By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Earlier I wrote about clean installs not being available any longer with Windows Vista Upgrade DVDs. There was conjecture that it might be related to Home versions, but even the mainstream press was confused. Now, it seems Paul Thurott, through some internal Microsoft documents, has discovered a workaround. However, he did not test it, but the enterprising folks at DailyTech did, and they confirm it works.

We Say: You could say this is even more liberal than a “clean install” for XP was (and therefore, probably a bug). Why? Because done as instructed in the DailyTech article, you don’t even have to have an XP key. I’m not going to print the DailyTech instructions verbatim (please use the link above), but to summarize:

With a clean drive, install Vista by booting from the DVD but do not enter the key when asked. This installs Vista as a 30 day trial. Once complete, run the installation from inside Vista and do an in-place upgrade. Viola.

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Has everyone seen the Snap popup preview that is running on some of the big blogs like Techcrunch? I thought I was the only one who hated as I had never seen any posts about it, it was like they just popped it on their blog and no one cared, so I didn’t complain any. I couldn’t believe that Techcrunch added such an annoying thing to their blog, I know it had to run off some readers, I haven’t visited it very much since, reading it mainly in my RSS reader. Well, now I know I’m not the only one, Nick Wilson from Performancing just blogged about it and almost everyone who commented agreed. Woohoo, I was beginning to think it was the 90’s all over again, with the blinky text and the annoying midi files.

Snap’s preview anywhere gizmo is ruining the reading experience for millions of people. Its intrusive, obstructive and un-useful in almost every respect and use case. The fact that so many big blogs are using it, big well respected blogs, does not mean that it’s useful, it just means that they, like most bloggers, have all the self restraint of a magpie in a sparkly things factory. Source: Performancing

We Say: At least I say, I agree with Nick and everyone else that hates it, and I can’t believe Wordpress added it to run by default, how annoying was that for some webmasters? Some people complained that if you go to the Snap.com site and disable it, that it will come back if you clear your cookies, well, there are a couple other ways to block it. One is to turn of JavaScript, I believe, not for sure as I have it turned on, or you can go into internet explorer, into the security tab and Add http://spa.snap.com to your restricted sites, and it is over. No more popup previews.

By Martin Regtien
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

With the hype for the iPods and Zunes it’s easy to forget that SanDisk is one of the major players in the personal audio field. So it’s good to know there is a decent alternative in the Sansa e200 series, SanDisk’s flagship audio line.

On DigitalReviews.net they are reviewing the Sansa e260 in particular.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Now I’ve seen everything (all right, I still have plenty of time left, so maybe not) . Dell has opened a Second Life store, there are car dealers in Second Life, we’ve seen Reuters open a news bureau and companies have press conferences there. Now Second Life is getting its first embassy.

Sweden plans to be the first country to open an embassy in popular virtual world Second Life. “It will have answers to questions on all aspects of Sweden,” Olle Wastberg, general director of the Swedish Institute, an organization which promotes the country’s image abroad, said on Tuesday. Source: MSNBC

We Say: Does this mean if my avatar walks into the embassy I’m on Swedish soil? Will Swedish guards have to have avatars and “play them” to guard the embassy? (Yes, all tongue-in-cheek) I’ve said before maybe I should check this world out … on the other hand, maybe things are getting out of hand.

By Chief Gadgeteer, Gizmos for Geeks
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews.

Dave Zatz over at Zatz Not Funny is holding a charity raffle to help out the James Kim Memorial Fund. For every $10 you send in to Dave you will receive an entry in a raffle for a TiVo Toaster.

To learn more on how to contribute, check out this entry on Zatz Not Funny.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Microsoft is ending their past policy with regards to upgrade installs, starting with Windows Vista. In the past, for example, you could perform a clean install of Windows XP Professional using an upgrade CD, by doing the normal install, then popping in a Windows 98 or Windows 2000 CD when prompted. Then the install would continue. For Vista, this will no longer suffice to satisfy the bean counters at Microsoft.

Microsoft has cut out this process for Windows Vista and forces users who buy an upgrade CD to actually have a valid install of Windows XP Home or Professional on their machines before upgrading. For most users, this wouldn’t be a problem. They more than likely have an existing copy of Windows XP installed and would have no problems upgrading to Windows Vista with an upgrade CD.

But for do-it-yourselfers who buy a Vista upgrade CD and think that they can easily perform a clean install whenever they feel free are going to run into the road block. Source: DailyTech

We Say: Many may say, what’s wrong with that? But when switching OSes like this, you should really have a clean install. Otherwise you’re going to have a system full of unused files and garbage. I realize that most users will just go with the direct upgrade, without starting from scratch, but I wouldn’t be one of them.

Finally, let’s not forget how much fun you’ll have if for some reason your hard drive crashes. Install XP, then install Vista. Fun!

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

You might ask, what do cell phones have to do with a brawl on school grounds? Well, apparently the combatants were using cell phones to call in reinforcements, thus exacerbating the fight. And yes, although other school districts have done this in the past, it was generally because the phones were a distraction or were being used to cheat (not that those are better uses for them, mind you).

The fracas earlier this month, in which six students and three adults were arrested, was the latest in a surge of cell phone-related fights and prompted Wisconsin’s largest school district to ban cell phones in its 217 schools beginning Monday. “We consider (cell phones) almost as weapons because when they call, we’re the ones out in front and we don’t know these people are coming,” said Mike Heese, safety security assistant at Bradley Tech High School, where the fight happened. Source: MSNBC

We Say: Some will say this is going overboard or that parents need to be able to call their kids (of course, if you read the article, since TWO carloads of the same family went to join a fracas twice in a matter of weeks … that family certainly doesn’t get the right to use that as an excuse). But I say, if they can’t use them properly, don’t let them use them at all. Cell phones are not a right, are they?

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Got a catchy tune in your head, but have no idea who the artist is? Midomi.com says it can help, you can type in keywords to search for songs, or you can hum a few bars and see what comes up. They even allow users to record songs in their online studio and says the next time someone searches for it, your result could be first. Content is king and user generated content is pretty much free.

Do you ever find yourself humming a song whose title, to your frustration, you don’t know or can’t remember? New search Web site Midomi is designed to actually identify that song for you in as little as 10 seconds.

Launching in beta mode on Friday, Midomi allows people to search for a song by singing, humming or whistling a bit of the tune. The site then offers search results that include commercially recorded tracks or versions of the song recorded by others who have used the site. The technology also lets people listen to the exact section of each of the results that matched their voice sample.

The underlying speech- and sound-recognition technology, dubbed Multimodal Adaptive Recognition System, or MARS, differs from similar technologies in that it looks at a variety of factors for recognizing samples, including pitch, tempo variation, speech content and location of pauses, said Chief Executive Keyvan Mohajer, who has a Ph.D. in sound- and speech-recognition from Stanford University. Source: News.com

We Say: This looks pretty cool, but I can’t think of any good songs to try, the generic searches I did try did not return the results I expected, but I don’t like most of the crap that’s out there anyway. Voice recognition hasn’t worked very well in the past, so I’m not expecting very good results there either. Does anybody have a mic to try it out?