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Windows Secrets Newsletter • Issue 135 • 2008-01-03 • Circulation: over 275,000 |
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Contents TOP STORY: Microsoft charges customers for free services KNOWN ISSUES: VoIP alternatives trim long-distance bills WACKY WEB WEEK: Time for your New Year's resolution, baby! WOODY'S WINDOWS: How to undelete pictures on your camera PERIMETER SCAN: More and better uses for Process Explorer YOUR SUBSCRIPTION: How to change your address or unsubscribe |
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For links to every topic in this issue, scroll down to the
Index |
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TOP STORY Microsoft charges customers for free services
Free Windows Live eclipses MSN Premium Microsoft's for-pay service, known as MSN Premium, is a collection of broadband features that must be accessed through a special browser: MSN Explorer. Once downloaded and installed, this browser supports Web surfing, an interface for e-mail and calendar programs, and Microsoft's online encyclopedia, Encarta Premium. Other features, such as an included digital image editor, are accessible by launching a separate application. MSN Premium is typically marketed by Internet service providers who are Microsoft's partners, such as Qwest and Verizon in the U.S. and Bell Sympatico in Canada. (Qwest currently offers Windows Live instead of MSN.) Consumers can also purchase MSN Premium directly from Microsoft Online Services. The current version, according to the Microsoft site, is MSN Premium 9.5, which costs $9.95 per month in the United States. According to page 11 of a PDF file on the Bell Sympatico site, more than 8.2 million people worldwide subscribe to MSN Premium. Microsoft does not release figures on how many of these users pay the monthly fee, and how many receive MSN Premium as part of a bundle from their ISPs. The subscription service was first launched for broadband customers in 2004. Since then, however, Microsoft has released a new collection of Web services under the Windows Live brand, new versions of Internet Explorer, and service packs for Windows XP — all free — that duplicate the features that MSN Premium customers pay precious money for each month. Microsoft's FAQ page promotes MSN Premium as having 21 features. Yet nearly every one of the features is available from Microsoft for free — either through Windows Live or existing versions of Windows and Internet Explorer. Table 1 lists these services and more, showing exactly where consumers who've been sold MSN Premium could obtain the same or comparable services from Microsoft for free. Table 1. Nearly every MSN Premium feature is free in Windows Live or in Windows itself.
About the only MSN Premium feature that Microsoft doesn't offer for free in some other form is the MSN download manager. But consumers can easily visit a site like Snapfiles, which lists several third-party equivalents at absolutely no cost. Microsoft is running a similar "pay for what's free" scheme in its Hotmail Plus service. According to Microsoft's promotional page, Microsoft sells subscriptions to Hotmail Plus for $20 a year, promising junk e-mail filters and the ability to access e-mail via Microsoft Outlook. Similar features that are almost as generous are totally free in Microsoft's Windows Live service. To give credit where it's due, Hotmail Plus does give its paying users more storage space (2GB), larger attachments (up to 20MB per message), and the elimination of ads, compared with the free version of Hotmail. MSN Premium, however, has few such advantages over the free services that paying subscribers never hear about from Microsoft. Why is Microsoft competing with itself? It's not all that surprising to find a software company offering a free equivalent to a competitor's commercial product. But Windows Live and MSN Premium are produced by the same company. What's going on? Although not addressing MSN Premium per se, Microsoft has repeatedly asserted, such as in press releases on Sept. 11, 2006, and May 6, 2007, that "MSN and Windows Live will be offered alongside each other as complementary services." Echoing this position, Windows Live general manager Brian Hall told a reporter at the ReadWriteWeb blog in June 2007 that the distinction between MSN and Live will become more apparent as Windows Live evolves. Such fine points of product positioning may be lost on MSN Premium customers, who have a right to wonder why they're paying for services that the same company offers for free. In May 2007, as described in a Microsoft statement, the Redmond company forcibly migrated all MSN Hotmail customers to the newer Windows Live Hotmail. This would have been the ideal time for the company to inform MSN Premium's paying customers that Microsoft was offering basically the same service for free. To my knowledge, no such announcement has ever been made. On the contrary, when I recently signed up to pay $10 a month for MSN Premium as a test, I received no alerts or e-mails informing me that a newer, no-cost option was available. Whether MSN Premium will eventually provide services superior to Windows Live only time will tell. At the moment, MSN Premium customers have every right to consider themselves cheated. Have a tip about Windows? Readers receive a gift certificate for a book, CD, or DVD of their choice for sending tips we print. Send us your tips via the Windows Secrets contact page. Scott Dunn is associate editor of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. He has been a contributing editor of PC World since 1992 and currently writes for the magazine's Here's How section. |
