This discussion of current Microsoft Updates (8 critical in June including one that was re-released because it didn’t work right) is totally boring. They really don’t have much to say, do they? I guess they are saying that Windows has holes the size of Bill Gates Foundation’s wealth after the Warren Buffet donation. The message is patch every time you can … unless it’s a bad patch like that one apparently was.

Scoble, soon to depart Microsoft himself just broke the news that Bill Gates is stepping down from a full time role at Microsoft. Wonder what he is planning. We’ll know soon enough. I wonder if it is distract us from the delay in production on Vista.

Update: there is a press release that talks of a two year phase out to July 2008. So the news may be a bit overstated by the Scobelizer. It starts out thus:

REDMOND, Wash. — June 15, 2006 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that effective July 2008 Bill Gates, chairman, will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The company announced a two-year transition process to ensure that there is a smooth and orderly transfer of Gates’ daily responsibilities, and said that after July 2008 Gates would continue to serve as the company’s chairman and an advisor on key development projects.

While Australians almost never use the stereotypical Crocodile Dundee flavour of Australian English, It seems Microsoft have seen a pressing need to adopt “dinky-di ‘Strine” (translation: native-born Australian spoken English) in the Australian version of Office 2007.

According to News.com.au “Words such as g’day, sickie, jackaroo, dag, dinky-di, ute, sanga, wuss and cooee were among the list of words selected by a panel of Australian experts, who considered them to be most relevant to everyday Aussies, Microsoft said.”

A panel of Australian experts??? Who on Earth were they? Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin? Was Microsoft paying by the hour? Is Microsoft satisfied with the manufactured outcome that it sanctioned?

As an Australian resident for most of my years (I migrated from the US at age 2), I can reliably attest to Microsoft being waaaaaay off base on this one. While “g’day” is a common form of the greeting “good day” and a “ute” is simply a “utility vehicle” (pick-up truck), most of the other words are not spoken by Australians in every day life. Or “any-day life” for that matter! It makes us cringe to hear words like “bonza, ridgy-didge, dob, galah, cockie, onya, and motza”, but fortunately we only hear them in media targeted at US and UK audiences.

Microsoft you’ve gotten it wrong again, and now you’re embarrassing yourselves as well as the “fair-dinkum Aussies” that you want to sell your product to. Crikey!

What exactly is that? If you read the announcement and find anything understandable, let alone consumer friendly in it, please explain to me what that might be. I am guessing that the concept is simple. If you try to make a claim, you get a blue screen, end of coverage, end of story, sorry.

Godaddy has decided to move all of its 4.5 million parked domains to a Microsoft Windows server platform. The move from Linux is supposedly to maximize assets and permit rapid deployment of new technologies.

Said the quotes in the Microsoft Press Release:

“Our business is based on providing the best possible service at the lowest possible price. This strategy requires us to maximize all of our resources, particularly our technology assets,” said Warren Adelman, GoDaddy.com president and COO. “It was clear from all of the testing we’ve conducted that Microsoft provides an efficient and scalable operating platform, while also providing the performance needed to handle our extraordinary growth.”

I am sure they spent some time trying to figure out what is best for them. But I really wonder what the politics were behind this move as I have never seen anything slicker about Windows server hosting over Linux, and I have definately not seen any example where it is a less expensive deployment.

I use Internet Explorer for two purposes only: testing new web pages I’ve written, and running Windows Update to patch all of the security vulnerabilities detected in Microsoft products each month. Beyond that I use Firefox for everything. Frankly if I could ditch Internet Explorer altogether I would.

Today I stumbled upon something I didn’t know about, a browser plug-in called WindizUpdate. According to the site this plug-in allows users of Mozilla Firefox 0.9.3+, Netscape 4.0+, Mozilla Firebird 0.7+, Opera 5+, and K-Meleon 0.9+ (whatever that is) to enjoy the benefits of Windows Update without needing to use Internet Explorer.

Forgive me if the rest of the world already knew about WindizUpdate, but I’m really excited about the prospect of trying it out. The only downside is that my PCs are currently up-to-date, so I’ll have to wait another month or so to try it…….

I am looking forward to the opportunity to have a look at Windows Vista soon. I have been contracted to tech-edit a Vista How To Book for a publisher I am fortunate to work for from time to time, with one of my favorite authors. So I am tuning my ear to the ground regarding the Vista roadmap.

Much has been said about Vista, including that you will want it for security of for no other reason. Some, like this article on Slashdot are rumoring that it will not run on many computers because of its aero glass graphics. That is apparently myth accourding to Mr. Microsoft Jr., the Scobelizer who reports that Vista runs fine on his machine that lacks the aero glass rendering ability. In fact just a day or two ago he was glowing about how well it runs on his platform.

I cannot wait to get a copy of the beta in my hands and kick it around a bit.