ‘hey cool it runs Windows’ factor, the issue faded into the background, possibly indicating that while the ability to run Windows can be made available, it didn’t necessarily mean people would do it.

[tag]Game Console[/tag]s and [tag]Gaming[/tag] – When the [tag]Sony Playstation[/tag] and, more recently, the [tag]Nintendo Wii[/tag] were sold their first day, the news showed pictures of hundreds of adults lined up for hours outside stores. This showed what gamers have known for a long time – gaming has matured to mainstream entertainment. Far from the realm of just teenage boys, it is now a family – oriented activity just as anticipated by mom and dad as well as their kids, who all look forward to hours playing together. Which is great, considering at their prices, the Playstation (approx. $900.00) and the Wii (approx. US$750.00) is way beyond any kid’s allowance.

8-10 Mega pixel standard – For Digicams, the mega pixel race seems to have plateaued at 8 to10 for both the Pro SLR and Point and Shoot categories, with the focus now shifting towards the types of accessories you can use, quality and adaptability of lens, type of memory card, and traditional factors like build quality, ease of use, cost and local after-market support.

3.2 Mega pixels and Gigabytes of space – While I’ve tried a 5 megapix camphone, 3.2 megapix seems to be just right for this form factor, with anything more getting difficult to use for lack of a proper lens. This year has seen some of the easiest to use models ever. Tiny hard disks also power new models that promise more space than you can ever hope to fill.

Mainstream [tag]VOIP[/tag] – These days, we take talking on GTalk, Y! Messenger and Skype for granted. But the year before, who would have thought we’d even have access to it? VOIP means the end of the myopic landline and inflated IDD / NDD rates - a sign that truly helpful technology can disrupt the ways of the repressive old.

Incidentally, I originally named my article Tech Roundup 2006, which of course, was renamed by PDI as "Talkin' Tech", quite likely the DUMBEST article title ever. Howell.