Appletell

Windows 7 is only two years away (if you believe the—heh heh—totally trustworthy product timeline), and Microsoft is treating Vista as the OS that dare not speak its name, but let’s take a few minutes, shall we, to laugh at Windows XP, the Microsoft OS that looks competent next to Vista.

The clever chaps at College Humor have released a video entitled “The Matrix Runs on Windows,“ and in addition to a pretty spot-on parody of the Matrix (with some rather nifty special effects), it’s mixed up with a greatest hits collection of the most annoying problems with XP: status bars, Clippy, and of course, the BSOD.

Video after the break.

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Apple has fired back in the ad wars. See the ads here, read thoughtful analysis of the point Apple seeks to make here or here. More important than this second round of cinematic squabbling, however, are reactions to the campaigns: blogs the world over are sounding off with reactions, analysis, ranting…even remixes! In all the confusion (as though presidential campaign ads weren’t enough, right?), it can be helpful to pause and consider the messages Apple and Microsoft are sending.

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The Ballmer brigade up there in Redmond really are shameless. The irony is almost as hilarious as it is ridiculous.

For those who don’t know, Microsoft recently ended their short lived Jerry Seinfeld campaign, and started a new campaign featuring a John Hodgeman look-alike and various other people ranging from celebrities like Eva Longoria and Deepak Chopra, to ordinary joes, to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates himself.

Microsoft is hoping that their new, more direct response to Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign will help revitalize the Windows brand’s tarnished image.

Strange, because Microsoft doesn’t seem to think their products are all that great for video and image editing themselves, as they’ve admitted to creating their latest ad on a Mac…

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It seems as though many Apple products have been at the receiving end of some pretty nasty scams and viruses recently. First, we had phishers going for iTunes users’ information, then they took a crack at MobileMe, and now, there is a virus circulating that targets iPhone users who run Windows. Many people have taken noticed to Apple’s recent boost in popularity, but those people aren’t always the good ones. This latest scam piggybacks on the popularity of the iPhone, and will subsequently wreak havoc on any unfortunate Windows system it can get its hands on.

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The International Space Station has been infiltrated. That’s right, a virus has made it’s way onto the computers of the International Space Station. The computers, running Windows XP, were non-mission-critical, containing things like e-mail and “nutritional experiments.“

The computers were infected by the W32.Gammima.AG worm, which harvests credentials for online games. Somewhat disconcertingly, the virus has spread since its entry into space, meaning that it is on some sort of onboard drive or intranet.

More after the break.

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Have you heard nothing but bad things about Windows Vista? You aren’t the only one. 

Microsoft has recently launched a new website and ad campaign called “The Mojave Experiment” in response to all of the bad publicity that Vista has gotten since its release over a year and a half ago. Basically, Microsoft reps using hidden cameras ask unsuspecting people if they would like to try out Microsoft’s “Next Gen” operating system (not Vista, Windows 7), calling it “Windows Mojave.“

Learn about their reactions, and our unanswered questions, after the break.

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According to NetApplications, Mac OS X and Safari are continuing their upward climb on the market share ladder.

In May, Mac OS X saw a 0.45% climb in market share to 7.83%, with Safari seeing an 0.44% jump to 6.25%. Safari for Windows has been growing quite a bit in past months, but it’s a bit surprising that the rate of growth isn’t as big as one might think, given the huge percentage of installed iTunes users. PowerPC Macs were also seen steadily decreasing percentage-wise month over month.

NetApplications may not provide the most trustworthy of measurements for marketshare; they don’t reveal their methodology, and it is based entirely upon web-surfing, so non-internet connected Macs have no voice. Still, this gives a good idea of the progress of Apple.

Via [ArsTechnica]

• New MacBooks and MacBook Pros require HDCP for some iTunes videos
• Microsoft Office Home and Student only $79.95 (with free shipping!)
• Microsoft to offer free virus protection

This is part two of a series. Read Part One here.

1) The Taskbar - Windows users will crow on and on about the taskbar’s superiority, but it is crap. It has no one purpose, rather it is a poorly implemented strip that serves as the main control point for the computer. The place where this becomes the biggest issue is if you hide it. You may just want more screen space, or to just hide the start menu, but you have no choice. Everything goes. Your list of programs, your minimized windows, system notifications, everything, is gone. Which brings me to my next gripe. Why would all my windows be displayed in huge buttons? I can understand it if my minimized windows were, but the maximized windows are already there. No need to have them in the taskbar. The argument is that its easy switching between windows, but I don’t find it easy to try to decipher between three Internet explorer windows, or three any windows. In the taskbar they all look the same and that doesn’t speed up the workflow at all.

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Usually semi-major releases excite me (I consider a .1 somewhat of a major release) excite me, but this brand spanking new release from Apple seems to be quite dull. Today’s release is Boot Camp 2.1. No, it doesn’t add any cool new features, installers, management tools. In fact, nothing is visually or noticeably new. Really, this update is simple a compatibility update for SP3. For some XP users, that may be great, as Boot Camp may have been unstable or causing issues, but for other Windows users with a stable Boot Camp running, this update is relatively meaningless. The only other difference is that 2.1 comes in three versions for three different versions of Windows, XP, Vista 32, and Vista 64. Of course, if you have XP, install Boot Camp 2.1 before SP3, or else you might have some troubles.

[Boot Camp] via [Ars Technica]

• Microsoft Office Home and Student only $79.95 (with free shipping!)
• Microsoft to offer free virus protection
• Colombia orders up Windows XP based XO laptops

With so much mayhem surrounding Psystar, the company that announced last week the availability of what are essentially Mac clones, I thought it a good idea to give an easy-reader breakdown of all the fuss.

It all started April 14th, when Psystar came out of nowhere claiming to be selling OpenMac computers, essentially really cheap Macs. The internet erupted with questions over the legality of it all. Someone named Robert then came forward and said that Psystar would challenge Apple’s license agreement in court. Then an official spokesperson from Psystar denied that Robert spoke for the company. The company’s website went down due to heavy traffic, adding to the pandemonium. Many assumed Psystar was a hoax or scam and had been taken down.

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