Do you remember the petition to save Windows XP? If you missed all the news related to it so far, then it's my pleasure to bring it on your computers' displays once more, because I think it deserves your attention. Of course, if you don't agree with me, feel free to drop your comments below, but until we get there, let's see what's new first, shall we?


To be honest, I didn't have any special problems with Vista - it works fine, all my drivers are up to date (well, I had some problems with an older network card, but I managed to solve them my own way - read here, and I also bumped into the ISATAP adapter bug), I never saw the BSOD(to be honest, every time I saw it in XP, it was because of faulty hardware), but...I don't like the look and feel of Vista, and the fact that its memory management improvements are not supported by a new file system.

Being given the above, I still consider Windows XP Professional the OS to work with most of the time, and I am sure that a lot of office-Internet home users don't really need Vista (it depends on the user's experience a lot, as well as on its personal taste). Anyway, this is not a "Vista vs. XP" article - the problem is that Microsoft wants to discontinue Windows XP this summer, and a lot of people go against this. How many?

According to latest reports, there are over 100,000 signatures so far, but Microsoft doesn't really care about those yet. In the end, it's not about going to Linux or Mac, it's simply the fact that Windows XP, despite its age, remains the best choice for a lot of users, and Microsoft should listen to their needs.

I know it's much easier to bundle Vista with new systems, and instantly get a few million users without any big effort, but how many of those users are really satisfied with their Vista computers?

I really hope that next time I get to write about this subject, Microsoft will take that petition seriously, and maybe think better about the fact that people signing it are usually those that can lead at least a few others to Microsoft's operating systems, or away from them...

When we were talking about Macromedia Flash, I don't think many were expecting to see it become Adobe Flash. No, we may see Microsoft Flash arriving on our mobile devices... but it's not quite that way. Obviously, Adobe can't let this extremely popular technology go away, but licensing it seems like a good idea, and that's exactly what they have just done. The company that got its licensing agreement? Microsoft!


This time we're not talking about rumors, because both Microsoft and Adobe confirmed a few hours ago that the Redmon giant has licensed Adobe's software for viewing rich media content on mobile phones, so the outcome is that Microsoft will distribute Flash Lite and Reader to cell phone makers that use Windows Mobile.

Since Flash is an ubiquitous technology already, I can't help myself but wonder "Why?"... After all, Microsoft is already working hard on Silverlight, which proves to be a pretty interesting alternative to Adobe Flash, but I am sure there are details of this deal that will emerge in time.

While we're talking about a deal involving a lot of money, financial details are secret for now, and that's probably how they'll remain. The good part is that end users will get the same free programs so, for now, there's not much difference for us... or maybe am I missing something? Let me know your opinions, please!

Launched back in February, 2004, Facebook grew quickly from a small social networking site with membership restricted to students of Harvard College (oinly in the first month of its existence), to a 500-employees business with a revenue of over $150 million. Not bad at all for a project started in college by Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook since then, don't you think? Now, after less than 4 years, they are trying to enter a very crowded part of the market, by launching a multi-platform instant messaging service, but with a personal twist...


The IM service planned by Facebook will be exclusively Web-based, and it's going to use the open source Jabber platform. While some sources say the messaging service embedded in Facebook's user pages should arrive no later than next week. others didn't mention any date yet, so nothing is certain.

While this is not something new (think about GTalk or about the messaging feature included in the new Yahoo Mail), I am sure it's going to be an interesting addition to Facebook's features, but since nothing is official yet, I guess you'd better subscribe to our news by email, because we'll do our best to tell you about this as soon as it's going to happen for real!

As long as Yahoo stands still, it seems Microsoft continues its "shopping spree" undisturbed. Last "victim" of the Redmond giant is Rapt, a company from San Francisco that was "the industry standard in advertising yield management solutions", as their website says. The most interesting part is that Rapt's clients included CNET Networks, Dow Jones & Company, Expedia, Fox Interactive Media, Microsoft, MTV Networks, and others, but most important of all is - guess who? - Yahoo!


With this acquisition, Microsoft got in control of the Price Director, Inventory Manager, and Business Advisor, three products designed to help online publishers improve pricing and provisioning of their online ads. According to Microsoft's Brian McAndrews, this purchase will help them build "an end-to-end solution" for Web media publishers, as they would add Rapt's offerings to their Atlas Publisher Suite, a part of Microsoft Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group.

For now, the financial details of the deal haven't been disclosed, and they'll probably remain that way, but I have to ask myself - is this taking Microsoft one step closer to fulfilling its dream of taking over Yahoo, or am I simply off-topic when I think about such a thing?

Aren't they going to settle things one and for all? I am starting to get tired of all this deal, since it begins to look like a tornado in a glass of water. Obviously, I am talking about Microsoft's dream of taking over Yahoo. Their bid was rejected on the 31st of January, but now it seems that Microsoft tries once again...

According to unofficial sources, Microsoft and Yahoo met on Monday to talk about a possible future together. Same sources claim that this meeting wasn't actually a negociation, since no bankers were present, but Microsoft used this meeting to present its vision of a Microsoft-Yahoo company. For now, it seems Yahoo's executives listened, and since I just mentioned this wasn't a negociation, I don't know what else they could have done...

For now, no official statements from any of the companies is available, and probably that won't happen anytime soon. Anyway, considering the way things moved so far, I guess we'll see Microsoft merging with Yahoo in 2020 or so...