Yahoo's Board Rejects Microsoft's takeover

After reading about Microsoft's intention to acquire them, Yahoo Board members concluded the unsolicited $44.6 billion offer massively undervalues the Web pioneer, a person familiar with the situation told the newspaper.

read more | digg story

Newsflash: Microsoft Office is made by Microsoft!

I was working on outlook, as usual, it crashed. I opted to report the problem and in comes the verdict (marked in yellow above): Microsoft Office crashed because of Microsoft office itself. Oh, and that Microsoft office, is made by Microsoft, by the way; just in case you don’t know.

Windows Vista: Friend or Foe? You can't make up your mind!

There was a small poll to the right for a few weeks. It asked what you thought of Microsoft's new Windows Vista. Your responses shows a huge split in opinion:

Windows Vista is:

Amazing. Rock solid	3 (20%)
Good, with flaws	5 (33%)
Same as previous versions	0 (0%)
Bad, worse than previous versions	2 (13%)
Useless! Completely naff	5 (33%)

Of the 15 individuals participating, 53% thought Vista was better than before or great, while 46% though it was worse than before or useless.
Absolutely no one thought it performed similarly to previous windows installments.

How can this happen? is it good or is it bad? It seems that the disappointed ones were really very disappointed, while the impressed ones werent impressed as strongly. This poll is too simple to get a good idea of the situation with these numbers. Maybe a full survey? Then again, why should I? I'm not getting paid for this! Just leave a comment and everyone becomes happier somehow.

You LOVE WINDOWS VISTA!

So, Bill Gates announced during the 2008 International CES that Microsoft have already conquered 100 Million PCs with Windows Vista.
100 Million. Read it like Dr. Evil from Austin Powers movies. 100 Million!

So, with all the complaining, nagging, jokes, PC mac commercials, Ubuntu uprising. They STILL go and conquer the world. Chances are you are reading this on a Vista PC right now.

For what its worth, I'm glad my current employer downgraded all PCs from Vista to XP. Else I strongly recommend using Linux Ubuntu. Vista wont be ready for a year or two.

Nintendo is the enemy of EARTH!

Greenpeace have released a Greener Electronics Guide. It measures how electronics companies deal with e-waste and pollution.
Nintendo was at the bottom of the list. It scored a ZERO.
It was also the first company EVER to score a zero on all accounts! Well, there is an achievment for ya.
Green peace demands that companies:

• Eleminate hazerdous material from thier products
• Take back and recycle thier products

And there you go, Nintendo is 2007's menace to "green" society. On another hand, topping the charts was Sony Ericsson. Well done SE! Nokia and Motorola dropped a few places this year. You can see why Nokia went down on this video on Green Peace's web site.
From a gamers point of view, Microsoft didn't score too well either, getting 2.7/10. Sony scored much favorably than other game related companies.

Most fatal Windows Vista Error!

Abandon all hope.

Vista is Unproductive. In comes Ubuntu 7.10

I have been using at the office Windows Vista Basic with MS Office 07. It has been bothering me for reasons that I find absolutely unacceptable from such an experienced veteran name like Microsoft. Now my laptop, at three months old, is not that bad. It has a new Core 2 Duo processor and 1Gigs of ram. Still, I keep getting problems of slowness and of sheer stupid design, allow me to elaborate:

• I once started my laptop, carried it with me to the car (I needed to get a phone number off an email) and drove from Riffa Hajjiyat, to Isa Town (WITH Traffic) before Vista booted up and Outlook started.
• Excel 07 crashes always at least once in each session. For no reason, it just does.
• Outlook 07 does not send emails out. After investigation, it seems that if I type part of the email then select the address from the drop down short list, it could freeze and stop all email after it. I need to go off line & disconnect, then get to that email and delete it. After which, if I want to send it again I have to retype it in its entirety then hit send.
• Outlook 07 sends my emails as text. Despite me checking every possible option to confirm I want my emails as HTML, it still sometimes sends them as text. It is absolutely random.
• If my battery is at 0%, then I insert the AC adapter; it will not charge. I swear. You have to turn the PC off, wait for it to charge at least 1% then you can use windows and charge at the same time.

