By John Giere
November 16, 2010

The smartphone market in the Asia-Pacific region is predicted to grow around 54 percent by 2015, according to industry analyst Frost & Sullivan. This rapid increase in smartphone sales is being driven by developed markets like Japan and South Korea moving from feature phones to smartphones. Operators in emerging markets like China, India and Indonesia are also seeing their consumers upgrade from 2G to 3G services available on popular smartphones.

This increased usage of mobile data and a growth in subscriber base has put Asian mobile network operators (MNOs) in an interesting position. It presents the MNOs with a greater revenue opportunity, however, to seize this opportunity, they must first solve the looming challenges of network capacity constraints and increased competition.

The MNOs have the most complete access to valuable information about the subscriber, from billing data to location data to subscribers’ usage patterns across service like voice, internet, email, etc. MNOs must leverage their position in the network to get actionable insights from unmatched access to raw data. The business intelligence that they glean from vigorous analysis of this data can help them generate new revenue streams and meet their day-to-day operational challenges.

A good data mediation solution is more than just analytics software. It can provide vital decision support to multiple business users within the organization and transforms the challenges of unprecedented mobile internet growth into opportunity.

The Business Challenge

According to Cisco, global mobile traffic is expected to increase from .09 Exabytes in 2009 to 3.6 Exabytes in 2014. MNOs have to make substantial investments in network infrastructure to support this traffic growth. Currently more and more subscribers are being enticed by external players – web, content and app providers coming “over the top,” using the operators’ networks to establish a closer relationship with the consumer. As their once reliable businesses of voice and SMS are being threatened, MNOs find themselves in the untenable position of supporting the increasing demand for data services while receiving less and less share of the revenue.

Until operators can turn the subscriber data into information and information into knowledge, they will struggle to be anything more than a bit pipe, and will continue to be the industry scapegoat when increasing demand impacts the quality of service.

Data Mediation Unlocks Value

Data Mediation is the process of developing and inserting context into the mobile network so that the applications and services that run on that network benefit from more intelligent optimization, policy control and targeting capabilities. It has the capability to integrate multiple sources of mobile data to build valuable subscriber insights that can unlock hidden value and drive profitable, data-driven business decisions for MNOs and the wider mobile ecosystem. Some of the features of a data mediation solution include:

• Data Integration: Acquiring data from browsing, network, subscriber and third-party data sources to provide a 360-degree view of the mobile network.
• Insights Derivation: Using several ‘Insights Engines’ to visualize and categorize browsing patterns and subscriber behavior to uncover subscriber segments.
• Integrated Service Mediation: Sharing specific insights with control points in the network such as video optimization, content adaptation, caching and policy management.
• Ecosystem Integration: Providing insights into on-deck and off-deck applications in real time in a secure and permissions-governed manner.

Data Mediation can address the issues faced by the MNO’s by providing strategic insights into operational management. To determine how best to manage network costs and increase network performance, MNOs must track data network usage and measure it relative to current and historical reports. Powerful models can help anticipate the effect of new services or popular sites, thereby preventing bottlenecks by serving analytics data to network decision points in real time.

Subscriber intelligence, that is, insights into customers’ content consumption and online purchasing patterns is key to any marketing effort. A clearer understanding of the subscribers will benefit MNOs’ own businesses through more relevant and well-timed offerings.

MNOs can also develop metrics and subscriber segmentation to meet the specific needs of external partners such as application developers, ad networks and media agencies.

Two crucial factors must be taken into account to optimize subscriber data:

1. A Comprehensive Mobile Data Solution

Most mobile network operators’ data assets remain locked within functional silos (either marketing or operational) often resulting in a fragmented view with multiple versions of the truth. A comprehensive data mediation solution must aggregate and assimilate data from multiple sources to deliver the most precise targeting capabilities.

For instance, web browsing data can help derive a subscriber’s segment while location data can provide real-time targeting possibilities. When both are seamlessly integrated, a twenty-something affluent female who has opted in for special offers could be targeted for a premium skin care product line as she approaches the product location.

