SuperSite Blog : SuperSite

Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard: Which features should be compared? (Updated)

pthurrott — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:33:26 GMT

I'm working on a multi-part Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard comparison (read the introduction here) and am curious what you guys (and gals) would like to see included. More specifically, as you think about the various features or each OS, which need to be compared head-to-head? (Ex: Digital media functionality. Windows 7 has Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Play To, and so on. Snow Leopard has QuickTime X, etc.)

Let me know what you think. (And please, no sniping. Let's keep this civil and on topic.)

Update: So I should have spelled out one aspect of this comparison that isn't obvious. While I won't have a co-author from the Mac side per se, I am in fact working closely with some close friends who are Mac experts to ensure I'm covering the other side both adequately and accurately. This isn't intended to be a one-sided overview at all. I think anyone worrying about bias will be surprised (in a good way).

Exclusive: Microsoft to remove 3 app limit from Windows 7 Starter

pthurrott — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:34:54 GMT

No word yet on whether the other lame limitation--the bizarre inability to change the desktop wallpaper--will be fixed as well. To be honest, this is a bigger issue than the 3 app limit, which sounds horrible but doesn't actually come up all that often if at all.

Some site updates: Windows 7 TV tuner support, Office 2010 tech preview

pthurrott — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:14:41 GMT

I made some minor revisions to two articles that may be of interest. I'm never sure how to promote these things, since they're small changes and don't necessitate re-reading the entire article. This seems like a good way to do it.

Windows 7 Product Editions: A Comparison

I added some info about TV tuner support, which has curiously been an oft-repeated question via email. The basic deal is that in any version of Windows 7 that supports Media Center, you can have up to four TV tuners of each type.

Office 2010 FAQ

I added information about the Office 2010 technical preview (July) and public beta (Q3 2009).

Questions for Keith Curtis?

pthurrott — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:42:53 GMT

I'm going to publish Part 2 of my ongoing interview with author and ex-Microsoftie Keith Curtis in just a bit (Part 1 is here) and I thought it might be interesting to get some reader questions to him for Part 3. If you're not familiar, Curtis recently self-published a book, After The Software Wars, which you can download in PDF format for free or purchase from Lulu or Amazon.com. After The Software Wars is thought provoking, interesting and controversial for a number of reasons, the most obvious being his conviction that open source software will ultimately win out in the market. I recommend the book to everyone here, of course, but it occurred to me this morning that many here likely have questions they'd like to ask.

So... If we could keep the comments here relevant to my request, and the questions relevant to the book, that'd be great. Who's got a question?

Thanks! --Paul

Potential Windows Live Writer competitor

pthurrott — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:40:25 GMT

thenitetechs over on Twitter linked me to an interesting competitor for Windows Live Writer called Zoundry Raven, which I'm using to write this post:

Zoundry Raven is our next generation WYSIWYG blog editor that makes posting to your blogs easier and faster. It's as easy to use as a word processor, plus we include simple tools to add links, tags, photos, music and video files, and more.

Features

Tabbed WYSIWYG Editing

We hide powerful XHTML editing behind our intuitive UI so you can be sure that what you create is what others will see online.

Multiple Blogs Made Easy

Do you have multiple blogs for different audiences? We make it easy to write and publish to separate blogs all with one editor.

Improved Content Management

With our powerful indexer, you can browse all of your previous posts across all of your blogs by tags, links, or images.

Portable Application

Install Raven as a Portable Application on your flash/thumb drive. We'll stay out of your Windows registry and let you take your Blogging on the road.

It looks nice, actually, and works with a ton of blogging services as you'd expect.

Fourth ‘Windows Vista Secrets SP1 Edition’ give-away is over

pthurrott — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:40:13 GMT

Thanks to the several hundred people who participated in my fourth give-away for my latest book, Windows Vista Secrets SP1 Edition. I’ve already notified the winners, so if you haven’t received an email from me, sorry, but there’s always next time. I will have the next give-away before the end of November and, no, international folks, I haven’t forgotten you. The winners names are available on the give-away page.

And the winner is…

pthurrott — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:58:34 GMT

Last weekend’s Gears of War 2 Zune 120 contest is over, and after conferring with the winner, I can report that Chad Smith of Vancouver, British Columbia has won. I’ll be sending Chad the Zune device this week and, if last weekend was any indication, he will continue owning me at Gears 2 mulitiplayer. If I remember correctly, Chad was in the last GOW2 game I played over the weekend, right before midnight Sunday night, and he outscored me handily. Granted, it’s not hard. :)

Anyway, congrats to Chad and thanks to everyone who participated.

