Microsoft has opened up their Windows 7 pre-order website and for a limited time you can get the upcoming operating system for half price. Upgrade pricing for Windows 7 Home Premium is set at a low $49.99, with higher tiers scaling up in price. The low pre-order pricing is for a limited time only, so take advantage of this soon if you plan on upgrading to Windows 7.

My advice: Windows 7 is the best operating system Microsoft has ever created. Run, don’t walk, to the pre-order site and get the great pricing and ditch Vista and XP.

It has been awhile since I started using Google Sync, which is Google’s free contacts and calendar syncing software. It allows you to sync your Gmail contacts and calendar to your mobile phone. It does some nice things, but in the end, I decided to stop using it and go back to Apple’s MobileMe service.

Google Sync is free, so I wanted to see if it would be worthy enough to replace my MobileMe service, which costs $99 per year. Google Sync offers push contacts and calendar from Gmail to your mobile phone and it performs those tasks very well. I tested the service on my iPhone 3G and it works as advertised. Once it is setup on your phone, any change you make to your contacts or calendar automatically gets updated in the cloud and on your phone. Unfortunately, push email is not offered as yet, but the button to turn it on is there, so they will probably offer that feature soon.

Updates to my Gmail contacts and calendar were quick and painless. Changes to something in Gmail was almost instantly changed on my phone and vice versa. I never had a problem with functionality and everything worked very well. The only downside that I noticed was that the push feature used more of my iPhone’s battery.

Okay, so if Google Sync works as advertised, why did I stop using it? Quite simply, MobileMe has spoiled me. MobileMe allows me to sync my email, contacts, and calendars to my phone and all my computers. You can use a program called Spanning Sync (for a Mac) to get all of that functionality with Google Sync, but that costs money and is something extra you need to install. I also found software that will sync Google with Microsoft Outlook, but again it costs money. In the end, it is worth it to me to pay for the extra convenience.

If all you need is contacts and calendar syncing between Gmail and your phone, then Google Sync is a no-brainer. It is free, fast, and works very well. If you need to also sync your email and have everything the same across phones and computers, you will need to look elsewhere or deal with the extra paid software. If you use PC’s, I would recommend looking at a company that offers Exchange support.

Google Sync has made a good start. I would definitely give them another try if they were to begin offering features that allow me to sync my data across all my phones and computers. Until then, MobileMe is my choice.

I didn’t think it was possible, but Microsoft has found a new way to piss off its customers.  A report sighted at Slashdot says that the upcoming Windows 7 Starter Edition will allow you to only run three programs at once. What this means is that if you have your web browser, email, and word processor open and you then want to open Excel, you won’t be able to unless you close what you already have open. That is preposterous!

How in the world can Microsoft be so anti-user as to offer this junk? Limitations like this will only frustrate and annoy users to a point where they might go look for other alternatives. I try to be fair to both sides, but this makes me even more happy to use a Mac as my main computer. Apple has it right when they say that they only offer one version of their operating system – the Ultimate Version. It has no limitations and every feature is included for a price much less than Windows.

Windows 7 is looking better than Vista, but Microsoft has made a big mistake with this decision.

Microsoft today announced that their aging operating system, Windows XP, has officially moved away from Mainstream Support and has transitioned into what they term as the Extended Support level. What this means to you is that Microsoft will no longer offer free support for Windows XP. Any problem you may have with the OS that requires a phone call to Microsoft will also require that you pull out your credit card.

Windows XP has served us well , so don’t free too much over it. The venerable OS has been on the market for over seven years. Microsoft usually only offers five years of mainstream support. They will still provide free security patches via Windows Update, but no new features will be added nor old ones fixed. More information can be found in this article over at Computerworld.

My advice: don’t buy a new computer until Windows 7 (the successor to Vista) comes out. Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. It will be worth the wait and you won’t need to suffer through Vista’s many annoyances.

I came across a very useful program that allows me to quickly access the contents of my hard drive from the System Tray in Windows or Menu Bar in Mac OS X. It is called Hawkscope and it performs exactly as advertised.

This program saves multiple clicks by adding a button to the System Tray that takes you right to your files. It is a small program and uses very little resources to run.  It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The Conficker Worm has made lots of headlines lately about how it has the potential of causing a great deal of mischief because so many computers are infected with this virus. Many people are worried that they can’t tell if their computers are infected with it or if they are safe.

Luckily, there is an easy way to tell if your computer has the Conficker worm. Simply go to the Conficker Worm Eyechart page and you will instantly know the answer.  The website is safe and simple.

The Conficker worm blocks computers from going to certain sites, so the Conficker Eyechart page attempts to load images from those sites. You are Conficker free if you see all six images at the top of the page. If some of the images are missing, then you need to take action immediately. Taking action means making sure your anti-virus software is up to date.  Once upated, have your anti-virus software run a full system scan on your computer. If it does not find anything, then you’ll need to consider other Conficker removal options. The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool would be your best option.

If you own a Mac (like yours truly!) then you do not need to concern yourself with this virus.

The problems with Windows Vista are myriad and well-known since the day it went on sale. Subsequent updates and service packs have done a great job at getting the operating system running as it should, but the stigma of performance and compatibility issues continue to harass Microsoft.  In fact, the problems are so well-known that even the government has heard about it.

The state of Texas has banned the use of Windows Vista on all government computers. Senator Juan Hinojosa, Democrat, says “Windows XP is just fine, thank you very much.”  Who knew the government was tech savvy? Microsoft sees it as a slight against the company.  I think they should see it as an opportunity to fix their software.

To be fair, a fully patched Windows Vista does run much better than it did when it launched.  My biggest gripe with it is that it is still a memory hog.  I once had a Sony Vaio with Vista Home Premium on it. On a fresh boot, with only minimal start-up programs running, it still used almost 2GB of RAM before I launched any of my programs. That is ridiculous.