Microsoft's new idea to steal Android users is a good one

News broke a few days ago about a mobile app coming to the Google Play Store, designed to ease the transition from Android to Windows Phone 8. The “Switch to Windows Phone” app being developed by Microsoft and its partner Quixey scans the apps installed on a device, then checks the Windows Phone App store to see if the same apps are available for WP8, and if not, it suggests similar or alternative apps. The list can then be sent to a Microsoft account for easy retrieval should the user actually make the switch to Windows Phone.

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Why a 7-inch Surface tablet would be a mistake for Microsoft

For the past couple of weeks, the web has been buzzing with rumors and speculation that Microsoft is working on a 7-inch version of its Surface Tablet. There has been no official word from Microsoft, of course, but if you look at current market trends, introducing a smaller tablet would seem to make a lot of sense. The popularity of the iPad Mini, Kindle Fire and Google’s Nexus 7 are clear indicators that consumers are interested in smaller tablets, and Microsoft surely wants a piece of the action.

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What am I missing with Windows Phone 8?

A few months back, I acquired a Nokia Lumia 920 with the intent to use the device as my everyday smartphone. I had been a long-time user of the old and now defunct Windows Mobile, and still like to experiment with custom ROMs on an old WinMo-based HTC Rhodium from time to time, but for the last couple of years I’ve almost exclusively used Android-based devices.

BACKGROUND: Why I abandoned Windows Phone 8

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Microsoft's TEALS program: Facilitating computer science education, coding at a younger age

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across a video posted to YouTube by the Microsoft Citizenship group titled "Woolly worms to worlds of opportunities: Jeremy's story." The video tells a story of a high school student from Beaytyville, Kentucky, named Jeremy who wants to be a software engineer, or more specifically, a game designer. Unfortunately for Jeremy, his school didn’t have much of a computer science program, so he tried to learn as much as he could on his own. That only got him so far, though.

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Surface Pro is making people crazy

I understand that Microsoft is a divisive company. I get it; I really do. Over the years, they’ve won over a few fans and created more than a few enemies - and both sides are constantly at war. But what’s happened since the release of the company’s Surface Pro tablet PC was nothing short of incredible. It seemed that an as-yet-unknown feature of Surface Pro was making some journalists a bit crazy.

RELATED: Why I abandoned Windows Phone 8

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Windows 8, once called a 'catastrophe,' is actually ideal for gamers

A few months back, I wrote about an interview in which Valve co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell called Windows 8 a “catastrophe.” Just to refresh your memory, back then Mr. Newell specifically said, “I think that Windows 8 is kind of a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space. I think that we’re going to lose some of the top-tier PC original equipment manufacturers. They’ll exit the market.

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Prepare for the Windows 8 app onslaught

Over the last few weeks, I’ve watched numerous people try to analyze what little solid information is available regarding Windows 8’s initial sales. Microsoft made an announcement a few weeks back claiming that it sold 40 million licenses in the operating system’s first month, and that first-month sales were better than Windows 7’s during its launch.

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Why I abandoned Windows Phone 8

A few months ago, I forced myself to switch to Windows 8 on my desktop system (and laptop) and ended up liking the operating system very much. Once I got used to the quirks and garish look of the new Start screen and learned many of the shortcuts built into Windows 8, I found myself enjoying the operating system and was more than pleased by its myriad of enhancements and performance improvements.

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Questioning Microsoft's relevance is nonsense

Over the last few years, Microsoft has been bombarded from nearly every direction. Whether it be the vicious assault from Apple and iOS, the unstoppable force that is Google, or the ever-increasing array of quality open-source operating systems and applications, it seems Microsoft is in a constant battle for its life on multiple fronts. I may be dramaticizing a bit, but all of that is true—no doubt about it. And if Microsoft continues to let opportunities pass them by, the company’s days as one of the leaders in tech will be numbered.

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How Microsoft's Surface tablet got my family through a Hurricane Sandy outage

We’re a cynical bunch up here in the greater New York City area, so when meteorologists started reporting that a major hurricane was headed our way for the last week of October, many of us were initially a bit skeptical. But the news started to get more and more dire as the storm, which became Hurricane Sandy, got closer after having already devastated parts of the Caribbean. It was Friday afternoon, while I was attending the Windows 8/Surface launch event in Manhattan, that Sandy was off the shore of Florida and horrible news started coming out of Cuba and the Bahamas.

