To some people, the definition is very narrow. They define it as an updated version of utility computing: basically virtual servers available over the Internet. To many others, Cloud Computing is a term used for virtually anything you’re doing on the Internet… or “in the Cloud”. To my way of thinking, the definition falls with the latter. To me, anytime you see an entire “program” within a web browser, you’re computing in the Cloud.

Nowadays, you can do virtually anything right from within your browser of choice. There are applications online for everything you can think of… from doing your taxes, to helping you write the next great novel, to even editing your pictures or creating a new ringtone for your phone. How much easier can life be when you no longer have to buy a piece of software, install it on your computer, hope it’s compatible with your machine and other software… you get what I’m saying, right?

Cloud Computing isn’t just a fancy fad term. It’s not something that’s going to go away. Already, we are seeing entire operating systems being created in the Cloud. We have AntiVirus programs already there. As we continue to move forward and new ground is broken, we’ll likely find ourselves buying less physical pieces of software, and doing more of our work (and fun!) right in our browser.

What are your thoughts regarding Cloud Computing? Where do you think we’re headed with it all? I’m interested in hearing your comments, thoughts and feedback.

Think back to the last time you took your poor failing (or failed) computer to your nearest G.O.D. (Geek On Duty…I just made that up and I hope it sticks). What was the first question that came out of his/her mouth? Was it “Do you have a recent backup”?  I bet you a coke that your answer was “uh…no…should I?”. And the answer is YES you should. Most computer users consider their data to be critical to their existence. Their music, family pictures, that doctoral thesis you’ve been working on for every waking moment of the last year of your life. But the Internet is filled with horror stories of ill-timed power outages, cats with an uncanny ability to find the delete key on the keyboard, and other similar tales of catastrophe. If this information is so critical to your digital life then why aren’t you taking the steps to make sure that when (that’s right, when, not if) your beloved computer decides to take a vacation (or a permanent trip to the beyond) it can be restored without tears or massive expense?

There are countless backup methods available. Some free, some not so much. Some manual and (many more now than before) completely automated. These methods range from simple self written batch files with a well placed xcopy command to massive applications that sync data to multiple locations across the planet and ensure that there are no duplicate files. Whatever method you use to back up your data, the most important thing is that it’s backed up. So what are you waiting for? Get your data safe!

GFI software was founded in 1992 and has been offering various network and content security products to small/medium sized businesses ever since (one of their most well known products is GFI Languard, which is great). Their newest product is GFI Backup 2009 – Home Edition. With Backup 2009 – Home Edition GFI has attempted to make home backup as easy as turning on your computer. Let’s see how they did with that lofty goal.

What it does

GFI Backup 2009 – Home Edition does exactly what it says, it backs things up. Well, there are a lot of programs that do that, but GFI has made the process pretty easy and relatively fool proof. Most backup solutions (especially the free ones) allow you to back up files, and some allow you to backup “system state” data (which is basic information about your Windows environment and certain user settings). GFI’s solution allows you to back up files/folders, but it also allows you to select from a set of predefined file filters (or create your own) to just back up certain types of files no matter where they are (such as video or music files), it also allows you to back up part or all of your registry, Email and Email client settings from many of the most popular Email clients, and User settings for Windows as well as a multitude of common (and some not so common) applications. It also allows you to back up to various destinations such as, a local folder or external hard drive, network locations, removable media (floppy drives, USB memory stick, memory cards, etc..), CD/DVD or even via FTP for off site storage (which is really great if you happen to have a catastrophe such as flooding or other natural disaster). You can choose to compress the backups into a zip file, multiple zip files or even into a self extracting archive (as long as the data you’re backing up is less than 4 GB). You can choose to encrypt the backups using Zip file passwords or even AES encryption. GFI also gives you the option to do incremental backups (which backs up only files that have changed), differential backups (which will back up changed files but also delete files from an existing backup if they were deleted in the source), and “stacked backups” which will make multiple versions of the backups with version numbers. Another great feature is the ability to set the backup jobs to run on a schedule, or even every time windows starts up or shuts down. There’s even a Sync option that allows you to make sure that two separate locations are synchronized so that they both contain the same versions of the same files.