2. Functional Capability

An integrated analytics solution provides data insights that can be collected within mobile networks through browsing data, CRM/SDM/Billing, location data and standard industry segmentation will contribute to the value of data mediation.

With an effective data mediation solution that supports reporting and dashboards, ad hoc analysis, categorization, heuristic, creative and predictive segmentation and service mediation integration, MNOs can garner the competitive advantage to make informed business decisions and create policies to control operations.

Marketing Applications for Data Mediation

MNOs have been collecting their subscribers’ online behavioral data for years but have lacked effective analytics and reporting tools. Data mediation can be used to help execute the following marketing tasks:

• Identifying new customer segments for the cross-selling/up-selling of products or services
• Knowing how, what and when to target a particular subscriber segment
• Intelligently categorizing subscribers based on the types of applications and content they are looking for
• Efficiently identifying which subscriber segments are willing to spend money on a particular application/content/subscriber
• Addressing anomalies such as subscribers who are using unusually high or low amounts of data and then creating tired pricing or incremental offers to monetize and/or provide incentives
• Tailoring premium service offerings to a subscriber/segments of subscriber to meet their needs
• Increasing MNOs’ marketing conversion with highly targeted, personalized and near-real-time offerings

Given such a competitive market, one of the primary ways to retain customers and increase revenue is to monitor the effectiveness of new products and adapt them in response to customer satisfaction levels. Using the 360-degree-view of the customer, MNOs can understand the subscriber and the effectiveness of services by asking:

• What are the subscriber’s interests?
• What is the subscriber’s demographic profile?
• Which products has the customer subscribed to and how are they being used?
• Is the subscriber on contract or pay-as-you-go?
• Which products does the subscriber use while at home or at work?

Once the subscriber is profiled (with care to keep the profile anonymous), data mediation can enable up-selling of new services and service bundling.

Operations Applications for Data Mediation

Data Mediation can also help operations managers optimize the performance of the network by providing detailed insights that drive effective decisions. Data mediation empowers MNOs with the capability to monitor various types of mobile data traffic, including mobile internet, messaging, video and social networking usage to better understand and respond to subscriber consumption patterns.

Data mediation allows the operations side of MNOs to make better decisions at a granular level. Clearer visibility into the network means more control of the network hence increases customer satisfaction, enhance brand value, and helps the MNO to become a preferred partner in the ecosystem.

Adding Value to the Mobile Ecosystem with Data Mediation

Data mediation can help MNOs increase ARPU, improve customer satisfaction and engage in powerful partnerships with advertisers, content publishers and web 2.0 companies to create new revenue streams through subscription-based or revenue-share models.

Value-added service resellers (VAS), mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), advertisers, media planners and third-party application developers are hungry for high-quality consumer data to improve their targeted campaigns and brand promotions. It is essential for advertisers to get specific information about the effectiveness of an MMS ad – whether the subscriber reads it, acts on it, forwards it or simply deletes it.

The main caveat here is that all the benefits of a good data mediation solution disappear without the trust of your subscriber base. MNOs must share subscriber information with care to build and protect their relationship with the subscriber by respecting and adhering to privacy laws and proactively maintain their own transparent privacy policy. Consumer targeting doesn’t preclude anonymity.

Conclusion

The word “crisis” in Chinese is written with two characters: one represents danger and the other represents opportunity. Many mobile operators across the globe would describe their current situation in those terms. The vast increase in mobile data usage poses business and operational challenges to the MNOs. It also provides a real opportunity: the MNOs’ unique position as the gatekeeper of the network means that if they can harness the mobile data consumption habits of their consumers, they can create a valuable 360-degree-view of their subscribers’ behavior. This view will help MNOs tailor their products, increase customer satisfaction, sell additional services and grow their revenue streams. It also creates new opportunities to partner with other developing parts of the mobile ecosystem to diversify their revenue stream.

By JR Raphael
December 18, 2009

Susan Boyle may not have won the top spot in “Britain’s Got Talent,” but the big-voiced Brit has just achieved a far more impressive feat: Her video has taken the title of most watched clip on YouTube in 2009.

