Patch Tuesday normally has some updates here and there but Microsoft are planning to roll-out out 14 security updates this coming week. The list will address thirty-four vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, Office and Silverlight. Eight bulletins are rated as Critical while the other six have a listing as Important. Every version of Windows has at least one critical vulnerability that will be addressed in next week’s mega-patch.

“For those who keep track of such things, this will be the most bulletins we have ever released in a month; we have released 13 bulletins on a couple of occasions,” said Angela Gunn, Microsoft’s Security Response Communications Manager. “However, in total CVE count, this release ties with June 2010, so there’s no new record there.”

Gunn added that Adrian Stone and Jerry Bryant will speak during a public webcast on Wednesday, August 11, and will go into detail about all the bulletins and answer questions live on the air. Interested consumers can register for the webcast by heading here.

Out of the fourteen bulletins, twelve are for the Windows platform. Two are slated for Office, and Internet Explorer and Silverlight will each receive one update. “This is big, not only because of the numbers, but also because they’ll affect everybody,” said Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of security risk and compliance provider Qualys.

The oldest software affected by Patch Tuesday will be Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2. Other versions of Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows 2000 are no longer supported.

XBOX360 vs. PS3

I shall attack this one first as I own neither and can only go on what I have heard. I asked a guy at work which is better and without any hesitation he said Xbox 360. He went on to say that he is now on his 5th XBOX360 due to them having the Red Ring of Death or just plain breaking – why would someone having been through 5 of these things sit there and tell me I should buy an XBOX? There was a few reasons I could think of why he went with XBOX rather then PS3:

• He had spent a chunk of money on the console already
• He had built up a collection of games (they cost a lot of money)
• Live service already paid for – so he could play on-line.
• He was blinded into think the XBOX360 was the better system.

iPhone vs. Android

I am afraid I do not own an iPhone, I have seen them, played around with them and know a lot of people who own them but the simple answer here is that once you lock yourself into a 18 / 24 month deal, no matter how good the ‘other’ phone is – you are going to sing the praises of what you have. I find it very funny that people will ignore and not talk about the things they cannot do and suddenly one day they update the software and fix the thing that did not work and they treat it like the second coming – very odd indeed.

I like comparing devices on what you can do and the question is “Can the other device do something outstanding compared to it’s rival” – normally the answer is no. The Android can:

• Play Music (easier to put music on too)
• Call People
• Save a lot of contact information (Pictures, address, emails, various phone numbers and much much more)
• Display Maps
• Be Used as a SatNav
• Browse the Web
• Cope with office emails
• Download Apps
• Has Multi Touch

The list goes on and on – sounds like an iPhone right? If I had bought an iPhone, I would sit here and tell you it was the best thing since sliced bread but I saved my money and went for Android – was I wrong, was I been cheap or was I been sensible and not blinded by “must be iPhone” brigade?

Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux

I have owned them all, I have used them all and what makes any computer more then just a fancy door stop is software. I can take this Dell with it’s Intel Core i7, 9 GIG Ram and so forth and make it run OSX with ease. But it is not about just running the software right? What about the bragging rights to saying “I Own a Mac Pro”. I want to be honest here, ANY Operating system of late can do most of the basic tasks out there such as writing a letter, checking email, browsing the web. they can also edit videos, make music and plan projects. What about the argument of “It Just works” – a valid one right? What if My Machines running Windows 7 “Just work” ??

Bottom line

When people go on and on about Apple and sing it praises no matter how much is not there, missing and so forth – then I tend to switch off. If I state I do not need or have no need for an iPad then no matter how much they shove the facts into my face, I am not going to buy one – it’s that simple. They can tell me the iPhone can print money, as long as I’m locked into a contract with my Android – then I live and work with that.

If you splash $$$$$$ on a PS3 and buy 20 games – you are not going to sit there and say it is crap, same goes for Apple good and whatever else. I always see this type of thing as “Preaching to the converted” – Can we have an AMEN !!

After speaking to various people and the various hardware i have bought in the past plus stuff I already own, my question is “Can Microsoft actually make good hardware”? There is a very good reason for asking this very question and we go on to discuss future Microsoft hardware, should you trust this Software giant to make hardware that works on there very own operating system?

