Monday 27 May 2013

Europe investigates Apple's iPhone tactics: FT

  The European Commission is investigating whether Apple Inc is using anti-competitive iPhone sales tactics and technical restrictions to squeeze out rival smartphone makers from the European market, according to documents seen by the Financial Times.
  According to a questionnaire sent last week to several European mobile network operators, the Commission is focusing on distribution terms that might favour Apple by ensuring no rival can secure a better sales deal, said the newspaper.
  Apple said its contracts comply with EU laws, said the FT.
  The inquiry is the result of private complaints from mobile operators and is at a preliminary stage.
  Before a formal probe can be launched, the Commission would need to be confident that Apple was dominant in the EU smartphone market, which may be hard to show given the popularity of Samsung Electronic's Galaxy handsets.

The Sculpt Comfort and ease Mouse is because of out

  On May 23, Microsoft declared the Sculpt Consolation Mouse and Sculpt Cellular Mouse, each of which involve buttons to help you consumers to uncover their way rapidly for the Begin display screen.
  The Sculpt Ease and comfort mouse incorporates a touch-sensitive blue strip running along the side, which Microsoft phone calls the "Windows contact tab." The Sculpt Cell Mouse functions an identical Windows button.
  The Sculpt Ease and comfort product adds help for some more gestures which Microsoft officials consider may perhaps help users far better navigate Home windows eight.
  As explained inside a new write-up within the Microsoft Home windows Practical experience blog site: "If you swipe up over the blue strip, it cycles by means of your open up Windows Retail outlet applications in Windows 8. And when you swipe down, it's going to reveal all the open up apps (to the still left aspect of your respective screen) in your case to pick out the one particular you wish."
  The Sculpt Comfort and ease Mouse is because of out in June for $39.ninety five (estimated retail price tag). The Sculpt Model design is going to be offered this thirty day period for $29.ninety five (ERP).
  The Sculpt Ease and comfort mouse plus the Sculpt Cell mouse both of those perform with Window 7, Windows 8 and Mac OS 10.four and higher. Neither appears to get the job done with Home windows RT, depending on the spec details furnished by Microsoft.
  Even though over the subject matter of improving upon Home windows eight, Microsoft previously this week built readily available for download a extremely good Home windows eight teaching brochure. It's a multi-page, vibrant PDF that includes lots of navigational recommendations and tricks. I want this had been in my box with my Area RT

Friday 10 May 2013

PC Makers Hopeful on Windows 8 Changes

  With the PC industry in severe contraction, industry executives seem terribly relieved to have found some optimism to cling to.
  PC makers in Asia say there is hope yet for Windows 8, the new operating system that even Microsoft Corp. has admitted hasn’t been a huge hit.
  Industry executives say prices for Windows 8 devices are set to fall dramatically, and that Microsoft Corp. has listened to some of their gripes.
  On Wednesday, executives at Taiwanese PC maker Acer Inc. –who have complained loudly and often about Microsoft’s Windows 8 strategy–said that Microsoft is becoming more “considerate” to its hardware partners, and has adopted their suggestions “at a high percentage.”
  “When we were talking to Microsoft, our input to them is balance,” said Acer President Jim Wong. “The world in the next five years is not going 100 percent to touch. Although touch makes a lot of possibilities for PCs, you need to take care of the rest of the world that doesn’t need touch.”
  Windows co-head Tami Reller has acknowledged there were hitches, and that the company is working on changing some software features. Although she didn’t confirm any specific changes, technology blogs are saying the new version could return to a more traditional appearance, such as the Start button possibly making a comeback.
  Microsoft is also expanding to smaller tablets this year, in a quest to face off with popular small tablets like the iPad mini and Nexus 7.
  But will it be enough to convince consumers?
  Some traditional users may be relieved to see a more familiar interface. But Microsoft’s problem in the mobile sphere goes beyond the appearance, and primarily resides in the small number of apps, said Tracy Tsai, a consumer technology research analyst with Gartner in Taiwan.
  “A main challenge for Microsoft is its number of apps is still limited compared to Google and Apple,” Ms. Tsai said. “More and more users are familiar with apps on their smartphones, and they would like to extend their use of these apps to their tablets.”
  That will not be a quick fix for Microsoft, but a more immediate change is that Windows 8 devices are about to get much more price-competitive. The price premium of a Windows 8 tablet over an Android one is now at least $150. That gap could shrink to around $50 this year, putting sticker prices of Windows 8 tablets below $300, said Jerry Shen, chief executive of Taiwanese PC maker Asustek Computer Inc.
  As the user base expands, more developers will be willing to make apps for Windows 8, Ms. Tsai notes.
  Acer Chairman J.T. Wang said Microsoft’s willingness to change bodes well for the PC industry this year.
  “In the past we consider they (Microsoft) live in heaven,” he quipped. “But now they go down to earth and they start to learn how people living on earth think.”

You'll be able to adjust the default

  Windows Notepad continues to be all over considering that Home windows initial appeared in 1985, as well as the NT model hasn't improved a lot for your ten years. What has modified is the fact it truly is now not the designated viewer once you notify Internet Explorer to point out the source code of the web page. With IE8, that work was handed about to the additional innovative viewer crafted into IE's Developer Instruments, to really make it competitive with Netscape and Google Chrome.

  You'll be able to adjust the default. Commence IE8 and push F12 to open up the Developer Instruments, open the File menu, simply click Personalize Internet Explorer Check out Resource, and select Notepad rather than Default Viewer. In the event you operate Notepad, you'll find a way to load, edit and preserve .html information. (Clearly, when you just double-click them, they will load while in the default browser.)
  Another workaround will be to change the file extension that tells Home windows which system to utilize to open a file. Press F2, improve the name of your regional copy of the file from, as an example, NewsPage.html to NewsPage.txt, double click the file and it'll open in Notepad in editable kind. Once you have completed enhancing it, preserve the file and change the name again to NewsPage.html just before uploading it to the server.
  In any other case, I don't expect Microsoft was far too worried about people today nonetheless working with Notepad to edit HTML data files. They are an insignificant proportion of modern one.4 billion or so Home windows end users, and there are many absolutely free possibilities.
  One example is, Microsoft gives a robust no cost website structure software Visible Studio Convey 2012 for Internet, and also a cost-free edition of Microsoft Expression Website 4, which was a costly professional program until eventually it had been discontinued. There are lots of totally free third-party options including KompoZer. This is relatively such as the long-dead Microsoft FrontPage. A further free or low-priced substitute is Serif's WebPlus.
http://www.windows7mart.com/windows-7-home-premium-product-key-p-3526.html