bruceb news

A few days ago I said that there hadn’t been any profound changes in computer hardware for a while. That’s true, but there’s a change on the horizon that might affect things deeply, beginning late in 2009.

Solid state hard drives are on the verge of becoming viable replacements for conventional hard drives, especially on notebooks and netbooks. The idea is more or less to hold all the contents of a hard drive on a few chips with no moving parts. That’s not a new idea but until recently there were high barriers keeping them off the market: extremely high cost for the memory chips required; high power consumption; and deteriorating performance caused by repeated reads and writes, kind of like a battery that can’t hold a charge after some number of cycles. […] continued

Starting now, you can buy a new computer with Vista and get a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it’s released in late October. Here are the details of Dell’s offer, for example. It will not apply to every new computer but similar deals will be widely available. Shop carefully!

If you want a new computer now, you should buy a new computer. There’s no compelling reason to wait. Follow the suggestions in my shopping guide and you’ll have a computer that runs Vista like a champ. You’ll like it. Click here to start shopping in Dell’s Small Business division. […] continued

Pretty tempting, eh? For the next ten days or so, you can pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium upgrades for fifty bucks, or Windows 7 Professional for a hundred bucks. It’s a really truly cheap sale, a limited offer from Microsoft scheduled to end July 11, and only continuing “while supplies last.” No one knows how many units are being sold by Amazon and a host of other retailers but a report came in from Japan tonight that the discounted upgrades were sold out in that country in less than two days.

The sale prices are about half of what Windows 7 will cost when it’s released in October. […] continued

Windows 7 is coming. It’s been almost eight years since Windows XP was released, and we’ve spent more than 2 1/2 years with Vista already. New details are appearing daily about Windows 7 – its development status, availability, pricing, versions, promotions, and much more. It’s the beginning of a huge wave of coverage in the months ahead.

Microsoft wants and needs this buzz about Windows 7 to create excitement and try to put the Vista debacle behind it. Vista will be remembered as a failure; you’ll see that repeated so many times it will come to be the accepted wisdom. […] continued

On June 23, Microsoft will release a beta version of Microsoft Security Essentials, the free antivirus program that is replacing Windows Live OneCare.

Microsoft is now allowing journalists to write about the new program so a flurry of stories appeared today from people who have been testing it for the last month. All the news is good. Microsoft Security Essentials is a small download (4-5Mb for Vista), it provides excellent protection, and it has virtually no impact on system performance, even on underpowered computers. It is reportedly designed to disappear completely (not even an icon in Windows 7), with no notices or interaction required unless there is a problem. […] continued

There are a lot of 3-5 year old Windows XP computers out there. They are due for a replacement; the time to do that will be after October 22, when Windows 7 will be on the market.

Many of you are finding that your Windows XP computers are insufferably slow. You can make the next six months a lot easier to bear if you take a few minutes to add memory. In most cases it will cost under fifty dollars and take only a moment to install – and if you’ve currently got 512Mb or less, you’ll notice enough of a difference to make it worthwhile. […] continued

Many of you have now gotten Internet Explorer 8, the latest version of Microsoft’s web browser. The rest of you can expect to see it soon, as it is pushed out through the Automatic Update system. (You’ve got IE8 if you have some extra buttons next to the “Favorites” button for “Suggested Sites” and “Get More Add-Ons.”) Here’s what I wrote about IE8 and its new features last month.

It’s not widely known that IE8 has an feature called “InPrivate Filtering” that can be used as a very effective ad blocker.

When InPrivate Filtering is turned on (click on Safety / InPrivate Filtering, or hit Ctrl-Shift-F), it begins watching the web sites you visit for material that is repeated on more than one site. […] continued

Expect the level of hype for Windows 7 to rise again, now that Microsoft has made the Release Candidate widely available for testing. The download page went live a few hours ago and my download is on its way after a few false starts.

If you’re new to Windows 7, the successor to Vista, here’s what I wrote about the initial beta release a few months ago:

Windows Vista has been on the market for two years. It’s mature and stable. Everything works with it except a small number of rapidly aging devices and programs. It has improvements large and small over Windows XP and it’s far more secure.

[…] continued

If you need a new computer, buy a new computer. Maybe your business is expanding (there are signs of life in our economy), maybe your old Windows XP computer has collapsed or is just too slow – whatever the reason, if you need hardware, buy hardware.

But if your next computer purchase is optional, there are some good reasons to wait until the fall or Xmas shopping season. That’s my plan. For the first time in years, there are some good reasons to hold off for a few months before you purchase new technology.

All of these things will be on the market by the end of the year:

• Windows 7, the replacement for beleaguered Vista.

[…] continued

The world is changing in front of our eyes again. Let me give you a preview of some technology that is going to change the computing landscape permanently – and do it before the end of 2009. This is a big deal! Take a minute to read this – it will help you understand what’s happening when things start to move quickly this fall.

Maybe you’ve already seen lines of “netbooks” at Best Buy, or read some of the articles about the small new devices. Manufacturers are falling all over themselves to release netbooks – Dell has more models coming than we can keep track of, and the market is full of the little devices on the retail shelves from HP and Samsung and Asus and many more. […] continued