Microsoft Japan is seemed to be heavily promoting Windows Vista series of products in Japan. Two weeks ago, they launched Windows Vista Ultimate SP1, and now it’s the Windows Vista Home Premium upgrade edition. This upgrade edition will only offer 2,500 set, which will be included at no additional charge for existing Windows XP or Windows 2000 Professional to upgrade to Windows Vista Home Premium. It has a special Sakura CD box, for those who purchase this upgrade edition will also entitle to a one-year Windows Live OneCare and a special designed Windows Vista user manual.

Tomorrow, Microsoft will unveil its Japanese version of Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 to the Japanese market. This new product, with a special name called Σ(SIGMA) will made available on this Saturday in 秋叶原, i.e. Akihabara, Japan. Akihabara is known as one of the world’s largest market for electrical appliances, and also a symbol of Tokyo.

There will be a big event tomorrow in that area, starting from 1pm. To know more detail, you can go to this site.

Apple has released its Safari 3 for Mac and Windows platforms, a tactical move for them to sow the seeds of the browser war in the future. Coined as twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2, according to Apple’s press release. Currently, Safari 3 offered in three different versions, i.e. Safari plus QuickTime for Windows XP and Vista, or a solely Safari executable file and the Safari for Mac OS X version 10.4.9 or later, as listed in Apple’s Safari download page. But I’m not so sure whether this Safari 3 for Windows platform will be regards as a product that clamored by the Windows users?

However, the most interesting part is that Apple have to pacify some of the critics especially this newly release product may have easily been hit by bugs. Though Apple not officially comment on this issue, hot on the wheel of this potential problem come another one, Safari 3 does not support Chinese character in a proper manner. According to a Chinese blog (in Mandarin), in order to use Safari 3 to view the Chinese character, two (2) main prerequisites must be fulfilled: An user’s system must have pre-installed Microsoft JhengHei, one of the popular East Asian User Interface fonts; An user must also customize her browser’s character encoding to this Microsoft JhengHei as well.

I predict that there’s more to develop if Apple really want to earn a chunk of the market share among the Windows users.

If you’re using Oracle database and the operating system of your computer desktop is Windows Vista, a great news is Oracle has released its EE/SE (Enterprise/Standard Edition) for Windows Vista. You can download it by clicking here.

Does Windows Vista is that secure and that’s no way for the hackers invade into it? Just came across an interesting blog post by a security researcher Joanna Rutkowska, that talked about the new ways to invade Windows platform and Vista x64 particularly and this include rootkit techniques and ways to defeat BitLocker drive encryption. She said in her post:

we will also present some new kernel attacks against latest Vista x64 builds. These attacks, of course, work on the fly and do not require system reboot and are not afraid of the TPM/Bitlocker protection.

The presentation she took part with her colleague is a training session that called “Understanding Stealth Malware”, one of the sessions included in the Black Hat USA 2007 Briefings and Training event in Las Vegas, which runs from 28 July to 2 August.

BitLocker drive encryption represented the data security issues addressed by Microsoft in designing the latest operating system, i.e. Windows Vista. And this data protection feature is the biggest selling point for Microsoft in attracting the users to upgrade their Windows XP to Windows Vista Ultimate. However, it is not arguably that like any technology, BitLocker also has its own avenues of attack.

Every organization faced a simple yet staggering question: How to build a brand that is competitive in the market, hopefully people from all around the world aware of it when they first saw it. Perhaps a chain store of Indian coffee that based in Bangalore know the answer. They are now applying the idea of “Building Their Own Brand with A Strong Brand” in the market. You’ll find their Windows Vista WOWffee pictures from this article entitled, “Microsoft extends empire with Vista coffee brand” published by the INQUIRER. It reminds me of a name “Lindows” that Microsoft believed the Lindows mark has violated the name of Windows, a house-hold name trademark by Microsoft. Read the Microsoft v. Lindows.com, Inc. from Wikipedia.

Inevitably Microsoft has invested substantial sums of money in establishing the Windows brand and without question, they will protect their trademark one more time in India.

Apple has just released a newest update to its dual boot software, i.e. Bootcamp 1.2 beta that will supports Windows Vista operating system in addition to several major improvements. The concept of bootcamp is great in the way that it offered the flexibility and convenient use of Apple’s Mac to the users. However, for some Apple’s fans, they’ve been using Apple for many years, the compelling experiences that they had in Apple would not be easily overtake by Windows Vista despite the dual boot system is available nowadays.

Microsoft Singapore has released some of the best desktop background or wallpapers for their Windows Vista users. If you’re using Windows Vista as your PC’s main operating system, you can visit this page and you’ll find a gallery with the best pictures that derived from a recently organized Microsoft PhotoVista Competition in Singapore. All wallpapers are available free to the users. Moreover, Microsoft Singapore has also prepared some quality sidebar gadgets for the Vista users. Below is one of the quality wallpapers that found on the Microsoft Singapore’s home page.

Source: http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/d/0/0d0521f3-9121-4eb5-b931-88e46f5bb3af/Henry-2_A_800×600.jpg