YouTube released a list of its most popular videos of the year, taking into account aggregated views from all over the globe. And while Boyle’s inaugural television appearance was the most harmonious of the bunch, the other hot commodities were no less theatrical.

Here’s the full list of YouTube’s most watched videos of 2009.

5. Evian Roller Babies With more than 27 million views under its belt, this creative commercial for Evian water certainly grabbed the world’s attention. No word yet how many diaper changes were involved.

4. New Moon Movie Trailer Surprise, surprise: A lot of people watched the trailer for the Twilight saga’s New Moon movie. Thirty-one million, to be exact. Granted, even more people probably gazed at the assets in Christian Serratos’s revealing PETA ad — but that’s another story altogether.

3. JK Wedding Entrance Dance YouTube helped a small wedding make a big splash this year. Jill and Kevin, a couple from Minnesota, busted a move as they walked down the aisle — in fact, the entire wedding party got pretty jiggy, nuptially speaking. The wacky dancers went viral, attracting thirty-three million eyeballs over the course of ’09.

2. David After Dentist A drugged-up little dude soared high on the YouTube charts, pulling in 37 million views worldwide. David, a seven-year-old boy, spouted off all sorts of nonsense following a trip to the dentist. Do his amusing antics warrant the massive merchandise and public speaking business that’s sprung up since the video’s success? God no. But at least they kept that Fred guy from being in this year’s top five.

1. Susan Boyle – Britain’s Got Talent As promised, the saucy Miss Boyle belted her way into YouTube’s most-watched spot for 2009. The clip of Boyle’s first appearance on “Britain’s Got Talent” garnered a whopping 120 million views across the world. Who’s the master of the house now?

By JR Raphael
December 18, 2009

Photo: Courtesy of Flickr.com

11. Cantaloupe Hunting
“I thought cantelope was an animal!? i always thought that a cantaloupe was that animal that has the horns and they live in Arizona and stuff, but i was shopping for groceries yesterday and i saw they had cantaloupe meat on sale. so i was like yeah sure i’ll try it, but what i saw, wasn’t a cantaloupe. it was some white and green fruit thing! whats up with this?”

The store is guilty of mislabeling. The term it was looking for is “jackalope”–which is a cross between a jackfruit and a manilla envelope.


12. Hey, Babby
“How is babby formed????? how girl get pragnent?”

On the one hand, I kind of hope you never figure it out. On the other, maybe your parents don’t know either–and it obviously didn’t stop them.


13. An Academic Inquiry
“Why are there school? is a point to it?”

There are school so you can learn how is babby formed, silly.

Photo: Courtsey of pthread1981 via Flickr.com

14. Canine Law
“Is it illegal to name a dog after a movie?”

Only if that movie is Air Bud 2. As a practical matter, though, you might want to avoid calling out to your pooch on a crowded bus if you decide to name it “Bang Bang You’re Dead” or “I’m Going to Explode.”


15. Lost in Space
“What is the best place to ask questions online? i mean, or there any QA forums like on yahoo or anything?”

Hmm…a forum-like place to ask questions on Yahoo. Nope, haven’t heard of anything like that. But if you find something, be sure to let us know.

Photo: courtesy of trekkyandy via Flickr.com

16. Mathematical Matters
“Is there any possible way of making 2+2=5?”

The easiest way is to flip the positions of 4 and 5 on the number line. Another method is to use LSD (Least Sequential Denominators).


17. Sandwich Sensations
“Is it possible to feel like a sandwich?”

Sure. It’s called LSD (Lettuce, Succotash, and Dill-pickle). It feels, like, weird…


18. About Those Drugs…
“How do you ask a question on yahoo answers?”

Hey, don’t ask me. I’m still trying to find out if there’s a forum-like place to pose questions there. Anyone? Anyone?


19. Spelling 101
“How do you spell government?”

Most of the time.

