Microsoft has already begun hinting towards the release of Windows 7, the next version of Windows as the successor of Windows Vista, to potentially already be released in 2009! This obviously gets everyone excited, but does Microsoft really want to recreate the same hysteria about their next operating system while Windows Vista is still trying to take root?

I understand that Microsoft needs to generate interest in the OS a great deal in advance to prepare its millions of reselling partners, but by creating this excitement they are going to slow Windows Vista sales even more! Windows Vista has already had a poor adoption rate, especially in the enterprise environment, hinting towards another release already in 2009 will likely further encourage them to skip Vista entirely. Do they really want to make Vista the successor to Windows Millennium Edition (ME)?

Up until now Microsoft has maintained a policy of silence concerning their plans for Windows 7 to avoid being unable to deliver on previously promised features, as happened with the release of Windows Vista. However some details are now beginning to come forth:

• MinWin – A slimmed-down kernel called MinWin that uses 100 files and 25MB, compared to Vista’s 5,000 files and 4GB core and is so small it lacks a graphical subsystem.
• 32-Bit / 64-Bit Editions – Operating system will come in consumer and business versions and in 32-bit and 64-bit editions. (Wasn’t Windows Vista originally hypothesized to only be released in 64-bit? Are we ever going to be able to break away from 32-bit?)
• Data Protection and Encryption – Further extension of Bitlocker and EFS to potentially have data encrypted all the time, everywhere.
• Windows 7 Wireless Platform – An extensible media framework that will allow for seamless roaming between various wireless technologies (WiFi, WWAN, WIMAX, etc.)
• Windows 7 Parent Control Features: “Family Safety” services are being developed for both Windows Live and Windows 7 Parent Control.
• Get a longer and more detailed list at UX Evangelist

To help encourage anxiety for the new operating system Microsoft on Thursday declined to extend a lifeline for Windows XP, saying that only a limited number of specialized machines will be sold with the operating system after June.

Sources:

http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9911470-56.html?tag=bl

http://www.news.com/Next-version-of-Windows-Call-it-7/2100-1016_3-6197943.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,144152/article.html#

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7

http://uxevangelist.blogspot.com/2007/11/windows-7-and-windows-8-wealth-of.html

So a word of warning come next year…don’t believe any news on April 1st, even if it is on the Official Google Blog.

So really, did anyone else fall for this? Help me feel better!

If you ever dreamed of being a pioneer here is your chance. The adventure begins in 2014. Destination: Mar’s Lunae planum area of the north side of Kasei Valles. Need some more convincing? Check out their 100 year plan:

• 2010: Choosing a Site
• 2014: Low Earth Orbit
• 2015: Virgle Base 1
• 2016: Flying to Mars
• 2108: Virgle City

Private space exploration has picked-up a lot of momentum in recent years with hopes of creating a space tourism industry, but this seems to be a little over ambitious. Probably more of a publicity stun than anything, but it will be interesting to see reactions to this news.

Before I sign-up I need to see if the post office will forward my mail.

In reviewing the list of finalists I can categorize most of the sites into one of the following: Calendaring apps, Task/Project Management, Finance Software, Office apps and Database or List Management. I currently see webware offering the most value in the first three categories (Calendaring, Task Management, Finance Management). Office applications definitely have a future on the web, but we are still in the early stages of their development. These webware tools are still lacking in features and have not bridged the offline dilemma, as a result they do not yet offer a true substitute to their software counterparts.

I have chosen one site from each of the 3 categories where I see the most value:

• Google Calendar – The web is the right place for your calendar and there are several sites offering great calendars. My vote goes for Google Calendar not only for its list of features and smooth interface, but also because I like to have one reference point for as much of my web activity as possible. I was disappointed in the lack of any obvious advantages to the other calendaring apps.
• Mint – I get excited when I find well built webware that can replace the traditional software that I have to load on each computer I use. Mint, a free personal finance software, is a perfect example of this. Extremely easy to use, rich with features and has a beautiful interface. Finally a hope to free myself from Quicken.
• I Want Sandy – This was a new site for me, but considering the site I would have picked for this category, tracks.tra.in, wasn’t a finalist I thought this was an innovative site with a lot of potential. I like the real life metaphor that this site applies of having a personal assistant to help you track tasks, reminders, appointments and to keep organized.

Reviewing the list of finalists is a great introduction to what is happening with webware. A couple sites that I was disappointed to not see as a finalist are:

• Plaxo – Great synchronization tool for all your online and offline sources
• tracks.tra.in – Task management site based on the GTD methodology
• Tripit.com – Helpful trip management site that builds all your travel plans into a single itinerary

What are your Webware 100 picks and what sites do you think are missing?

Continuing my previous list of attention grabbers here at CeBIT, here is more of what caught my attention:

GPS with Lane Guidance

This will come in handy next time I am traveling around Paris. During my last trip I mistakenly stayed in the wrong lane causing me to lose a couple hours of travel.

Multiple Screens using USB

When working at my desk I love having multiple monitors, a great productivity enhancer that I previous wrote about. Unless your using a laptop, you may run into difficulties trying to do this on many desktop computers as often they don’t have either dual VGA monitor outputs or a DVI output. Fortunately ASUS saves the day with their VW223B USB connectible monitor! You can plug up to six of these monitors into your PC and run them at full resolution, and the VW223B even includes a few USB plugs to help with the daisy-chain.

Ultra Mobile PCs and Ultra Portable PCs

I was surprised to see the number of new models of UMPCs and also Ultra Portable Laptops. Despite their slow adoption, PC manufacturer’s must believe that their will be a strong market for these portable devices.