Keyboard’s and Mice

I bought the BIG (as in size) Microsoft Laser 6000 desktop set which I am assuming is called V1, it has a USB Device which sits on your desk showing you the Caps Lock etc and then we have the keyboard and mouse itself and to say it is big is an understatement.

Were do the problems lie?

It stands to reason that as it has media keys, you would expect it to control the chosen program of choice, be it WMP, iTunes or even WinAmp. Now I use iTunes myself and pressing the Media button does bring this up to a degree but move away from the application and press the back/forward buttons and NOTHING happens – you have to highlight the program! I assumed iTunes was the issue, so I tried the same trick with WMP and the same happened, so basically to change track you have to be in the Application itself – which defeats the objective.

Webcam’s

In my time I have bought (and took back) a whole range of webcams made by Microsoft and I need to say that unless you have studio lighting then expect the camera to pixelate so badly that you may be forgiven in thinking this thing is a 2MP webcam and the image you are looking at is 640×480. Basically when Light is low, a webcam can do one of two things, it can try and bring in as much light as possible which in turn lowers the FPS or in the case of Microsoft, keep the FPS but lower the quality. In the case of Low FPS, you can alter the settings of the camera to balance between light and FPS.

The above picture was taken in a normal lit room at 640×480, it looks green and grainy – so you want an comparison with maybe another 2MP webcam? sure thing:

Same room, Same light but this is from a Logitech 9000 Pro. Maybe you may say though that it’s just the NX-6000? Well I have tried the VX-6000 (Desktop Model), 5000, 1000 and various others and I can put my hand on my heart and say that every single Microsoft Webcam in non-perfect lighting will be as bad as the top picture.

Further testing

What happens when you want to point the Webcam out of the window in daylight for example or a night with just a few street lamps to light up the scene? Once again the Microsoft models will show you a pure white light (as if the sun had fallen and landed in your back yard) or pure blackness.

What annoys me the most is go to any store, pick up a box from ANY webcam and most will have this amazing write up and equally amazing picture showing you how it looks, which happens to be some photograph shot with a 10MP camera I think in perfect studio lighting.

You want more?

I bought this Microsoft Sidewinder Dual Strike joystick a long time back, the concept looked cool and who would have thought I might have trouble running this thing on a Microsoft operating system – even future versions such as Vista and Windows 7? Microsoft gave up on this almost straight away and although the OS might pick up the basic buttons – the advanced software that it used to come with no longer works – way to go Microsoft.

Conclusion

As a software company, I am more then happy with what they bring out but the hardware leaves a lot to be desired. I do not care if they bring out a 20MP webcam – I refuse to buy anything Microsoft ever again, I am defiantly a Logitech Fan now for hardware.

New Machine – Pre Installed OS

Having just took receipt of a brand new Dell XPS 435MT which features a Core i7 2.66Ghz CPU, 3 GIG DDR3 Ram (I’m getting more later) and a X58 Motherboard – we power it up and then set about updating it from hence it came to make sure it was right up to date.

The first thing that I noticed was the LONG Boot time, it sat there as if waiting for something and around this we had a Laptop of much less power going from power off to desktop and ready to rock and STILL the desktop was loading. Was I missing something here? was the new Quad Core 2.66 Core i7 not fast enough, was the DDR3 Ram holding out on me or had Dell stuffed so much crap on there it was a 486 in disguise?

Installed Sofware

Dell has included Vista Premium 64Bit along with Norton Security, Microsoft Works 9 and Roxio DVD writing software. I first removed all signs of Norton (horrible thing) and then got rid of half the Dell crap and finally – set about updating it.

Around and Around

I was rebuilding my other machine with Windows 7, this been a Core 2 Duo and I had finished not only putting on the OS but a good handful of applications by the time the Vista machine had grabbed the first round of updates and rebooted – which took forever I may add. I finally got Service Pack 2 and all the Applications I think I might need on there and did a very quick compare – which was basically switch both machines on at the same time, this been the Core 2 Duo with Win 7 64bit and the new Dell with a Core i7 and Vita 64Bit. The C2D Machine was not only on and loaded but I was working on it and STILL the Vista machine was loading the desktop – how crazy is that?