Photo: Courtesy of daviddesign via Flickr.com

20. Turtle Trouble
“I was bitten by a turtle when i was a young lad, can i still drink orange juice?”

This is why old lads should be barred from Yahoo Answers. Seriously–where do they come up with this stuff?

By JR Raphael
December 18, 2009

God bless the Internet. Where else can you assume a fake identity, pose the most inane question imaginable–like “Why can’t I see my reflection in the mirror on a television?”–and then sit back and watch the answers pour in?

Crowd-source advice sites like Yahoo Answers have become a bit of a magnet for the maladjusted. Sure, there are plenty of average Joes just looking for ordinary information. But among the sites’ many mundane queries, there’s a sea of jaw-droppingly dumb discussions guaranteed to amaze and entertain.

I spent some time surfing through Yahoo Answers to find the worst of the worst, and boy did I find it. The spelling, grammar, and punctuation are all as found in the original queries–because why put lipstick on a dodo?

So let’s take a look at the vital questions of our time, as posed by some of the deepest thinkers out there, along with the best answers I could come up with…

Photo: Courtesy of hyku via Flickr.com

1. Backward Thinking
“I sold my only car to help pay for gas money, but now gas has come down in price. How do I get my car back?”

I tried to contact this guy, but it turns out that he also sold his computer to help pay for his Internet connection.


2. It’s Caps Lock–Capisce?
“HOW DO I TURN OFF CAPSLOCK? I ACCIDENTALLY TURNED IT ON YESTERDAY AND I DONT KNOW HOW TO TURN IT BACK OFF.”

Note to self: Register howtoturnoffcapslock.com; make millions.

Photo: Courtesy of garethjmsaunders via Flickr.com

3. Credit Crunch
“I wanted to see if my computer would read my credit card so i put it in the cd rom and it got stuck, how do i get it out?? I tryed toothpics but lost them in the process?? also the drive is making noises”

Oh, that’s normal. Your system is just waiting for you to pay the required $1 processing fee for scanning the card. Simply fold a greenback into a tiny square and insert it into any USB port.


4. Mousin’ Around
“My mouse stop working every time i lift it up from the table why is this? this is not just OS .i have linux and vista both same thing so its not drivers”

Yeah, no big deal there, either: Insert your credit card into the CD-ROM drive and tell your computer–slowly and distinctly–that you need the Air Mouse 3000 upgrade. You’ll be good in no time.


5. Technical Difficulties
“I’ve been asked to write an application in my own handwriting….? is there a computer programme that will do this for me? they also want original ideas. do you know any?”

This reminds me of a letter to the editor I once read years ago: “Are there any undiscovered islands left in the world?” The response: “Not that we know of.”


6. It’s All in the Details
“I have an assignment about computer.. What is unimportant details about computer?”

Wait a minute–does this assignment also require original ideas?

Photo: Courtesy of www.jwcaketops.com

7. Unknown Nuptials
“Am i married in any state? have i been divorced?”

I’ll take “questions asked after a night in Vegas” for $500, Alex.


8. A Sticky Subject
“Where can i buy a really big jar of peanut butter?”

If this is from the same guy who asked the previous question, I’m getting concerned.


9. Fruit Frets
“I have ate two whole tangerines in about two hours what will happen to me?”

That all depends on whether you swallowed any seeds. If you did, be very careful not to eat any dirt or drink any water for the next two weeks.


10. Fat Chance
“How do i become obese fast? I want to look good by the end of the year.”

You can start by eating two tangerines in two hours. Then run around in circles until you figure out what “obese” means.

When you buy an Apple device, you’re often locked in to buying other Apple products that are compatible with it. Here are five examples, and some advice on what to do. Oh, wait–there’s nothing you can do.

By Dan Tynan

November 4, 2009

Art by Luis Anthony Oliveros

Once you enter the Big Tent of Apple, it’s exceedingly hard to find the exit.

Over its 33-year history, Apple has consistently elected to limit consumer choice, creating a situation known as “lock in.” As soon as you start buying stuff from Apple, you’ll find it difficult to move to products made by someone else without losing everything you’ve already paid for.

