I have earned like $15 from the Bing rewards program lol. Redeemed it all in Amazon giftcards. Working on another giftcard now. Just use bing for everything, like when you want to visit a website, just type it into Bing to a get a search credit for it. Its just like typing ina URL twice - not a huge pain in the ass , and it pays. Also, there are opther ways to earn credits, for example just by viewing something Bing-related, or setting Bing as your homepage and default search engine (which can be change back after you redeem the credits).

[Edited on May 1, 2012 at 9:56 PM. Reason : /]

5/1/2012 9:52:40 PM

Hey can yall click this and sign (if you have a window live account) so I can redeem 5 credits per sign-up (up to 25 credits)?

THX IN ADVANCE

5/2/2012 12:53:48 PM

^FAIL

donde esta link????

5/2/2012 2:12:28 PM

LOL

http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9778718&rrid=0F399C7B-DFED-476A-9333-7D5D8135DA47

5/2/2012 4:57:25 PM

So they've resorted to paying people to use it now?

5/2/2012 5:19:43 PM

This is nothing new ...

Microsoft to Launch "Live Search Cashback"
May 20, 2008
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2054175/Microsoft-to-Launch-Live-Search-Cashback

Going further back, there was program that paid you cash for the ads you viewed while surfing, can't remember who it was though ... like back in 2000 or so. Those were the days.



[Edited on May 2, 2012 at 5:35 PM. Reason : .]

5/2/2012 5:31:51 PM

^I remember that. There were programs that you could run that would display the ads on the extreme edge of your screen so that only one pixel was showing and others that would autorefresh them to get the maximum amount of ad clicks. I think my roommate made a couple hundred bucks doing that. Never quite seemed worth the hassle to me, but I guess free money is free money.

5/2/2012 8:40:42 PM

AllAdvantage, baby

5/2/2012 9:27:29 PM

^yep. I made a lot more than 200 bucks off of that whole trend.

And it's not that Bing is resorting to paying people to use it. It's that signing up for the rewards programs is the only way to get you to allow Microsoft to keep and analyze your non-anonymized data.

5/2/2012 9:58:55 PM

Has anyone clicked and signed up yet?

5/2/2012 10:07:08 PM

buy an ad

5/3/2012 9:00:03 AM

so umm...yeah. All of the E3 announcements.

I'm gonna go with [NO]

This is a going to be a good year for MS.

6/4/2012 5:18:25 PM

other than liveglass or whatever, what was worth a damn in those announcements? I must have missed a lot.

6/4/2012 5:26:48 PM

so....one really great announcement isn't enough?

6/5/2012 10:46:59 AM

one alright announcement wasn't enough

6/5/2012 11:31:30 AM

wow. so what would you consider good enough?

6/5/2012 3:03:12 PM

it should probably include something good, to begin with

6/5/2012 3:11:05 PM

mobile automation app

...from Microsoft

...Israel

...for Android?

http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/05/onx/

[Edited on June 5, 2012 at 3:16 PM. Reason : wot?]

6/5/2012 3:11:48 PM

^^ your lack of specifics tells me you're 12 years old.

6/5/2012 3:18:05 PM

^^

Microsoft makes a lot of money off Android and while I'd imagine there are Windows Phones in Israel, WP7 doesn't actually seem to support Hebrew as a language. Makes more sense than why MS makes awesome iOS apps.

6/5/2012 10:03:18 PM

^^You're the one that came in here with this vague "All of the E3 announcements" bullshit and then you have the nerve to say that BigMan isn't being specific? How about you go first?

6/5/2012 10:14:45 PM

I just helped out seedless

6/6/2012 12:46:46 AM

^^IE for Xbox. Specific enough? Figured anybody could look up the announcements. What you can't look up is an answer that would satisfy needy/whiny consumers that don't understand the tech business paradigm.

6/6/2012 7:51:09 AM

so, wait, your whole AW YEAH MICROSOFT FUCKING RULES epiphany hinges on Internet Explorer?

[Edited on June 6, 2012 at 11:33 AM. Reason : that on{X} thing looks sweet though]

6/6/2012 11:23:24 AM

^ that's not what I said and putting IE on Xbox isn't a sign of a Microsoft decline. just because I gave a compliment doesn't make me a fanatic or a cheerleader. is it possible for you to look at this as an educated subjective adult?

6/6/2012 11:57:58 AM

you're getting super defensive about this

6/6/2012 12:26:31 PM

nah, just don't want to be misunderstood. it's not always about "_____ is better than ______". or "_____ is the best!"

6/6/2012 1:37:50 PM

Quote :

"TECH BUSINESS PARADIGM"

6/6/2012 1:56:04 PM

Quote :

" is it possible for you to look at this as an educated subjective adult?"

Seriously? You're the one acting like a bratty little child whose mommy took his cookie away.

6/6/2012 7:16:53 PM

Whoops! Didn't realize this thread was in chit chat.

Anyways, there were some pretty cool form factors introduced at Computex as well.

6/6/2012 11:25:28 PM

THX lewisje

PLZ CLIX AND SUB

http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9778718&rrid=0F399C7B-DFED-476A-9333-7D5D8135DA47

6/11/2012 11:09:33 PM

I installed Windows 8 in a VM and can't figure out how to do shit in it. Any good tutorials around?

