By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

It hardly seems like enough time has passed, but the test of Google search ads with Yahoo! search has apparently been so successful that things are already progressing. The Wall Street Journal’s “people familiar with the situation”, who seem all over the MicroHoo deal, have spoken thusly.

As you may recall, Global Markets analyst Mark Mahaney has said that such a deal could increase Yahoo!’s cash flow by more than $1 billion a year, because Google generates much more revenue for each query than Yahoo!’s does.

Such an infusion of additional revenue would obviously complicate matters for Microsoft, raising the value of Yahoo! and potentially blocking any hostile takeover by Microsoft. At the very least, it would make things more difficult for Ballmer and group, as well as increasing the odds that Microsoft will have to raise its bid.

It also gives Yahoo! time to continue its discussions with AOL. Of course, would anything like this even be under consideration without the pressure from Microsoft. Naturally not. Is this just gamesmanship? Hard to say, but the clock is ticking on Microsoft’s ultimatum to Yahoo! and something has got to give soon.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

You’ll recall the Mac clone maker Psystar, which not only says it can sell you a computer, it says it will install Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) on it as well. Which not only violates the Mac OS X EULA, it also requires tweaks to do it.

It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? And many times, if something sounds too good to be true …

At any rate, it’s strange that the company seems to have moved three since their announcement. Perhaps, as they indicate on their website, it was just a site error, but they started at 10645 SW 112th St. in Miami, then changed their contact info to 10481 NW 28th St., then to 10471 NW 28th St., and now they’re at 10475 NW 28th St. Unfortunately, no Google Street View of that address.

Either they have a really bad webmaster or something’s fishy.

Both the Guardian and Gizmodo have done some poking around, and nothing seems all that positive in terms of investing your hard-earned money with these guys.

• The address problem (though admitted to as an error in an interview with Tom’s Hardware).

• They can’t take orders by phone (see their site).

• They either have a really bad phone system or no one’s there.

• No response to emails.

• The principles are Rodolfo and Roberto Pedraza, who are officers or agents on a whole host of companies, only one of which, besides Psystar, appears in operation (FloridaTek). Oh, and if you click on the “Remote Desktop Technical Support” link on the upper LHS of the page you get an .EXE download - which I wouldn’t trust.

So, is this deal just “rotten to the core?” Can’t be sure yet, but it’s so fishy I’d be worried about mercury poisoning. Stay clear of this company until further notice.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Haven’t we heard about Windows Vista SP1 prerequisite updates causing problems before? Yes, we have. When Microsoft re-released KB937287, it also re-released KB938371, and that seems to hose some USB devices, such as mice and keyboards.

On WUGNET, there was a post regarding the issue. Here’s a similar one at TechNet. Some have recovered use of their devices by using System Restore and installing SP1; others have fixed the issue by removing all their HID devices in Device Manager, allowing Vista to reinstall the drivers. Some are still stuck. And since, according to Microsoft, KB938371 can’t be uninstalled, it’s a big problem.

Microsoft has, according to PC Magazine, acknowledged the issue, but has provided no information on a fix.

“We are aware of concerns that a recent Microsoft update may be causing problems with USB devices. We are investigating the matter and at this time do not have any additional information to share.”

I have to say, the history of issues with these prerequisite updates for SP1 has not been good, and that’s being generous. The issues with not being able to install SP1 without “fixed drivers” has turned SP1 into a fiasco.

Microsoft needs to get all these issues fixed, and fixed quickly, if they want SP1 adoption to continue, not to mention regaining some lost user confidence.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Nintendo filled in the last bit of information for the Wii Fit game on Tuesday, announcing that when it launches in the U.S. on May 19th it will cost $89.99 (MSRP). $90 for a game? Well, it’s more than a game; it includes the new Wii Balance Board controller, and anyway, let’s not forget that Guitar Hero III for the Wii is the same price.

And also, when the Wii Fit launched in Japan, it was 8800 yen, which is now the equivalent of $88.

According to Nintendo’s press release, those who pre-order Wii Fit from the Nintendo World store in New York’s Rockefeller Plaza will get a bonus item.

From April 18-20, the first 1,000 consumers who place a $5 deposit for Wii Fit will receive a limited edition Wii Fit T-shirt featuring the image and reproduced autograph of legendary Nintendo video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto.

Wii Fit has already sold 1.4 million copies in Japan; we’ve often wondered if the delay in getting it to the U.S. was due to having to strengthen the Balance Board controller to handle the more robust (all right, fat) bodies of Americans.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Remember the father who sold his pot-smoking son’s Guitar Hero III game on eBay as punishment? The father netted $9K in that auction. The mom here won’t get that much, but at least she’s teaching her kid a lesson.

Here’s the auction. What’s the deal? Here’s what the auction says (spelling errors per the post, BTW):

Yes I am the mean mom who is selling her sons XBOX and games to replace the vaccum he broke but also to teach him a lesson that things cost money, and you should respect your parents. He can do his chores (that still remains on the kitchen table typed very neatly) now knowing that the money he earns will go towards something he bought…and maybe that might make him respect alittle bit more….this is something that has been three weeks coming, he has had numerous changes to get a better attitude…but when I found the porn on his computer that was it…so here we are: Let’s bid

Porn on a teenage boy’s computer? No! Breaking the vacuum cleaner to avoid chores, however, is a new one on me - not necessarily smart, but new.

She also password-protected his PC and apparently put a picture of Snoopy on his MySpace page. Originally she posted the system on Craigslist as well, apparently not realizing she shouldn’t be selling it if she’s auctioning it, too. Or maybe she just thought she should get more on eBay. From the Craigslist post (now deleted):

My son seems to think everything should be handed to him on a silver platter, so the XBOX is going bye bye. I do have an assortment of games as well, that I will sell for $15 each.

