Inventive! No need to buy an iPod touch to get a bigger screen.

iTunes started last week offering a low 99¢ movie rental. Last week it was The Hours. This weeks bargain rental flick is The Ghost and the Darkness [iTunes link] starring Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas.

In what is considered an unprecedented move, Microsoft is cutting the retail prices on Windows Vista. For those in the U.S., Microsoft is cutting prices only on the higher-end versions of Vista, and only for the upgrade version used to move from an earlier copy of Vista. The suggested price for Vista Ultimate drops to $219 from $299, while Home Premium falls to $129, from $159.

Continue reading Microsoft is Slashing Vista Retail Prices…

Run your Software Update and for the latest iPhoto 7.1.3 update. According to Apple, “Addresses issues with wire-bound books and cards.”

Boinx Mouseposé a great app for presentations goes to version 3 with a few nice new features that include audible feedback on mouse-clicks, window highlighting when you’re hovering on a window, and expanding the in-focus area to include the entire window.

Boinx has a family-pack license (for five computers in a private household) for just $29.95, whilst a single-user license is just $16.95. Mouseposé 3 is a free upgrade for owners of version 2 and is available to download now. See Mouseposé in action here.

Microsoft’s internal emails have revealed that they knowingly lowered the requirements for Windows Vista to help Intel sell more low-cost chipsets.

Continue reading Microsoft Emails Reveal Misleading Vista Specs To Sell Intel Chips…

Google has launched a hosted-wiki service branded as Google Sites, now part of the Google Apps. This new service has spawned from the acquisition of Jotsot the Google made about a year and a half ago. Google Sites enables users to create group collaboration tools that can be easily edited and changed with instant integration with the rest of Google Apps and services. YouTube, Picasa, Google Calendar and Google Docs can all be embedded into Google Sites templates, making sharing and collaborating information easier than ever.

Just like the rest of Google Apps, Google Sites is free and can be linked to a domain name. Premier service, which includes support and additional storage is available for $50 a year per user.

I recently bought a 32GB iPod touch and have been having a lot of fun with it. Apple released this new iPod touch ad during American Idol tonight.

OK, you have to do a presentation and some or all of your audience can not be in the same room with you. In the wired world we live in there are plenty of options. Some of them are even free.

Of course you can print the stuff up or pay Kinkos for help. But I said easy. You could try out a service like Web-Ex. But I said free. How about using the Internet.

Continue reading Remote Presentations Done Free and Easy…

The Encyclopaedia Britannica has brought a mobile version to the iPhone and iPod touch. Just visit http://i.eb.com on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Zoho Writer which is one of many applications in the free online Zoho Office Suite has received a nice upgrade. Zoho Writer now supports Docx (new file format introduced in Microsoft Office 2007), Thesaurus, Enhanced support for Endnotes/Footnotes and Headers/Footers and improved group sharing.

Zoho Writer is a full-featured online word processor offering real-time collaboration so that multiple users can be editing one document. Zoho offers both online and offline editing using Google Gears. Zoho also provides iZoho which is a viewer compatible with the iPhone and iPod touch. Sign up for a free account.

Apple will hold an “invitation only” Town Hall meeting at their Cupertino headquarters on Thursday, March 6, at 10 AM PST to discuss the State of the iPhone, and probably answer several questions about how iPhone application development will unfold with the expected SDK that was earlier promised.

Apple is expected to give details on “some exciting new enterprise features,” for the iPhone. Corporate e-mail software, anyone? Stay-tuned. I think this will be a game changer in the smart phone market.

“Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy that the Commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision,” according to Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes (pictured right). Now Microsoft will have to pay a fine equal to $1.35 billion for allegedly violating already existing antitrust sanctions.

Microsoft’s announcements on openness and dealing fairly with open source seems to share little credence to European Union’s follow-up investigations which reported that Microsoft had held back on code necessary to let rival firms develop more explicitly compatible software, particularly for workgroup server programs.

Continue reading Microsoft Fined 1.35 Billion by EU…

Ever since Apple introduced AirTunes where you could stream your iTunes library to any sound system connected to an AirPort Express, I have longed for a remote that allowed the type of control that Alloysoft’s Signal, $24.95 brings to the iPhone or iPod touch.

Continue reading Signal Makes iPhone and iPod Touch the Ultimate iTunes Remote…

Wal-Mart the world’s largest retailer is number 1. Truly the CD is dead.

Apple said that there are now over 50 million iTunes Store customers and that iTunes has sold over four billion songs — 20 million songs were sold on Christmas Day 2007 alone.

Apple has released iPhone software version 1.1.4. It’s now available for download and installation through iTunes.

Little in specific details on what’s changed was explained in this new release, except to say that the 1.1.4 release “includes bug fixes and supersedes all previous versions.”

Apple was scheduled to release the iPhone and iPod touch software development kit (SDK) later this week, it is possible that this update could be a precursor to that release.

Apple has released for immediate availability updated MacBook and MacBook Pros featuring the latest Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn processors and larger hard drives.

The MacBook Pro has better graphics and a trackpad with “multi-touch” that was first introduced on the MacBook Air. See all the juicy details at the Apple site.

Microsoft has announced that they will stop making external HD DVD add-on drives for its Xbox 360 game console, but won’t say whether it will offer a Blu-ray Disc drive instead.

Xbox 360 comes with a standard DVD drive built-in that has only 9GB of storage as compared to Sony’s Playstation 3 console, with Blu-ray Disc drive that has 50GB of storage for game developers to access as well as playing back HD disk content. This leaves Microsoft at a disadvantage in the marketplace. Especially if Sony can get some popular game titles out in the next year.

Makes me wonder if Microsoft will eventually adopt Blu-ray allowing Sony to gain a license fee for every Xbox sold. Digital downloads will certainly give Sony’s Blu-ray some competition.

1Password (see video) keeps track of all web passwords, automates sign-in, guards from identity theft, all for $29.95! All your confidential information, including passwords, identities, and credit cards, is kept in one secure place provided by Apple’s OS X Keychain. Once you install this app you may wonder how you ever lived without it.

Continue reading Review: 1Password One Very Cool App…

Last week Apple introduced a new version of Xsan, their storage area network file system product while simultaneously discontinuing the Xserve RAID. Apple is basically outsourcing the RAID to Promise Technology.

I noticed that the Xserve is missing from the Apple online stores. It still can be found here and seems to still be for sale. I makes be wonder, is a new Xserve coming? I doubt Apple would drop out of servers completely.