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Community member TuxedoJericho wrote me an Email to explain to people how to use your wireless headset while playing Xbox on your computer.

Read more on Wireless Xbox Accessories on Windows…

Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

http://live.pirillo.com/ – Gordon emailed to ask me if I’ve heard of Preezo.com. Preezo is a free website you can use to build presentations, much like with PowerPoint. You can easily build, share and email things with Preezo, so I decided to check it out.

Read more on How to Make a Good PowerPoint Presentation…

Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

http://live.pirillo.com/ – The gang joined me again for videos last night. Microsoft’s announcement that they are going to have an online “vault” for health care records was definitely a hot topic.

Read more on Microsoft, Google and the Health Care Industry…

Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

http://live.pirillo.com/ – I have been trying for years to get my parents to switch to Firefox. They still use IE, even though they complain about it a lot. Mom was recently wondering how to get rid of all those saved searches in IE 7.

Read more on Clear Search in IE History…

There are comments (beyond Dan’s) that deserve more attention in the Leopard vs Vista discussion thread.

The issue of locking into hardware puts me off going Mac OS X, Mac hardware certainly costs more than a few nickels. Give it a couple of years and attempt upgrading some of the components, or replacing a faulty component when the price totals more than the value of the system. I’m more than happy with Vista running on this machine that I built myself.

Read more on A Different Kind of Personal Computer…

I knew the Leopard vs Vista post would spark a discussion. The top 10 list (THANKFULLY) never made it to Digg or Slashdot. Even so, Don Mitchell made the following outlandish remarks which I… well, just read what he wrote in the comment thread:

Read more on Mac vs PC = Smug vs Stupid?…

Jason Dunn is a great friend:

Saw your blog post. Yup, 2 GB limit. Solution? Archive PST, just like you’ve probably always had for keeping your PST file size down. If there’s really 2 GB of data that you absolutely need on the server at all times, then yeah, I guess hosted Exchange isn’t for you (I don’t know if any solution is).

Read more on Our Outlook PST Files are Too Big…

There are a few Mac fanatics who aren’t very impressed with what’s coming in Leopard – much like Windows fanatics (and former Windows fanatics) weren’t impressed with Vista. Each camp argues that these OS revisions don’t go far enough – the argument is universal.

Read more on Mac OS X Leopard vs Microsoft Windows Vista…

• The beta will be released to a moderate-sized audience in a few weeks.
• With SP1, Windows Vista can boot via EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) on an x64 machine
• SP1 supports ExFAT, a new file format that will be used in flash memory storage and consumer devices

Read more on Windows Vista SP1…

Paging Charlie Owen… Charlie Owen, to the operating room…

Hi, my name is Ken and I’ve been having some trouble with windows media center on my HP media center computer. Whenever I open windows media center it comes up with an error message that says messenger failure. I know messenger is installed but it comes up anyway. I then tried to uninstall and reinstall rollup 2 because that’s what some help forum said to do but it won’t reinstall. I just hooked up the cable to my computer so I could watch TV with media center, my PC has a built-in tuner, and now is says tuner not available: the tuner is currently in use by another application or is not working.

Read more on Windows Media Center Problem…

Joel Spolsky praises Microsoft for designing such an elegant box for Microsoft Office 2007:

I bought a retail copy of Office 2007 today (I’m loading up the new laptop I got for the world tour, which is a Thinkpad X61s), and I must be a complete spaz, but I simply could not figure out how to open the bizarre new packaging.

Read more on Windows Vista Isn’t for Developers?…

I get this question far too often…

Dear Chris, I’m in the market for a new computer and I can’t seem to decide between Mac and Windows. I myself am gamer and I’m kinda leaning towards Windows because I know PC’s can run waaaaaaaayy more games than Mac can. I know that Mac can run other OS’s, although I heard a rumor that the emulator software used to do this somewhat limits the Mac’s hardware while running Windows. Is this True? If I were doing this, would these limitations effect higher-end games? Is there any other way to run Windows on a Mac that does not involve an emulator (or erasing OS 10 altogether)?

Read more on Is a Mac a PC?…

This is far from scientific, but I can tell you that there were an OVERWHELMING number of MacBooks at Gnomedex this year – including two of ours (one sponsored by Lijit and the other sponsored by Blue Sky Factory). As predicted many moons ago, Windows is bleeding influencers like never before… and the bad news keeps getting worse. Let’s see what Jim Louderback has to say about Vista:

Read more on Windows Vista Loses Users…

Parallels owns this space right now, no doubt – Windows virtualization on the Intel Mac platform. Despite its heavy branding, Parallels has yet to prove its worth in performance (and has, up until recently, been the only viable commercial virtual machine contender on Apple’s OS X). I had been taking a tentative look at Vmware Fusion, only after raving about Vmware Workstation solving my Vista woes with an XP VM.

Read more on Parallels vs VMware Fusion – No Contest?…

At the risk of sounding even more negative about the entire Windows Vista situation, I have a steady stream of disgruntled users venting in my inbox. Michelle Rampelt, for instance:

I just experienced the ultimate irony. As I selected your “Mail Me” Icon, the wretched “Allow” Window popped up. I am an exceptionally happy person, although Windows Vista is making me absolutely miserable and frustrated. I can’t run the software programs I need, write or respond to e-mails in Outlook Exchange – I have spent HOURS AND HOURS attempting to troubleshoot what would have been simple in Windows XP world. I am just a real estate broker. And clearly, not very bright. I have been unable to find ANY help via the Microsoft web sites (which they charge for amusingly enough.) Do you have any advice? I would rather poke myself in the eye with a knitting needle than arrive at another Vista roadblock.

Read more on Windows Vista Complaints Department…