So far this morning, I’ve stumbled across some updates from Microsoft that impact me or some of the freelance articles I’m writing (or scheduled to write).
First, Microsoft is no longer accepting beta participants for its Security Essentials program. Security Essentials is a multi-dimensional securities application, but for the average home user, it is a free virus scanner with free virus definition updates. While there are other utilities like this out there, this one would presumably come with technical support from Microsoft which could make it a viable option for businesses. No word on how this would, or would not, impact the other major security vendors out there.
Next, I found out that Dell is offering the same kind of migration assistance and upgrade tools as pretty much every other first-tier PC manufacturer, but for some reason, they get a pretty extensive and flowery write-up in the Windows Blog. Wonder if there is a marketing deal there, or if Microsoft is just showing some love, or if the Windows team is handing out a little payback for what appears to be some pretty hefty testing work done by Dell during the Windows 7 beta and Windows 7 RC periods.
And lastly, the same Windows Blog apparently is reading my thoughts while I’m laying in bed. Last night I was going through what the differences are between XP Mode and Med-V , other than that Med-V only is available to business clients with Software Assurance licenses or other enterprise licensing. Looks like I can use this post as the jumping off point for a nice freelance computer article.
This isn’t news, but I was using Internet Explorer a bit this morning and was thinking that it would be really great if I could customize this page that opens whenever you open a new tab in IE 8. Not that I can change what page appears when you open a new tab, I know I can do that, but rather that I could change / add to what links are information are displayed on this page:
I’ll haven’t done much with IE 8 other than upgrade to it so that I have the least insecure Internet browser Microsoft makes, so with a little digging, maybe I’ll find that I can do exactly what I want.
Cheers.