Conclusion

There a multitude of programs that do the same basic operations that GFI Backup 2009 – Home Edition -  Home edition does. I have been a user of 2BrightSparks SyncBack (freeware version) for quite some time now and it’s very effective, however the user interface is very complex and can be extremely confusing. GFI have taken the concept of simple file backup and added complex features while maintaining an extremely understandable user interface. There are just enough options to allow you to make a fully customizable backup structure without overloading you with confusing choices and options. Plus the price is right! Free software that does everything you need it to do is hard to come by but GFI delivers. I suggest you download the product today and start keeping your data safe, you never know when disaster will strike.

GFI is offering this product free as part of their “We Care” initiative which offers some of their other products free of charge or at a reasonable discount. In today’s economic times, it’s great to see a company trying to lighten the financial load a little.

Symantec’s history over the last few years seems to match the second definition. The huge security company, which just a few years ago has been the biggest and doubtless the most influencing security software developer around, witnessed a steep downfall in sales. The security giant, whose products were once installed in almost every new computer, was taunted by the Revolution of the Internet. Faster download speeds made it easier to find alternatives – some of which were free; so did online reviews and comparisons, which were available to everyone: not only in geeky computer magazines.

Symantec’s products were simply too bloated and buggy, and even as alternatives began to gain popularity, Symantec didn’t make a proper change. Ironically, it was Norton 360, an all-in-one suite targeted at home users, that made a 180 degree change with low performance requirements, a redesigned and intuitive interface and a huge leap forward in general. Now, the latest generation of Symantec’s 2009 security suites is held to a higher standard, as the company makes yet bolder promises. So we’ve tried out Norton Internet Security 2009, and here’s what we have to say.

Installing

Norton Internet Security 2009 (or NIS2009) was off to a rough start. First was the psychological factor: I didn’t want to like it. I had bad experience with previous Norton products and security suites. Second, the installation file is a whooping 58.6 megabyte in size; that’s almost double the size of Kaspersky’s Internet Security suite, NIS’s main competitor, and for years, the better choice of the two.

Once the download was completed, however, I was impressed by the speed of the installation, which only took about 2 minutes in total, not even requiring a restart in the end. No complex settings or daunting wizards to go through, either: NIS2009 launched itself flawlessly and was ready for action in just a couple of seconds.

Features & Interface

So what will you get for your money? Besides the traditional components, such as an anti-virus with active protection and an anti-spyware along with a firewall, NIS2009 offers an anti-phishing component (which blocks access to suspicious or dangerous websites), identity & log-in cards (allowing you to preset identities and sensitive information to enter in websites), parental control (which you need to install separately) and home network monitoring (allowing you to see the status of other computers in the network, as well as their security status – if they’re using NIS2009 too, and also determining if your wireless connection is secure and encrypted).

Opening the main window of NIS2009 reveals 3 different parts controlling different areas of protection: Computer (anti-virus and anti-spyware protection), Internet (firewall, intrusion prevention, e-mail scanning and network security) and Identity (identity cards, anti-phishing). Each of these areas takes a different part of the screen, allowing the user to disable or enable their main features with a single click, as well as access a more complex array of settings, shown in a separate screen. There are also two performance bars total system CPU usage vs. Norton’s CPU usage, and a button to launch LiveUpdate. You’ll also find quick help texts near every control on the main screen. All in all a simple and clean layout to which I got accustomed quickly.

If you’re a more advanced user or a control freak, NIS2009 will satisfy your needs. You can control  virtually every feature; the complex settings are organized in categories, and you can access yet more complex settings through the submenus. A bit confusing, but users that choose to dig into these settings will probably know their way around, though I found that basic information like a filepath of an infection, require way too much digging around sub-sub menus. Same for firewall – which is set on ’silent’ by default (meaning you won’t get notifications prompting you to block or allow programs to connect to the internet). And while NIS2009 does a good job in filtering these, I would like to see the firewall settings laid out in a more basic way and with less digging around menus.