Price is firm, must replace vaccum that he broke thinking that would get him out of having to do chores.

Ha, I applaud her for not taking any guff from her teen. Let’s hope she gets enough for a new vacuum. BTW, it seems like eBay needs a new auction category: Good Parenting.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

In another of those “you haven’t said yes so we’re going to the public” deals that seem so common nowadays, Blockbuster has announced it has made an offer to Circuit City for a “combination” of the two companies.

The offer, made on February 17th, apparently wasn’t swiftly responded to, and because, as Blockbuster said in a press release:

Unfortunately, to date, Circuit City has failed to provide due diligence necessary to allow Blockbuster to make a definitive proposal. Blockbuster is making its proposal public because it believes the shareholders of Circuit City should have the opportunity to participate in determining the destiny of the company. In addition, as Blockbuster has other strategic opportunities, its offer is conditioned upon timely commencement of the due diligence process.

The offer is for at least $6 per share and equate to $1 billion, or approximately 54% more than Circuit City’s current value. In its letter to Circuit City, Blockbuster said the offer could go as high as $8 / share, based on “due diligence.”

Part of the letter says:

The combination of Blockbuster and Circuit City will result in an $18 billion retail enterprise uniquely positioned for the convergence of media content and electronic devices. We would seek to differentiate products in both Blockbuster and Circuit City stores by offering exclusive content and content-enabled devices. Both companies would benefit from complementary products, marketing, management strengths, technology and distribution and the resulting synergies would significantly improve consolidated financial performance. Overall, I strongly believe that a combination of Blockbuster and Circuit City would deliver significant value to our respective shareholders, enhance the overall customer experience, and energize our employees.

It seems that Blockbuster sees the “someday movies will mostly be downloaded” writing on the wall and thus wants to get into some sort of hardware sales. Of course, as Best Buy has been beating Circuit City into submission of late, I’m not sure a combination of these two would make a difference. Of course, let’s not forget Netflix vs. Blockbuster on the other side of the fence.

At the same time, as has been typical of late, the company in question, Circuit City, has acknowledged the unsolicited offer, and said “hang on, don’t do anything” to shareholders.

Circuit City also indicated it has doubts Blockbuster could follow through:

The Company noted that its Board of Directors has previously reviewed a similar private proposal from Blockbuster. Circuit City, Blockbuster and their respective financial advisors have been in a process of exchanging information regarding the proposal, but to date Blockbuster has been unable to satisfy Circuit City and its advisors that Blockbuster’s proposal could be financed. In particular, Blockbuster’s proposal appears to contemplate a rights offering of unprecedented size relative to the issuing company’s market capitalization and at a price that is at a significant premium to Blockbuster’s current market price. Circuit City’s advisors have noted that most rights offerings, of which there have been very few in the United States, occur at discounts to market.

Full text of the letter from Blockbuster to Circuit City and the tepid response are as linked above.

We Say: Sure is “unsolicited takeover” season, isn’t it? Not that this will distract us from the “Microhoo” drama.

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

It’s true. There is at least one feature in Windows Vista that was implemented on time, to spec, and fully functional when Vista was initially released: User Account Control (UAC).

In XP, if you’re an administrator, you can do anything. In Vista, however, if UAC is enabled, whenever a user that is a member of the local administrators group tries to perform a task that requires administrative privileges, Vista prompts the user prior to running the task.

This can be annoying. And for most home users, it would seem to be totally unnecessary - and it’s the first thing I disable on a new Vista install or new Vista PC.

Thursday at RSA 2008, David Cross, a product unit manager at Microsoft who was part of the team that developed UAC, admitted it was designed to annoy. But the reason wasn’t just so Microsoft could get its jollies. It was designed to annoy users and ISVs into changing their behavior.

Microsoft wanted to get end users from running as administrators, but also to force ISVs to stop building apps that require administrative privileges to install and run.

“The reason we put UAC into the platform was to annoy users. I’m serious,” said Cross. “We needed to change the ecosystem, and we needed a heavy hammer to do it.”

Moreover, Cross said that 88% of Vista users run with UAC turned on, and 66% of sessions have no prompts. Still I think if Microsoft managed to change our behavior, it’s in this way: encouraged us to search for “how to disable UAC” in Google.

We Say: BTW, if you want to disable UAC:

• Launch MSCONFIG by from the Run menu.
• Click on the Tools tab.
• Scroll down till you find “Disable UAC”. Select that entry (as shown, click to enlarge)

• Press the Launch button.
• A CMD window will open. When the command is done, you can close the window.
• Close MSCONFIG.
• Reboot.

You can re-enable UAC by selecting the “Enable UAC” line and then clicking on the Launch button.

There are, of course, several other ways to disable UAC as well.

By Martin Regtien
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Computerworld has recently reported that in the next few years the sum total of Earth’s data will be in the two zetabyte vicinity. One Zetabyte is equal to one billion gigabytes.. in case you were wondering.

My personal and family data storage — says reviewer Paul Moons — is still a little off that, but it has increased significantly since the birth of our child four years ago. This data is mainly in the form of digital photos and videos or work documents and it is all over the place: DVDs, CDs, hard drives in different PCs, etc.

The D-Link DNS-323 NAS RAID box offers a relatively inexpensive long term storage solution which can keep all your data in one place, allow universal access and when setup as a RAID 1 device, secure it from hardware gremlins.

Read on for more here..