Of course, many people don’t want to leave Apple’s tent. After all, it’s filled with iPhones and MacBooks and other cool stuff. And Apple is hardly the only business that tries to lock in customers–wireless carriers are probably the worst offenders. Nor is Apple the only vendor to use one product as leverage to push others onto consumers (let’s declare Microsoft the champion there).

But no other technology company exercises the same amount of control over what its customers can and can’t do with the things they bought. Part of this approach is due to Apple’s deep belief that a closed digital ecosystem with limited options benefits both Apple and its customers. Part of it is due to an all-consuming desire for control on the part of the ringmaster, otherwise known as Steve Jobs.

The bottom line: Apple makes great products, but its marketing practices limit your choices and cost you more money. Here are five classic examples of how the company has done it.

1. iPod and iTunes

When the iPod arrived in fall 2001, followed by the iTunes Music Store in spring 2003, few early adopters realized the commitment they were making by buying their media player and their media from the same source.

Due to Apple’s digital rights management setup, until April 2007 any music you bought from iTunes could play in only three places: on an iPod, within registered iTunes software on a limited number of computers, or on certain Motorola phones (that nobody bought).

If you wanted to move the songs you bought at a buck apiece to a cheaper player from a competing manufacturer, you had two options: an onerous process in which you burned your songs to a CD and then reripped them as MP3s, or quasilegal software that essentially did the same thing using your hard drive instead of a disc.

The last vestiges of DRM-protected music vanished from iTunes two years later. Apple offered to remove the DRM from the music that iPod owners had already bought, as well as to bump up the sound quality, for an additional 30 cents a track. (Gee, thanks, Apple.) Of course, movies and TV shows sold on iTunes are still copy-protected and cannot be legally converted to a DRM-free format.

Locking content to hardware cost consumers money–especially when first-, second-, and third-generation iPod batteries began failing. Consumers could either shell out the cash for a new iPod or pay Apple as much as $100 (plus shipping) to put a new battery in their existing device. In June 2005 Apple settled a class-action suit filed by iPod battery victims, offering a $50 voucher toward future Apple purchases (excluding downloads) and another year of warranty support.

Over the last three years, consumers have filed multiple antitrust suits against Apple alleging that the tight connection between the iPod and iTunes constitutes a monopoly; these have been consolidated in a federal class-action suit currently under way in Northern California [PDF].

Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber acknowledges Apple’s lock-in advantage with iTunes, but echoes what many Apple supporters often claim: The company’s hands are tied by content providers.

“When you buy a movie through your Apple TV, and the movie is in a DRM-protected format that will not work on home theater systems from other companies, it makes you less likely to switch,” he says. “But what choice does Apple have? They can sell DRM-protected movies, or they can sell no movies at all.”

Actually, Apple has at least two other choices. It could license its Fairplay DRM technology to other hardware manufacturers and allow multiple devices to play media purchased on iTunes, as Amazon does with its video-on-demand service. Or it could use its market power to push for one of the industry-wide DRM schemes proposed by Disney, Sony, and other parties. (Given the close ties between Steve Jobs and Disney, though, Apple might eventually endorse the digital rights scheme that the Mouse House favors.)

By Roman Loyola
November 3, 2009

People have strong opinions about computer mice-after all, a mouse (along with a keyboard) physically forms a personal connection between you and your Mac. Apple‘s new Magic Mouse has a creative new design that, upon first impression, you’ll either love or hate.

The Bluetooth Magic Mouse has no visible buttons. It is a two-button mouse, but there’s no visible separation between right and left. I’m right handed, and I use my middle finger for right click, and my index finger for left click, and in my five hours of use, I never accidentally clicked the wrong button.

The buttons actually click; when you press down, you can see and feel the button depress, and there’s an audible click that sounds authentic. You don’t have to take your finger off the mouse to double click. When I simply rested my hand on the mouse, however, I clicked it.

