Mary Jo

From Microsoft Watch: There’s some good news for Windows Live front. On the heels of a rough couple of weeks for Microsoft’s Windows Live Spaces blogging platform — and the Live Spaces team that’s been working round the clock to fix the myriad bugs introduced during the Live Spaces platform upgrade — Microsoft has rolled […]

Microsoft has released a first public beta of a new blog-authoring tool, Windows Live Writer, and made it available for download starting on August 13. According to J.J. Allaire, the architect of the tool, Windows Live Writer is the evolution of Onfolio Writer, a tool developed by his former company Onfolio Inc., which Microsoft acquired […]

We said it before and we’ll say it again. Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 users: Apply the critical Windows patches in the MS06-040 bulletin issued on August 8. Security experts say a worm attack exploiting the Server service flaw that is highlighted in that bulletin is “inevitable.” Security specialists […]

Microsoft seriously considered the idea of bundling Visual Studio Express with Windows Vista, according to a Microsoft official quoted on ArsTechnica. Microsoft is still considering including “a link in Vista’s Programs menu which would reach out to the MSDN site and download an Express edition of Visual Studio, presumably whichever one the user prefers,” ArsTechnica […]

Here’s what we know: PC makers and Microsoft have been working for months on coupons that they will issue to consumers this fall for Vista systems that will be ready some time next year (so far, January 2007). Microsoft and its PC partners have made no bones about the fact that some kind of Vista […]

Microsoft is working behind the scenes to enhance the support of .Net for dynamic programming languages. Microsoft is cutting its dynamic-language teeth with IronPython and using that knowledge to improve support for all kinds of dynamic languages. Speaking of dynamic languages, Microsoft is hosting the development of a PHP compiler for the .Net Framework – […]

Microsoft reportedly is talking to retailers about its fall launch plans for its Zune portable music/video players. The first Zune models, available in three colors, are expected to be priced at $299, according to TWICE (This Week in Consumer Electronics). The rumored Zune launch date is November 14. (Thanks to Steven Bink for the link.)

The Department of Homeland Security has spoken. Apply the patches in the MS06-040 security bulletin for Windows, which Microsoft released on August 8, the agency is warning users. Those patches could prevent a remote code execution vulnerability that could be used in a network worm attack similar to Blaster, Slammer of Sasser, DHS warned on […]

Microsoft has posted to its private beta site for download by select testers the Beta 1 bits for its Virtual Machine Manager, code-named “Carmine.” As Microsoft notes, “Virtual Machine Manager is designed to run on a server that is dedicated to the role of virtualization” and requires Windows Server 2003 R2 to operate.

More Microsoft Code Name Madness: Just when you thought Microsoft was moving away from code names – toward the ever-so-dull ‘V.Next’ nomenclature – a few new intriguing ones emerge to take our minds off the sweltering summer weather. The ‘Other’ Atlas: We’ve all heard about the Microsoft Ajax toolkit in the works that is code-named […]