Tag: microsoft

Microsoft and Yahoo Vs. Google

On By Michel McDonaldIn NewsLeave a comment

I saw on Fox News this morning that Microsoft and Yahoo are going to merge and Yahoo will start using Microsoft’s Bing search engine.  I don’t know why.  Anyway, they said that Google has been kicking Yahoo’s ass in the search engine department so MS and Yahoo are going to combine to kick Google’s ass.

Shep on Fox said that Bing seems to be a way better search engine but I don’t know about that.  I just did a Bing search for my name “Xanapus” and it didn’t seem that special to me.  It has a pop up on the right side of each item that shows you whats in there but who really cares about that?  It’s not a little mini image of the page, its text.  I don’t see how it’s better than Google personally.

Also, a few nights ago we went to visit friends of ours and when I went to look up the directions I opened Windows Live Mail (which I find easier than Outlook Express) and opened up the address book to copy the address to paste in Google maps but the address was a link so I clicked it and up came Bing Map.  After awhile trying to figure out just how I was supposed to get directions to that address I finally printed the directions with a map.  Well, those directions got us lost because they put us somewhere else.  They told us to turn left when we were supposed to go to another street 2 streets up on the right.  We ended up having to call to find out which street to go to and found out right and not left.

Google in my opinion is way better for search engines and for maps.  I’m probably not going to change.  There are some aspects of Google I don’t care for like Google Chrome browser because it doesn’t give me my Yahoo toolbar.  I’m kinda sorta looking forward to Google Chrome OS only because of the claim that it starts up faster than Windows but we will see if I can still use my Windows software since it will be Linux-based.  One service of Google’s that I do love is their free 1-800-GOOG-411.

Good luck Microsoft and Yahoo.

Poor Lonely Laptop

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

In 2004 I got a Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop.  It has served me very well over the years and this year it was time to renew my warranty but I didn’t have the money and because it’s fairly old I just decided that it wasn’t worth it to keep paying to renew it.  Instead I could just let it lapse and if something goes wrong with it then I guess I will have to start saving money to get a new one. In the meantime it’s been turned off and sitting on my desk with the lid closed for the last 6 months.

I think that it’s time to turn it on and start transferring all the documents, pictures, music, videos etc over to the desktop just in case it does crash.  Once that’s finished then I’m going to reformat it so it’s got a nice fresh Windows installation so it’s fast again.  Maybe if it’s fast then I might use it again.  That’s one of the reasons it’s been closed all this time because I turn it on and it takes about 20 minutes before I can even go to a website.  It’s so frustrating to have to wait that long.

One of the main uses for the laptop these days is for when we travel because I have the Microsoft Streets & Trips with USB GPS.  I would much rather have a TomTom or a Garmin GPS though because it’s too hot to have a laptop on my lap during a 6 hour trip lol.

This is going to take awhile lol.

By the way, when I say it’s on my lap for 6 hours I mean as the passenger lol.  I don’t drive…

Internet Explorer 8

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

I downloaded the new Internet Explorer 8 from Microsoft’s website and installed it last night before I went to bed and this morning I loaded it. I looked at it for a few minutes and it didn’t really look any different. Other than the fact that it created a whole new toolbar for the Paypal button on its own toolbar by itself but luckily it had an X next to the toolbar so I was able to close it.

I wasn’t too impressed because it looked just like the previous IE7. I closed the browser and all of a sudden without any warning I started getting this error message and I’d close it and another one came up. I closed that one and another and another over and over again. There must have been 100 all for the same 2 errors. It would warn me about 1 error and it told me the number (which I didn’t think to write down) then I closed it and it told me about another one with its own number (again…).

The only way to get that crap from continuing was I had to reboot the computer. Yeah, I think I’ll stick with Firefox, thanks though.

Author’s Guide To Sue Amazon

On By Michel McDonaldIn KindleLeave a comment

I’m obsessed with the Kindle 2.  I can’t stop googling it lol.

I found this article about how the authors guild is suing Amazon because of the text-to-speech feature on the Kindle 2.  Because they sell books plus they sell books on tape so by having a text-to-speech feature available, they are giving away the audio book version for free with the sale of e-books.  But that is so not true because nothing can compare to the emotion in the voice of a person reading a book on a tape or cd.  It’s totally not the same because text-to-speech sounds robotic.  There is no emotion.  We will see what happens.  I mean, what’s preventing people from using text-to-speech on their PC to listen to e-books?  They aren’t suing Microsoft.

Loading………….

On By Michel McDonaldIn ComputerLeave a comment

Since I’m not using my laptop anymore because I can’t afford to renew my warranty, I’m only going to use it for GPS when we go on trips and it’s really slow so I’m going to have to reformat it so when we do go on trips the GPS will load much quicker.  Although, I would love it if we could buy a $99 TomTom.

When I was using my laptop, I had it specifically for all the IM programs like MSN Messenger, Yahoo IM, AIM, ICQ, Skype and MySpace IM.  Plus I was using it for Microsoft Money 2004.  It came with the laptop.  But since I’m not longer using the laptop I had to install all of those programs onto my desktop and since I’m not playing EverQuest anymore then I have no reason not to have those run on the desktop.

The only drawback is that when I turn the computer on I have to wait forever for it to load.  The laptop typically took about 10-30 minutes to load.  Yeah, I know.  I’ve reformatted it but then as soon as I install all that crap back on there it takes forever again to load.

So why do I have all these IM programs installed?  Because some people absolutely will not use some IM programs.  Like for example, my cousin refuses to use anything but ICQ.  Well, he’s the only person that I know who uses ICQ.  I have friends who will not use anything but MSN Messenger.  Some friends will only use AOL or AIM.  So in order to accommodate all those people I must have 6 IM programs running at the same time.

Actually, to be honest I stopped using ICQ because my cousin never gets on it so why keep loading it?  All I get are spam IM’s so if he can’t get on another IM program then I’m not going to accommodate him.  I mean, he ain’t using ICQ so why should I have to load it right?