The Excel Viewer, Microsoft’s free application for viewing the contents of Excel files when you don’t have Excel installed, has been updated. Besides the XLS file format, used by older versions of Excel including Excel 2003, which it already supported, the new version will also allow users to view, print and copy data from .XLSX files, used by Excel 2007. Owners of Office 2000, 2003 or XP also have the option of downloading the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack.
(via Amit)
With Super Bowl Sunday just three days away, preparations are in full swing. My job for today: Get a new, better HDTV antenna. Whatever you’re doing, if you’re rooting for the Giants and would like to look back at their road to the playoffs, the Virtual Earth blog presents a 3D tour in Windows Live Maps that takes you through the Giants eleven previous road games, plus their upcoming road game in Arizona against the Patriots.
I’d recommend checking out the collection, even if you don’t care about the game. I had no idea Live Maps produced such cool animations in its 3D tours, and the 3D models of the football stadiums are pretty sweet looking, too. Live Maps predicts a 38-31 victory for the Giants. I’ll predict a Giants victory, too, 18-16.
Last week, Microsoft joined the Data Portability Working Group, a group that aim to get companies to use standards for moving information between different websites and social networks. Earlier this month, Google and Facebook joined, and many major social sites have also pledged to make it easier for users to switch networks or combine their data from multiple places. Hopefully, this will mean Live Spaces users will gain the ability to output their data, as well as import data from other websites.
LiveSide has done a complete chart showing the search engine market share ratings from Nielsen, Hitwise and Compete over the last 13 months, and the trends are confusing, but may be moving in Microsoft’s favor. While Hitwise shows Microsoft’s Live Search down over 20% in 2007, and Compete shows it barely up (from 8.8% to 9.1%, after a brief flirtation with 10%), Nielsen/Netratings has Live Search on a tear, going from 8.4% in December 2006 to 10.1% in March, 13.3% in June, and 13.8% in December.
Meanwhile, no one is disputing the failure of Yahoo. Hitwise again shows little change (which makes me question their accuracy), with Yahoo falling from 21.6% to 20.88%, but Nielsen and Compete have nearly identical numbers, with Yahoo starting at 23.6% and 23.2%, respectively, and plummeting to 17.7% and 17%.
If you only go with Nielsen’s numbers, Yahoo and Microsoft are seperated by just 3.2%, and that’s after a year where Yahoo fell 5.9% and Microsoft gained 5.4%. Things are a little less spectacular (for Microsoft) at Compete, where Yahoo still fell 6.2%, but Microsoft gained a meager 0.3%.
Considering that Yahoo’s fall as a company is just getting started (barring some brilliant save from Jerry Yang or Sue Decker), I’d only expect their search share to fall even faster in 2008. In theory, by this time next year, Windows Live Search could be the number two player in the search industry. Even without catching Google, making number two would make Microsoft’s Live effort and unqualified success, and would push a lot of advertisers from Yahoo’s search ads over to Microsoft’s.
Could this actually happen? Weren’t people calling Live Search a failure? Better go back and re-think that. Microsoft appears poised to take the number two spot from Yahoo in the next twelve months, possibly in the next six, and when it does, the landscape of this industry will shift significantly.
The most played games on Xbox Live that were released for the Xbox 360:
2007 Top Xbox 360 Titles (UU’s)
1
Halo 3
2
Gears of War
3
Call of Duty 4
4
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas
5
Call Of Duty 3
6
Crackdown
7
Oblivion
8
Guitar Hero II
9
Forza Motorsport 2
10
Lost Planet
The most played games on Xbox Live that were released for the original Xbox (and are still being played thanks to backwards compatibility on the Xbox 360):
2007 Top Original Xbox Titles (UU’s)
1
Halo 2
2
Star Wars: Battlfrnt 2
3
Counter-Strike
4
Battlefield 2: MC
5
Doom 3
6
Forza Motorsport
7
Madden NFL 07
8
Conker: Live Reloaded
9
Call of Duty 3
10
Rainbow Six 3
And the top played Xbox Live Arcade games (not including free trial games):
2007 Top Xbox LIVE Arcade Titles (Sales)
1
TMNT 1989 Arcade
2
Worms
3
Castlevania: SOTN
4
UNO
5
Bomberman LIVE
6
3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures
7
Sonic The Hedgehog
8
Pinball FX
9
Geometry Wars Evolved
10
Texas Hold 'em
Interesting how many games are on both the Xbox and Xbox 360 lists, with the newer edition of the game appearing on the newer list. Call of Duty 3 even appears on both lists (in addition to Call of Duty 4 on the 360 list)!