Touching on control freaks, they will definitely like the performance meter familiar from previous versions of Norton Internet Security. This performance meter shows total CPU consumption vs. percent consumed by NIS2009. We’ll touch on the subject of performance later on, but you can also get very comprehensive graphs and reports on background jobs done by NIS2009 when the PC is idle.

One of the most important innovations in NIS2009 is Norton Insight, a technology allowing you to cut scanning times by mapping known “good” files, either from an online database or from a user input. It works by clicking the Norton Insight button in the main window, and allowing Norton Insight to scan known directories for ‘good’ files. You can also specify specific files that you want to check against the online database. As you can see from the screenshot, on my PC Norton Insight found only 19% ‘trusted files’, but that means many files and a significant reduction in scanning time. The great thing about this feature is that it’s community based. NIS2009 collects data from users (with permission) and tests to see if the same files appear in many different computers. If so, the file is assumed safe by Norton Insight, thus reducing scan times. So, with time this feature can only improve.

NIS2009 also includes the LiveUpdate feature built-in the product, unlike previous versions which had a clumsy and separate application performing updates. LiveUpdate here works flawlessly, and downloads definitions every several minutes. Thankfully, NIS2009 doesn’t disturb you to inform you of this, but more about this later on.

Like most security suites today, NIS2009 includes predefined log-in cards which you can configure and define as you like. You can password protect them or not, and you can set a master password required each time you want to use a certain log-in. All around a basic and easy to use feature, that also uses a toolbar (thankfully supporting both Explorer and Firefox, unlike previous versions) to fill in details. This toolbar also gives you information about site safety (phishing).

Performance & Detection

Performance was one of the biggest issues of previous NIS versions, and this version is lighter than ever. In normal computer usage – background operation with no scans running – Norton consumed between 10 to 20mb of memory; very impressive, and actually better than some standalone products. While scanning, NIS2009 took between 60 and 70mb of memory in a given moment, which on a fairly modern machine should not slow things much.

Like most modern anti-virus solutions, NIS2009 offers a ‘Quick Scan’ feature (scanning high-risk areas), which is quick indeed – on my machine this scan took just under 40 seconds – while scanning just below 4,000 files. A full scan, however, will take several hours – depending on the size of your hardrive, computer speed and amount of files.

Evidently, a great deal of effort has been put to make NIS2009 as silent as possible, hence the  inclusion of Silent Mode (also present in previous versions of NIS and other Symantec products). Like the name says, Silent Mode makes sure NIS2009 won’t disturb you during games or movies. You can set it to detect full screen automatically and turn Silent Mode automatically, or set it for a specific period of time. Once the time is over or full screen is ended, Norton will notify you if there were security incidents during the period. However, to my surprise I found that using Silent Mode isn’t necessary; NIS2009 was very quiet and didn’t alert me unless a shield has been disabled or it found a suspicious activity, even without Silent Mode.

However, not everything was perfect with NIS2009. While security suites traditionally have high detection rates, many have a lot of false positives, and this was the case here. On my clean machine, NIS2009 found several false positives and marked them as ‘highly dangerous’. Also, I encountered occasional problems with file downloads freezing, unless I turned NIS2009’s Active Protection off. Same with bigger file transfers through MSN Messenger. I also didn’t like the short freezing between clicks in the main program window.

