How To Reclaim Space Lost To Vista SP1
If you installed Windows Vista Service Pack 1, there are files sitting on your hard drive from the install that you can just go ahead and junk. Unless you’ve got a mission critical program that doesn’t work under SP1, you have absolutely no reason to want to uninstall that, so all that space should just be freed up right away. To run the SP1 cleaner, open a command prompt (you may need administrator right) and type “vsp1cln.exe”. I got back 790 megabytes, your mileage may vary.
Zune Engraving No Longer Free Microsoft has ended the roughly five month free period for buying a Zune with free engraving from ZuneOriginals.net. If you want a Zune “tattooed”, laser engraved with some pretty cool designs, it’ll cost you $10 for a simpler design or $15 for a full on “Artist Series” design (plus the cost of the actual Zune).
Gatineau Renamed adCenter Analytics
Microsoft’s Project (codename) Gatineau finally has grown up to a real product name: adCenter Analytics. The new name reflects the strong link between Analytics and adCenter, as well as the fact that Analytics was created to help adCenter advertisers do a better job getting conversions out of their ads. The beta was also refreshed, removing the $5 signup fee, adding importing of adCenter/AdWords/Yahoo data, a tree map view of site traffic, period comparisons and more.
Microsoft Fifth Biggest User Of H-1B Visas BusinessWeek has a list of the companies that have received the most petitions for H-1B visa approval, used to allow foreign professionals to stay in the United States and hold jobs. The fifth company on the list is Microsoft, with 959 petitions in 2007 alone, a number that explains exactly why Microsoft is continually petitioning the federal government to allow more visas than the current 100% full system allows for. Google is #16 with 248, IBM is #40/184, Oracle #92/113, and Yahoo is #105/108.
(via Digg)
Microsoft Produces Limited Edition GTA IV Xbox 360 Microsoft has released a very limited stock of Grand Theft Auto IV Xbox 360 Elite consoles, 500 to be exact, complete with a GTA IV design on the side panel and a briefcase full of peripherals. The consoles are individually numbered, so you know how limited of an edition it is, and the briefcase has wireless controller, ChatPad, headset, camera, remote, and charge kit.
Vista Service Pack 1 Released Microsoft has finalized the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, putting the major update to Vista in the hands of users. Some users are getting it pushed to them via Windows Update, and if you don’t have it yet, just go here to download the standalone 434 megabyte installer for 32-bit versions of Vista. This link will get you the 64-bit version.
If you aren’t getting Vista SP1 through Automatic Updates, and are not even getting it offered as an option, it is likely because your computer is failing a number of prerequisites. One of them is driver compatibility, and since Sigmatel audio drivers aren’t worth crap on Vista, practically anyone with one of those chips in their systems won’t get SP1 without installing it manually. Read more here.
Microsoft Launches AdCenter Community Microsoft has launched AdCenterCommunity.com, a website for its growing AdCenter advertiser base to to learn about ways to run better ad campaigns, with niche-specific blogs, user forums, and other community features. The community offers advice on the AdCenter API, Analytics, and represents an effort by Microsoft to distinguish itself from Google AdWords, which has notoriously poor communication with with its advertisers.
Mac Office 2008 Gets Updated Microsoft released a patch for Office 2008, fixing problems that could cause Office programs to crash or otherwise stop responding. It also improves security, keeps restricted users from having unauthorized access to Office program files, fixes a blank page printing problem, fixes font substitution issues, adds support for secondary displays, and many other fixes and improvements.
Microsoft’s List of Potential Yahoo Board Members
If Microsoft winds up completing its effort to buy Yahoo through a hostile takeover, they’ll need to nominate a full new board of directors. A part of that list has leaked out, naming four of the ten executives Microsoft may place on the board. They are:
Edward H. Meyer - former CEO, Grey Advertising
John Chapple - CEO, Nextel Partners
Tom Freston - former President, Viacom
Jaynie Studenmund - Former CEO of eHarmony
Yahoo is reportedly finally holding talks with Microsoft, having a meeting to let Microsoft explain its offer and put some of its vision forward. Even if Yahoo doesn’t want to give in and except Microsoft’s offer, the offer may be impossible to ignore, especially if Microsoft raises the amount it is willing to pay. With other potential buyers dropping out, it’s certainly something they should consider.
Virtual Earth Implemented in Flash
Like Windows Live Maps? Like the compatibility and ease of Flash applications? Then you’ll like that AFC Components has added the Virtual Earth API to its UMAP control. You can see Virtual Earth embedded right here:
Sony PS3 for $100 Off
If you are looking to go with a Sony PlayStation 3, you might be glad to know that the SonyStyle store is offering $100 off the purchase of a 40gb PS3 with a new Sony card, making it just $300. That’s a good enough deal even if you find Sony as evil as many do, just to get a good Blu-Ray player and a small number of decent exclusive games.
Even as it moves to add Yahoo’s to its own, Microsoft showed off new advertising technologies for its AdCenter unit. Among the technologies are an interactive multi-touch advertising display for public places, an algorithm that determines the least annoying place to insert ads in videos, a way to prevent ads from being displayed alongside objectionable content, speech recognition that automatically categorizes videos, among other things.
The Microsoft Affiliate Network has added Microsoft AdCenter to its available referral programs. You can earn $35 for every account you refer to sign up with AdCenter, which should be pretty easy, given that AdCenter provides new clients with $50 of free ad clicks. Here’s one of the creatives:
They also have some holiday ad creatives (plus text links):
Microsoft has launched an accreditation program for AdCenter, qualifying companies people as AdCenter experts. The program, called adExcellence and available at adexcellence.com, will approve experts, list them in a membership directory and let them use an approved expert logo.
They’ve also launched a beta of an Excel add-in for AdCenter that lets you extract keywords from any website, understand keyword trends and popularity, and gain insight into the demographic and geographic information of actual search queries. The point: You can get all sorts of valuable data for running AdCenter campaigns and work on it powefully and flexibly in Excel.
