Some Microsoft fans go as far as saying there's a conspiracy against their object of adoration, and in some cases, they behave like they shouldn't. As you probably know already, I am not crazy about Vista or Microsoft's way of making business (that's not always true, because sometimes they make things right, too), but I always appreciate when products arrive before the scheduled date, exactly as it happened yesterday with Microsoft Visual Studio 2008...

Being given the countless delays and features dropped along Vista's development, as well as the recent bad news regarding the next version of Windows, it's great to find out that Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 gets released one month earlier, don't you think?

The idea is as it follows - previously, Visual Studio was scheduled to be released on the 27th of February, together with SLQ Server 2008, which got delayed, and Windows Server. To balance things as much as possible, Microsoft decided to push the retail release of Visual Studio 2008 almost one month earlier, to the 30th of January. I said "as much as possible" because they can't actually balance things when SQL Server 2008 is expected to arrive about 6 months later, but it's good to see them try...

Well, let's hope Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 doesn't have any major flaws that could have been solved in a month, because it would really be a pity for this product to miss the launch party next month, whose theme is going to be "Heroes Happen Here". In the end, even heroes make mistakes, but for Microsoft, the time has come to be a hero with as few flaws as possible!

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Do you think the newspapers as we know them are dead? Some people do, and I am one of them, especially because I find most of the written press to be less trustable than independent online press (basically, written press can't be independent, but I won't get into that now). Despite the fact newspapers are becoming less popular with each step forward of the online press, Google feels like placing a bet on newspapers... but in fact it'sand even more than just a simple bet!

So, what does Google want with newspapers, after all? Above, you can see the reasons that make the IT giant put their hopes "on paper": newspaper ads are most trustworthy of all mediums, the percentage of readers buying something advertised in the newspaper is very high, compared to online ads and, at last, while you can talk on the phone, play some online game and also browse a site containing ads, 62 percent of newspaper readers are only reading the newspaper (probably the 38 percent remaining are also drinking a beer or coffee...). Good...so where is this taking us?

When I read about Google embedding hyperlinks in newspaper ads, I thought this is a joke. Well, back in the 80s, operating systems that require more than 1MB of memory to run properly were also a joke for most people, and look where we got today! The answer to the question "How to add hyperlinks to newspapers?" is very simple, in fact - barcodes! The ads will have barcodes printed on themselves, the readers are going to use their smart phones to capture the specialized code (this one already got a name - QR Code, and has been around since 1994), and then the smart phone is automatically redirected to a certain website.

Obviously, the smart phones don't have this technology implemented yet, and there are also other problems, like sharing the (future) revenue between Google, newspapers, and mobile carriers. Fortunately, we won't see this happening in the next 5-6years, so you can take your time to enjoy your smart phones, as well as favorite newspaper, the way they are now...

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I know Microsoft says everything is working great. We all know it. There's only one little problem that can become big, in time: this is not exactly the truth. Why do I say that? It's not the fact that I am not quite crazy about Vista, because I don't rely on my own feelings and impressions, I usually like to see facts, and today's news is something no Microsoft fanboy can deny or minimize its impact: the French Police is moving into the Linux world, leaving Windows behind!

I would give a penny to see Steve Ballmer's face when he received the news, but only a single penny, because it's easy to imagine its reaction. After all, it's not some tiny police force from Africa or some tiny island in the Pacific that owns 2 computers, and they are ditching Windows because their old computers can't run Windows Vista, and upgrading them is not an option... No, sir! This is serious business, because the French paramilitary police force just became one of the largest administrations in the world to have the curage to take this step...so far.

This is not something that happened over night, because the French gendarmerie moved to open source office applications back in 2005, and open source Web browsers, the next year, so what happened today was somehow expected to occur. It was simply a matter of time...

Anyway, to get an idea on the size of today's event, it's enough to say that the French gendarmerie currently has Windows XP running on no less than 70,000 desktop computers. According to Nicolas Geraud, deputy director of the gendarmerie's IT department, these systems will be gradually switched to Ubuntu, so they won't simply install Linux on 70,000 computers at once."We will introduce Linux every time we have to replace a desktop computer,so this year we expect to change 5,000-8,000 to Ubuntu and then 12,000-15,000 over the next four years so that every desktop uses the Linux operating system by 2013-2014.", he said.

According to same source, moving away from licensed software helps the French gendarmerie save about 10.3 million dollars every year, which looks simply great. Obviously, this is only one of the reasons, and if you want to know more about the rest of them, you could try using some open source office software, for the start...

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Did you spend a lot of money on your computer? No matter if you had to rob a bank or not, it would be nice to benchmark your PC to know how fast and reliable it is, and for this you obviously need a benchmarking software. One of the many (good) bechmarks available for the Windows platform is PassMark Performance Test, and since it got a minor update today, I thought this is a very good chance for me to tell you a few things about it...

The update I just told you about helped the 32-bit version of the program to get a new label, and that is 6.1 build 1011, while the 64-bit one didn't get its update yet, remaining at 6.1 build 1008. The new things in the current update are minor fixes, such as search capability for AMD Phenom and Intel Core 2 Extreme in the online databases, the possibility to run multiple instances of the program to allow multiple Advanced Network test to taje place concurrently, as well as minor changes to the license management system.

If you're new to PassMark's Performance Test, then I am sure you'd like to hear what this program has in store for you. The standard test suites include CPU, 2D/3D graphics, disk, memory, and CD/DVD tests, while the advanced customizable test allow you to test performance of your disk and CD/DVD drive, as well as 3D capabilities, but you also get to benchmark networking, memory and multi-tasking performance of your PC.

If you want to get deeper into this program, simply grab your free trial from here. Once the 30 days evaluation period ends, you can purchase the program for $24(obviously, there's no problem if you want to purchase it earlier), but feel free to check the official sales page, first of all.

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Windows 7, previously known as Blackcomb and Vienna, is the next version of Windows. As usual, Bill Gates says it's going to be the best OS ever, and so on, but this is not the problem. Maybe this time they are going to get things right, I can't tell, but there's a "little big" problem already - while early reports placed its release somewhere in the second half of the next year, now there are voices saying this is going to happen in 2011, maybe late 2010, with a bit of luck...

How's that? Weren't they actually WORKING on it? I even saw a screenshot from Milestone 1 of Windows 7 (Build 6519)! Well, since that wasn't quite different from Vista, I guess they are still PLANNING it, as the last reports say - Windows 7 is currently "in the planning stage", and should take about 3 years to develop (yeah, right!).

If they are going to do the same as they did with Vista, we'll probably have the next Windows version ready in 2013, maybe even 2015, if they decide to keep the features and release a complete OS, but I can't imagine Microsoft doing that...

Hummm... this is a subject worth keeping an eye on, especially since Bill Gates suggested the next Windows version is going to "be more user-centric", exactly what was supposed to happen with previous Windows versions. Just read this:"That means that right now when you move from one PC to another, you've got to install apps on each one, do upgrades on each one. Moving information between them is very painful. We can use Live Services to know what you're interested in. So even if you drop by a [public] kiosk or somebody else's PC, we can bring down your home page, your files, your fonts, your favorites and those things."

In my opinion, it's much easier to carry your USB drive full of portable applications, rather than moving data through Microsoft's servers, don't you think?

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