When it rains it pours. I feel like the Morton Salt girl…

If you remember, a week or so ago, I posted a huge rant on how Microsoft released buggy and problematic SP’s in both Vista SP1 and XP SP3. There have been a lot of people bumping into operational problems with corrupted Registries, corrupted files, and endless reboot loops. I can’t help but shake my head when crap like this happens.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that I have NOT installed the 10.5.3 Update yet. I’m actually a little nervous about it.  I have a 5G iPod and don’t want to kill iTunes with this update.  I’ll wait a bit more and see if there are some fixes coming for the problems that have been reported. I don’t want to jeopardize my ability to download and listen to PodCasts. My 2 hour round trip commute on the train would become unbearable without my iPod and my PodCast fix…

I also wanted to let everyone know that (if memory serves correctly) I saw postings about this on ComputerWorld and Extreme Tech as well as Mac FixIt.  The penetration of these issues may not be HUGE, but they have gotten a little bit of press beyond Mac FixIt.

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If you’re a Mac user, and there are a growing number of us these days, then you probably know that Apple shipped Security Update 2008-003 (Mac OS X 10.5.3) yesterday with fixes for a wide range of serious vulnerabilities (it includes 41 fixes) that could put users at risk of information disclosure, denial-of-service and remote code execution attacks.

This one is important, folks, so if you haven’t installed it already, then you either need to click the link above and download it, or run Software Update from the Apple menu and run the Software Update tool manually.

I’m not going to bore everyone with all of the gory details on what this thing contains (I actually don’t have the time, as I am at work and need to get back to it; BUT thought this important enough to let everyone know…), because I just don’t have the time.  However, if you have a Mac, and don’t have it installed, you best get to clickin’.

XP SP3 WAS released, but got pulled; and then got released again.

I’ve been following this on and off, and it seems to me to be one of the MOST comical configuration and release management related issues I’ve bumped into in a long time. I should know, too. As a Software QA Director, I’ve been responsible not only for Test, but CM and RM as well.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see situations like the XP SP3 and Vista SP1 release issues we have (BTW, Vista SP1 is also on hold…AGAIN!) in small companies, but to see them in a retail giant like Microsoft is really bothersome…especially when the entire world runs their businesses on Microsoft software.

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I hate DRM so much, but the music from iTunes is good quality, has all the album details and has high-res album art, so I put up with it. So to allow me to play my music on my Boot Camp partition, this morning I decided to authorize the iTunes install.

As many of you will know you are restricted to 5 authorized devices at any one time, be they Mac or Windows PCs, iPods or Apple TVs. Currently my iTunes account is authorized on my MacBook Pro, my iPod Touch, an Apple TV and the Media Center PC in our lounge room. It then occured to me that I had authorized the MacBook Air review unit I had recently, making up the total of 5 devices.

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I’ve seen a bunch of news on this today (Tuesday 18-Mar-08) that Vista SP1 is going to hit Microsoft Update as early as today. Retail copies of the software will be available via B&M and online stores as early as tomorrow, and will sport new, lower prices.

Vista SP1 shipped to duplication and resellers on 04-Feb-08. Before that, It was only been available to beta testers, volume-licensing customers and subscribers to subscription services like MSDN and TechNet, but only after they caused a big stink, threatening to cancel their subscriptions. It seems that David does that some power over this software Goliath.

Many users haven’t been able to get their hands on the code, however. Microsoft delayed its release due to driver compatibility issues. As many users have read recently, some drivers won’t properly reinstall during the SP1 upgrade. While Microsoft has worked through most of these issues with most of the vendors, they needed to set up blocking mechanisms to prevent PC’s with errant drivers from receiving and installing the service pack.

If you’re in the market for a new PC, you’ll likely get SP1 with your new machine. Fortunately, those folks shouldn’t have to worry about any driver compatibility issues. Microsoft has stated that OEM and retail copies should be good to go, beginning tomorrow, 19-Mar-08.

There’s more to the latest Evernote Software beta release than simplifying the process of taking notes. As all future software will, Evernote runs smoothly on three platforms: Web, Windows and MAC OS. But… as they say on TV - “that’s not all” - find out below how to and why you’ll want to download this very cool software.

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…feh, I don’t really have just one. But I must agree with Mike Cane that there are a few I would dearly love to see come to the Apple iPhone and touch.

He mentions a desire to see Astraware’s Text Twist, and I have to agree; if that were available in the Apple store I would head straight over to pay and download, because it is one of my faves. But I have another request, one that would totally take advantage of the iPhone’s fabulous screen, or the tough impossible to scratch surface of the touch. The game?

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I never remember what embarrassing facts I have revealed about myself to GearDiary readers. At my home blog, thedryspot.net, pretty much nothing is off limits. But if you don’t want to read about how last night’s spicy Mexican dinner affected my nether regions, I’d advise you stay away.

But here in the technoverse, I’ve held my cards a little closer to the vest. So I’ll let one of those details slip.

I used to be in a rock band. Wait, scratch that. We weren’t exactly a rock band. We were known to follow a Black Crowes song with a George Jones song and then some James Brown. Basically we were a jukebox that drank beer.

So when the opportunity to review the SingingCoach software from Carry-a-Tune Technologies, I guess I was the natural choice to make a fool of myself.

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When I first started using portable devices, way back in 2000, I thought they would be a fantastic vehicle for editing photos and creating slideshows and picture movies. They weren’t. At least not then. Fast forward to 2005, when I discovered Resco Photo Viewer. At last , a mobile photo editor which was comparable, in many ways, to my desktop. Now we were talking. But still, I could not find a way to mix my photos with music or video to . Well, now there is TrakAxe Mobile, which allows you to “create mixes in three easy steps.” Hit the jump for a closer look.

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I was in Vegas earlier this week. But not for the same reason as some people I know. I was there to celebrate New Years with my girlfriend and do a little gambling.

I’m a video poker fan. Somebody once told me that playing video poker is like getting paid to take a standardized test every eight seconds. That’s a good thing for me, because I was always good at standardized tests. It used to infuriate my math teachers that I was getting C’s in calculus class while I was finishing in the top 3 in the state on the Mathlympics, or whatever the heck they called them back in the Dark Ages. I figured if they were nice enough to put the answer in amongst the multiple choices, I should be able to find it somewhere.

So after graduating college, I parlayed this talent into a job teaching for The Princeton Review. I really enjoyed that job, teaching high school and college kids how to excel on the PSAT, SAT, LSAT, GMAT etc. It wasn’t exactly an academic pursuit; it was more like learning the techniques to finish a video game. I recognized that if colleges were really going to use the results of a tricked up test to decide who they were going to admit, it was only fair that the folks willing to learn how to beat the test deserved to move up the waitlist.

Now my former bosses have leveraged the latest technology to automate the process. More details after the jump.

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