Need I go on?
Needless to say I wasted hours everyday just trying to get basic functionalities like sending an email to work. It eats ram like crazy. My PC was so slow, heck my Pentium 1 I bought in 1996 was way faster.

Enough! I reached a decision: I cannot live with Vista. I must downgrade to XP or... use Ubuntu. I opted to go the Linux way.

This is my experience so far:

• Ubuntu had a problem at install (if you can call it that); it was not able to resize a windows partition (I guess it was locked by windows). I started vista, went to my computer, right clicked on the drive and selected "Manage". From here I freed up 50 Gigs (you could work with less), and installed Ubuntu normally.
• The install took about 15 minutes and had no problems with it.
• OpenOffice.org took the place of MS Office immediately. It even had some better features, like the document writer had a button to export directly to PDF.
• My wireless network was connected easily. This was a problem at previous Linux distros. I have now connected at work, home, my parents home, college and the local Gahwa (coffee shop) with no problems.
• The visual effects of Compiz are amazing. What Vista couldn't (or wouldn't) do, compiz does and more!
• All programmes that you wish for are easy to get. There is a programme called "Synaptic", start that up and type whatever you want. You can write a programme's name or a description. Like I typed ".rar" and a list showed up, I selected several programmes and clicked apply. The programmes were downloaded and installed without the need to restart. Currently "Synaptic" lists 23133 packages available to it!
• There is an advanced desktop search field, that can search anything you want in no less than 8 websites and on your PC. Just click your choice.
• My Samsung MP3 player would not work in Windows without its own programme. But here, Ubuntu knows it is an MP3 player and shows a small ipod icon for it!
• Bluetooth off the bat. I could browse and be discovered but I didn't know how to connect. Configuration I guess.

I have some minor problems, like the Ricoh printer at work is supported, but I can't enter the usercode I have to type in order to print. And openoffice had formatting issues with presentations and documents in Arabic. Also I am yet to find a way to sync my P990.
Of course, these are gripes unique to me, the normal user wouldn't face these problems.

So, after using it for a while without the need to type a single letter in the terminal like before, I must hereby dub this version the first Ubuntu or Linux version that is totally user friendly.
This is a solid substitute to Vista, it needs no technical knowledge and is secure and fast.
I am really happy with this. I strongly suggest you download it and give it a try.

Excel is the most expensive useless calculator

A bug was found in Microsoft's Excel 2007.
You see, for some formulas that has an answer of 65535 (like 154.2*425, or 850*77.1), Excel will show 100000 .
Meaning, in any Casio calculator: 850*77.1=65535
In MS Excel 2007: 850*77.1=100000

This is a stupidly inexcusable bug. Speechless!

(Edited 26 Sept @ 12:27: 65535*1 does return the correct number. Thanks to Buzain for the heads-up)

PS3 prices drop in Bahrain

Sony fought back with a global plan, it seems, to cut the prices. Today we saw ads for new reduced prices for PS3s in Bahrain.

Just a couple of months ago, it debuted to the tune of BD 270 ($715) for a bare bones system. Games were priced BD 30 ($80) at least.

We now see three bundles on display.

The first two has one game attached: Eithr "Resistance: Fall of man" or "Moto storm" and a controller.

System + one game now costs BD 229 ($606).

Another third bundle includes both mentioned games for BD 260 ($687) but for 2 controllers rather than one. Compared to the initial offering price, this is a pretty sweet deal. This deal could have set you back BD 360 ($952) at least had you got it at launch.

Similarly, I just heard this morning that PS3 prices in Malysia reached about BD 180 ($476). This is of course great news. Sony is doing exactly the suggestions I previously wrote in my March next gen forcast. They seems to be on the brink of a reform which can very much be very successful. If these moves could get retail customers intrested again, this will pull back the cautious 3rd party developers to the Sony side again.

In the mean time, Nintendo has NO Middle east representation nor official releases. And the choice of games are leaving hard cores hungry. Can't belive it, but This round Sony 1 / Nintendo 0.