Overall I would rate NIS a huge improvement over its predecessors, and a huge success. If you were to list the most common complaints about Norton Antivirus, and Norton Internet Security this release answers them all:

1. Bloated
2. Difficult to remove
3. Large memory footprint
4. Resource hog
5. Live Update

Norton has always enjoyed good detection rates, now it has a quality application and interface to go with them. It should be on your short list of antivirus applications. NOD32 was my former antivirus of choice (a geek favorite). I now run Norton Antivirus, and I can say it proudly. Well done Norton!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Networks are getting larger and larger every day. Between company mergers and normal expansion some corporate environments are getting down right massive. With more computers in a system you have to contend with larger levels of interaction to make sure that all of those computers are running well, configured properly, and are actually physically in your building. Add to that the overhead associated with making sure that all the software in your environment is accurately accounted for, licensed, and approved through company policy and you’ve got an administrative headache that would make even the most efficient multi-tasker go off the deep end. With the increase in complexity we have seen an increase in “Asset management and tracking” software availability. These packages range from the complex (and expensive) to the relatively simple (and often completely free).

One of the packages that falls into the later category is Lansweeper. Lansweeper is a hardware and software inventory package that can be installed on any Windows machine that is also running Microsoft SQL Server or SQL Express. It has the ability to scan and display hardware information, software information, windows information, user information, configuration information, and any custom registry locations that you desire. They have two packages, one of them is an advertisement free fully functional freeware version and the other is a paid “Pro” version with certain added features (such as active scanning and Active Directory integration). Due to the current economic environment I chose to install the freeware version on my system to do some asset tracking.

How it works

The Lansweeper “server” is composed of three basic components; the database (which stores the collected information), the “GUI console” (which is used to modify the server settings), the web console (which is where you can view the information and run custom actions).

The Lansweeper “server” is installed on a machine that’s running either SQL 2000/2005 or SQL Express and Internet Information Services (IIS). According to my sources the original Lansweeper console was exceedingly difficult to install for the uninitiated (it was described as “witchcraft” if I remember correctly) but the newest installer is a breeze. It creates the database instance for you, sets up the web console in IIS, and installs the GUI console.

Once the server is installed you can start scanning your network assets. In the free version a client program is run (not installed) on the computers to be scanned into inventory while the paid version allows for active scanning from the server. The client program (lsclient.exe) is automatically placed in the Lansweeper folder when you install the server. This client program initiates a scan of all the areas of interest and reports back to the server.

What it does

Once you’ve initiated your scans and the server has received all of the data you can start to browse through the plethora of information that’s now been made available. From the web console you can easily view this data by category. The available categories are the Digital dashboard, Software reports, Hardware reports, Server reports, General reports, License compliance, and OS license compliance. It’s pretty self explanatory as to what these do.

You can also open your domain and drill down to individual machines to check specific information about that machine. From the “computer level” screen you can run custom actions that you configure with the GUI console (such as initiating a VNC connection, or running an application via PSexec).

One of the handiest features of Lansweeper is the “License Compliance” feature. To set this up you can supply the amount of licenses you own for a given software package and the per license price in the GUI console. This information is then compared to how many versions of that particular product Lansweeper finds during it’s scanning process. If you go over the stated limit you’re told how many licenses you need.

What’s the verdict?

Overall Lansweeper is a great product. It’s extremely easy to install and equally easy to use. Some of the features can take a little getting used to, but these issues are a matter of figuring out what info is where. One of the biggest extra advantages of the product is the support forum. At the Lansweeper support forum you can ask questions, make suggestions, and even view other people’s “custom actions” that they’ve created. The best part about the support forum is that it’s directly managed by the developer so when Lansweeper responds, you’re talking to the guy who writes the program. This is a big help when you’re having a weird issue or making a feature request because you don’t have to wait for the question/suggestion to move it’s way up the support chain. I’ve tried other free products (such as Spiceworks) and could never get them to work quite right. A lot of the other products on the market rely on a “clientless” scanning method that can sometimes run into network issues that can make a scan take forever or outright fail.

Appearance = Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Quality = Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Ease-of-use = Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Features = Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Performance = Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Value = Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
===========
Overall Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars

Mozilla’s Firefox is funded almost exclusively by Google through a deal that runs through 2011. This agreement defaults Google as Firefox’s homepage, and search. While Mozilla ought to be worried, Google Chrome is an assault on the entire browser market. With 60% of the search market share, Google has plenty of opportunity to promote its own browser. This places not only Firefox, but also Internet Explorer, Opera, and other browsers in it’s crosshairs.

