InsideMicrosoft

Clippy Attacks!

Clippy, the much-maligned paperclip that tried to offer help in previous versions of Microsoft Office, is shown in this video out in the real world, trying to help people with their daily problems. As you will see, he’s about as effective as ever! Check it out at YouTube.

There’s also the more well-known revenge against Clippy video:

(via Digg, which linked to a non-embeddable version)

November 29th, 2006 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Office, Humor, Applications, General | 3 comments

Microsoft Hires “Apprentice” Exec To Judge Startup Competition

Microsoft has gotten fired “The Apprentice” executive and former Donald Trump right-hand woman Carolyn Kepcher, to take a role as a judge in a Microsoft competition designed to help a startup get its feet off the ground. Kepcher, along with maternity wear entrepreneur Liz Lange and Microsoft VP Chris Caposella, will judge Microsoft’s Ultimate Challenge, where the winner gets $100,000 in seed money, a year of free rent of a storefront/office space in Manhattan, and software to get the business started.

Even the New York Post’s gossip columnists are paying attention, noting where Carolyn was hanging out yesterday:

Former “Apprentice” side kick Carolyn Kepcher at Hello Deli in Times Square today (noon) help ing Microsoft pick the Best Small Business in America.

The contest is to promote the new, free, Office Accounting Express (you can read more about that here).

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about Microsoft and The Apprentice; back in February 2005, Verna, a Microsoftie, was a contestant on the show, and wound up becoming one of the most dramatic contestants on any reality show, when she had a breakdown and quit in the second week of the show. Turns out Verna’s written a book about quitting your way out of a dead-end job, but she still works at Microsoft.

November 29th, 2006 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | General | no comments

Free Windows Vista Business and Office 2007 Professional

PowerTogether.com is giving away free licenses of Windows Vista and Office 2007 Professional to anyone who participates in three webcasts, and gives away a single page of personal information (name, email, address, phone number, job title). Yes, it is really that simple. In fact, I’m wasting time writing this! Back to my “Look at Mobility Features in Windows Vista” webcast.

I’m just hoping Windows Anytime Upgrade allows downgrades to Vista Premium. Otherwise, I’ll have to upgrade to Ultimate.
(via Amit)

Before you get skeptical, Microsoft has confirmed this as genuine. This is actually more business-as-usual than you think. Getting free copies of Windows is more of an investment of time, than something actually difficult.

UPDATE: Things I already learned: OEMs can extend Windows Mobility Center, with hardware specific control panels, in order to discourage them from ruining the Windows UI with strange and resource-heavy controls. Also, they can smack their logo in the middle of the Mobility Center.

UPDATE 2: Shortcut key for Mobility Center: Windowskey + X

UPDATE 3: Click on the icon in any Mobility Center tile to get to the full control panel for that item.

November 29th, 2006 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Vista, Office, Windows, Applications, General | 4 comments