Why Windows Is So Expensive

Cuz they are. The Firefox Extension Guru's Blog Discusses the Expense of Windows Vista and Office 2007 in some detail. Now they say Windows 7 will be more expensive than Vista or XP.

But Microsoft keeps attacking Apple about the expense of their stuff. Hmmm. Jealous, maybe?

Anyway, you can get some software somewhat cheaper at Software Supply Group. I don't work for them anymore, but they're all right. I'm busy trying to sell discount medical supplies and hospital equipment.

Windows 7 Beta Download Is Now (or Was) Available

Windows 7 Beta has been made available, with only 2.5 million download slots. The way I read it, that's only for today, and on Friday everybody can download it. But I'm not sure.



What I am sure about is that you having to be upgrading Windows Vista SP1 to install the Beta. If you aren't, no dice. So, go buy an inexpensive copy of Windows Vista real quick, and you'll be set.

When the Windows 7 Download is available, you should be able to get it here.

There is a Windows 7 Review from Computer World here.

Windows 7 Is On It's Way, And Windows Vista Will Vanish

Windows 7 will almost certainly replace Windows Vista before folks can stop buying Windows XP, or even getting official support of it. At that time, Windows Vista as a nomiker will completely vanish. It will, in many ways, be as if Vista never existed. They will push upgrade from "your old Windows" or "Windows XP" or "all previous version of Windows" but Windows 7 will be as distant from Windows Vista as possible.

And it's not because Windows Vista sucks. It doesn't. It's a pretty solid operating system, with problems no different than you might expect from an operating system that has to run in seriously heterogeneous environments, and was going to have to run on something like 100 million more desktops and laptops than when Windows XP shipped.

And if you think Vista has problems, do you remember when Windows XP first came out? Vista actually got a lot more right, right out of the box, than XP did. Or, for that matter, Windows 95, but Microsoft marketed the heck out of Windows 95, in a very positive, cool product launch sort of way. Given Microsoft's current too-little, too late marketing strategy, apparently those people must not work at Microsoft anymore.

The problem is, Microsoft mismanaged and mis-marketed (i.e., did no real product launch marketing for Windows Vista), and it shows. Their current ads and the Mojave experiment really didn't do them any favors. Windows Vista has become synonymous with "buggy" and "insecure", even though that isn't fair.

Without Windows 7, expect them to barely mention Windows Vista again. And, if they're smart, they'll roll it out with a splashy product launch, lots of commercials (that don't acknowledge that the Macintosh exists, BTW) and celebrity endorsements and appearances on Jay Leno and David Letterman. Or they'll do something stupid and incomprehensible, and leave the hyper-critical blogosphere to define their new product. That would be really smart.
More Windows 7 News Here. And, Windows 7 is Going to Support MultiTouch. Now, that actualy makes that technology useful.

Also, just to remind you, we've got Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Full Version OEM for only $92.33, or $89.99 each if you purchase 25 or more. Handy if you want to stay compatible.

In Praise of Technology

I often suffer from back pain, and it could become debilitating in the days before I got a Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator (TENS Units). With that, and adhesive electrodes to apply to (or around) the areas where the pain is distinct, I'm able to manage the pain, and avoid complete debilitation. At least I have been able to so far (knock on wood). And it wasn't that long ago that no such solution was available, especially to the end user, for easy purchase on the Internet.

I may have mentioned my love of my old TRS-80 Color Computer before. All right, I know I have. My first word processor, Telewriter, was basically a big modal window you could type in, with the innovation of allowing the use of lowercase (something not available as a standard on the Color Computer until the CoCo3, I believe). It was awkward, and there was no real formatting, but I liked it well enough and used it until I acquired VIP Office (or something like that), my first suite of "office" applications that included my favorite modem terminal package (VIP Term) and Word Processor (VIP Write) and a not-quite-a-spreadsheet math program (VIP Calc) and some sort of disk editing application--that was back in the days when people who used word processors and power users who would directly edit blocks on their 5.25" floppy disks were one in the same.

Amazingly, I was able to find a review of TRS-80 Color Computer word processors from 1983, that was unfortunately pre-VIP Write, but still interesting to a nostalgic Color Computer nerd such as myself.

VIP Write was vastly superior to Telewriter which, in itself, I still found superior to a plain old typewriter. Even so, it didn't allow any formatting within the application; you had to insert control character strings to specify bold, underlining, or italic, and the nature of that string would be different for any given dot matrix or daisy wheel printer.

Not today! With the advent of laser printers in in-line formatting for word processors, things got considerably easier. Microsoft Office's Microsoft Word allows you to format text any which way, with columns and tables and insert graphics and colors and special characters and foreign languages and on and on and on.

