Archive for August, 2010

Windows 95 Celebrates its 15th Birthday

August 30th, 2010

Fifteen years ago this week, Bill Gates stood before a crowd to launch what was to be one of Microsoft’s most successful products ever, Windows 95. Their $300 million advertising campaign included lighting up the Empire State Building in Windows colors and treating Londoners to free newspapers, resulting in customers waiting in lines for hours to get a copy of the latest and greatest in personal computer operating systems.

Looking back, the Windows 95 platform seems elementary, obsolete, graphically outdated, and even ugly by today’s standards. However, at the time the operating system far surpassed its competition in technological stability and capabilities. Many features we now expect in recent versions of Windows, such as the start menu and taskbar, were introduced with the debut of Windows 95. It became the personal computing norm, with over 70% of the computer-using world operating on it just two years after its debut. » Read more: Windows 95 Celebrates its 15th Birthday

How “healthy” is your business’ social media strategy?

August 19th, 2010

It is no longer enough to just have a social media strategy. Yes, having a strong social media plan is important, but you must be able to gauge the success and measure the “health” of your social media in order to grow and improve your public perception.

Before you can measure the “health”, or effectiveness, of your business’ social media, you must establish a target or goal. Ask yourself why you are participating in social media? Is it to drive awareness, increase customer satisfaction, or obtain marketing research results? » Read more: How “healthy” is your business’ social media strategy?

Microsoft released a record-setting 14 security updates on “Patch Tuesday”

August 5th, 2010

This past Tuesday, or “Patch Tuesday” as it has been referred to, Microsoft released its biggest security update “to date”. To cover 34 vulnerabilities discovered within its product line, Microsoft released 14 security patches, eight which have been deemed “Critical” and the remaining six “Important”.

Microsoft issued a statement saying the updates address “vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft XML Core Services and Server Message Block.” » Read more: Microsoft released a record-setting 14 security updates on “Patch Tuesday”