Since Windows 7 has been out for a while now, it’s time for some real-world benchmarks to start rolling in. I haven’t seen too many yet, but a first look appears to place Win 7 slightly above XP in some tests…but slightly below it in others. And in a totally unsurprising non-revelation, Vista didn’t win a single test.

This said, the tests that PC Magazine ran weren’t exactly exhaustive. They tested things like comparative start-up and shutdown times, video encoding, and also ran a few basic benchmarking tools. And while Win 7 won 3 tests, it only won the “shutdown time” and SunSpider comparisons by a large margin. Otherwise, the results aren’t all that different from XP. I’m sorry, but shutdown time is probably so irrelevant as to be useless as a test. I doubt most users care how long this process takes, since they’re likely to tell the machine to shut itself down and walk away for the night.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t upgrade to Windows 7 from XP. Upgrading might be the only way to make use of some newer hardware or applications (though the latter is probably debatable). This will become more evident over time, as Microsoft loses interest in XP and starts putting it lower on the patch/upgrade food chain. Eventually it’ll be put out to pasture, and you’ll be stuck upgrading to some newer Windows release.

If you have Vista however, the choice is somewhat clearer. Vista has low acceptance, is filled with annoyances and flaws, and didn’t win any of the tests (at best it was somewhere in the middle). Windows 7 is at least better than Vista, even if it doesn’t truly beat XP.

If you do decide to upgrade, remember that both Vista and Win 7 require more memory (1GB vs 256MB), CPU, and disk space than XP. Thus, your current machine may be a total dog after you upgrade. If your system is more than 3-4 years old, you might want to seriously consider a new machine. Prices are currently low, and you can make the migration from your older OS to Windows 7 in stages if necessary. If you try to upgrade XP to Windows 7 (which may not be possible at all) you may end up with an unusable system.

Don’t forget to take a backup if you try an upgrade, whether from XP to Vista or Vista to Windows 7.

In its ongoing challenge to industry leader Google, Microsoft is throwing even more resources into its highly touted Bing search engine. The boys in Redmond have long tried to achieve some sort of traction in the search market, and Bing has done just that. It’s now 3rd in the market, behind Google and Yahoo. Of course, most other competitors are in the low single digits in terms of popularity. And Microsoft has thrown huge resources behind its effort to unseat Google.

Bing is being portrayed as a “decision” engine rather than a “search” tool. The basic idea is that people shouldn’t get a bunch of irrelevant data back from a search term. Instead, they should get truly relevant information. Search for airline flights, and most search sites will give you everything from links to travel sites to someone’s blog about how bad Airline X was on their flight to LA.

As a result, Microsoft “introduced several changes Wednesday aimed at answering people’s questions without sending them to an outside page.” From a user’s perspective, this is a two-edged sword. On one hand, keeping them localized to Bing’s data might give them even better results when searching for specific data. Search engines are all about the concept of “relevance” when returning data.

On the other hand, keeping the user trapped on Bing means Microsoft — and their customers — get to control the user experience even further. This sounds an awful lot like Old Microsoft’s attitude of “we control everything, and if you try to use someone else’s product we’ll find ways to make it difficult.” Whatever happened to the “New” more open company that’s allegedly starting to support Open Source and Linux-based apps?

One thing is for certain: Yahoo’s deal with the devil probably will kill the company in a few years. I suspect the terms of the agreement that lets Microsoft run their search engine also says that all assets devolve to Redmond’s control if Yahoo goes under. That effectively gives Bing (in some form) Yahoo’s percentage of the search market. Right now it appears Google has about 64% of the market. Yahoo has 16%, Bing has 10%. That means that eventually Bing might have 26-27%.

Maybe the folks at Google should start looking over their collective shoulder.

Companies that sell antivirus or anti-spyware packages often sound like they’re using scare tactics to sell their wares. Selling based on fear is a common tactic, i.e. “buy a Foo Corp home alarm system or your family will be massacred!” This tactic is used to boost sales in many product lines. Thing is, it’s not always unwarranted fear. People do break into houses, residents are occasionally murdered in their beds (though not nearly as often as alarm companies want you to believe), and, yes, antivirus software does help keep the bad guys out.

Maybe no example of the need for such software is as clear as a recent one involving a family accused of peddling child porn via their PC. The one I’m referring to “involved Michael Fiola, a former investigator with the Massachusetts agency that oversees workers’ compensation. In 2007, Fiola’s bosses became suspicious after the Internet bill for his state-issued laptop showed that he used 4 1/2 times more data than his colleagues. A technician found child porn in the PC folder that stores images viewed online.”