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KNOWN ISSUES VoIP alternatives trim long-distance bills By Scott Dunn Our Dec. 13, 2007, issue explained how a VoIP device called MagicJack, which charges only $20 USD per year for unlimited calls from anywhere in the world to U.S. and Canada phones, might make big long-distance bills a thing of the past. As a result, many of our readers pointed out other innovative Internet products and services to help cut your phone bill down to size. Numerous readers wrote in to make us aware of their own preferred Voice over Internet Protocol systems for lowering their phone bills. We haven't tested all of the following services or products, so do your homework before diving in: • Jajah. John Cossins and many others wrote to tell us how pleased they were with the service offered by Jajah. Unlike many VoIP services, Jajah doesn't require any installable software or hardware (other than an ordinary telephone). You go to the Web site and enter your phone number and the number you wish to call. Jajah does the rest by calling you and then connecting you with your party. Jajah also offers a service called Jajah Direct, which doesn't even require an Internet connection. You simply call a local phone number and provide the destination number. Readers report good voice quality and low per-minute rates, starting at 2.9 cents per minute, which are listed at the Jajah site. Calls between any two Jajah customers are free. • Vyke and VoipCheap. Reader Alf Manders wrote to tell us about Vyke, and Leon Fiss wanted to inform us of VoipCheap. Both services are similar to Skype in that they require you to download and install software. You'll need a microphone and speakers on your computer if you don't have a headset. • ChatterBug. Kurt Kincel prefers the ChatterBug hardware device, which requires no computer or Internet connection. You simply connect the $25 USD device between your phone and wall jack and pay $10 a month for long-distance calls. WSN editorial director Brian Livingston reviewed the ChatterBug in a Feb. 21, 2006, Executive Tech column. • GrandCentral. A reader named Roger is excited about the features offered by GrandCentral, a service that was recently acquired by Google. Unlike the other VoIP services mentioned above, GrandCentral is not designed to lower your long distance bills. Instead, it aims to unite all your phones under a single number that GrandCentral provides. Incoming calls are routed to your other numbers or to your voice mail. The service can also unite all your voice mails in one place, which you can manage from the Web site. You can screen calls, block unwanted calls, dial from an online address book, record and play back calls, and more. The service is currently free. • Skype. Finally, a few readers had comments on Skype-related hardware. Richard Sale is pleased with uConnect, a $60 USB device that lets you make Skype or landline calls from an analog phone that you plug into the device. Dave Eisenbraun recommends the Philips VOIP841, a $130 list ($110 street) cordless hybrid Skype and landline phone, which eliminates the need for a computer. Leon Sizemore and others wrote to point out that Skype does not require a special headset if your computer has speakers and a mic. MagicJack may not work on restricted systems Regarding the Dec. 13, 2007, article, reader Paul Wrenn asks about my statement that MagicJack installs no software on the host computer. Paul cites an eWeek article stating that the MagicJack software "does not run directly from the device," but "fully installs on the Windows system." To test this, I used the freeware product TinyWatcher to scan a Windows XP system before and connecting MagicJack. The TinyWatcher scan indicated that, contrary to prior statements by a MagicJack representative, MagicJack does add two files to the Windows System32 folder (usbaudio.sys and utscsci.exe). It also adds four entries to the Windows Registry. Although these changes are minimal compared to some other VoIP programs, they nevertheless suggest that MagicJack may not work on a computer whose policies prohibit any software installation. Patch resolves ADS issue on Windows Home Server Our Dec. 6 issue described how to make files invisible to Windows Explorer and most other Windows tools by using alternate data streams (ADS), a feature of Microsoft's NTFS file system. Our Known Issues column on Dec. 13 then pointed out that alternate data streams in an NTFS file can be corrupted if the file is copied to a shared folder on a system running Windows Home Server (WHS). Microsoft Knowledge Base article 943393 acknowledges the bug. Computer engineer and system builder Philip Churchill writes with the good news that a patch is available for WHS:
According to Philip's blog entry, the fix was made available through Windows' routine Automatic Updates process, so your WHS systems may have already been patched. Readers Cossins, Manders, Fiss, Kincel, Roger, Sale, Eisenbraun, Sizemore, Wrenn, and Churchill will each receive a gift certificate for a book, CD, or DVD of their choice for sending tips we printed. Send us your tips via the Windows Secrets contact page. |
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EDITOR'S BOOKSHELF
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WACKY WEB WEEK Time for your New Year's resolution, baby!
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INDEX The following topics appear in the free version
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YOUR SUBSCRIPTION The Windows Secrets Newsletter is published weekly on the 1st through 4th Thursdays of each month, plus occasional news updates. We skip an issue on the 5th Thursday of any month, plus the week of Thanksgiving and the last two weeks of August and December. Publisher: WindowsSecrets.com LLC, Attn: #120 Editor, 1700 7th Ave., Suite 116, Seattle, WA 98101-1323 USA. Vendors, please send no unsolicited packages to this address (readers' letters are fine). Editorial Director: Brian Livingston. Editor-at-Large: Fred Langa. Associate Editor: Scott Dunn. Contributing Editors: Susan Bradley, Mark Edwards, Woody Leonhard, Ryan Russell. Research Director: Vickie Stevens. Program Director: Brent Scheffler. Trademarks: Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. The Windows Secrets series of books is published by Wiley Publishing Inc. The Windows Secrets Newsletter, WindowsSecrets.com, LangaList, LangaList Plus, WinFind, Security Baseline, Patch Watch, Perimeter Scan, Wacky Web Week, the Logo Design (W, S or road, and Star), and the slogan Everything Microsoft Forgot to Mention all are trademarks and service marks of WindowsSecrets.com LLC. All other marks are the trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: Anyone may subscribe to this newsletter by visiting our free signup page. WE GUARANTEE YOUR PRIVACY: 1. We will never sell, rent, or give away your address to any outside party, ever. 2. We will never send you any unrequested e-mail, besides newsletter updates. 3. All unsubscribe requests are honored immediately, period. Privacy policy HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: To unsubscribe from the Windows Secrets Newsletter,
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