Back to the home page redesign

pthurrott — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:51:08 GMT

At some point this week, it occurred to me that I could redesign the site header as part of the wider site redesign which will soon include, I hope, a home page redesign as well. Here’s one idea I was working on that I like quite a bit, if just for the top (i.e. “above the toolbar”) part of the site. This would appear on the top of all modern (i.e. 2008 and beyond) articles and pages on the site:

The only thing is, we serve ads up there now as well. There are big ads and small ads, and the size of the big ad dictates the size of the header now. But when there’s a big ad, most of the imagery gets blocked out, like this:

With a small ad, more shows through:

So this is nice and all. I briefly considered having it randomly display one of five Windows 7 background images, but then it occurred to me that Microsoft still has a legal department, so I might just use my own image (or images). Or maybe I could get rid of the section badges (those image strips that appear below the toolbar on activity center pages and ID the site section) and use a custom top image for each topic. Maybe.

Anyway, I’ll keep working on it. But I kind of like this style, even with the ads, which I can’t do anything about, sorry.

You can see a live version of this page here. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the served ads are the big version.

Some notes about the site layout changes

pthurrott — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 23:34:31 GMT

This evening, I posted what I think will be the final top-level "activity center," which is what I'm calling the main navigational pages in the site, and the items you see in the new Windows 7-style toolbar across the top of each page. (But not on the blog, yet. More on that in a sec.) I may continue to play with it a bit, but I think we're getting there. As promised, it took a while, but most of the content I've created for this site is now available via these topic-based toolbar items, which I think makes much more sense than the old FAQs/Reviews/Showcases layout. Hey, it was a simpler time back when I started the site, in August 1998.

Moving forward, there are a few things I'll be working on, but I at least wanted to get the basics of the new menu done before PDC, and since I'm hopping on a plane in the morning, I just made it. Here are a few changes I see coming down the road:

Home page redesign. As many readers have pointed out, the site home page is in need of a major redesign. I've been working on it, but haven't liked anything I've done so far. You can see a few sad and half-hearted attempts here and here if you're curious. (They both stink. I'll keep working.) What I'd like to do is remove all the site description text (the middle column) and get as much "hey, this is what's new" stuff up at the top. I'd also like to use a vertical menu of some sort for the home page, preferably graphical, that would duplicate the topics list from the toolbar plus add back a few items that are less frequently updated and thus don't make sense for the site-wide toolbar. (See below.)

More activity centers. Though I won't be putting these on the top toolbar, I need to make some activity centers for "legacy" topics like Windows XP and older Windows versions, as well as topics that aren't as frequently updated, like Events & Travel. Those will be available from the home page, but not from the toolbar. They could possibly be linked to from other activity centers, as well, I guess. For example, it might make sense to link to the Windows XP activity center from the Vista activity center.

Activity center clean-up. Now that the activity centers are in place, I need to go back and clean them up a bit and cross-link where it makes sense. There are a few (like Live) that aren't even complete yet, so I'll probably do that first. I also need to scour through the old section pages and make sure I haven't orphaned any articles. I think I may have dropped a few inadvertently. There are approximately 1400 articles on this Web site, by the way. (This is in addition to about 7600 articles I’ve written elsewhere for Windows IT Pro.)

Blog. As you can see on this page, the blog hasn't been redesigned along with the rest of the site. Yet. That's because the blog is actually a different Web site and uses a different back-end. Unlike the main site, I can’t directly access the code behind the blog, so I'm relying on the Web team at Penton to make those changes. Now that the toolbar is done on the main site, I'll ask them to do that. So hang in there, it's coming.

I think that's everything. I need to pack and get ready for PDC. It's going to be a busy week, but stay tuned: I'll be blogging daily and posting articles, photos, and other content the entire time I’m in Los Angeles.

And thanks again for all the feedback I’ve gotten so far. It’s really helped.

Paul

PS: I should add. I haven’t forgotten about the ongoing series that are still in limbo, but I really needed to get the site layout changed first. I’ll be working on Digital Media Core, Windows Vista Feature Focus and, yes, the SuperSite Switcher Guide going forward. Promise. :)

The return of Digital Media Core

pthurrott — Tue, 20 May 2008 20:19:55 GMT

I've been working on a few Digital Media Core articles lately (ripping DVDs, Media Center Extenders specifically) and will hopefully have those up soon. I know it's been awhile. I've tested all three of the modern (i.e. Vista-class) Extenders that are currently available, but I'm curious what you think about DVD ripping.

