windows

Microsoft has been quietly readying several Service Packs for its operating systems. Windows Vista SP1 has undergone several public release candidates, but CNET Reviews' Rob Vamosi got his hands on a copy of the real deal, not due out until March. The verdict? You'll have to click through to find out.

CNET News.com's Ina Fried got word of private beta testing of Windows XP SP3--that's right, I said Service Pack 3. Although it's nearly six months away from being ready, Microsoft promises that SP3 will contain the usual security fixes, but no word on … Read more

Microsoft said Friday that it has issued a second near-final "release candidate" version of Windows XP Service Pack 3. The move follows the company having finished the first service pack for Windows Vista.

"Yesterday, we released Windows XP SP3 RC 2 to private beta testers," the software maker said in a statement. "This release catches the build up on previously released hotfixes and responds to critical feedback from previous betas."

The software maker repeated that it plans to finalize the XP update by the end of June, but added its customary hedging that its &… Read more

Oh sure, anyone can assign a photo face to a contact on their Windows Mobile phone. But how many can also resize images, associate tasks with a contact, and send text messages from their digital black book?

If you guessed "anyone using the application named above," give yourself a gold star. For about twenty bucks, PhotoContacts for WindowsMobile and Pocket PC rolls your contact list into a stylish wrapper with better people skills than your default address book. Could this application be for you? Check out pros and, yes, a few cons, in this First Look video before … Read more

Even though Linus Torvalds has always been known as a deity-like figure in the world of Linux, lately he has been quite outspoken about where he thinks his operating system is going and what its competitors are doing wrong.

Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, Torvalds had quite a few complaints to bring against both Mac OS X Leopard and Windows Vista.

"I don't think they're equally [updated to fix word] flawed - I think Leopard is a much better system," Torvalds said. But then he added: "OS X is in some ways actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary."

"I think [Mac] OS X is nicer than Windows in many ways," he continued. "But neither can hold a candle to my own [Linux]. It's a race for second."

And while you would expect this kind of propaganda from the operating system's founder, does he even speak to (or for) the Linux community anymore? If you ask me, he's just another wolf howling in the night hoping someone will agree.… Read more

When I'm doing file-management chores, I'm usually in too much of a hurry to navigate the various options on the File, Edit, and other standard toolbar menus. It's faster to simply right-click the file and choose an option from the context menu that pops up. Unfortunately, the option I need is usually not on the right-click menu. There's a great free utility that not only adds a bunch of useful file-management tasks to your context menus, but also makes it easy customize the menus by adding entries of your own devising, and removing the ones you … Read more

Ript is a new, free software application in beta development that lets you collect images and text from the Web, then compile and arrange them into pages you can print or share with friends and family. It's a simple freeware idea that makes sense...and it's from Oprah? Well, sort of. The publisher is the Oprah Winfrey-founded Oxygen Media, recently acquired by Universal.

Ript works via an overlay "Pile"--representing by a stack of documents--that sits on a layer on top of all your applications. You can work with your programs as you normally would, and … Read more

Today, T-Mobile released a software update for the T-Mobile Shadow smartphone that brings, among other things, a new function called "audio postcards." This feature allows you add a personal voice note to a photo taken with the Shadow, which you can then share with family and friends. Other software enhancements include a revamped myFaves menu, improved text entry, and additional ringtones and wallpaper options. The update is available now and can be downloaded for free from the T-Mobile Shadow Web site.

On Wednesday, Apple released QuickTime 7.4.1. The update is for users of Mac OS X v10.3.9, Mac OS X v10.4.7, Mac OS X v10.5 or later, and Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2. It addresses the vulnerability described in CVE-2008-0234.

By enticing a user to visit a maliciously crafted Web page, Apple says that an attacker may use an unpatched version of QuickTime to cause an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability is a heap buffer overflow that exists in QuickTime's handling of HTTP responses when RTSP tunneling is … Read more

Lockergnome highlights three major brands that can't seem to abandon the Windows fixation: World of Warcraft, Gametap, and Netflix. The first two I can (moderately) understand. But why should a user be forced to use Microsoft's ActiveX to get the most out a DVD rental service? Does it provide some secret value that having a wider swath of users wouldn't more than make up for?

Nope.

For those web developers who continue to fixate on IE, you could at least support Firefox and IE equally, and not on any particular operating system. The world is opening up. … Read more