Needless to say, Fiola was fired and prosecuted for these perceived offenses. He and his wife spent their life savings — about $250,000 — defending themselves against the charges. Eventually they had the system inspected by a computer forensics specialist. The scan “revealed the laptop was severely infected. It was programmed to visit as many as 40 child porn sites per minute — an inhuman feat. While Fiola and his wife were out to dinner one night, someone logged on to the computer and porn flowed in for an hour and a half.” [italics mine]

After a long fight, and using the forensics report as evidence, Fiola was finally exonerated. But the money is gone, along with his and his wife’s health. What’s worse is that “about 20 million of the estimated 1 billion Internet-connected PCs worldwide are infected with viruses that could give hackers full control, according to security software maker F-Secure Corp.”

Is your PC on that list? Could you suddenly find yourself at the receiving end of legal action? If you’re at all worried about this, and you should be, go buy (and maintain!) a good antivirus/anti-spyware/firewall package for your machines.

Cloud computing, “information on demand,” or “application service providers” — it doesn’t matter what name you use. The basic concept behind all these ideas is that networking should enable people to stop buying and installing applications locally on their PCs. In 2000-01, the “ASP” model intended to move most (if not all) applications to central providers, like Jamcracker and other startups. Data would live locally, while applications ran over the net. It succeeded…somewhat.

Then, a few years later, “on demand” computing became the new buzzword. This was the idea of moving not only applications, but also computing horsepower (i.e. CPU cycles and so forth) to the network. IBM and others got into this model, and are still pushing it today. Overall it’s a good idea. Why go buy a bunch of big iron (i.e. servers, computing systems, and storage) if you only need it now and then? It’s really just a newfangled way of doing what we called “timesharing” in decades past.

Then the “cloud” idea popped up. That moved not only applications and compute cycles, but also your data to the service provider’s systems. Under this model, you basically need only PCs with browsers and email (and maybe not even the latter) in house. The rest lives on virtual servers at your provider’s location. You use that horsepower as needed, and pay the bill at the end of the month.

However, Microsoft is behind the curve in terms of Cloud implementation…and it threatens their business model. So they’ve attempted to introduce some FUD to “warn” people about possible shortcomings of this new computing model. They’re trying to introduce some privacy concerns, which are definitely justified, in order to warn people away.

Of course, keeping the current “buy your software and you own it” model works just fine for the folks at Redmond. So they’re correct in saying that “privacy protections are essential to building the customer trust needed for cloud computing and the Internet to reach their full potential.” But behind that noble-sounding statement is the company’s worry that customers will rent, not buy, software and systems in the future.

Caveat emptor.

Google’s Chrome browser, which accounts for only a very small percentage of all user activity at present, is getting an upgrade. As of the new Beta 4 release, Google is touting a 30% speed increase overall in the browser’s performance. They’re also adding a raft of new features, including bookmark sync, which should help attract more attention to the product.

The sync feature is probably the most interesting one (as others have noted) in this new release. It’s a welcome idea, but it does come with some caveats. According to the announcement, “sync requires that all the machines being kept in step run the Chrome beta, and that the user has a Google account, such as a Gmail username and password. The browser syncs bookmarks using Google Docs, the company’s Web-based application suite.”

Basically, it sounds as if they’re storing a copy of the bookmarks file somewhere in your Google Docs account, where you can access it from any machine on the Internet. I suspect that you probably have to enter your Google account information into the browser’s sync settings (I’m guessing here) and it automatically checks the file revision when you connect. This makes a lot of sense, since some type of central repository has to exist in order to sync the bookmarks file. And of course, you probably can’t sync if Google Docs is down or you can’t connect to it for some reason (e.g. a firewall or other port restriction).

What’s also interesting is that Chrome is interested in improving JavaScript performance. It’s touting “Chrome 4.0’s faster JavaScript rendering speeds” — which also makes sense, since JavaScript is behind Ajax and other Web 2.0 features. I find it amusing that the JavaScript, which was only a toy half a decade ago and seemed to be vanishing in the face of .NET, PHP, and other languages, is rapidly becoming the glue that holds all these cool new features together. Ah, the more things change the more they stay the same.