The Magic Mouse has only two buttons. There are no side buttons, like on the Mighty Mouse (now called the Apple Mouse), nor is there a scroll wheel or scroll ball button. In fact, the Exposé or Dashboard functions found in the Apple/Mighty Mouse are no longer in the Magic Mouse.

Perhaps the most innovative feature about the Magic Mouse is the Multi-Touch support, which effectively replaces a scroll wheel or scroll ball. To scroll a document up, down, left or right, you glide your finger on the mouse in the appropriate direction. Your fingers don’t even have to be at the top of the mouse; you can swipe the area just above the logo if you want, and the scrolling works.

The two-finger swiping, however, wasn’t so easy for me to perform. Two-finger swiping can be used in iPhoto, for example, to move between photos. I found it difficult to keep the Magic Mouse still as I swiped two fingers left or right.

The Magic Mouse has a plastic top, and aluminum bottom with two plastic rails. Moving the mouse on my desktop with and without a mouse pad wasn’t smooth at all-it was a grating sensation.

Below is a ten-second video of the Magic Mouse System Preference, which has built-in video tutorials on how to use Multi-Touch.

Following the Magic Mouse’s launch, Apple has also released software updates for Leopard and Snow Leopard to support its Multi-Touch features.

By Jared Newman
October 29, 2009

On October 29, 1969, the Internet came in not with a bang, but with a “lo.”

Letter by letter, UCLA computer science professor Leonard Kleinrock sent a message from his school’s host computer to another computer at Stanford Research Institute. Kleinrock was trying to write “login,” starting up a remote time-sharing system, but the system crashed after two letters, and lo! The Internet was born with the first data message sent between two networked computers.

Leonard Kleinrock. Photo from his own personal history page.

To be fair, the creation of the Internet was peppered with other milestones that could be considered more or less historic. After all, at the core of the Internet was packet-switching–the process of breaking down data into blocks and routing them individually–and in 1968 Donald Davies of the UK’s National Physical Laboratory gave the first public presentation of the idea.

But if we can all agree that communication–e-mail, chat, social networking–is what makes the Internet tick, Kleinrock’s first message was the most significant early step towards what we have today.

Today, 40 years later, life without the Internet seems unfathomable. In those rare occurrences where your Internet service provider has trouble, and you can’t connect, it’s as if the power is out in your entire house. Over 1 billion people are online, and last year, Google announced that it had detected over 1 trillion pages.

How did we get from Kleinrock’s anti-climactic, yet historic, “lo” to a society that lives and breathes on the ability to transmit data? Over the years, more computer terminals connected to the network, hosted by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and known as ARPAnet.

Vint Cerf. Photo courtesy of The Brisbane Times.

In the mid-70s, DARPA engineers Vint Cerf and Yogen Delal and Carl Sunshine developed Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, abbeviated as TCP/IP, a means for networks to “internetwork,” hence the name “Internet.” You could, of course, call the development of TCP/IP, or its uniform adoption by ARPAnet on January 1, 1983, birthdays of the Internet as well.

Over the years, the number of connected terminals bloomed, and new networks outside of ARPAnet popped up. All of this set the stage for the World Wide Web, proposed by Tim Berners Lee in 1989 as a collection of Internet documents viewable in a browser. Five years later, we had the first Web browser in Mosaic Netscape 0.9. Then came “Web 2.0,” a term for participatory sites like Digg, Facebook and Flickr that becomes more of a cliché as the way we communicate over the Internet advances further.

And to think it all started with a truncated bit of text. Even then, the Internet was a work in progress.

By Ian Paul
October 28, 2009

It’s been almost a week since Windows 7′s official launch, and a ton of information and opinion is out there surrounding Microsoft’s latest operating system. On the one hand, you have positive reports of Windows 7 helping extend battery life, installed on new PCs with less crapware, and offering a more intuitive interface. But users are also complaining about annoying issues like delayed driver support for peripheral hardware and upgrade bugs.