This surprise announcement, has also lead many to wonder if Google might also have its sights set on a bigger target. A Google operating system. Maybe Chrome is Google’s operating system?

Google’s vision of the future includes a cloud computer, where applications are run from the cloud, or Internet. This requires a less sophisticated client that could bypasses the operating system and require only a web browser. Google’s Chrome sets the stage for that scenario. One of the groundbreaking features of Chrome is that each tab is run as it’s own process. That sounds less browser like, and more like how an operating system works. When’s the last time you saw a browser with it’s own task manager? From Google’s Chrome announcement:

…we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.

Is it a browser? Is it an operating system? Further evidence of operating system roots is their decision to rewrite the JavaScript engine. While they could have used the open source code that was already available, they wrote an engine that communicates directly with the CPU, hinting at bigger plans:

Today Chrome requires Windows to run. Linux and Apple versions are planned soon. Google’s Android phone is almost certainly going to run some flavor of it. Could the Google Chrome web browser be a Trojan Horse for Google’s operating system? How long will it be until we see a version of Chrome that boots on your computer without Windows?

Over the last few years, Mozilla has taken quite a large slice of the internet browser market.  Its community-developed Firefox, is now already in its 3rd version, which has been released today.  Firefox has been praised for its security features, and often declared safer than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer by security experts. The new Firefox boasts, in addition to a comprehensive redesign of its looks and a host of new features, several new security enhancements which promise to make it even more secure.

But Firefox isn’t the only player in the web browser game. Another recent player is Opera. Actually, it’s not new, per se. Several years ago, before Firefox’s breakthrough into the market, Opera was a paid browser. Later, Opera released an ad-supported free version, and then finally released a fully free version, without any advertising whatsoever, in order to try and capture a larger market share. The release of various beta versions of Firefox 3 took most of the attention of the media, however, and the news about the release of the new 9.5 version of Opera was overlooked. Along with an update of its appearance, the addition of several new gadgets and features, and speed optimization, Opera added a security feature which is very similar to one offered by Firefox 3; both of these enhancements will be described later in this article.

So, is Opera a real player in the browser scene? Can it beat the unbeatable? Let’s find out.

Firefox 3 is a major update to the successful Firefox 2. The interface has been redesigned, and even with the default skin it looks pretty good, and has sleek animations. Notable interface updates include: a redesigned Download Manager that includes an information bar in the browser window; the ability to tag bookmarks; the ability to save open tabs for the next session; Add-On download manager (download add-ons without visiting Mozilla’s site); and many more features. Also, it has undergone tweaking to enhance its speed, and Mozilla claims that it’s now twice as fast as Firefox 2 when loading applications like Gmail. However, I didn’t notice any visible improvement.  Major new security features include complex anti-phishing tools – Firefox 3 will hide the content of web pages that are suspected forgeries and warn you when entering pages that distribute malware, using an online database of known sites that was created by Google and StopBadware.org. Also, Firefox 3 gives you easy access to SSL certificates (which are presented in an easy-to-read manner) by clicking near the address bar with your mouse.

Firefox 3 with its new History Search feature, which searches addresses by keywords.

Opera’s new feature list is not as impressive, but it does offer several new features and gadgets, such as the Quick Find, which allows you to search for a website that you have visited over the last few days.  Other new features include the ability to swap links and favorites between your Opera cellphone browser and your PC Opera, and a new browser engine that’s supposed to be much quicker than the old one. Opera also added a major security feature, which is similar to that offered by Firefox: the Fraud & Malware protection uses an online database to find a list of ‘bad sites’ and protect you from going to them. Unlike Firefox, that list is maintained by HauteSecure, which is a professional company, and the database is supported by the user community (description of ‘bad sites’, addition of new entries, etc).