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Surface resentment aside, OEMs rally behind Windows 8/RT

Save for a single evening mingling with folks at Samsung at the Galaxy Note II launch event, I spent all of last week (and part of the week before) meeting with a number of Microsoft's OEM partners to check out their first batch of Windows 8/RT-ready hardware. I got to see and get some hands-on time with a myriad of notebooks, Ultrabooks, tablets, and all-in-ones from some large OEMs, and I think the early Windows 8 hardware story is a good one, for the most part.

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Windows RT Surface tablet boasts excellent design, but its still a tough sell

This past week saw a tidal wave of fresh Windows 8/RT and Surface-related news, as both Microsoft’s new operating systems and tablet PC officially launched. I spent the better part of the week attending events at which I was able to get some quality, hands-on time with dozens of new devices and systems, and also acquired a Surface with Windows RT tablet, along with all of its related accessories.

RELATED: First look: Windows 8 Surface RT

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Microsoft's Surface tablet already can't compete

In the last few months since the initial announcement of its Surface branded tablets, Microsoft hasn’t said much about its upcoming product line-up. The relative silence actually had some folks wondering if there were some sort of undisclosed issues with Surface that could delay the launch.

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Microsoft Office 2013's enhanced protection scheme cracked ahead of official launch

In addition to a host of improvements and other changes, Microsoft beefed up the encryption scheme used to secure users’ data in Office 2013. With Office 2010, Microsoft used an SHA-1 class algorithm with a 128-bit key to encrypt plain-text password-protected documents. With Office 2013, though, Microsoft has moved to a technically more secure SHA-2 class SHA512 algorithm to calculate the hash values for the encryption keys, but it appears even that wasn’t enough.

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iPhone users really are switching to Bing maps, and they like it

With the release of the iPhone 5 and iOS 6, it’s become clear that Apple is more dedicated than ever to maintaining the tightest possible control of every aspect of its ecosystem, as is evidenced by the custom A6 SoC in the handset and a number of changes ushered in with iOS 6, including Apple’s new Maps app (among many other things).

RELATED: Apple's failure could lead to Bing's gain

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Time to eat crow: Windows 8 is better than Windows 7

If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog, you’ve probably seen my opinion of Windows 8 vary greatly throughout the operating system’s development cycle. I was initially happy with many of the enhancements due to be introduced with Windows 8, like the OS Reset and Refresh features, streamlined multi-monitor support, revamped CHKDSK tool, and integrated virtualization technology, among many others.

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Weighing Windows Phone 8's chances now that it's reached RTM

The past couple of weeks have seen some major developments in the Windows Phone 8 space. Earlier this month, Nokia officially unveiled its Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 smartphones, to mostly positive fanfare. The glossy exteriors and loud colors on some models can be a little funky, but the powerful hardware inside the devices and handy features like wireless charging are sure to win over a few potential consumers.

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Cozying up to Google? Microsoft adds SkyDrive Android app

Although it started as a Windows/Web only solution, Microsoft has systematically revamped SkyDrive over the years to not only refine the service, but to support additional platforms. Just this past week, Microsoft made SkyDrive even more accessible by releasing a native Android app, giving users of Google’s mobile OS easy access to whatever files are stored in their SkyDrive folders. The move is not at all that surprising considering SkyDrive already supports Windows, Mac OS X and iOS, but the timing is interesting.

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Microsoft's DMCA takedown blitz smells of Windows 8 censorship

Out of the blue, a number of reputable online publications, including BetaNews, Hardware Canucks, PowerArchiver, NGOHQ, and Technize (among many others), received DMCA takedown orders from Google that claim on Microsoft’s behalf that the sites were infringing on various Microsoft copyrights.

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Microsoft removes Windows 8 grace period, inconveniences everybody

By now, I suspect many of you have read that Microsoft has eliminated the activation grace period from retail versions of Windows 8. With its newly minted OS, Microsoft is forcing users to enter a product key during the installation, as was the case with Windows XP. With Windows 7, users could install the OS without entering a product key and take the OS for a spin for up to 120 days. The initial grace period was only 30 days, but a simple—and legal—command line tool gave users the ability to reset the timer up to 3 times.

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