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In 2009, Web goes on a diet

2009 was, in many ways, a good year for the Web and the technologies that help us access it. Companies big and small had to re-evaluate what was important: an ethos that channeled into more focused product launches and notable improvements to existing software and services.

That refocus meant tech giants spent the early part of 2009 trimming the fat on services that were too costly to run, or simply underused. Google cut a myriad of its offerings, shelving microblogging service Jaiku, its social network Dodgeball, Google Video, catalog search, "shared stuff," and its notebook service. Yahoo followed suit, dropping the ax on its Briefcase online storage service, closing off access to its Jumpcut Web video editor, and 360 blogging tool. Yahoo also pulled the plug on Geocities--one of the Web's early relics. Other notable discontinuations include Microsoft killing off its online encyclopedia Encarta, and HP getting rid of its Upline backup solution.

Services that were not shut down saw improvements. Google's Gmail finally left beta, and gained a feature that lets users access it offline. The company also launched Google Wave--a somewhat experimental real-time collaboration service. Microsoft's Windows Live Search was relaunched as a new product called Bing, which was received well both by the press and users. Bing, along with Yahoo and Google, also integrated real-time results from social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Speaking of Microsoft and Yahoo, Microhoo finally happened--though not as it was originally intended. In late July, Microsoft and Yahoo entered a 10-year search deal that gave Yahoo Microsoft's search engine technology, while Microsoft got Yahoo's ad sales force and partners; The result was quite different from 2008's $44.6 billion unsolicited bid that would have given Microsoft complete control of the company.

2009 also brought new location-based tools, some of which, by some accounts, are a little creepy. Microsoft's Bing got its own version of local maps, complete with a street-level view. And at the South by Southwest tech and music conference in Austin, Texas, Foursquare debuted. The service lets people show where they are to their friends, and vice versa. The month prior, Google launched a similar service called Latitude that would put a user's exact location on a map--right down to the city block. Google also expanded its Maps and Earth services, taking street view outside of the U.S., and Google Earth took users to the Earth's oceans, the moon, and Mars.

Along with search and location, 2009 was a boon year for social networks. Facebook in particular saw huge gains in its number of registered users. It began the year with 150 million users, and is now well past 350 million. That's no small feat, as recent projections boasted the much-hyped and talked about Twitter somewhere close to 60 million, up from less than 10 million at the beginning of the year. Twitter also gained some celebrity traction, netting an account from Oprah Winfrey as well as Ashton Kutcher. Kutcher went on to become the first Twitter user to hit 1 million followers, beating out news network CNN. He's since blown past 4 million.

Both Twitter and Facebook also continued to show that they are an integral part in the spread of information. Controversy over Iran's presidential elections, and the Iranian government censorship that followed made the social networks one of the few places Iranians could go to vent frustrations and pass across news tidbits that would have otherwise gone unseen. Twitter even skipped its scheduled maintenance to stay up--as per a request from the U.S. State Department. Facebook, in turn, rushed to provide support for Farsi so Iranian users could join it.

Twitter was also the first place to go to see photos of U.S. Airways Flight 1549, which had to make an emergency landing in New York's Hudson River. Nearby ferry riders snapped the first shots of the crash and uploaded them to photo host Twitpic, which ended up crashing because of the sudden, and massive traffic spike.

Besides social networks, voice services and VoIP telephony were big in 2009. E-commerce giant eBay sold off its Skype services to an investor group that now runs it as its own product, with hopes of an IPO in 2010. Google redesigned its GrandCentral service as a product called Google Voice, which was opened up to users after a year and a half of dormancy. Google also snatched up Web-based VoIP service Gizmo5, which could end up being integrated into Google Voice. Other notable telephony launches include 3Jam, which does voice forwarding and transcription, and Ribbit's mobile service. Both of those companies, along with Google, are trying to get users to manage their calls and voice mails online, functionality that is likely to expand in 2010.

Even with a flashy relaunch, Google Voice had its own share of controversy. This year the service got into hot water with AT&T. It started when Apple pulled all the third-party Google Voice applications from its App Store, along with rejecting Google's submission of its own Google Voice application. This action caused the FCC to launch an inquiry to see why the apps were removed, as well as why Google's Voice application was not allowed onto Apple's store.

It turns out AT&T was not having any part of Google's blocking phone calls to certain parts of the country that would have cost the company more money to connect users to. In late-October Google bounced back, announcing that it had limited the amount of blocked numbers to fewer than 100. Despite this, 2009 closed out without any Google Voice apps (including Google's own) making it back onto the App Store.