But how do previous versions of Firefox and Opera rank against current versions, in terms of security? You’d be surprised by the results. According to Secunia, as of May 2008, Firefox 2.x.x has 23 security vulnerabilities, out of which 3 remain unfixed. Compared to this, Opera 9.x has 14 security vulnerabilities, with all fixed. Internet Explorer ranks last, with 9 out of 28 vulnerabilities that remain unfixed.

As for performance, previous versions of Firefox were known for their heavy resource usage, especially when operating with many extensions. Load times took literally tens of seconds, and the memory consumption often went above the 100mb mark on my machine. Firefox 3 claims to have improved this, but in fact, I had higher memory consumption than I had in Firefox 2. With 5 open websites (in tabs) and not a lot of extensions, Firefox 3 takes up more than 160mb of memory, which is a significant amount. With the same pages open, however, Opera used only 98mb of memory.

So, Opera proves to be a better performer than Firefox, and it feels faster while loading pages, too. To confirm this, I ran 2 different tests to check the rendering speed of web pages (that is, how fast a browser processes a certain type of code). First, I ran the CSS Benchmark Test by nontroppo. I ran the test 5 times on each browser. Firefox 3 took an average of 269ms to complete the test, while Opera excelled at 178ms average. Internet Explorer came last with 434ms average. Next, I ran the Javascript test by Celtic Kane. Again, I did 5 tests with each browser – Firefox again was second with 303ms, Opera first with 203ms, and Internet Explorer last with a whooping 1931ms, which is almost 2 seconds. On startup, Opera felt a bit faster than Firefox, but that wasn’t too big of a difference.

Opera’s interface, with the new Quick Dial feature.

When it comes to interface, it’s very much a personal choice. Opera doesn’t have community developed extensions, but many extensions that are common on Firefox, such as Adblock, are already built into Opera, which contributes to its speed. I also liked some of Opera’s cool features, such as the Speed Dial feature (when opening a new tab, instead of a blank page you get a choice of 9 of your most favorite pages to choose from), and the built-in IRC client.

In summary, unless you are an extension addict, you should give Opera 9.5 a try. It will surprise you. It’s faster and lighter than Firefox, and promises to be more secure. Unfortunately, unlike Firefox, Opera doesn’t have the huge database of community-made extensions, which is one of its only drawbacks.

I have used the Streets & Trips family of software for a few years now. I like the software. It’s always been easy to navigate, had good directions, some great features, and is easily configurable. Older versions of S&T were real heavy and burdensome on the system, but the more recent versions are lighter and run with a smaller footprint.

The Microsoft GPS is a small USB device. It plugs into any USB 1.0+ port on the computer, where it acquires the power it needs. It comes with a USB extension cord that has a suction cup attached so you can hang the unit from the windshield or you can stick it on the dashboard.

In testing, the GPS performed better than I had expected. When I noticed the suction cup on the USB cord, I thought the reciever would have to be hanging from the windshield. I decided to test this. Regardless of where I placed the receiver in the vehicle, it never lost signal. I tried it under the seat, in the glove compartment, in the center console, and even in the trunk. This wasn’t as much fun to test as I initially thought it would be, especially stopping every few miles to try another spot. Regardless, I was surprised by the results.

The operation of S&T is really simple. Start the program, start the GPS, enter a destination, and click Go. S&T does the rest. It configures a route based on your system settings from where you are currently to where you want to go.

During the trip, S&T tells you how much time you should have left. Unfortunately it doesn’t recalculate this time based on your current position. It’s based on where you start from, and how long it should take you to get to your destination. During my tests, I arrived at my destination as much as 15 minutes earlier than the stated arrival time. If you go off course and force it to recalculate a new path, it will recalculate the time. You can help get closer on your estimated time by setting your average driving speeds in the program.

As you drive, S&T gives you turn by turn audio directions. It warns you of impending course corrections, tells you how long you have to stay on the road you just turned on, informs you when you miss a turn or make an unexpected course change, and tells you when you arrive at your destination.

