I don't know if Vista is the reason of the recent changes in Microsoft's high level management team, and I don't think a product that isn't received by the market as expected, like their latest operating system, could be the fault of the management. In fact, probably it has nothing to do with Vista, but it's interesting to notice that a former Disney executive just joined Microsoft, moving to the same position he had in the cartoon empire: CIO.

As things look now, considering Vista's (in)success and the lawsuits against the company starting here and there all the time (even a few hours ago, news emerged about some tiny Chinese company, which sued Microsoft for using its inputting technology and fonts in Windows operating systems without singing any commercial agreement since early 90s), it's obvious Microsoft needed some fresh air.

Since Steve Balmer behaves like a cartoon in some situations, it seems like a good idea to bring in someone that worked in the animation movies industry, but leaving the funny part aside, I should mention that Tony Scott, the new CIO at Microsoft, is not related with Stuart Scot, its predecessor.

Scott's task will be to manage the structure inside Microsoft that is responsible for the systems that support the company's sales, marketing and services operations worldwide. Before working at Disney, Scott was General Motors' CTO, and vice president of operations at Bristol-Meyers Squibb(I wouldn't be ashamed with such a CV at all!).

For now, these moves may pass aways without much noise, but their effect will be noticed in the long run. I don't know what's going to happen in 5 or 10 years with Microsoft's approach to the industry and its relation with the customers, but they could start getting back on the right track this summer, by continuing to support and ship Windows XP, together with Vista...

Being given the fact that, according to customer feedback, Windows Vista is a huge mistake(read this article to understand why), it's no surprise to see that people get together and start signing a petition to save Windows XP. In fact, I only wonder why this didn't happen earlier. Anyway, there's only one thing that may turn Vista into a slightly better OS: its first service pack, but we need to see it happen, so let's see what's up with XP, until then...

The idea is that Microsoft has announced its plans to discontinue Windows XP on the 30th of June, but most Windows users (especially those that didn't upgrade to Vista, or those that "upgraded" to XP from Vista) would like to see the old Windows XP available for an indefinite period of time, alongside Windows Vista.

To some evil observers, this movement may seem one initiated by people that can't afford upgrading to Vista, or those that don't like to see often changes in their lives, including on their computers, but the reality is different. Let's take Vista - it's not unstable, it looks good, and with the last price drops, I can't call it extremely expensive either, BUT...why drop Windows XP?

DirectX 10 gaming is almost zero, compared to the expectations, Vista's UAC is one of the most annoying features ever introduced by Microsoft in one of their operating systems, and the system requirements for running Vista are pretty high, especially since 4-5 years old PCs can handle office tasks wonderfully, and if you don't need more...why get Vista?

The truth is that freedom of choice is one of the benefits of the world we're living in, although sometimes it gets limited by certain factors. In this case, I can confess I am running Windows XP SP2, Vista Ultimate and Fedora 8, and none of them is perfect, but keeping Windows XP around may benefit Microsoft more than forcing Vista down our throats. Unfortunately, it's practically impossible for them to drop Vista now, and add DirectX 10 support to XP, but I am sure they can keep XP around, if they really want to please their over 30,000 customers that signed the petition so far, and the number keeps rising...

Yesterday, ATI released Catalyst 8.1, a new driver package for its videocards, but unfortunately, there is no new driver for Linux or Mac available yet. The last Linux driver package was released on the 20th of December, while the one for Mac OS X seems to be really old, since there seems to be no driver package available for Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard". Anyway, let's leave them aside and talk about the new Windows driver package now, shall we?

The latest Catalyst software suite, released on the 16th of January, as I said, is labeled 8.1, and packs the following components:- Radeon™ display driver 8.451
- Multimedia Center™ 9.16 (Windows XP only)
- HydraVision™ (Windows XP only)
- HydraVision™ Basic Edition (Windows XP only)
- Remote Wonder 3.04 (Windows XP only)
- WDM Driver Install Bundle
- Southbridge/IXP Driver
- Catalyst™ Control Center Version 8.1The range of ATI products supported is wide, starting with the "ancient" Radeon 9500 series and going to the latest DirectX 10.1 cards, HD3850 and HD3870.

According to the official release notes, available here(be aware this link leads to a PDF file), "Catalyst 8.1 introduces MultiView™ support. This feature provides for hardware
accelerated OpenGL rendering across multiple graphics adapters. MultiView™ will provide hardware accelerated 3D rendering in a system containing multiple graphics cards on an extended desktop arrangement. This feature will allow for the rendering performance and additional frame buffer resources to be evenly shared with the second and third graphics adapters. This allows for a 3D application to have the same performance running on a secondary or third display device as if it were running on the primary display device."

If the above is not enough, then it would be nice for you to know that this last Catalyst release takes care of a bunch of issues with various games, such as Bioshock, FEAR, World in Conflict or Oblivion, so if you have problems with one of these, be sure to update your drivers as soon as possible! The release notes can be also viewed online here, while the driver package can be downloaded from this page.

Later edit: an interesting device is the new apricorn drivewire

I heard about OpenID some time ago, and I've been thinking for a while to get an account, but something simply kept me back, without a reason. Maybe it was that "I don't want another account to take care of" thing, but now I don't have any excuse, because OpenID got really serious. Why? The answer is very simple - Yahoo just announced its intention to adopt OpenID, so all current Yahoo users will be able to upgrade to OpenID accounts!

Of course that I can simply wait and see what happens next, but I would rather get the OpenID account first. Anyway, this is not about me, but about the Internet industry and the changes we should expect to follow this announcement...

If you didn't know it so far, the idea behind OpenID is as simple as possible - you sign in into a single account(the OpenID one), and you get access to a plethora of other sites that require you to provide a user name and password. In the future, once Yahoo finishes adding support for OpenID, you could login to all your sites using "MyName@Yahoo.com"(or whatever your OpenID is), then your enter those sites via a secure Yahoo server, using your Yahoo ID and pass.

While Yahoo already takes the steps into a direction that seems right, as long as it's going to make a lot of people pass through their pages on a daily basis, Microsoft will probably hang on to their Windows Live ID system, but that remains to be seen...

Since new programs are released on a daily basis, and such news are not always really interesting, I am sure if I'm going to tell you about a way to earn some serious cash, I'll get your undivided attention in an instant. The sum is $20,000, and the "how-to" is very simple, at first sight - you have to find undisclosed security flaws in Microsoft's Windows by next month's end. How's that?

Obviously, this prize is not coming from a rich grandmother with nothing special to do, but from a security research company, as you have probably figured out already. The company's name is Digital Armaments, and this challenge is simply called "January-February 2008 Hacking Challenge". It is funny to notice the company doesn't have any phone number or address on their website, only contact emails, but...

"For the January-February Challenge, Digital Armaments will give a SPECIAL PRIZE OF 20.000$ for each submission that results in a Exploitable Vulnerability or Working Exploit for Windows or Windows Diffuse Application. This should include example and documentation. The submission must be sent during the January/February months and be received by midnight EST on February 29, 2008. The 20.000$ SPECIAL PRIZE will be an extra added to the normal vulnerability payment."

Since everything seems very serious, if you have the skills and the time required to take on this challenge, I wish you good luck! I am sure that even Vista still has a bunch of flaws waiting to be discovered and exploited, and since you're doing this for your "greater good", I see no ethical or legal problem... Do you?