Time to rebuild.

I had enough of this Vista thing and wiped the machine this morning – I installed Windows 7 64Bit RTM version, installed all the Application I need and what a difference. From switch off to fully working desktop, very fast indeed – now it started to feel like I had actually upgraded the processor. My advice is that if you are indeed still running Vista on your machine and you have the ability to get hold of Windows 7 – I suggest backing up your data and formatting that machine + Install Windows 7, you will not regret it.

Microsoft VX-6000 Webcam – a 1.3MegaPixel, Wide Angle desktop webcam which seems to be very cheap from its RRP and looks like a bargain. The numbers and stats on the side of the box look amazing, its made by a named brand (Microsoft) and claims to work well in low-light – what can possible go wrong?

Low Light and webcams

It seems that while both the human race and proper camcorders can see perfectly well in a normal lit room which is lit with a lightbuld (60Watt) – webcams on the other hand struggle so badly with this low light situation that they either do one of two things it seems:

• Lower the Frames per second to 5 as it has to increase power to get more light in.
• Keep the Frames per second high but make the image very grainy.

Microsoft Webcams seems to favour the 2nd one on that list, in a well lit office, outside or shot during the day with a lot of daylight coming into the room and the image is in fact great but the second it starts even to get remotely dark, the quality goes out of the window and there is nothing you can do short of buying spot lights to make your room brighter then the sun.

With low light and low FPS – you can sort this out by turning off the auto expose (which is then dark image) and changing the numbers until it is both semi-fluid and semi-light. With a grainy image, there is nothing you can do except get better lighting.

Price

I feel this is the most important factor in buying any device and how this purchase came along was I seen the Webcam in one store on “Sale” from the RRP of £79 ($129) to a new low of £49 ($80). I then spotted in while doing food shopping in Tesco on offer for £29 ($47) but still never crossed my mind to buy it. Finally while looking in a store which deals more in Magazines (WH Smiths) I seen it for £19 ($31) and I felt this was a bargain considering the original price of the thing.

Look & Feel

As you can see from the picture it can be used as Free-Standing or the base folds out to allow you to clip it to a TFT, I tried it on most of my collection of various shapes and sized and it sat there quite happily. It can be moved up and down as well as rotate around o get the correct picture. The base feels like rubber in fact and it is quite light but not too light so that it will fall over.

Features

As claimed, it has a 1.3MP Lens and I noticed the front can be turned which is in fact the focus ring, now I would have thought it would do this itself – this is both a blessing and a curse at the same time. A Blessing because it means you can focus the webcam on the distance you want and it will not change but a curse as it means you have to fiddle to get the right focus of the picture and of course moving the lens means you are putting your hand over it thus making it that much harder to focus.

Picture Quality

I have tested this first when I got back from the store, it was raining so slightly dark outside and the quality of the picture was grainy. Later that night with the Blinds closed and the light on – it was even worse I would say unless I pointed it so the light souce was under me. I tested this through the day and the picture as expected was much better though I had to say still some grainy looks to the picture, it only got 100% when I pointed it outside in the daylight.

Is it worth the money?

The question here is – am I happy with the end product even though I paid £19 for the thing? The answer is actually no, I have seen many cheaper webcams produce a much better picture (even if it means low FPS). This is now the 2nd Microsoft Webcam I own and the 2nd one that does very grainy pictures – my advice is to steer clear of anything made by Microsoft then if this is the best they can do. I will probably be doing some more testing and if no better by Monday then it is going back, I would rather have that money in my back pocket then a grainy webcam I would probably not use.

Microsoft have been busy working on a replacement for there OneCare as in “All in One” AntiVirus + Spyware application which will be Free once it comes out.  A couple of days ago they allowed 75,000 copies into the wild for people to test it out, with versions for XP, Vista/Win7 32bit & 64Bit.

