For all of you Vista fans, this is your time to celebrate! Microsoft finally released Windows Vista Service Pack 1, after a year full of complaints. Workers of businesses, looks like your company might be taking the plunge to Vista if they think it’s worthy. Here are some of the features of SP1, as Emil Protalinski describes it:

File copying should no longer have an ETA of hundreds of years

UAC has been altered slightly, including fewer prompts in specific scenarios

DirectX has been updated to support not only DirectX 9 and 10 hardware, but the backwards-compatible 10.1 as well

WGA has been tweaked to address two of the most popular exploits

Further support has been added for third party search solutions

I am excited to see UAC on that list. When I was using Windows Vista on a friend’s computer, I was experimenting with the administrative control panel. Every single thing I wanted to do (in my opinion, of course) required a dimming of the monitor to answer the “Windows needs your permission to continue” box. Although you can disable this feature for administrators all-together, I am glad they are letting up on the restrictions a little bit so people can make the feature useful in family-type environments.

I have yet to get Vista because of my stubbornness to pay the money needed to get it. It seems to me a lot of people are not taking the leap to Vista (legally, of course) because the price tags for it are so hefty. In my opinion, piracy is part of the reason Windows Vista prices are so high. I am glad Microsoft is taking yet another stand and they’re cracking down on these WGA exploits so maybe I could buy the basic version, at the very least.

I will be keeping my eyes peeled on those Vista forums to check out the user feedback from the new service pack. Hopefully their praises will convince me to buy it knowing that it’s better than the original version.

VIA Ars Technica

I really don’t know what’s with me and Apple. I think we are starting to having a relationship with all of these posts. But anyways, Microsoft attempts to kill the iPhone trend with a deal with licensing Adobe’s flash for mobile devices dubbed “Flash Lite.” Microsoft finally has a comeback that looks like it will do something to encourage end-users to buy their Windows Smartphone. I’m sorry I have to betray you Apple, but this looks like it can do some damage to your sales. This deal actually encourages me to get a T-Mobile Dash (if they’re still available in May for the same price) knowing that it could play YouTube content.

Looking at the Adobe Flash lite version comparison chart, Flash lite 3 is inferior to the Flash Player 7 SDK. As long at YouTube could work, I am all for it.

But with all these applications focusing on the iPhone and Windows Mobile OS devices, who is focusing on the BlackBerry? Yeah, I know it isn’t meant for things like this because of it’s “professional” storefront, but can that stop us from having a little bit of fun with it once and a while?