In the USA Dell have now launched their XPS One, their all in one product (the computer is part of the monitor display).

In the UK this would be a direct competitor to the all in one design of Apples iMac range.

The XPS One is currently not available in the UK, which seems like a missed trick, with Christmas coming etc.

The XPS One reviews all seem generally positive (see below).

The last time Dell tried to update the form factor (Dell XPS M2010) things didn’t go so smoothly.

Above Dell XPS M2010.

That model was plagued with Bluetooth keyboard problems.

Anyway the XPS One is much nicer design although a little 80’s for my taste (think black hi-fi).

Find below some links, video’s and other things all about the XPS One.

Links

Product Page Link (US): XPS One 

Product Announcement Link: The direct2dell blog post about the XPS One.

Dell’s Video Post about the XPS One (7m:34s)

Review Link1: PC Mag also see (Video Version of Review)

Review Link2: Surprise! Dell releases XPS One today

Other Links: Engadget XPS One, Dell XPS One Support Link (Currently Blank)

If you own an XPS One and would like to submit your own review then please do so mailto:colindiponio@gmail.com or use the comments.

Don’t let the sales numbers fool you, the numbers look good because Windows Vista ships on all new  consumer PC’s that sell in the likes of PC World etc. Business and Enterprise users are a different kettle of fish.

Lets go back in time.

Microsoft released Windows Vista to manufacturing on November 8th 2006.

Jim Allchin (the Microsoft Exec in charge of Windows Vista) said at the time:-

The team had signed off on the final code at around 10 a.m. PST on Nov. 8, Allchin said, adding that “this is an incredible, happy day; it’s exciting for us. Vista is rock solid and we are ready to ship. This is a significant milestone for Microsoft and our partners.”

Source(click for article)

Two recent studies show Windows Vista is not as solid as Jim would have us believe.

Study 1)

According to a survey of nearly 600 European and US companies that have more than 1,000 employees, 84 percent of all their PCs now run Windows XP, up from 67 percent the year before.

Gray also echoed other analysts who last week said Vista plans had been significantly scaled back by most companies. “That’s absolutely the case. In May 2006, 40 percent of the companies we surveyed said they planned on deploying Vista within the first year of its public life,” Gray said. “Forty percent were planning on deploying, but by the end of 2007, only 7 percent will have started. Enterprises are absolutely pulling back from their very, very aggressive deployment plans.”

A year after Microsoft released Vista to duplicators, 38 percent of companies claimed they had no plans at this stage to deploy the operating system. Another 14 percent said they just didn’t know.

Source(click for article)

Study 2)

Ninety percent of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than half said they have no plans to deploy Vista.

“The concerns about Vista specified by participants were overwhelmingly related to stability.

Source(click for article)

As a Windows Vista user I can see what all the concern is about. Having something swishier but less stable and slower isn’t a good sell.

On the positive side the Windows Vista Security model seems to have survived its first year without getting too embarrassed.

The fact of the matter is I have experienced many glitches/bugs during my 11 months of use. However I haven’t lost any data but those glitches are annoying and my Clients don’t like to be annoyed by technology.

Hence my decision to date of giving my clients the best information I have at the time, nearly all stick with Windows XP.

Moving forward I am waiting for Windows Vista SP1 (Feb2008) and I will do a clean rebuild and live with it for a few months before deciding if I care to annoy, sorry deploy to my clients.

The news in the playground about SP1 is:-  “more stable but the performance is the same”. That means new users are going to need fast PC’s with 2gig of Ram etc, yet another hard sell.

For my clients this just creates confusion, uncertainty and doubt about future deployments, so the smart move for them is to “wait and see”. The knock on effect is slower deployment of all technology. This of course benefits no one.

I was a bit under whelmed by the announcement but now having seen it I am really impressed.

Now things are going to get interesting in the mobile space.

The iPhone is a walled garden you are locked into this, locked into that.

Windows Mobile is a more open platform allowing 3rd party developers to create applications but as I previously said they need to innovate and quickly.

Android is an open platform with some heavyweight support. Frustrated hardware manufactures are sick of Microsoft’s stranglehold of their hardware, in some respects holding them back.

Thanks to http://www.coolsmartphone.com for the link. Check out their site for peer reviews of Windows Mobile Phones.

Yesterday Alistair Darling announced that two CD’s containing the details of 25m people on the child benefit database had gone missing in October 2007.

The reason this is headline news is that based on the basic information contained on the CD’s:-

Name, Address, Date of Birth, National Insurance Number, Children’s names, their Date of Birth, Bank details like sort code and account number etc.

A semi-skilled social engineer could probably work out about 25% of the passwords used for things like banking.

Currently no one knows the location of the missing CD’s

So what should you do

1) Review any “passwords” you use based on your child’s name or date of birth.

2) Check your bank account statements regularly.

3) Beware of any communication asking for additional information about any “accounts” you may have.

Tip: There will be a wave of email and web scams on the back of this, example: “After the recent data loss we now need you to confirm x and y with us.

DO NOT GIVE OUT ANY INFORMATION TO ANYONE, PARTICULARLY ONLINE or BY EMAIL.

4) Watch your junk mail for signs on new activity like a flood of offers etc.

Here is a better fleshed out Q and A on this topic.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7103828.stm

Here are some links about this story:-

http://news.google.co.uk/nwshp?oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wn&ncl=1123877007

If you are confused about what identity theft is go here:-

http://www.identitytheft.org.uk/protect-yourself.htm

Stay Safe.

After some recent Vista updates I could no longer access my shared printer on a peer Windows XP machine by the computers ip address.

So in this case I have a computer managing a printer with the ip address of 192.168.100.115 which has a computer name of gx280-06.

I have always been able to access the printer by the computers ip address using Windows Vista up until a few days ago. After the mid November updates I just get the error 0×0000709.

Tip: If you get the above error try accessing the shared resources by UNC path in my case \\gx280-06. Click on Computer and in address line type \\ followed by the name of the computer managing the printer.

I am not sure if this is intentional or a new bug, but UNC paths work so try that.