I believe I'm going to focus on Handbrake and SlySoft AnyDVD as the tools of choice. H.264 as the video format. And iPod hi-res compatibility as the resolution/quality baseline. This will result in a sub-DVD-quality file, yes, but one that works on all modern video-capable iPods, the Apple TV, the iPhone, Zune 2 devices, and (coincidentally) those new Extenders (including the Xbox 360). So compatibility is excellent. Quality is good/very good, I guess.

But it may be worthwhile to consider some WMV-compatible tools as well. Probably not. :)

Thoughts?

Site work, part deux

pthurrott — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:39:37 GMT

In keeping with yesterday's post about work on the site design, I made a few small changes today....

The What I Use page was finally updated (I had done this mostly a month ago but there was a screwy formatting problem). I also updated the Windows and Cloud Computing activity centers (from a content perspective).

I changed the What I Use, Contact Paul, Podcast, FAQ, and Windows XP SP3 FAQ pages over to the new design.

I'll keep working on it of course. Part of this work involves dramatically simplifying the HTML and keeping to a sleeker CSS design. In the future, I'd like to switch over to CSS-based layout as well, and this change will make that easier.

Site work

pthurrott — Sat, 17 May 2008 14:03:04 GMT

In what I should obviously admit to myself will be a never-ending ongoing process, I'm going to spend a bit of time working on the site layout and design this week. I kind of like the way the site looks now, but I think I'm going to change it to a fixed width and, sometime down the road, do something a bit more sophisticated to allow people to size it as they wish.

In the meantime, here are some of the things I'd like to work on.

Adjust the site design and get the main pages moved over to that design.

Create and publish the new "Windows" and "Cloud Computing" activity centers, replacing the current Windows Vista and Xbox 360 activity centers.

Clean up the Reviews and Showcases pages so they're actually useful. There's too much content on this site and its getting hard to find things.

Move the blog over to the new design. If I had control over this, it would have happened months ago, but I don't, so I need to kneel before the Web team and beg. I will do so again this week.

Figure out something more elegant for screen shot galleries. This is a long-time problem, but every time I've tried to do something about it, people have complained that the new versions don't work for them.

Update "What I Use" ... I actually did this in the past month but something happened with the formatting so I had to delay publishing it.

Obviously, I'm curious what you think. If there are things you'd like to see changed, please let me know. Honest feedback is always appreciated, and that includes virtually anything related to the site, including the direction and focus of the coverage here, the way information is presented, whatever. I'm not interested in fanboy stupidity, however, so if you're going to use this post as an excuse to troll, please don't bother. Life is too short.

Thanks everyone. --Paul

UPDATE: I need to get back to work on the book (which I hope to finally finish this week), but here's what's new:

Home page
Sample article (though I will be expanding it and adding the correct images later)
Windows Activity Center (replaces Windows Vista Activity Center)
Cloud Computing Activity Center (replaces Xbox 360 Activity Center)

I also did some basic cleanup on the Reviews and Showcases pages, though I didn't change them to the new design yet. I pushed all the pre-release Windows Vista reviews and showcases to sub-pages (along with the XP/2000/Me/9x reviews and showcases) and pushed the Xbox 360 screenshots to their own sub-page.

I will work on the other top-level pages later in the weekend if possible.

XP with SP3 slipstreaming, part 971 (Updated)

pthurrott — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:45:33 GMT

So I've been spending in inordinate amount of time creating slipstreamed XP with SP3 discs lately. (See my previous post, Preliminary Windows XP Service Pack 3 slipstreaming guide, for more info.) It's not really the way I want to spend my time, but what the heck. I do want to get it right.

In my instructions, I think I'm going to switch from Nero 8 Trial to something that won't potentially disappear from the Web or be moved or whatever. I'm leaning towards ImgBurn, which I already use for burning ISOs. (Take that, Robert Strohmeyer.) It's free and generally simple, though not necessarily for slipstreaming purposes. That said, it's smart about burning bootable OS install discs, so it will help you out automatically if it detects you've screwed something up. I'll keep testing.

Regarding Windows Media Player 11/Internet Explorer 7 integration, I'd like to avoid anything that's either a) too complex or b) requires a questionable third party utility to make it work. Since neither one is actually possible, I'll try to figure out something that makes sense. I've created a lot of coasters so far. But please do keep the suggestions coming.

Ultimately, I guess I'd prefer something that Microsoft created for the enterprise over something a guy named Eddie created in his spare time, mostly because I don't know the fictional Eddie or what his motives are, and because using Microsoft's business tools is in keeping with the spirit of what the slipstreaming guides have always been about. That said, Microsoft's deployment tools aren't for the fainthearted. But tools like nLite ... I don't know. Maybe.

The search continues....

