Design revamp for '$100 laptop'

The XO2 looks and acts like an electronic book

The wraps have been taken off the new version of the XO laptop designed for schoolchildren in developing countries.

The revamped machine created by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project looks like an e-book and has had its price
slashed to $75 per device.

OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte gave a glimpse of the
"book like" device at an unveiling event at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The first XO2 machines should be ready to deliver to children in 2010.

Mr Negroponte said he hoped the design would also be used by other manufacturers. . . more

Now Available : Firefox 3 RC 1

Here's a quick update on what's happening in the world of Firefox 3 these days!

As you may recall, last week, I told you the Mozilla company was planning to release the Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 in late May 2008. Well, they kept their promise, because it is now available for download! It made its debut on May 16, 2008 and while anyone is welcome to download it, you should keep in mind that it is for testing purposes only. At this stage, Mozilla is just basically looking for feedback and they will release the final version when they feel it's up to par for its users.

Firefox 3 comes along with several new features that will improve its performance, memory usage and speed. Of course, all of that will be tweaked as the process goes along and you shouldn't expect the RC1 to perform at 100 percent. For example, you might run into some trouble when working with your add ons. That's to be expected. But you can help by downloading the Firefox 3 RC1 and giving your feedback. It is available in more than 45 languages and you can download it right here. Simply choose your language, your operating system and then click on the Download link. Happy testing!

~ Erin (courtesy computer tips)

Google mulls Microsoft response

By Rory Cellan-Jones Technology Correspondent, BBC News, Hertfordshire

Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke at the Zeitgeist conference on Monday

Google's bosses are meeting in Britain on Monday evening to discuss a response to Microsoft's new talks with Yahoo.

. . . . read more

Why Microsoft Is Desperate for Yahoo

Monday, May. 19, 2008 By JOSH QUITTNER

There are a ton of great jobs in the world, but running Microsoft? No thanks. I'd rather run Iraq. . . more

$100 Laptops embraces windows XP

Microsoft has joined forces with the developers of the "$100 laptop" to make Windows available on the machines. . . . . read more

Office 2007 update available June 16

Published: May 10, 2008 at 9:12 AM

REDMOND, Wash., May 10 (UPI) -- Microsoft will roll out its Office 2007 Service Pack 1 via the Windows automatic update feature starting on or around June 16, company technicians say. . . more

Microsoft Releases XP SP3 After Delay

Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service | Tuesday, May 06, 2008 1:20 PM PDT

Microsoft Tuesday released the third service pack for Windows XP to the Web after last week delaying its scheduled release because of an incompatibility with one of its other software applications. It also resumed automatic distribution of Windows Vista, Service Pack 1 (SP1), which had been halted because of a similar problem. . . . read more

Microsoft closing external Hotmail access by end of June 2008

April 22, 2008

Summary: Microsoft are disabling WebDAV access to all hotmail.com accounts. This means Hotmail Pop Links and Outlook Express access to hotmail.com accounts will stop working at the end of June 2008. You should download all your Hotmail email ASAP and tell people to stop using your @hotmail.com email address as soon as possible.

For many years, Microsoft has provided external access to hotmail.com accounts via a protocol called WebDAV. This is the protocol FastMail uses on the Options -> Pop Links screen to allow downloading of email from hotmail.com accounts. It’s also the same protocol that Outlook Express uses to access hotmail.com accounts.

In 2004, Microsoft said they would be disabling or charging for WebDAV access to hotmail.com accounts. It seems that what happened at the time is that they disabled WebDAV access for newly signed up free accounts, but left it for existing accounts.

Since then, Microsoft have changed to using a new protocol. Rather than offering an open and standard protocol such as POP or IMAP, they’re using a new one they call DeltaSync for their live.com and new hotmail.com accounts. This protocol is not an open or standardised protocol. It’s a Microsoft proprietary one and only works with their Windows Live Mail, Vista Mail and Outlook Office Outlook Connector. There’s been no documentation anywhere on how the protocol works. We spent some time trying to reverse engineer the protocol, but got stuck at the proprietary compression system they’re using. Others have also tried to help, but I don’t yet know of anyone that has successfully reverse engineered it.

Microsoft have now announced that they will be disabling WebDAV access to all hotmail.com accounts from the end of June. This means that apart from the web interface and the above 3 programs, there will be no way to access your email in hotmail.com accounts.