High tech, along with the auto and home construction industries, has seen a significant impact from the economic downturn. PC orders plummeted, software sales tanked, and networks stopped expanding. It was sort of like 2001-02 all over again, with companies taking a serious breather from major capital expenditures. Lots of companies laid off staff, retooled in different directions, and generally kept their heads down.

Now, however, some light is appearing at the end of the tunnel. Stocks are rising slowly, some folks are spending money again, and various companies are reporting gains in sales. In a fairly major piece of news, Cisco Systems is seeing a rise in network gear sales for the first time in over a year. Cisco is one of the biggest players in networking, supplying routers and other gear to huge corporations and ISPs. Having them report an uptick in the market is very good news indeed.

The company’s CEO said that “it will start to hire more employees after laying off workers over the past year. Cisco’s work force has shrunk by about 3,500 over the past four quarters to about 63,800, mostly from layoffs but also from early retirement offers and attrition.” Now, some belt tightening was expected but 3500 out of 64000 is just under 5% of their total work force. That’s still a lot of people who lost jobs.

On the other side of the coin, Intel’s rosy forecasts may not be entirely honest. Some are suggesting the chip market itself could be in a “long, drawn out recovery” period. It’s entirely possible certain segments of the market will rebound before others. I suspect corporate networks will start expanding, for example, before everyone starts queuing up to buy new PCs. The former represents critical infrastructure, while the latter have become commodities. And PCs are easier to upgrade or refurbish.

Of course, the current uptick in the markets and job outlook may not last. We could easily have several false starts before the downturn is truly over, but at least the steady stream of bad news has largely ceased.

Today a friend posted an article about the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) treaty to his Facebook account. It was the first I’d heard of this work, so I decided to have a look at some of the information currently circulating around the Internet about it. At first glance, one would think it’s designed to help slow the tide of illegal Chinese or Russian copying of DVD and other material. However, the negotiations have been labeled as part of “national security” and therefore aren’t available for review by the public.

This is simply idiotic.

Currently, groups like the EFF (Electronic Freedom Foundation) and other civil liberties groups are opposing the treaty as it’s currently written. The problem is that very little information about specific aspects of the negotiations are available. Only one allegedly leaked document has emerged so far. According to the EFF:

A document recently leaked to the public entitled ‘Discussion Paper on a Possible Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement’ from an unknown source gives an indication of what content industry rightsholder groups appear to be asking for – including new legal regimes to “encourage ISPs to cooperate with right holders in the removal of infringing material”, criminal measures, and increased border search powers. The Discussion Paper leaves open how Internet Service Providers should be encouraged to identify and remove allegedly infringing material from the Internet.

If true, it casts ISPs in the role of network cops who are supposed to effectively monitor traffic traversing their networks and report infractions to some enforcement body. This is totally in opposition to the concept of the ISP as Common Carrier (like telecommunications companies, which effectively they are). It smacks of Soviet-style surveillance of communications among dissident or other suspicious groups. But is this an accurate assessment?

We don’t know where the “leaked’ document came from. It may be completely legitimate, which means the ACTA should be opposed vehemently by anyone with a brain. If passed and signed in its allegedly current form, it means your iPod or laptop could be searched at any border, and any “illicit” material confiscated. It means you could be arrested for sharing a 1980s rock video on YouTube (which may not even exist anymore due to copyright concerns).

This is the problem with the government blindly labeling so many proposals and treaties as “national security” risks. If people could locate and read the actual text as currently proposed, there’d be far less ambiguity. We’d know exactly what it says and how enforcement is to work. Was the “leak” created by some anti-treaty nut trying to inflame people about the negotiations? Or is it an actual component of the ACTA material? We don’t know.

Write your Representative and Senator. Demand the sort of open access and transparency that the current administration claimed to support in its dealings. The rights you lose will be your own.

According to an announcement made on Tuesday, big-box retailer Best Buy is now entering the Internet-based entertainment business. They’ve decided that (shocking!) web-based video is here to stay. Therefore the company will start offering customers the option of purchasing videos for instant download, thus “making it easier for them to rent and buy movies over high-speed Internet connections.”

The field for this market has been growing for some time. Popular retailer Netflix has been offering a selection, albeit a somewhat lame one largely consisting of second-rate movies, to its existing customer base for several years. Amazon has its “unbox” video system. Blockbuster followed suit some time ago. It’s all very predictable. Offering videos online reduces space requirements at brick-and-mortar storefronts, eliminates the problem of missing or damaged DVD media, eases inventory management, and generally makes life easier for the retailers. For consumers, it means not having to run to a store in the hope the video you want is actually available.

