I’m a bit slow to this one, but launched recently was “They came for Windows Vista“, an episodic cartoon for Microsoft partners about the release of Windows Vista. The story surrounds Tom and his “crack team” of sales people discovering about the various ways to sell Windows Vista to a group of Microsoft-centric aliens.

The animations are beautifully crafted with glossy and cute characters, with great detail in each person, product and setting. The storyline is humorous full of subtle jokes here and there. The message is simple, if not, already well communicated through other media. However still fun to watch and provides a (far from) real life example of how hardware and software for Windows Vista will be sold from now to January.

It is also the first animation I’ve seen that has been translated and dubbed to 5 different languages. Good job to the team!

So far, only two episodes (episode one, episode two) has been released. But with a simple hack by changing the URL, the unreleased third episode is also viewable, which talks about holiday sales and express upgrades.

I think this is a fun and enjoyable way of brainwashing communicating otherwise boring information. It’d be interesting to see if this trend catches on with other products, markets and companies.

They say good things come in three’s, but I say great things come in hundred’s. I originally announced I was only giving away three measly caps and decals, but after the record-breaking response with over 1200 entries (90% of which are Chinese), Microsoft’s Deeps De Silva stepped in to boost the prize-pool to something more appropriate.

However, there are still only 3 decals in the prize-pool, so they will be randomly distributed to 3 lucky winners.

Winners will be notified by email in the next 24 hours has been notified. Please check your spam box as winning a prize is often marked as spam. Winners who do not respond to the email within a timely fashion will have their prizes reallocated to other entrants.

Look forward to more cool giveaways in the near future! 🙂

P.S. If you have a business and would like advertise your product to help me over the cost of postage, please send me an email through my about page. I’m open to ideas such as including promotional ads in the mailbag.

The PC vs Macs contest has risen to a new level.

Last week, Microsoft’s Gamerscore Blog announced GamesForWindows.com, a website dedicated to showcasing the video gaming hardware and software ecosystem on Windows PCs. It’s an obvious attempt to combat competition from Sony, Nintendo and even Apple. Speaking about Apple,

Today, GamesForMacs.com was launched to compete directly with Microsoft.

Update: Some people don’t seem to get it, so I’ll explain. First thing’s first, this is a joke. It’s not anti-Apple or pro-Microsoft, because I make fun at both. It’s not even about gaming, but rather, stereotypes. When you think of Apple and games, you think of Quake and The Sims and ‘not much games’. When you think of Windows, you think of Minesweeper, Solitaire, Freecell and majority of males playing games. Nothing more than poking fun at stereotypes.

It’s also a spoof of GamesForWindows.com, which I don’t think is an exactly worthwhile website. The website is pretty much marketing gimmick demonstrating the already popular-enough gaming platform on PCs. There isn’t much content on the website to begin with, and nothing on the website is exactly hot-off-the-press. However, it is important to note this is different to “Games For Windows”, which is an initiative to make games easier to install and play better on Windows Vista systems. That, I support.

I link to both companies’ respective pro-gaming websites to show both sides of the story. Although it is part of my grand plan to score an XBOX 360. 😛

I’ve been doing a lot of playing around with virtual environments lately, because booting into Windows Vista everytime I want to hear the startup sound can be pretty frustrating. Today, Parallels announced Parallels Workstation 2.2 for Windows which has increased support for Windows Vista. So far, I’ve been using Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2007 Beta but I’m not 100% happy with the performance. So I decided to give Parallels a test run after hearing all the good press on its Macintosh counterpart.

I installed a virgin copy of Windows Vista Ultimate RTM on exactly the same virtual hardware to do a direct comparison between the two products. Both products has their respective ‘additions’ package (VM Additions/Parallels Tools) installed to maximize performance.

Note: I recognize that VMware Server/Workstation supports Windows Vista as well, but the lack of Intel VT support results in really poor performance.

The results was surprising. Parallels started off faster by at most 2 seconds, but eventually Virtual PC caught up and ended up winning by 8 seconds. This has put my superstition about Virtual PC’s sluggish performance on the backburner for the while, until each product optimizes their products for Vista even further.

Unfortunately, none of the solutions (Virtual PC, Parallels, VMWare) will support hardware-graphics virtualization for quite some time, so there goes any chance of Aero Glass in a virtual environment.

My good friend Andrew Dugdell has 7 great tips on even improving Virtual PC’s performance. Well worth checking if you do a lot of work in a virtual environment.

Update: Under the advice of Keith Adams (from VMware), I gave VMware Server another go. I’ve actually been a long time user of VMware Server, but ever since alternatives started supporting Intel VT, I’ve switched and found the experience much better. Perhaps it was just a psychological thing, but my new tests prove otherwise.

VMware completed the SuperPI test 6 seconds faster than Virtual PC. And with its dual-core support for guest operating systems, it runs even faster with dual-core enabled. I guess this proves Intel VT doesn’t enhance performance at all (right now), or at least VMware already runs blazingly fast. I’m switching back!

When Microsoft enthusiastically announced the final name for Windows Codename “Longhorn”, Windows Vista, back in July 2005, businesses and journalists were quick to jump on the golden opportunity to talk about lawsuits and settlements. All sorts of windows and blinds businesses saw the prospects of disputing Microsoft’s trademark claim and suing for compensation.

Days away from the official business launch of Windows Vista, and it might seem like everyone talked tough, but no one acted or dared to act. Although that’s not entirely true. A search at the trademark trial and appeal board revealed one company and one company only stood up to Microsoft, Plantronics, Inc. vs Microsoft Corporation.

The stupidity of this dispute lies with Plantronic. A Google search revealed the only Plantronic product which carries a Vista wordmark is in fact a telephone headset adapater. Talk about interrelatedness.

The dispute was eventually terminated because the Plantronics, Inc. relentlessly demanded time extensions to “investigate the claim” for over 4 months straight. I guess they never found a legitimate argument to draw the similarities between an operating system and telephone adapater.

What a waste of time.

As part of Toshiba’s voluntary Sony battery replacement program, most notebook models in the Toshiba range are eligible for a free primary battery pack. Of course, Toshiba recommends you to return your older battery, but why should you when Sony has confirmed Toshiba’s batteries are not affected by the recall issue with Dell and Apple laptops?

These batteries are worth US$100 and provides over 3 hours of juice, well worth the price of $0.

Sony seems to be screwing a large part of its core business, with faults occurring in the Playstation 3 as well. The only thing left they’re really good at is televisions and television advertisements.