From September, 14th, it's possible to download the developer preview of Windows 8, at this address: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516

Don't download the one with the developer tools: it's mostly useless for common people, I suggest to download the 32bit on because it works better in emulators. (I don't recommend to install it in a real computer: data loss ahead!)

After the installation, I bet that you want to disable Metro, the new graphical interface: here is how to do.

If you want to run Windows 8 in VirtualBox you need to follow some directives, otherwise the installation won't be completed.

WOW!

Microsoft, on their blog, has written that, with the upcoming Windows Phone 7 version, you will be able to - hold up on the chair - choose a custom ringtone!!!

That's a shocking innovation!

And this is not the end of the shocking announcements: they will include nine new default ringtones!

That's awesome, that's the future, custom ringtones, who would have think that 10 years ago?

Wow!!!! I love the future!

Just for fun, I tried to install the Android SDK in Windows FLP (Fundamentals for Legacy PCs) that's a "secret" stripped down Windows XP version optimized for slow computers.

If you try to install the Android SDK on Windows FLP, you will get an error like "can't find a suitable Java JDK, or can't find Java SDK in your path, even if you installed it, making it impossible to download vital files.

At the first check, the one during the setup, just press "back" and then "next" again, and you can pass the check, but at the second one, there is not an evident workaround... let's find it!

The second check runs the content of C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\tools\lib\find_java.bat , so, if you open it, you can see which command will cause an error:

%java_exe% -version 2>nul

In this command the output is redirected on the null device, that means: if the command does not give an error, it is not shown to the user.

The problem is that on Windows FLP the null device is not implemented, so the command returns an error, letting the batch fil misinterpretate the detection.

So, if you delete 2>nul, the Android SDK will work great!

Now, if I could manage to let Titanium Studio recognize the SDK...

I'm sure that you heard about that today Microsft bought Skype for an hefty price.

My question is: how will they change the name of Skype?

I bet on "Microsoft Windows Live Text Audio and Video Calling United Platform Ultimate Edition 2012 Service Pack 2 with Bing Toolbar"

Here's what would have happened if Microsoft marketed the iPod:

Gosh, if there is something that I hate about OpenOffice, is that their evil programmers decided to override the standard behaviour of the programs, changing the icon of the program folder in the start menu. How THEY dare to do this to MY computer without my permission???

If every program would change the folder icon, can you imagine what kind of a mess will become the start menu? Hundreds of different icons that will disturb my vision.

Luckily, removing the icon is trivial, just go in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\OpenOffice.org\ and delete desktop.ini, an hidden system file. Since it is an hidden system file, for most users it will not be visible.

So, for restore the icon what we could do? Just right click on the folder icon, select properties, and then select the personalize tab, button change icon on the bottom left, and then "Restore".

That's it! Finally our start menu is clean and tidy

However, this bad behaviour has proven useful to me once: it helped me to discover a virus. I could not see the desktop.ini fille, even if I chose to show hidden and system files... weird! A quick check, and I found a virus that dodged the Norton protection! Thank you OpenOffice.org!

In the end has been confirmed by the Windows team blog: you can download the Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 for free only until 15th august 2009. What are you doing? Download Windows 7 now! The interface has been rewrote from scratch, and is more functional than ever!

The free RC1 is usable until march 2010.

According to a recent interview to Dell, Windows 7 Ultimate will be more expensive than Windows Vista Ultimate. Well, Vista Ultimate in Europe was sold for 599 EURO, that was about $900(while in the USA, it was sold for "just" $399, what a ripoff!) how much will cost Windows 7 Ultimate? It is a bit strange, because Microsoft ad strategy is all about saying that Macs are more expensive than PCs, but, Mac OS X ($149), is SIX times more expensive than the european price of Windows Vista Ultimate ($900)!!

How much will be? We must sell our house to buy it? They will sell it in a jeweller's? What will be better, a diamond ring for girlfriend, or a shiny new dvd for our PC??

However, I know how to get it.