Here’s what people are loving and hating about Windows 7:

Longer Battery Life

Microsoft — and users — are talking about claims of improved battery life when using Windows 7. Joakim Lialias, Intel’s Microsoft alliance manager recently wrote a blog post discussing the chip company’s deep involvement in optimizing Windows 7 performance on laptops. Lialias claims that Intel and Microsoft were able to extend the battery life of an unspecified laptop by 1.4 hours.

PC World’s own Windows 7 performance tests, however, did not find such a dramatic increase in laptop battery life. Fifteen minutes was the best performance improvement we found. That may not be much of an improvement, but it might give you time to finish a movie before your laptop dies on you.

Crapware Begone!

One of the more annoying points about buying a new Windows PC is presence of annoying crippled programs called craplets or crapware, which are often preinstalled on a new computer. Crapware can include trial versions of software and special offers thrown onto your new system by computer manufacturers. While harmless, getting these applications off your new system becomes an annoying and unnecessary chore. Apple even made a “Get A Mac” commercial touting the Mac’s lack of crapware.

Microsoft has finally decided to take matters into its own hands when it comes to these annoying programs. Microsoft’s online and new retail stores sell a line of computers called “Signature PCs” that come crapware-free, according to Tech Flash. CNET is also reporting that Microsoft worked with manufacturers to get rid of any crapware apps that were slowing down the overall performance of Windows 7 computers. That doesn’t mean crapware is gone for good, but Microsoft may be trying to bring this annoying habit under control.

The new crapware policy may also be improving startup times on a system that PC World found to be a little bit faster than Vista.

Tastes Like Vista

XP users may have difficulty upgrading to Windows 7, but once everything is up and running many people are saying the transition to the new user interface isn’t that bad.

CNET’s Ina Fried’s personal experience illustrates this best when she took her 92-year-old Aunt Hilda to get a new computer. Aunt Hilda, according to Fried, has made the transition quite easily and the nonagenarian says the experience isn’t that different from XP. That was not the common experience of users upgrading from XP to Vista.

Dang Drivers

Compatibility was a big complaint when it came to Windows Vista. Not wanting to repeat that experience, Microsoft has made the process more stringent for approving third-party drivers for peripheral hardware like printers and scanners. That’s good news in the long run, but in the short term, some users are still waiting for Windows 7 drivers to run their existing equipment.

Endless Reboots

Starting last Friday, some Vista users trying to upgrade to Windows 7 found their computers stuck in an endless reboot cycle. Computerworld reports that as of Tuesday afternoon, Microsoft engineers still didn’t have a fix for the problem. However, some users are suggesting you might escape the endless cycle by booting your computer off your old Windows Vista install disk, and following the instructions posted by forum user “su airodump-ng -c” towards the bottom of this forum thread.

Upgrade Issues, MIA E-mail, Gamers

Rounding out the complaints are other well-documented upgrade problems like the Windows 7 Student Edition issue that has been resolved. A new complaint that has popped up is the fact that Windows 7 does not come with Windows Live Mailpreinstalled. Windows Live Mail was a replacement program rolled out in 2007 to replace Outlook Express in XP and Windows Mail in Vista. To get the program, you must download it directly from Microsoft’s Website. It’s admittedly a minor issue, but some people were unhappy enough to write about it.

Finally, there are the gamers who say they have been left out of the Windows 7 hoopla. PC World’s Matt Peckham and Darren Gladstone have both noted that Microsoft needs to pay more attention to the world of PC gaming under Windows 7, as it did with Windows Vista.

So that’s the first seven days in the life of Windows 7. How has your experience with the new OS been? Positive or negative?

By Jeff Bertolucci
October 15, 2009

Farewell, Vista. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Windows 7 has arrived, and soon Vista will be retired to the Microsoft Hall of Shame alongside such notorious stinkers Windows Me and Microsoft Bob.

Too harsh a judgment? Perhaps. To some Vista wasn’t so bad, but a loud and vocal group of Vista haters never let us forget the much maligned OS’s shortcomings. Still, there’s no denying that Vista has had more than its fair share of woes, and that Microsoft was wise to replace it less than three years after its debut.