The robustness of the Windows Business Server products dwarfs the mainframes that I used to play Original Adventure on, via an acoustic coupler modem and VideoText, a ROM Cartridge-based, completely featureless, modem program for my original 4k TRS-80 Color Computer. Not to mention, the quality of games has gone up somewhat from the days of breathlessly playing plodding text-based adventures to the modern days of the Xbox (and operating systems like Windows Vista Home Premium that can share media files with the Xbox 360 via your home network. My, how things have changed.

Of course, back in the days of having most of my programs on a cartridge that I stuck into my computer, we didn't worry about computer viruses or malware. Now, such things are all over the place. Fortunately, technology has responded, with dozens of anti-virus products like Norton Antvirus and Kaspersky Internet Security.

When I first got my floppy drive for the my Color Computer, I was amazed by the 250k of data it could hold. I was fascinated to learn that you could carefully cheat with single sided disks, and punch out the hole that told the drive that it could use a particular side of the disc, and double the storage! Wow. Of course, we didn't even had CDs when I first got my computer, and even though I got my first CD player in 1985, I didn't see a CD-ROM drive until 1988. These days, we can burn on our own CDs and DVDs painlessly, and pretty much every computer comes with at least a CD-R built in, if not a DVD-R. And Blu-Ray drives in most computers are coming.

Then, it was amazing to get 64k out of my bulky machine. Now, laptops and notebook computers have gigabytes of ram and can hold hundreds of gigabytes of data on their hard drives. You can keep the books for your business and do your taxes on your computer, and even file electronically. That's pretty darn cool.

And on and on it goes. While I do wax nostalgic for the old days (and often), it is amazing how far technology has progressed. Sometimes, I think we're a little spoiled, complaining about bugs in the latest 3G iPhone or Windows Vista. Compared to what, not having it all? I love technology. Yes, I loved my old Color Computer. But would I trade my modern-day Macintosh for it? No. I'm a bit nostalgic for my old rotary dial phones. But Would I trade my iPhone? Uh, I don't think so.

Technology rocks. We are spoiled. Which is good. That is all.

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 / SQL 2005 / Exchange 2007 And More

Microsoft Server products (previously called Windows Server System) have been around for a long time.

While the "Server" branding orginally debuted with Microsoft Windows Server 2003, file sharing had been available for some time and much of the functionality of a typical server was available in Microsoft's Windows NT.

Naturally, this expanded with the release of Microsoft Windows 2000 to the point where, aside from certain specialized enterprise software and policy management features, Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate is, in fact, a robust server platform. Although this hasn't prevented Microsoft from coming up with products like Windows Home Server, or prevented them from developing robust enterprise database and mail server products like Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise and Microsoft Exchange 2007 Enterprise. Both of which, purely by happenstance, we happen to sell. Yay for us!

So, get some chocolates, curl up with a good book, and enjoy unprecedented computer security for a great price.

Am I pimping the Software Supply Group ride too much? Well, I can't help it. We've got great products and great prices, including some difficult to find older software titles that can be a lifesaver when you've got large networks and backwards-compatability issues.

Yeah, you know what I mean.

The Market for Older Software is Growing

And we sell it. Like, for example, Microsoft Office Pro 2002 for XP. It includes Access XP, Excel XP, Outlook XP, PowerPoint XP, Publisher XP, and Word XP. Does almost everything you need, runs great on XP, and people are still buying it.

There are a lot of reasons for that. It's a bit more compact that Office 2007, a little speedier on old machines (for the most part, there are some exceptions) and, quite frequently, the revision of specifications for large corporations and government agencies is a lengthy process. And that's understandable--in big organizations with a lot of machines to support, upgrades can be expensive and paralyzing. Yet sometimes they need to expand departments or deployment of software, and even if there is something more cutting edge on the market, it makes more sense to go with what is tried and true. And if those applications or operating systems are not widely available, then it's up to software resellers like us that have inventory or can locate stock for certain products to fill in the gap.

Another reason is that sometimes the upgrades make radical changes to the interface that are difficult for some people to navigate, or might necessitate updating inhouse documentation (which can be a pricey proposition in some places). Office 2007is an excellent example of that. I'm not a big fan of the ribbon interface in 2007, and if it weren't for certain features (a speedy patch available for searching Outlook and, most importantly, Excel 2007's leviathan ability to open gigantic spreadsheets), I probably pick Word XP 2002, or earlier. Just because none of the interfaces in 2007 struck me as a solid improvement--in fact, they mostly just frustrate me, even though some reviewers have praised them as being wonderful and revolutionary, so I suppose it takes all kinds.

With the release of Microsoft Vista, even Microsoft had to acknowledge the increasing size of the "older" software market. Microsoft announced will effectively be selling XP through 2010.

More of this in the future, especially if we get even more popular older software into inventory. :)