The Live Maps traffic Gadget for the Windows Vista Sidebar has returned to Windows Live Gallery. Microsoft had to take it down a few months ago due to security concerns, which was a shame, since it was a pretty good Gadget. The security issue has dissapeared under some nice, safe code, and the Gadget is now back for you to download and provide you with live traffic reports for your area.
At Microsoft, employees are used to spending a lot of time in conference calls. Often, an employee will “show up” to the call early and have to wait around, listening to some smooth jazz, and these two ‘Softies decided to have some fun with it:
Microsoft and Alinean have built the Windows Mobile Messaging TCO Tool, a website that takes some information about your business and tells you how much you would pay to implement Windows Mobile for mobile messaging versus how much the same setup would cost with a BlackBerry system. The tool takes into account the cost of devices and software, the amount of service desk time that would be required, and other costs.
You can see a sample company I computed above. The Windows Mobile setup came out to $800 per employee per year, while the BlackBerry cost $1230. Annoyingly, the big differences came lumped under the “Other” category, with $85,863 being allocated to Mobile Messaging Device Support and Maintenance Contracts for the BB, and none for WinMo, as Microsoft considers those costs part of the Exchange contract.
Look at the numbers above or try out the tool and compare to your own experience. Is the tool giving both sides a fair shake, or is it biased or making bad assumptions? Let me know what you find.
I think I’m obligated to point out the the iPhone’s total cost of ownership calculation is simple: Cost of iPhone plus cost of Windows Mobile or BlackBerry, since the iPhone’s enterprise offerings are still undelivered.
(via Jason Langridge)
Check out this link: WindowsServer2008.com. You’d expect it to take you to Microsoft’s website for Windows Server 2008, but instead it forwards to apple.com’s page showing off the Macbook Air. Looks like some Apple fan, possibly working for Symmetry Technical Consultants Inc. in Florida, bought the domain in October 2006 and is now using it to embaress Microsoft. Wonder how they beat Microsoft to registering it?
I was turned onto this website by a Microsoftie, who remarked that (and I’m paraphrasing), “No Microsoft person does this when it comes to Apple products, and that says a lot about Apple users, if you ask me”. The word “immature” might have been in there, too.
With the Republican presidential nomination all but sewn up, and the Democrats with hopefully no more than another week to go, the next president, whomever he or she may be, is on the way. Whether that excites or horrifies you, I’ll bet that a lot of people are looking forward to the end of George W. Bush’s presidency. I’m no Bush hater, but I will be glad to see this country move on, hopefully with someone bolder and smarter in charge.
If you would like to count down the days, might I suggest this Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget that does all the math for you? Download it here.
Microsoft has released an add-in for Outlook designed to make life easier for professional photographers. Pro Photo Shoot for Outlook, a free download for Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007, lets you add the details of the equipment needed when scheduling a photo shoot.
The add-in lets you catalogue your equipment in Outlook, creating a database of cameras, lenses, batteries, and other equipment, including the serial number, purchase date and price (and anything else you may need for insurance purposes). When you schedule an appointment in Outlook, you can now use the add-in to select the equipment you need for that appointment, and be reminded to bring that equipment with you when you go on the shoot.
Last week, Bill Gates spoke before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, calling on the attendees to use a kinder, more creative form of capitalism that better addresses not just the desire for profit, but the need to improve poorer, less successful countries so they can catch up to the world economy.
Mr. Gates isn’t abandoning his belief in capitalism as the best economic system. But in an interview with the Journal last week at his Microsoft office in Redmond, Wash., Mr. Gates said that he has grown impatient with the shortcomings of capitalism. He said he has seen those failings first-hand on trips for Microsoft to places like the South African slum of Soweto, and discussed them with dozens of experts on disease and poverty. He has voraciously read about those failings in books that propose new approaches to narrowing the gap between rich and poor.
In particular, he said, he’s troubled that advances in technology, health care and education tend to help the rich and bypass the poor. “The rate of improvement for the third that is better off is pretty rapid,” he said. “The part that’s unsatisfactory is for the bottom third — two billion of six billion.”
Gates is retiring from Microsoft in the next few months, and will be focusing full-time on his charity efforts. He seems to understand that not only does his money have an effect, but so can his words, and Gates is letting other business and world leaders in on his ideas for a better world. I hope he succeeds. Don’t be surprised, if Gates has enough of an impact with these speeches, to see the billionaire being asked to serve in a major government position, such as the President’s cabinet, or with the United Nations.
Picturepan2, who runs the Chinese counterpart to LiveSide, has launched the new Windows Live Community for China. I believe it’s sort of semi-official, sort of affiliated both with MSN China and LiveSino, the Chinese LiveSide, and includes some great-looking forums, a homepage/blog, and integration of Live services, like the Windows Live IM control. If you are in China, or interested in Live in China and speak the language, this should be perfect for you.