Super Small Bluetooth Headsets

When it comes to headsets, apparently small is better.

Mobile Device & Communications

This section of the fair is clearly positioned on GPS; I found it everywhere and in everything. There doesn’t seem to be one manufacturer without their own GPS device, most of which seem to be exactly the same. I was disappointed to not find much innovation with GPS, some improvements in the maps (better 3D images with real-life road signs), but nothing really attention grabbing.

Mobile phones continue along the same path as previous years with improved integrated digital cameras (5 mega pixels seems to be the new standard), similar designs (as expected many iPhone look-a-likes) and of course integrated GPS.

Computers / Notebooks

Common focus here seems to be on gaming, overclocking, cooling systems, and rugged computing. There are some amazing systems mostly decked out with quad core processors and eye catching graphic cards, exceeding needs of the most die hard gamers.

I found a large variety of CPU cooling systems such as this hydro cooling solution. The use of advanced cooling systems are popular for the trend to enable PC over clocking.

Many notebook computers are proudly presenting turbo buttons. The use of which claim up to 20% more computing power.

Rugged computing is grabbing the attention of others besides just Panasonic. The fair offered a wide range of durable notebooks as tested and illustrated in this booth.

Extras

The fair has added some nice other extras this year to help grab the attention of the visitors and to promote certain technologies.

More to come in the next days…

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Related Resources
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1Y0-259 and 70-536 are the basic exams required to pass 70-642, which is mandatory for 642-642.

While I still have some doubt about some companies motives driving their “green initiatives”, as I discussed in a previous post, this is definitely a positive trend with some potentially very positive outcomes. I will be excited to see what innovative solutions are showcased and will try to report back on anything of particular interest. To start-off see Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, discuss energy efficiency that has been built into Windows Server 2008.

To confirm this growing trend of focus on environmental issues within IT you can look to see where venture capitalists are focusing their attention. As summarized by Paul Allen, at the Venture Capital in the Rockies event there were 20 startups invited to present business plans to 200-300 venture capitalists
from 8 states in the US. Interesting to see that from the 20 invited startups, 30% of them had business plans focused on environmental issues. Its refreshing to see new innovative ideas being developed and launched towards this initiative.

Google announced the introduction of Google Sites as part of Google Apps. This is a nice addition to the free suite of Google Apps services. Here is a brief introduction to Google Sites:

It’s an online application that makes creating a team web site as easy as editing a document. You can quickly gather a variety of information in one place — including videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and gadgets — and easily share it for viewing or editing with a small group, their entire organization, or the world.

Google Sites is very similar to an application that Microsoft began offering in its Office XP suite, SharePoint Team Services. An excellent tool for creating team websites and also company intranets. Microsoft offered two flavors of their SharePoint services, the SharePoint Portal and SharePoint Team Services. The Portal version aimed at large enterprises was a full document management system, much beyond the scope of Team Services. Since its original release the two versions have merged into the one current system, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Team websites are useful tools for different types of groups. They offer a portal website to share information and to collaborate on projects. The primary value of Microsoft’s SharePoint services has been its integration with their Office applications (Word, Excel and PowerPoint). For this reason it was initially released as a part of the Premium version of Office and now includes Office in its name. Microsoft has continued to extend the accessibility to SharePoint documents from directly within Office and better facilitating this in Windows Vista and Windows Mobile 6.

Google Sites helps round-off Google’s suite of office applications. It offers easy integration of Google Docs, Spreadsheets and Presentation files, together with your Picasa images and Google or YouTube videos. Its a nice offering for the price, FREE, but as with their other office applications they are very simple and limited versions to their rival equivalent from Microsoft.

I was very disappointed in the available themes and page layouts from Google Sites . The sample sites that Google gave look like they were designs taken from a 1998 website competition. Making them look at least more visually appealing, using modern Web 2.0 designs, could have made the service come across as a modern and fresh idea.

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Related Resources
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The preparation kits of 70-431 and 350-030 ideally include 220-602 as well to make it easier for 70-640 students.

I have been wonder when or if a phone would be released that would allow you to insert multiple active SIMs. Up until now I have seen phone add-ons that allow you to insert multiple SIMs, but to change the active SIM you have to turn off the phone each time.

Surely there has been pressure from mobile providers against this type of phone as the mobile provider would like you to be locked into using them exclusively. Any type of technology that helps facilitate anything to the contrary surely is not welcomed.

It will be interesting to see the options available through the phone’s firmware, but potential possibilities are exciting. To name a few:

• Manual mobile provider selection for outbound calls
• Even better .. automatic mobile provider selection based on call rate to the destination number!
• Receive phone calls at either number, busy signal notification for non-active SIM during a conversation on the active SIM.
• Conference call functionality to join phone calls from both SIMs

I expect this to be very successful and that other mobile manufactures will soon be releasing similar options.

BBC Nominations:

• Playstation 3 (next generation gaming, Blu-ray DVD, wi-fi and home media technology)
• InFocus IN76 Play Big HD projector (High Definition projector)
• Nintendo Wii (Wiimote)
• Parallels (Virtual machine for Mac that lets you run Windows and other operating systems)

Lifehacker Nominations:

• Parallels (nominated above)
• Google Reader (maybe worth a new look since there revamp of the site in September)
• Windows Vista (poor choice)
• Google Calendar
• Hamachi (Free VPN)
• Campfire
• OpenDNS (Free Domain Resolution)
• Foxmarks (Bookmarks synchronizer for Firefox, free)

Not a bad year for technology. What were your picks for the Best of 2006?