The X360 is enjoying the Middle East presence of Microsoft and got price cuts and more distribution as well. Although it is still not the house hold name the Playstation is here.

Any way, It will be intresting to watch the public's reaction to the price cut.

Nextgen Sales: A closer look

Total sales figures will not give me the clear picture I need to forecast this war. Sadly the nexgenwars.com tracker does not give you that detail. Fortunately, videogame charts do! Lets see..

XBOX360
Sold 9.66 mil according to vg and 10.84 according to ngw. Lets see the figures; The bulk of the sales is in the US (almost 6 mil). Hmm.., expected as much. 3.4 mil is in the other region which includes Europe, Middle East and Australia. However Japan sold 380K ONLY?
That's not even close to half a million! From 10 million systems, The Japanese bought less than half a million?
No wonder it lacks Japanese 3rd party developers. Microsoft still finds this place tough huh? They are trying though, so this could change. But I really think the Japanese sales figures must rise in order to gain momentum.

Wii
Sold 6 mil according to vg, 5.21 mil according to ngw.
The Wii sales are more or less even in all regions. Almost 2 mil in Japan, 2.3 in USA & 1.68 elsewhere. Its close to a 2 million average across markets. That tells me that unlike the X360 above, All markets are embracing the Wii. Also, the close sales numbers suggest that supply is constant through out the markets (ie: no shortage in one place and surplus in another). The Wii sales growth is the fastest of the three. This even distribution should attract developers from all regions, I expect good diversity in games should this trend continues.

PS3
Sold 2.67 according to vg, 1.77 according to ngw. ...
....
Wait a minute! That's one heck of an error margin! The difference in figures cannot be almost one million units! I know the X360 figures are off by as many but percentage wise, the error margin is huge for the PS3 figures.
Moving on, we will use the vg figures here of course for now. PS3's biggest market is the USA. 1.32 mil. Japan has only 0.83 mil and everyone else bough about 0.52 mil.
That makes sense. The PS3 enjoyed immense demand at launch in the US. Other parts of the world are slow, exactly as the reports from UK, Europe & Australia say (It is still not available in the Middle East despite Sony treating it a part of Europe). The 830k units in Japan is way too little. I understand the Japanese developer's concern now.

What to make of this?
The Xbox 360 is a solid contender. Proven everywhere, except in Japan where no foreign system was successful before. Still, that simply says that their system works but needs Japanese 3rd party support. The Japanese 3rd parties are not endorsing the Xbox360 fully yet as they expect a Japanese system to reign, and are looking at PS3, which continues to disappoint most, leading to slower Japan sales, making the 3rd parties wait until the fog clears (or MGS or FF get released).
The Wii seems comfortable. I expect it to receive proper support in the near future. Its comfortable for the fact that it can coexist with either PS3 or X360. Either it will be the system of choice (for the big budget games), or, if the title goes to Sony or MS, Wii can easily transform into the casual gamer / family game machine which will compliment any gamer.
So:

• Microsoft must focus on the Japanese market now. RPGs. RPGs. And they should steal more exclusives from Sony, like DMC & Ace Combat, and try to make exclusive PS3 games not exclusive which will tip the market to their favour. Oh, and release cute special edition consoles like they did with Blue Dragon. The Japanese will eat it up!
  
• Sony needs to prove to 3rd parties that it still owns the market. They should lower and unify the prices worldwide (or make them closer) and release bundled systems with a big name game. They cannot lower the price now without risking watering down the brand as it will be like admitting it's not gaining sales because it's too expensive. Still, I'd rather they do this + the big budget exclusive + a strong Internet support that at least match or come close to XBLive.
  
• Wii is under alot of demand, shortages will occur. Nintendo needs to address this asap. Once they do, they must immediately release a big budget name (like Mario Galaxy) and offer bundled packages (imagine Wii + Mario + wii sports or wii play). The market will be theirs if they do this. Especially if it happens before MS or Sony do what I suggested above.

Conclusion: War ain't over folks. Some are leading the race, some trailing, but it ain't over yet.