Quick update: For some reason, after doing a ImgBurn-based install into a virtual machine today, IE 7 came up as an Automatic Update as soon as I booted into the desktop. I don't know if this has something to do with the way XP was slipstreamed or if it's something Microsoft just turned on. Anyone else seeing this?

Live Mesh

pthurrott — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:45:34 GMT

Penton's vaunted Web publishing system is hosed this morning, meaning I can't publish my WinInfo article about Live Mesh yet. But this is important. So I'm going to post it here (unedited) for now and then mention a few changes I see coming for this site as a result.

With Live Mesh, Microsoft Firmly Embraces Cloud Computing
Microsoft on Tuesday announced it was finally embracing a growing trend called "cloud computing," where users increasing access software and services online rather than via software that is installed locally on their PCs. Through a new initiative called Live Mesh, Microsoft will for the first time migrate its major computing platform off of the PC desktop and into the Internet cloud.

"This new software-plus-services platform enables PCs and other devices to 'come alive' by making them aware of each other through the Internet," Amit Mital, general manager of Microsoft's Live Mesh efforts wrote in a corporate blog. "Our goal is to provide a 'just works' experience by making it much easier to access the information, applications, people, and devices you care about."

This initial version of Live Mesh is currently in a closed beta aimed at developers but will be opened up to the public later in the year, Mital says. It will attempt to provide four key services: Device interoperability; anywhere access to files, folders, and programs; simple sharing and interaction with others, and automated updates. While none of this sounds particularly revolutionary, remember that this platform exists in the cloud, not on a PC desktop. Central management of devices and applications online, for example, is unexplored territory for Microsoft and its customers.

The first developer-oriented beta of Live Mesh includes a number of low-level technologies that will both form the basis for the entire platform and enable programmers to create unique solutions of their own. From a foundational perspective, Live Mesh includes programmatic access to core services such as (online and offline) Storage, Membership, Sync, Peer-to-Peer Communication and Newsfeed. And the programming model is identical between desktop-based, device-based, and cloud-based Mesh solutions, meaning that a single Live Mesh application will run identically on any supported hardware platform.

I'll be writing more about Live Mesh in the coming days on the SuperSite for Windows. This is an important service that could one day evolve into Microsoft's core business model.

So this is huge.

First, a couple of relevant links:

Live Mesh Tech Preview
Introducing Live Mesh - Windows Live Dev blog post
Live Mesh Blog
Ray Ozzie: Introducing Live Mesh (Channel 9 video)
Live Mesh screenshots
Live Mesh videos (require Silverlight):

Platform experience quick tour
Platform quick tour for developers
Overview of Live Mesh architecture
Overview of Live Mesh platform experience

Now for the site stuff. I've been planning recently to remove the Xbox 360 link on the mail SuperSite and replace it, probably with a Windows 7 link. (Eventually, the site is going to move to an organizational model based on topics like "Windows 7" and "Office" rather than the current layout--Reviews, Showcases, etc.--but that has to wait for the conversion to Community Server. I'm going to keep blogging about video games and will write something like one short review a month. But it's not core to the site.) It's pretty clear to me now that, given the limited space for "activity center"-type links on the toolbar--i.e. I'm probably pushing it trying to go above 2--those two links should be "Windows" and "Cloud computing." The Windows link will push to a much updated version of the current Windows Vista activity center that will include Windows 7, Vista/SP1, Server, and, yes, XP SP3, hopefully with a useful layout and presentation. The cloud computing activity center will be new. But I write so much about cloud computing these days, and cloud computing is so clearly the future, even for Microsoft. It's time.

(By the way, if I had to choose a third representative activity center, it would be something like "Digital media." I may still go that route, but this is the one thing I'm unsure of.)

I don't know when/how this will happen, but it's going to happen. Unfortunately, the next couple of days are hugely busy between the regular work, some meetings, the podcast, and the kid's school vacation this week. But there's nothing like a sudden bit of clarity.

Airline Travel: Your source for regurgitated blog posts ... or something

pthurrott — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:02:26 GMT

I've gotten a lot of questions about the "pingback" stuff in my blog's Comments sections. I'm not a Community Server expert, but I'd love to know how to prevent them from appearing. If you do know, please, drop me a note.

In any event, one of the weirdest and most common pingbacks is from a "blog" called "Airline Travel," which appears to be an automatically generated attempt at getting cheap ad revenues. It just mindlessly reposts everything I write here, and does the same to a bunch of other sites too, from the look of it. These posts are always accompanied by an ad. Of course.

To be clear, the Airline Travel blog is utterly without any value whatsoever. I'm just curious to see if they'll mindlessly repost this posting. Either way, the site is ridiculous.