Owning a Windows Mobile mobile, is like a torture. As an owner of a Samsung i600 (Known in the USA as AT&T Blackjack - Windows Mobile Standard 6.0 - no touchscreen) and of a Sharp WS003 (Windows Mobile Professional 5.0 - with touchscreen), i can easily affirm that both standard and professional devices are NOT optimized for real-life usage. Very long loading times, useless on-screen-keyboard (unless you have the precision of a neurological surgeon), and "broken" software (I mean: it is not polished and refined). This is mainly because Microsoft gives to manufacturers a "raw" operating system, and they have to add, polish and refine functionalities at their own expenses. Photo management? You do it by yourself. MMS? Do it. Wi-fi and Bluetooth stack? We give you a basic one, if you want you can enhance it by yourself. Accelerometer, GPS and so on? They will be invisible to the default system, you have to write your own drivers. 

So, many manufacturers, has sold Microsoft "plain" operating system, like my old MiTAC Mio 8390, an awful mobile with a lot of bugs; while others, like Samsung, has splurged on third-party licences, to make look Windows Mobile more refined.

Nowadays, with the iPhone, Android and the very promising Palm Pre, the smartphone compatition is becoming very interesting, so Microsoft has finally decided to innovate his Windows Mobile, virtually unchanged since 1999. 

On the Mary Jo Foley's blog, there are the supposedly leaked specs of the new Windows Mobile 7 platform, codenamed "Pink phone". Those are the minimum requirements that every device must have, codenamed "Windows Mobile 7 chassis 1":

Core requirements:
Processor: ARM v6+, L2 Cache, VFP, Open GL ES 2.0 graphics HW (QCOM 8k, Nvidia AP15/16* and TI 3430 all meet spec)
Memory: 256MB+ DRAM, 1G+ Flash (at least 512MB fast flash – 5MB/s unbuffered read @4K block size)
Display:  WVGA (800×480) or FWVGA (854×480) 3.5” or greater diagonal
Touch: Multi-touch required
Battery: Sufficient to meet Days of Use LTK requirements.
Controls: Start, Back, Send and End are required (soft controls allowed as long as they are always present).

Peripherals:
Camera: 3MP+, flash optional, 2nd camera optional (VGA resolution sufficient)
GPS: aGPS required
Sensors required: Light Sensor, Compass (3 axis, 5 degrees, 100 Hz sample rate), Accelerometer (3 axis, 2mg resolution, 100 Hz sample rate)
USB: High speed required, 20 MB/s transfer rate.
BlueTooth: BT2.1 required, must run MSFT BT stack, CSR BlueCore6 or later recommended.
Wi-Fi: 802.11B/G required, must run MSFT Native Wi-Fi stack, Atheros 6002 or Broadcomm 4325 recommended.
Connectors: Micro USB and 3.5mm Audio required.

Options:
FM tuner:  If tuner HW is present it will be detected and supported by the Media application.
Haptics
SD Card (Micro SD recommended)
DPAD, qwerty or 12/20 key keyboards all optional

According to Microsoft, from next week, they will release gradually 10 "fake updates" on Windows Update, to check about problems, and testing distribution in large scale

So, don't worry if you see all of this updates coming out so quickly… those are not real fixes

Finallly they did it!!! On the engineering Windows 7 blog, has been announced that the autorun for USB drives will be disabiled!!!

In fact, recently, USB drives viruses, has got an huge boost in diffusion:

In year 2001, Microsoft was provident, by disabling the direct autorun of executibles on usb drives, like is on CD. Unfortunately, too many hackers (and script kiddies) exploited the removabile drive autoplay menu by making a program named "Open folder to view files", with a folder icon. Like this:

Clicking on the first choice, we will be infected by the virus; only the second icon is the right one

For this reason, public computers are literally infested with dozens of such viruses, making mandatory the manual disable of the autorun, as instructed on the Microsoft website.

But finally, they disabled such exploit! The removable drive autoplay menu has been modified to only show programs that are already present on the host computer

Awesome!