I tried doing forums years ago, but the time and commitment were all wrong. If there’s some interest now, let me know, and maybe together we can build a nice, new, non-crazy community.
Microsoft’s David Salaguinto has, over just the last few months, been producing one of my favorite webcomics on the Office Online blog. What makes his comic unique is that none of it is drawn by hand; instead, it is assembled entirely from the shapes and tools in Office Visio 2007. Microsoft.com has an article by David where he explains how he does it and what he thinks when he does.
Here’s a favorite strip:
If you’d like to create a comic in this style (and David publishes reader comics, too, so send it to him), you can download his template and get started.
Microsoft is running another Live Search promotional site, again in the spirit of Ms. Dewey, this one with an election theme. Left vs. Right is the name, and it features two FOX News/CNN-style news anchors representing opposite sides of the political spectrum, and invites you to run a search down the middle of the screen.
Do nothing, and the two characters will start to talk, move around, crack some jokes, and it’s usually funny or interesting. Run a search, and they’ll say something as well, often related to your search term. For example, I searched for Microsoft, and they started chatting about Bill Gates. I searched for Google, and Patrick (on the Left) threw a brightly colored ball at Britt (on the Right).
I saw them flossing, choking each other, checking out engagement rings (not for each other, she’s engaged, he’s seperated), playing flick football. Enter the name of any presidential candidate or major political issue for some funny stuff. This one’s so good, I could keep coming back to it.
PCWorld reported that Dell overtook HP as the largest US PC vendor in the forth quarter of 2007. Dell shipped 5.5 million units while HP was able to ship, a still impressive, 4.5 million units – give or take a few. While both PC makers offer XP as an option on their BTO systems, Dell has made a much bigger deal about its prefrence for XP. Now, no one has let the cat out of the bag on how many XP machines Dell has shipped since Vista, but one has to wonder if Dell’s fourth quarter numbers weren’t padded by their XP option. Additionally, with SP3 for XP coming out, it makes an XP machine look pretty good.
Now, I’ve been using Vista since launch and I absolutely love it, but over the holidays I was tasked with finding my brother-in-law a new laptop. He is a pretty casual user, so I ended up settling on a Dell with, you guessed it, Windows XP.
While you’ve been able to purchase Rock Band since November (assuming you could find it in stock), buying standalone instruments for the game has been impossible, given that Harmonix hadn’t released them yet. Due to a shortage in producing enough hardware for the game, the only way to get the instruments was in the $170 game bundle, unfortunate for anyone who wanted to get a second guitar or extra drums.
We all knew these instruments were coming eventually, and eventually is finally almost here. February 12 is the date you will finally be able to pick up at least one of the instruments, and its about damn time. The release schedule:
February 12 - Drum set - buy a set of drums to replace the one you “lost” when, in a drunken rage, the drums went flying out your bedroom window after missing but a single note. The drum set will cost $80.
April 1 - Wireless Stratocaster guitar - pick up not only a second guitar, but the first-ever wireless guitar for Rock Band that works with the Xbox 360. Relegate the bundled guitar to bass guitar status, and use the wonderful new wireless version for your main game play. This guitar-of-joy will only cost $60, a price anyone could love.
Those links are for the Xbox 360 peripherals. If you need PS3 versions (they cost the same price, and also work with the PS2 edition), here’s the PS3 wireless guitar and the PS3 drum set.
An update on the Rock Band referral goal: $110 earned from 11 bundles of Rock Band and Guitar Hero sold so far. A few more bundles, maybe some of these peripherals, and I could finally be playing Rock Band.
Sony is determined to confuse the hell out of consumers, and is thus looking to bring a fifth version of the PlayStation 3 to market, this time replacing the higher-end 80-gig PS3 with a 160-gigabyte version. The console would come with the same features and price as the current 80-gigger, but without a copy of Motorstorm and with the new Dual-Shock 3 vibrating controller.
The new PS3 would be designed to hold off Microsoft’s 120-gigabyte Xbox 360 Elite. While not a major edition of the console, the Elite’s 120-gig drive at $450 made the PS3’s 80-gig at $500 seem like a rip-off, and Sony is mostly just righting the ship here. Presumably, all PS3s going forward will ship with the Dual-Shock, as soon as Sony gets enough of them in stock. While the new edition has only been hinted at, most sources expect it to ship around the same time as Metal Gear Solid 4 or Lost Planet.
The Excel Viewer, Microsoft’s free application for viewing the contents of Excel files when you don’t have Excel installed, has been updated. Besides the XLS file format, used by older versions of Excel including Excel 2003, which it already supported, the new version will also allow users to view, print and copy data from .XLSX files, used by Excel 2007. Owners of Office 2000, 2003 or XP also have the option of downloading the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack.