Finally, 2009 saw a continuation of the browser wars. Mozilla iterated on the third version of its Firefox browser several times, while Microsoft, Apple, and Opera introduced brand new versions of Explorer, Safari and Opera, respectively. Google took the crown though--it managed to jump two version numbers, going from version one to three, with version four currently in developer testing.

Chrome also jumped from being just a browser to a full-fledged operating system. In late November, Google publicly demoed Chrome OS, an instant-on browser-based operating system designed for Netbooks. Users, however won't be getting their hands on hardware that will run Chrome OS until mid- to late 2010.

Reference: news.cnet.com

Windows 7 Ultimate Cracked and Activated Permanently with OEM SLP Master Product Key (with SLIC 2.1)

Windows 7 Ultimate has been cracked, and can be permanently activated with OEM style instant offline activation which will pass Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation, before even any Windows 7 is officially released according to Windows 7 release schedule. All hell breaks loose when a Windows 7 Ultimate OEM DVD ISO from Lenovo been leaked and posted on Chinese forum. The ISO was quickly grabbed to retrieve boot.wim, which was then used to retrieve the OEM-SLP product key and OEM certificate for Windows 7 Ultimate.

Microsoft has updated the the SLP (system-Locked Preinstallation), a procedure that used to preactivate Windows operating system for mass distribution by major OEM (original equipment manufacturers), to version 2.1 to support Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 while provided backward-compatibility for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 activation. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 OEM activation is provided by SLP 2.0. SLP 2.1 requires SLIC imprinted in BIOS to be updated to SLIC version 2.1 too, which contains new Windows Marker.

After extracting the OEM certificate and OEM product key, it’s confirmed that Windows 7 uses the same digitally signed OEM certificate (in .xrm-ms extension) that is been used in Windows Vista. Windows Vista OEM cert can be used in Windows 7 has been explained in Windows 7 forum. As OEM certificate is digitally signed by Microsoft with its own Private Key with OEM Public Key and OEMID (part of SLIC table in BIOS). The combination of correct Private Key, Public Key with OEMID will pass SLP validation as valid Microsoft license. Meanwhile, Windows Marker is signed by OEM itself based on OEMID and OEMTableID (both belongs to SLIC) using the private key that matches the public key. Thus, the same OEM cert can be used for many different SLICs, as long as OEMID remains the same, as in the case of SLP 2.0 and SLP 2.1, although Windows Marker has changed due to different OEMTableID.

The trick is to have BIOS modded to include the SLIC 2.1. The SLIC 2.1 can be modded into BIOS physically (hardmod or biosmod) or been emulated or simulated during Windows boots up (softmod). Various SLIC 2.1 BIN has been retrieved from various notebook computer that shipped with new SLIC 2.1 in BIOS to support the free Windows 7 Upgrade Option from Windows Vista. If you just bought a new PC, it’s possible to check if SLIC 2.1 exists in BIOS. The information can be used to mod the BIOS. If you’re not technically know-how, it’s possible to request for BIOS mod assistant, or wait for Windows 7 Loader or WoW7.

Last but not least (which makes no activation crack works properly so far) is OEM-SLP product key for Windows 7. So far no OEM-SLP product key required to activate Windows 7 as OEM offline instant activation been leaked yet as no machine has been officially ship in Windows 7 by OEM, until now.

The extracted Windows 7 Ultimate OEM-SLP product key, 22TKD-F8XX6-YG69F-9M66D-PMJBM, can be used to activate installed Windows 7 Ultimate system, which BIOS has a valid OEM SLIC 2.1, and corresponding OEM cert, even if it’s OEM cert meant for Windows Vista. Best news is that, the product key appears to be a master OEM-SLP product key for Windows 7 Ultimate, which able to activate many OEM brands, such as HP, Dell, MSI and Lenovo. Checkout the discussion at Windows 7 forums.

Tip: It doesn’t matter if you have download and install Windows 7 RTM retail version ISO or Windows 7 RTM OEM version ISO. Just use the following commands to convert to OEM version:

slmgr.vbs -ilc OEM.XRM-MS (where OEM.XRM-MS is a valid OEM cert matching with SLIC 2.1 in BIOS)

slmgr -ipk 22TKD-F8XX6-YG69F-9M66D-PMJBM

Both 32-bit and 64-bit (x86 and x64) Windows 7 Ultimate system should and can be activated immediately. For Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Home Basic, and Windows 7 Starter, the OEM-SLP keys haven’t been leaked, thus can’t be OEM-activated yet. It’s expected that various Windows 7 activators, Windows 7 activation toolkits, Windows 7 Loaders and etc are expected to be released by various hackers soon. However, Microsoft may decide to block and blacklist this leaked master OEM-SLP product key. If true, other OEM-SLP keys from actual machine shipped from OEM has to be retrieved.