Best Buy isn’t doing this alone — they’ve partnered with online retailer CinemaNow to provide the service. This also makes sense, since it means Best Buy doesn’t have to create its own Web presence and video library. They just profit-share with CinemaNow — which also gets a bigger share of the pie by leveraging Best Buy’s vast retail presence.

If you haven’t tried using online videos, it’s really quite nice. But of course, you need a fast and reliable Internet connection. Video files can be 1-2GB in size, and you’ll need a connection capable of streaming them without interruption. Or you’ll need to subscribe to a service like Amazon’s, which allows you to download the video files to your machine for later viewing. The latter also means you need enough free disk space to store all those video files. There’s nothing worse than waiting several hours to download a file, only to have a “disk full” message show up just before it completes.

Online viewing is fun, and it works. It’ll just keep getting better as network connections improve, since you’ll be able to get full HD and other high-quality formats streamed right into your home.

Over the last few years, “slim” has been “in.” Laptops, following in the steps of products like the Macbook Air, have tried to become as light and thin as possible. Netbooks, those $300 little jobbies everyone seems to want to own, are also driving this trend. One of the ways it is being accomplished is by removing components some people find indispensable, and others just don’t use: the CD/DVD drive, or “optical” unit. You can trim a lot of weight, and thickness, from a laptop just by removing those components.

PCs have had optical drives of some type installed since the last floppies went out of vogue. In the late 1990s. Manufacturers ramped up to optical storage since software vendors were shipping whole product sets on CD, and later on DVD, as “all on one disK” distributions. No more stacks of 50 Microsoft Office floppies…just one CD. Later it became “just one DVD” as software outpaced 600MB CD capacity, but the component sizes were the same and compatible with one another. Now, however, these are vanishing from cases and leaving us with few easy options when we want to watch a DVD or (heaven help me) install software from CD.

One of the biggest lessons from the craze for “netbooks” — inexpensive little laptops designed mainly for browsing the Web — is “that people were so excited about the small, easy-to-carry size that they didn’t miss having a CD or DVD drive. USB is an obvious choice. With a single port, the user can connect a single CD or DVD drive to their laptop at will, thus re-establishing the balance between input & output device.”

But let’s say you’re seriously into watching DVDs or listening to CDs. The obvious solution is that you should keep your existing unit. Folks like you “might want to think twice if you’re hooked on transferring CDs into MP3s — or if you spend a lot of time watching DVDs on airplanes and don’t want to squint at your iPod.” I’ll admit guilt to the latter, having watched whole movies on flights from Boston to London. But I carry my laptop for both business and writing, and am used to having it strapped across my back on a regular basis.

Maybe on future models the paradigm will involve a big memory stick sized to fit a whole movie. That would be the death knell for the laptop-based optical drive. And it’ll happen, too.

In an interesting semi annual survey, the CTIA has released their most recent telephone usage statistics. Did you know that 740 billion text messages (yes, with a “b”) were sent in the last six months alone? And that’s only counting US subscribers. The number works out to 11.7 text messages per day, per citizen in the US.

Someone else is certainly using up my quota. I barely send one text per month. I’m holding this thing called a “telephone” and want to tell someone something…so I call them. I guess I’m just weird.

There are also far more cell phones available, with “about 276,610,580 wireless subscribers in the U.S., up about 14 million from last year, and more than double the number in 2002.” And even as this is happening, the number of landlines (hardwired home telephones) keeps dropping. But even as we buy more phones (and give way more money to those ever-growing wireless carriers) we’re talking less…or at least we’re making shorter calls. The “average length of a voice call was just 2.03 minutes” in this last survey, which is shorter than at any point during the 21-year history of record keeping.

Are we all just spending more time on the Internet? Are we staying in touch via Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking services, and bypassing voice communications? We’re all typing a whole lot more, that’s for sure. The same statistics suggest that, by volume, the US texting population is writing “the equivalent of about 656,000 [100,000 word] books.” That’s a lot of output. And it doesn’t even count the amount of text generated online using email, social networking, and other means.

We live in a very interesting age. We’re better connected with one another than ever before, but apparently we spend a lot less time talking. Maybe it’s time to get out from behind all those keyboards and get some “face time” with friends and family. The holidays are coming up, after all.