What is the windows key if you don't have that on your keyboard?

6/12/2012 1:05:23 PM

If you're on an Apple keyboard, the Windows key is mapped to Command.

Better make sure the VM is running full screen, because everything else is accessed by mouse-guttering (slam your mouse to one of the 4 corners of the screen).

Top left is your alt-tab access (alt-tab still works just fine too for keyboard jockeys)
Bottom left for the start screen
Right edge for the charms bar.

All the main keyboard shortcuts that will massively accelerate the UI:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jennifer/archive/2012/04/12/keyboard-shortcuts-in-windows-8.aspx

6/12/2012 4:22:56 PM

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/07/microsoft-downfall-emails-steve-ballmer

7/3/2012 12:46:38 PM

I think Google is really fucking up by not throwing an obscene amount of money at creating a well working, free, cloud based office suite. (Google drive sucks) Small businesses and students would flock to that in droves, Google's ad revenue would go through the roof because projects people spend hours and days working on would result in billions of ad displays.

There would be no IT cost for the folks using it, data loss would be a non issue, collaboration would be much easier, etc.

7/3/2012 2:23:42 PM

That's a rather... optimistic... prediction.

7/3/2012 3:24:12 PM

^^^ Yep, microsoft blowing the smartphone and tablet markets was a monumental failure, and it sounds like even Bill gates' lack of vision was holding them back in those areas.

7/4/2012 1:19:46 PM

^^^^I know a few other companies that suffer from these problems.

7/5/2012 12:43:58 AM

I work for one now

7/5/2012 7:24:39 AM

Quote :

""I see Microsoft as technology's answer to Sears," said Kurt Massey, a former senior marketing manager. "In the 40s, 50s, and 60s, Sears had it nailed. It was top-notch, but now it's just a barren wasteland. And that's Microsoft. The company just isn’t cool anymore.""

i don't think it's quite this bad, but still a fairly apt comparison

7/5/2012 8:28:23 AM

until I messed with Windows 8, I would have said I thought they were finally starting to put it all back together over the last couple of years

7/5/2012 8:59:49 AM

Read the full vanity fair article today. It's 110% accurate and points out pretty much every complaint I have had as an employee. It's really refreshing to see this stuff made public in a thoroughly investigated manner.

I will say that even with the bureaucracy, over the past two years or so I have been seeing large swaths of the company changing dramatically and for the better. Gives me faith that even if the man at the top doesn't have a clue, there are lots of very senior people that do.

7/11/2012 7:08:49 PM

Anyone tried out Office 2013 yet?

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/en

I literally had no clue about it's release until it hit the tech news yesterday. Install literally took 2 minutes. I'm really, really impressed (with the download/install/configuration).

Other things I'm impressed with so far:

-It actually runs side-by-side with existing versions of Office (2010 in my case).
-The apps all launch in about 1/10th the time they do in 2010
-The new way all the apps handle Opening documents. There's recent files list like 2010, but now recent folders is segmented by location type.
-LOVE being able to save as, and natively edit PDF's. Goodbye Acrobat (and all it's cruft). Between Word and Chrome's build in PDF reader, never need Acrobat.

7/17/2012 2:54:24 PM

I was impressed by the hardware accelerated typeface rendering as you type in Word. I was all are those letters fading in as I type???

PowerPoint templates are neat. I'm gonna try out outlook and see how well it works with exchange. I wonder if it handles notifications like the Metro Mail app.

7/17/2012 4:06:21 PM

still having ribbon = still shit

7/18/2012 9:08:36 AM

not even trying a free, major software preview due to a commanding system that's been around and accepted for half a decade = a troll

Negatives:

One of the things I'm not liking is the "whiteout" effect in outlook. Much harder for me to glance and see unread mails per folder and to distinguish unread from read mails in the list view area.

Not really a fan on the weird circuitboard background graphic in the top right hand corner either, I guess that's just a "preview" thing.

Also there doesn't seem to be any way to add intanet sharepoint sites to the "places" list, which is a huge bummer.

Really don't like the all caps ribbon group headings, or the whiteout effect of them either. Everything seems almost TOO flat, which makes things visually messy again.

Outlook actually hung on me on it's first run. Sat with an email in the outbox for two hours before I exited and relaunched it, everything seems to be working fine now.

7/18/2012 2:27:49 PM

Quote :

"Everything seems almost TOO flat, which makes things visually messy again"

agreed.

[Edited on July 18, 2012 at 2:47 PM. Reason : VS2012 suffers from this as well, even moreso imo]

7/18/2012 2:46:51 PM

^I feel like VS2012 (the RC at least) fixed most of my gripes. The VS Icon style works much better than the office icon style. All the office icons are still full of tons of elements and colors, line weights, adornments, etc.

And VS at least has a couple of different shades (grey and white) while everything in Office just seems to have been blasted to white, with tons of 1px wide separators.

7/18/2012 5:08:59 PM

^^^Ah, the microsoft way -- come up with a shitty design and wait until the user gets trained to use their poor products.

7/19/2012 8:01:43 AM

^ u mad?

7/19/2012 8:55:05 AM