Windows 7 already bigger than Snow Leopard and Linux combined

It's only been a couple of weeks since Windows 7 was released, but Microsoft's new OS has already captured a larger percentage of the market than Apple's OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Linux (yes, all of Linux). This doesn't come as a huge surprise, considering how many Windows users were clamoring for Win7 after the flop that is Vista. Microsoft says Windows 7's launch outdid Vista's by 234%. Those brisk sales have already netted Windows a 2% share of the world's OS business, compared to just over 1% for Snow Leopard, and just under 1% for Linux.

Despite the strong sales of Win7, Windows as a whole dropped a quarter of a percentage point in October, with Mac and Linux both making small gains. That quarter of a point hardly matters when you've got 90% of the OS market and your new operating system is being adopted quickly, though.

I expect to see Windows swing back up after Windows 7's been available for a while. I mean, we're talking about an operating system that outsold Harry Potter in the UK. Right now, it's only got a 2% share, compared to 19% for Vista and 70% for XP, but that's after only two weeks. Expect that number to zoom upward by the end of November.

Windows 7 still needs anti-virus, susceptible to 8 out of 10 viruses

During the launch of the new Windows 7, Microsoft had a lot to say about the safety features it offered, and especially protection from viruses and malware. While it was always meant to be taken with a pinch of salt, the guys at security firm Sophos decided to put the operating system to the test. Chester Wisniewski of Sophos writes that they loaded up a machine with a fresh version of Windows 7, and left all the User Account Control options at default. Then, they grabbed the next 10 unique virus samples that arrived in the SophosLabs feed to see how well the newer, more secure version of Windows and UAC held up. “Unfortunately, despite Microsoft's claims, Windows 7 disappointed just like earlier versions of Windows. The good news is that, of the freshest 10 samples that arrived, 2 would not operate correctly under Windows 7,” Wisniewski writes. Lesson learned? You still need to run anti-virus on Windows 7. A viable option could be the new, free Microsoft Security Essentials suite that the company has launched recently. Ars Technica reported a few days ago on an antivirus comparison by AV-Comparative that puts Microsoft Security Essentials as the best free anti-virus solution out there, ahead of names like AVG, Avast and Avira. Windows 7 debut is a hitMeanwhile, market analysis firm NPD has released a report that says Windows 7 has done extremely well since its launch on October 22. According to NPD’s weekly tracking service, Windows 7 software unit sales in the U.S. were 234 per cent higher than Vista’s first few days of sales. “Microsoft’s program of early low-cost pre-sales, high visibility marketing, and aggressive deals helped make the Windows 7 software launch successful,” said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. “In a slow environment for packaged software Windows 7 brought a large number of customers into the software aisles.”

Microsoft launched free security software

After being criticised time and again for the amount of viruses and malware that affect the Windows operating system, Microsoft has decided to finally do something about it. The Redmond giant is set to make available a free suite of security software, and is calling the Security Essentials.

Offering antivirus and anti-malware protection, Security Essentials will be completely free to download either from the Windows Update program or through its official page. And as with all other free antivirus software, it will receive periodic updates to virus definitions via the Internet.

The download is expected to be about 4.7MB in size, and requires the user to have a legitimate copy of Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 (Beta or RC). It’s as yet unclear whether the launch is going to be worldwide or restricted to a few regions, but all indications are that it should be an international release.



The Security Essentials suite is Microsoft’s new iteration of the Windows Live OneCare paid package, and has been in beta testing for a few months now. Several testers have already reviewed the beta version.

PC World has extensively reviewed the software suite, with Nick Mediati writing: “The Microsoft Security Essentials interface is clear-cut and cleanly designed. You'll likely spend most of your time on the Home tab; ‘set it and forget it’ aptly describes Microsoft Security Essentials. The default settings are appropriate for most users...”

The Security Essentials public beta also took fourth place in PC World’s recent roundup of free antivirus software. Microsoft Security Essentials beta detected 97.8 percent of malware in tests conducted by AV-Test.org, which is decent score compared to other, similar free antivirus tools. Malware scans were a bit on the sluggish side, though, taking longer to scan than a number of competing products.

Reviewer Erik Larkin wrote: "If Microsoft can improve the detection rate a bit – and rev up the scan speed more than a bit – before the program's final release, Security Essentials could turn out to be a real contender in the free antivirus arena."

All in all, if you are someone who uses AVG Free, Avira or Avast, then Microsoft Security Essentials might be a very viable alternative.