Nokia-Microsoft Tie Up.

Surely you've already digested the fact that Microsoft is now basically married to Nokia, and they have already planned a new line of products under their belt to recapture the smartphone market.  With Symbian OS burried, and the birth of Windows 7 phones under Nokia's well known phone, I remain skeptical that this new 'marriage' will work at all, especially since I personally consider Nokia not one of the top mobile brands anymore.

Anyway, what makes me wonder is why most people hate the bits of Microsoft.  In this 'marriage', the main displeasure is about Microsoft, and not Nokia... but what's wrong with Microsoft?

Is this a case of human jealousy? You tell me...

Window 7 past 25% market share barrier

The news from Microsoft is that Windows 7 has not past the 25% market share barrier with Windows XP ownership slowly declining in its presence worldwide.  The stats come from Statscounter.com

and it is widely believed that Windows 7 will soon rapidly replace Microsoft's Windows XP as the most influential Microsoft OS.

Windows 7, which has been touted as a worthy opponent to Apple's Mac seems to be gaining momentum of late, but most skeptics believe that the Mac still has an added advantage over the Windows, particularly in terms of branding and speed.  To help dent Apple's dominance in the mobile world, Microsoft recently released Windows Phone 7 which can be easily integrated with the Windows 7, something similar with Apple's iPhone and Mac.

No matter how it foes, time will tell who will be the winner.

Is your password strong?

Passwords are vital nowadays. Every private application or account online needs a password.

The main question is: "How secure is your password?"

Acording to Microsoft, "A strong password should appear to be a random string of characters to an attacker. It should be 14 characters or longer, (eight characters or longer at a minimum). It should include a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols."

This basically means that a good password would be difficult for even yourself to remember, hence making it dificult for others to copy. Microsoft also provides a free online application known as 'Password Checker' to check wether your password is strong or not. It can be found here.

While it is good to have a strong password, it is also advisable to change your pasword once a while .

Firefox Hits 1 Bil Downloads

The second fastest web browsing software , Mozilla Firefox has announced that they hit the 1 billion downloads note. In a report by PC World, it is reported that the figures do not account for the billions of Firefox users already using the software world wide.

Mozilla Firefox has long been one of the most preffered web browsers after its introduction to internet users in 2004. However, Google's new Chrome is catching up with the user usage rate, and it has already beaten Firefox in terms of speed, taking over Firefox's crown ever since Chrome was introduced to the market.

The Internet Explorer(IE) by Microsoft on the other hand has found itself sidelined by many heavy internet users due to it's slow loading time, despite it's reputation of being more user friendly on many web pages.

No More IE in Windows

Microsoft has finally agreed that future Windows operating system can do without Internet Explorer for the time being. In a news report published by AFP, Microsoft was quoted as saying that users will be able to install other competing web browsers without much problem, and at the same time opt to un-install Microsoft's Internet Explorer from their Windows operating system.

This move is seen as a win-win situation by Microsoft, as they try to fend off the European Union litigation anti-trust battle with them.

Although it is unsure how the un-bundling of IE in future Windows would impact Microsoft, it is good to know that the consumers on the other hand would have more control over what web browser they would prefer to use on their systems.

Nonetheless, despite Microsoft's claim the IE would still be a preferred browser by many, most tech-savvy internet users seem to be turning to Google's light weight Chrome and Mozilla Firefox as good options to replace IE's heavy and slow loading.

Bing Replaces Yahoo!

In a much shocking news, Yahoo Inc finally decided that their search engine would be 'sold' to Microsoft whom has unveiled Bing as an alternative search engine to users a few weeks ago.

It what seems to be a move to quash Google's dominance in the search engine market, Microsoft's Bing search engine will power the Yahoo website and Yahoo will in turn become the advertising sales team for Microsoft's online offering.

With that fact in mind, reports online suggest that Yahoo would concentrate on their multimedia content and fantasy leagues which are considered un-rivaled in the internet.

According to analyst, as Google remains as the top search engine at the moment, Bing would have a lot of catching up to do to even pinch Bing.

A quick look at Bing reveals that it has a light, yet interesting interface for interaction, but search results for any certain search or maybe called 'bing' came back rather disappointing. Indeed, it is certainly what one would expect from a new search engine, but with Microsoft's large capital, they might eventually match Google in terms of search result, although it is largely doubtful whether Google will ever give in from being the number one search engine world wide.