Windows 7 continues to take over the world

It's official, Windows 7 is way better than Vista and it's selling a whole lot better than Vista. In just three weeks, the new operating system has captured an astounding four percent market share, something that took Vista six months to do. Miracles or miracles if you release something stable and people actually want to use it.

Windows 7 continues to blaze trails, both in new sales and in upgrades of existing machines. As of the second week in November, less than three weeks since the official release, Windows 7 has reportedly snagged over 4% of the global OS market. At that speed, Windows 7 is outpacing its predecessor at an alarming rate. It took Vista roughly six months after release to reach 4% share.

This momentum may continue through the end of the year, when PC sales are traditionally high. If it does, it will be interesting to see where most of the users are coming from -- be it upgrades from XP, Vista, or new machines. Regardless, the message is clear: Windows 7 is growing at an astounding rate.

Apple people might have overestimated the whole "Windows 7 will cause people to switch to Mac" because they were dead wrong. Windows 7 is gaining momentum and I think we may have found a suitable replacement for Windows XP.

Macs apparently aren't perfect either

Wait, I though Macs were supposed to be perfect in every sense of the word. No viruses, bugs and gremlins slowly tearing apart your computer (Actually PC's don't have gremlins either). However, Apple just came out with a massive patch that fixes 58 vulnerabilities in its operating systems. Wow.

Today's security update was the sixth from Apple this year, and the second that included patches for Snow Leopard, launched in late August.

"Seems a little large, but really, it's par for the course for Apple," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, referring to the number of individual bugs quashed in today's 2009-006 update. In May, Apple patched a record 67 vulnerabilities; it addressed 55 in February, 33 in September, and 19 in two separate August updates.

"Thank goodness Apple didn't release it tomorrow," Storms said. Microsoft, which unlike Apple sets a regular schedule for its security updates, is slated to deliver six updates Tuesday that will patch 15 vulnerabilities.

Why does it always feel like I'm getting talked down to when reading a Mac story? I mean these guys seriously think they're error free yet they do the same stuff Microsoft does.

Ready for Google Caffeine?

Remember when Google rolled out it's test Google Caffeine build that was much quicker in terms of search speed. Well the next generation of Google search is about to go live and while it's not much of a graphical change it will be a big tweak to the infastructure of the search engine giant.

Here's the statement from Google. This comes from the Google Caffeine beta page which has now been shut down.

We appreciate all the feedback from people who searched on our Caffeine sandbox.Based on the success we’ve seen, we believe Caffeine is ready for a larger audience. Soon we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data center. This sandbox is no longer necessary and has been retired, but we appreciate the testing and positive input that webmasters and publishers have given.

It will be interesting to see how this changes some of the rankings and who gets dinged and who doesn't. This might hurt Bing a little as more people will want to test drive the new "Google" if they don't already use it all the time. 

Big Brother... I mean Google... is watching you

In a rare move in big company history, Google is actually letting everyone know how much information they have on you. Now if only the CIA would do the same...

"Over the past 11 years, Google has focused on building innovative products for our users. Today, with hundreds of millions of people using those products around the world, we are very aware of the trust that you have placed in us, and our responsibility to protect your privacy and data," said Google in a blog post today. "In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we've built the Google Dashboard."

The company said the Dashboard is set up so that users can control the personal settings in each Google product that they use. Google said the Dashboard tool supports more than 20 products and services, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts and Google Latitude.

I took a peek at my Dashboard and basically Google knows everything about me, which is kind of creepy. It's like a spouse but without all the arguments about who left the toilet seat up.

The Wii doesn't do so well with Mature games

There's no denying that the Nintendo Wii has been wildly successful and while it may not be the prized console for hardcore gamers, it's reached a wide audience as people are drawn to its social gaming concept. Let me tell you, it's wonderful to have around for parties since the games are easy to pick up and very entertaining. The motion sensor remotes feel new and it's just more fun.

However if there's a downfall to the Wii, it's the console's slant towards family/kid games. I'm guessing that since the GPU isn't as powerful as the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, game makers have to make their 3D models more cartoonish, and due to the controllers - which are more likely to appeal to kids than Joe the Gamer sitting in his mom's basement (who wants 18 different button configurations).

There has been ventures into Mature-rated games but they have largely failed.

...according to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board database. Some, such as Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, haven't even been released yet. Compare that to 168 Mature-rated games listed for Xbox 360, or 126 mature-rated games for PlayStation 3, and it's clear where the majority of the industry's grown-up releases end up. But publishers remain intent to trying to make it work on Wii.

Earlier this year, a substantial amount of pre-release hype and critical acclaim followed the most hopeful attempt: Platinum Games and Sega's hyper-violent action game MadWorld. Japanese developer Platinum Games was founded by former Capcom designers Shinji Mikami, Atsushi Inaba and Hideki Kamiya. The theory went like this: with that kind of gaming pedigree, hardcore gamers would flock to MadWorld, and its over-the-top violence and Sin City-esque art style would attract Wii owners looking for something different. That theory didn't hold, and MadWorld failed to make a splash.

Even Sega doesn't know exactly what went wrong.

"It’s difficult because it was a critically acclaimed title; it was extreme but good," said Sega of America president Mike Hayes in an interview with Wired. "The thing that we’re saying is, Sega would be extremely arrogant to have a title that didn’t do as well as we thought on a platform and then say, 'Those kinds of games don’t sell on that platform.' I think if you take our slew of more mature games -- House of the Dead Overkill did really well in Europe, and for some reason even though it’s a big (intellectual property) it did less well in North America. So that’s kind of like a win and a miss that’s kind of come out neutral. MadWorld sales were very disappointing, but was that to do with the platform? Was it that people didn’t like the art style? Or that people didn’t like the way the game played through? It could be many things, which we’re obviously researching."

