Microsoft allow OEMs and retail outlets to sell PCs with Windows XP as customers continue to balk on upgrading to Windows Vista.
Microsoft had high expectations for customer adoption of Vista, and claimed the launch would be one of the most successful in Windows history. Unfortunately for the company, those predictions so far haven’t panned out, and in July, Microsoft lowered its projections for customer adoption of Vista. The company had said the split between XP and Vista sales in its fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, would be 15 percent to 85 percent; now the company is saying the split will be 22 percent XP and 78 percent Vista.
According to some, that may even be optimistic. Paul Ghysels, a custom system builder who owns the Neighborhood Computer Store in Moraga, California, said that Microsoft has “really blown Vista.” He said he’s not surprised Microsoft extended the availability of XP for OEMs. “I figured Microsoft would have to come up with something because Vista is so unprepared for the market right now,” Ghysels said.
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Yesterday, a nasty little bug was identified in Excel 2007. Try multiplying 850 * 77.1 and Excel returns 100,000. Well the answer should be 65,535! Any calculator should get this right, so why not Excel.
AppScout had the following explanation:
It all boils down to the fact that you can’t represent an infinite group of non-integer numbers using a finite number of bits. In fact, Excel can store “only” about 9 quintillion distinct values. The numbers going into your calculations may be infinitesimally different from the number displayed, and for two calculations that nominally have the same answer the result may be infinitesimally different. Excel generally manages just fine in dealing with these tiny differences, but in exactly 12 instances out of the 9 quintillion possibilities it goes completely bonkers.
Wolfram research has an interesting blog entry explaining the potential causes for arithmetic errors and he discusses the impacts.
These days reliability is an increasingly important component of numerical computation. Machines have become so fast that people are doing huge numbers of numerical computations all the time. And now what’s critical is to get them right all the time–because if there’s a fringe case that’s wrong, it’s now going to be noticed.
Enjoy and double check those Excel sheets!
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This is a picture of the 1,300 unopened rebate forms a Mercury News reporter found in a dumpster near Vastech, a rebate processor for Fry’s Electronics.
When confronted, the company’s owner blamed it on a lazy employee who no longer works for Vastech and offered to process and sign checks for all of the envelopes in front of the reporter.
Stories like this make Matt’s “as organized as a Swiss train system” rebate tracking methodology seem less and less insane.
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A new class action lawsuit accuses the cable and satellite industries of acting illegally by only selling channels in bundles in order to milk customers. If Congress won’t do it, this lawsuit might.
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…that 1999 quote from Bill Gates about Jobs: “He has to know that he can never win.â€
I don’t think Steve knows that at all.
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A day after slashing the price of the iPhone, Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs today promised $100 store credits to iPhone owners who had paid full price and issued a rare apology for “disappointing” some of his most ardent supporters.
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“A team of scientists engaged in military research recently came to the conclusion that when it comes to reading web pages,most readers read in “F” shaped pattern taking into consideration the eye movements of 232 readers …”
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Essential software to make your Mac more awesome. Not having some of these tools is like having half a Mac. Others are just plain fun. You have a very cool computer… enjoy!
This is the best list of software I have come across.
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