10 Daily Things

Andy Brice over at SuccessfulSoftware recently received an email from Microsoft Adcenter to inform him of low cost keywords that he could advertise on, categorised by sector, to “unlock new customers”. Here are some of them.

According to Microsoft:

These keywords are actual terms recently used by your customers on Live and MSN Search Engines and are available at a low cost while very few other advertisers are bidding on them.

Microsoft has released a new version of its free virtualization sotware with support for the latest Microsoft operating system updates. Virtual PC 2007 SP1 includes support for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3 as host and guest operating systems. That means you can run the virtualization environment if you’re using those operating systems, or if you want to emulate them. Microsoft also threw in Windows Server 2008 Standard for good measure.

Like its predecessor, Virtual PC 2007 SP1 does not officially support Windows XP Home Edition or Windows Vista Home Premium or Home Basic. But for the most part, it will run just fine on those operating systems. You will, however, get a warning message telling you that you’re using an unsupported OS when you install the software.

Download Virtual PC 2007 SP1 >>>

An exclusive sneak peek at the soon-to-be released zunePhone, the answer of Microsoft at iPhone:)

Gabe Newell, President of Valve Software, has said that Microsoft’s choice to limit DirectX 10 to Windows Vista was “a terrible mistake”.

He said that the decision has affected the industry as a whole, as there are only a small percentage of players that can use DirectX 10. At least, that’s the case according to the latest Steam Survey, which has over one million samples.

Only 2.3 percent of users have a DirectX 10 capable PC – i.e. a system with a DirectX 10 graphics card that’s running Windows Vista. In total there are around eight percent of systems in the sample with Windows Vista installed, while over 90 percent of the sampled systems are still running Windows XP.

Apparently, when developing a cross-platform title, developers look for the lowest common denominator. Because DirectX 10 isn’t supported by neither Microsoft’s nor Sony’s latest consoles, developers are apparently reluctant to take it up according to Newell.

[VIA]