I N T H I S I S S U E
Welcome to PCMag.com's newest newsletter, Your Weekend Update with Dan & Kyle
This week, Dan is joined by Vicki's right-hand man, Associate Editor Kyle Monson. Here are our thoughts on the hottest stories that hit PCMag.com this week.
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Windows XP SP3: Hands-On Preview
We check out the new Windows XP service pack, which has been released to production and will be available to users next week.
Kyle: Michael Muchmore's story/slideshow about the XP SP3 rollout and installation was far and away the most-viewed story on our site this week. To my mind, this just goes to show how committed XP users—even tech-savvy, PCMag-reading XP users—are to their operating system. Or, more accurately, how committed they are to not upgrading to Vista.
Dan: Thing is, most people still use XP and they are interested in knowing what these updates include. Most of this is just new security patches. I really wish they would make some interface improvements, but I guess that is what they tried to do with Vista. We'll ask Dvorak how that worked out (see below).
What are we talking about? Read all about it here!
Vista's 11 Pillars of Failure
From poor marketing to missing components, here are my reasons why Vista will forever fail.
Dan: Only John Dvorak would build a house with 11 pillars. See, I am the kind of commentator that would give five reasons and leave it at that. But it might be good that he didn't, because the key one here is No. 9: “XP Mania” (see above). Indeed, no one knew just how much they loved XP until they tried to move to Vista. I think he brings up a good point about there being a ton of satisfied Vista users out there. At this point, it might even be a silent majority. Don’t you think?
Kyle: Yeah, I've never had a problem with it. It doesn't get me excited the way the Leopard release did a few months ago, but I'm running both on a dual-boot machine and Vista is the more stable of the two. Like John said, I think a lot of Vista's problems come down to marketing—marketing to the buying public and marketing to third-party suppliers and developers.
What are we talking about? Read all about it here!
529 Computer Tips
Our vast list of tips starts with the fundamentals of computing and then moves on to multimedia, mobility, business, and online solutions for maximizing your digital life.
Kyle: Putting this list together was a huge amount of work, involving pretty much the entire editorial staff. But the results are incredible: 529 tips for everyone from beginners to power users—even sysadmins and webadmins will get something out of it. Dan, any favorites on this list?
Dan: Sure, the one I wrote. ;) Let me just say I am SO glad I was just a contributor to this story and not the editor. I know your team had to do the production on this and it must have been pretty ugly, but the effort was worth it. For example, I never knew you could resurrect accidentally closed tabs in Firefox. I do that EVERY day.
What are we talking about? Read all about it here!
Defend Your Virtual Life
The E.U. has stricter laws regarding the collection and distribution of personal information, and they work better than ours. We need them, too.
Dan: OK, so I am cheating a bit putting my own column in here, but I have to do it. In the course of my career, I have attacked the Bush administration, the CIA, and, of course, Microsoft for various reasons, but not until I wrote this about the information brokerage industry did I feel genuinely scared. And as soon as it posted online, I started getting calls from the companies quibbling with details. Have you every used these types of services? Because like it or not, they are using you.
Kyle: I haven't, but I learned a lot from your column. If, as you say, the EU has more effective private-info protections in place, that just makes Americans bigger targets for identity thieves, right? BTW, when you get home tonight, be sure to keep the blinds closed. And have the shower running when you talk in case your place is bugged.
What are we talking about? Read all about it here!
The Next Browser War
A brand-new crop of browser betas gives us a glimpse of what Web surfing will be like when IE, Firefox, and Opera release new versions later this year.
Kyle: It seems like the big three are finally getting the message that both developers and users want browsers to comply with Web standards. As in, we expect pages and Web apps to look and function the same across all four major browsers. That may be a pipe dream, but Ed Mendelson's story seems to suggest that the most recent beta browsers are moving in that direction. Dan, have you tried any of them yet?
Dan: I have used the beta of Firefox and like it a lot. I know it is still for developers, but it is stable enough to take for a spin. The browser industry seems to be plateauing a bit, because these browser betas for the most part incorporate a lot of little changes rather than really big ones. Still, the way I browse, a few little changes can save a lot of time over the course of the day. Just having auto-completion in the address bar saves time.
What are we talking about? Read all about it here!
Other Top Stories
OS Wars: The Battle for Your Desktop
Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1
12 Tech Tools to Clear Your Clutter
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