During my testing I purposefully made unplanned course changes and missed turns to see how S&T would react. Each time the computer audibly warned me of my mistake and told me that it was going to recalculate my route. S&T then automatically recalculated the route from where I was to the destination. This process usually took 15-45 seconds depending on the location. At times, the recalculations were merely instructions to go around the next block to get back on the original course. Other times it found completely new routes to the destination.

The only real drawback to using S&T as a GPS is that it relies on your laptop. If your laptop is slow or has bad audio or video you won’t get great results from the software. The audio on my laptop leaves something to be desired. In order to hear the voice tell me directions I had to have the radio turned down or off. Alternatively, if your notebook is large or heavy and your car is small, you may have a problem.

Overall Microsoft Streets and Trips 2008 with GPS Locator is well worth the money I paid for it. It’s simple to use, accurate, full of features, and reliable. If you are like me and you are going to take your laptop with you anyway, you might as well save the money and purchase this GPS versus going out and buying another piece of hardware.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Trying to update your Zune software to the latest release (Version 2.5.447.0) and getting an “Installation Failed” message? If you are, try turning the Windows Firewall on. Yes, that’s right folks, you have to turn on a firewall to update a media player. Those power users who choose to use an alternative firewall, or an external firewall are being forced to enable the built-in Windows Firewall before the software will install.

In their infinite wisdom, Microsoft has decreed that you should enable a completely separate piece of their Operating System to be able to update your Zune Media Player. This is nothing new, its been a requirement for a few releases now, but I would have thought by now that Microsoft would have learned the error of its ways.

Does the update say that you are missing a necessary component? No. Does it tell you what you have to do to make the update work? No. It gives you an innocuous message about an error and the only option you are left with is to close the installer and search the web for an answer.

Installation Failed

Setup must stop because the required package ‘Zune’ failed to install.

DIFXAPP: Rollback failed with error 0×2

Error code: 0×80070643

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=101253

Here is the answer. Go into the services control panel and start the firewall service. Run the update software from within the Zune Media Player and let it complete. Then you can go back and set your computer how you want it.

As per the typical Microsoft update process, the software resets to its defaults so that I have to go reconfigure it the way I want it. It puts shortcuts everywhere that I don’t want, don’t need, didn’t ask for, and didn’t give permission for. When will Microsoft learn that it can’t read my mind? It doesn’t have to be difficult, just a check box titled “leave my settings alone”. I would happily click that.

I love my Zune. I even like the software. Especially compared to the alternative. Unfortunately Microsoft has again chosen to take what should be a very simple operation and make it complicated.

* Message Tags: Create your own tags for organizing email. Messages can be assigned any number of tags. Tags can be combined with saved searches and mail views to make it easier to organize email.
* Visual Theme: Thunderbird 2’s theme and user interface have been updated to improve usability and maximize screen real estate.
* Session History Navigation: Back and Forward buttons allow navigation through message history.
* Advanced Folder Views: Customize the folder pane to show favorite, unread or recent folders.
* Easy Access to Popular Web Mail Services: Gmail and .Mac users can access their accounts in Thunderbird by simply providing their user names and passwords.
* Improved Support For Extensions: Extensions can now add custom columns to the message list pane in addition to storing custom message data in the mail database.
* Improved New Mail Notification Alerts: New mail alerts include information such as the subject, sender and message preview text.
* Folder Summary Popups: Mouse over a folder with new messages to see a summary of the new messages in that folder.
* Saved Search Folder Performance: Search results for saved search folders are now cached, improving folder loading performance.
* Find As You Type: Finds and highlights message text as you type.
* Improved Filing Tools: Recent folder menu items for moving and copying messages to recently used folders. Move / Copy again functionality.
* Updates to the Extension System: The extension system has been updated to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier localization of extensions.
* New Windows installer: Based on Nullsoft Scriptable Install System, the new Windows installer resolves many long-standing issues.
* Windows Vista Support: Many enhancements and fixes for Windows Vista.

View: Full Story @ Mozilla.com

The online service is part of a larger move to introduce ad-supported online services to complement its existing products and broaden the company reach into the consumer market

View: Full Story @ news.com