I think for the most part, hardcore games - the ones who buy these Mature titles - go for the powerful machines like the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Hence, you're marketing to a smaller market of your core consumers on the Wii. It's just set up to fail from the beginning.

Windows 7 saves the economy!

Hooray! Microsoft's new operating system is jumpstarting PC sales and causing the market to blow up by 40 percent. That means the economy will probably rebound right? Nothing to worry about we can start charging our credit cards again?

As many predicted, the debut of Windows 7 has prompted a surge in PC sales -- for now, at least. During the first week of general availability, Windows 7 boosted computer sales by some 40% year-over-year, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Katheryn Huberty.

The figure is based on NPD sales data, and is partially skewed by consumers holding off purchases. During the two weeks leading up to Windows 7's launch, sales fell 29% and 2% compared to 2008. While computer sales have rebounded (and then some) from that stint, many people -- including Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer -- don't expect Windows 7 to have a long term impact on PC sales.

Oh so this is just a bubble? Really? Who's ever built their financial stability on a bubble and failed? Oh wait that would be the economy in the early 2000s.

Windows 7 makes large leap in market share

After it's initial release to the general public, Windows 7 is already making some inrows into the operating system market - someone Windows Vista could really never do against XP.

Windows 7's market share climbed almost 40% in the week following its release, according to research outfit Net Applications. During the week after October 22, market share of Microsoft's latest operating system jumped more than 39% from 1.91% to an average of 2.66%. That growth doesn’t appear to be slowing either, rising another 82% to a peak share of 3.48% on October 31. For the entire month, Windows 7 finished with a market share of 2.15%, a 41% increase over the 1.52% for September.

Overall, Windows' share fell by .23% globally to 92.52%, while Apple's Mac OS X consumed the majority of that loss, gaining .15% and finishing the month at 5.27% -- its highest share ever. Windows XP experienced a .92% loss during October, falling to 70.6%. Meanwhile, Vista rebounded from September, when its share dropped for the first time in over two years, ending the month with 18.77% -- still less than its August record of 18.8%.

Keep in mind that many people wont make the leap until the coming months, or maybe they're waiting to upgrade to a new machine for Christmas. Sometimes people will also wait for the new Microsoft OS to be out for a while so they can work out all the kinks. One thing is for sure though, all initial responses have been positive and it looks like Windows 7 won't have the same negative connotation as Vista.

Apparently Google owes a lot of money

Turkey is not happy with Google, saying that they owe $47 million in back taxes. Look for that country to be eradicated from the face of the planet by Googlebots.

TechCrunch reports Turkey is claiming Google owes them 71 million Turkish Lira or 47 million US dollars in back taxes.

In fact, the Turkish government is fining Google for the money. Google claims all the funds are through their Ireland branch and Google does not owe Turkey any taxes. Google technically has a company in Turkey named Google Reklamcılık ve Pazarlama Ltd. Şti. but the company is technically set up as a ‘liaison’ branch. If set up properly, TechCrunch reports Google would owe little to no taxes to the Turkish government.

I know what you're thinking... Turkey has taxes? Yeah they do, they have a government and everything. It's quite fancy. This also isn't the first time Google has been accused of evading taxes. Should be interesting to see how this thing pans out.

The Internet will eventually run out of spam sites promising $1250 a month by working at home

Just when you thought that the internet would never run out of space - we've got some serious web address issues. It seems that at our current rate, we will run out of internet address within the next two years. Does that mean we just have to start using geocities and blogspot domains?

A survey, conducted by the European Commission, found that few companies are prepared for the switch from the current naming protocol, IPv4, to the new regime, IPv6. Web experts have warned that we could run out of internet addresses within the next two years unless more companies migrate to the new platform.

The IPv4 and IPv6 protocols refer to the way in which web addresses are created and assigned. Each website has a unique IP address, represented by a string of numbers, such as 192.168.1.1, which are then given a user-friendly web address, such as telegraph.co.uk, to make them easier to remember.

Credit card details freely available on webThe IPv4 protocol uses 32-bit addresses, which enables the web to support around 4.3 billion unique addresses. By contrast, IPv6 uses 128-bit web addresses, creating billions of possible new web addresses – experts estimate it could assign a unique address for every blade of grass on the planet.

Ahhhhh! This is worst that Y2K. Everyone run for the hills.

Windows 7 upgrade causes widespread pain and suffering

Usually when you upgrade an operating system you would expect things to either work or just reboot and go to the old operating system if the upgrade failed. However, Windows 7 has a fantastic little feature where it actually just keeps rebooting if your upgrade is unsuccessful. And rebooting. And rebooting.

Users remained stymied today by endless reboots after trying to upgrade their PCs to Windows 7, according to messages posted on Microsoft's support forum.

An answer has yet to be found for all users, who began reporting the problem last Friday after watching the upgrade stall two-thirds of the way through the process. Most users said that their PCs had displayed an error that claimed the upgrade had been unsuccessful and that Vista would be restored. Instead, their PCs again booted to the Windows 7 setup process, failed, then restarted the vicious cycle.

Several Microsoft engineers, including the company's senior group manager for Windows supportability, have offered advice, but on Monday users continued to publish complaints on a growing forum thread.

"I think I've gotten to the point where trying to install Windows 7 is simply not worth it," said "Chimaera717" around 1 p.m. ET today. Chimaera717 was one of the first users to gripe about reboot hell. "I'm more content with actually having a working computer. Anyone know if we can get our money back?"

Obviously this isn't everybody but there is a growing number of people - something Microsoft is going to have to take a look at unless they want another repeat of the Windows Vista hellstorm of user discontent.