The question is – does it stop Spyware, Does it catch Virus and has it got a low memory / CPU front print and finally, can it detect things quickly or does it take forever to scan your machine.  I watched Scott from Compute Ability test it out via an infected machine – this machine having AntiVirus2009 which is a nasty piece of Malware that overtakes your machine:

The end result of that show as it failed to even spot it was infected. I tested this myself and my findings were as follows:

It took forever to Scan my machine – this remember was a fresh build of Windows with not much installed.  It found Zero (as expected) problems and then I scanned my external Drive which it managed to pick up 4 Virus / Malware in files I had stored (that Avast Seem to miss). The Scan took Many hours – I lost track after 3 hours to be honest. I tested it against a Home page changing code and it let it happen (failed) and finally I was wondering what was eating my CPU up – 50% was been used by the program – so defiantly a CPU hog.

I tried to remove it – it got to the end and said it had failed, half the files were mssing, the service was still running – what a sorry state of affairs. I had to re-install it, kill the service / process and then Uninstall the program – glad to see the back of it.

So Microsoft – you have failed in making a product that actually works, this is not better then the complete useless Windows Defender. The program is out there on Torrents if you want to test this for Microsoft but there is better (and Free) Program out there – such as SuperAntiSpyware for example.

I was recently messing with the various webcam’s that I own which include the Creative Optia Pro to the Microsoft NX6000 and including a cheap one from ALDI. I was confused why I was only pushing out 6FPS – was there a problem with the computer? The Operating system? Was the bandwidth an issue or was it just plain madness?

The testing continued

I tried the camera across a few different computers and the on Skype / Google Video chat, the first thing that came out was that Skype coped fine but again this was running on the mac and this has no drivers as such. I randomly tried at a different time and across various OS such as Vista, Windows XP and even rebuilt a machine from scratch but nothing shifted those numbers.

The Tech Buzz held the answer

Steve & Shawn from the tech buzz suggested that Auto Expose was dragging down my FPS – so I switched this off and changed the numbers from -2 to -5 which was more in the middle of the slider and almost immediately my FPS went to the full numbers (25 / 30 depending on what I had set). The problem now of course was that the scene was pretty dark due to the fact all I had in my room was a 60W Saver Bulb as follows:

Lighting is the key to a good picture

This solved another problem in fact, the Microsoft NX-6000 pictured above is claimed to be a 2 megapixel webcam but the image quality was very grainy indeed and this turned out to be the fact of lighting once again. If I used this thing during the day with a lot of light in the room – the picture quality was almost perfect but at night, the worst thing you can imagine (but at least it was more FPS).

I am not sure what is worse – a good but very slow picture or a bad but fast picture? Most webcam’s even cheap nasty one’s will produce a good enough picture if your pushing 320×240 but it soon shows the difference when you start to push 640×480 and try to pull of 30FPS – this is were the cheap webcam’s will fall by the way side for sure and it is worth checking the tech spec’s before you part with your money and don’t forget – good lighting is a must no matter what.

I see this as a make or break time for MS in terms of Operating systems – they still make lots of money anyhow on Servers and people buying machines with Windows pre-installed but were they make there real money is not from consumers but from the 1000′s of licences companies buy for each desktop OS. Even when they do bring out Windows 7 – many companies will want to wait for Service pack one.

DOS T-Shirt

Microsoft is going from marketing computer programs to making clothes, with a new line of graphic tees dubbed “Softwear by Microsoft.”

“Softwear,” instead of software. Get it?

t’s no surprise that Crispin Porter & Bogusky — the agency Microsoft is relying on to make it cool — had a hand in the line of urban geek shirts expected to hit select stores on Dec. 15. Crispin conceived of the collection, the branding and many of the designs, as well as all the marketing materials, an agency representative said.

I was looking for a proper Laptop Webcam, something High reselution, small and designed from the start for a Laptop. I by chance came across Microsoft Mobility Pack and this is as follows:

High Definition 2.0 Megapixel Video(LifeCam) with built in Microphone and has a fitting for attachment to a Laptop. The Reseltuion is 1600×1200 which is not bad – of course for video work (Ustream etc) they do not support this high a resolution. The mouse is a Laser mouse and the USB Dongle fits into the mouse itself which takes one battery.

The Price for this was £34 – which I personally think is very good, the original price quoted was £49 and I have seen them on-line for £60+ – I am happy to pay that much, the specs are good (2mp, laser Mouse etc) and the price is good. I will be using the mouse on my Acer One as it goes. I will make a montage for you later – to show the various Camera’s.