Here are five things we won’t miss about Vista:

1. Too much nagging
Vista’s User Account Control(UAC), designed as a security feature to prevent security breaches, did its job a little too well. Its pop-up warnings, preceded by screen blackouts, appeared when users attempted even mundane tasks, such as setting the system clock. Newbies were scared; experts were annoyed. There were workarounds, of course, but most users didn’t bother. Windows 7 will be considerably less pesky.

2. Slow, slow, slow
Vista had some cool graphics and utilities, including the slick Aero interface and handy Sidebar applets, but all that excess code was a drag on performance, particularly if you were foolish enough to run Vista on a PC that met the minimum system requirements. Microsoft says Windows 7 is faster, but the verdict is still out. One developer claims Win 7 boots slower than Vista. The PC World Test Center reports that Win 7 is faster overall, but not by much.

3. You never liked my hardware
Users often grumbled about Vista’s lousy driver support, and industry analysts questioned the thoroughness of Microsoft’s driver-testing process. Will Windows 7 be any better? Some early testers have managed to get Win 7 running on decrepit, XP-era hardware, but not without the occasional driver glitch. Hopefully, Win 7′s trimmer code means it’ll run better than Vista on older PCs.

4. Blasé backup
Vista’s File Backup utility was too feeble. It wouldn’t let you backup specific files and folders, and it bypassed files it thought were part of the OS. Window’s 7 improved Backup Center correct these deficiencies, and also lets you backup to a network volume (but only in the Professional and Ultimate versions).

5.Too many garbage apps
Say, Vista users, when’s the last time you fired up Windows Movie Maker or Windows Mail? As every Windows user knows, apps bundled with the OS generally aren’t very good. As part of its slimmer, trimmer approach to Windows 7, Microsoft has left out these two lackluster utilities, as well as the equally forgettable Windows Photo Gallery. Still want them? Go to Windows Live Essentials. They’re free to download.

By Carolyn Duffy Marsan
Network World
October 9, 2009

Web Browser Milestones

The Web browser turns 15 on Oct. 13, 2009 – a key milestone in the history of the Internet. That’s when the first commercial Web browser – eventually called Netscape Navigator – was released as beta code. While researchers including World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and a team at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications created Unix browsers between 1991 and 1994, Netscape Navigator made this small piece of desktop software a household name. By allowing average users to view text and images posted on Web sites, Netscape Navigator helped launch the Internet era along with multiple browser wars, government-led lawsuits and many software innovations. Here are 15 highlights in the history of the Web browser.

October 13, 1994

First commercial browser released
Mosaic Communications Corp. – later renamed Netscape Communications Corp. – releases the beta version of its Web browser, called Mosaic Netscape 0.9. It was based on the Mosaic code developed by the NCSA, and Mosaic co-author Marc Andreessen was a co-founder of Netscape. The browser was later renamed Netscape Navigator. Version 1.0 was released on Dec. 15. Navigator was the first commercial Web browser to be wildly successful, rapidly achieving 90% market share before Microsoft entered the fray and took over the market. By 2000, Netscape’s market share would fall under 1%, Janco Associates says.

April 30, 1995

Web traffic dominates Internet
Six months after Netscape released its browser, Web traffic became the leading type of traffic on the Internet. For example, Web traffic accounted for 21% of the traffic on the National Science Foundation’s NSFNET backbone, while the No. 2 usage, File Transfer Protocol, traffic accounted for 14% of the traffic, according to livinginternet.com . This was a sign of the rapid adoption of Navigator, which saw 50 million copies distributed in its first two years, according to BusinessWeek.

August 24, 1995

Microsoft muscles into the browser market
Microsoft released Internet Explorer 1.0 in its Windows 95 Plus! Pack. Internet Explorer was built upon software licensed from Spyglass, an offshoot of NCSA that owned the technology behind the Mosaic browser. Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer into its operating system and provided it free of charge. Microsoft’s approach was smart; two years later Microsoft had replaced Netscape as the leading browser provider, with 49% of the market compared with 46% for Netscape, according to Janco Associates.