Vista SP1 By the Numbers - Performance Numbers, That Is

1, 18, 25, 45, 50

No, those aren't the numbers for today's "pick 5" lottery drawing, but Microsoft is hoping they'll add up to good luck for its controversial desktop operating system - Vista. Those numbers refer to performance and usability improvements reportedly coming in Vista SP1, whose release candidate (RC) is now being tested.

Although some recent user reports have suggested that Vista SP1's mainly about reliability, Mary Jo Foley's All About Microsoft blog at ZDNet is reporting that Microsoft is internally touting some impressive improvements in performance and usability with SP1:

• One UAC prompt, instead of four, when creating or renaming a folder in a protected location (such as the \Windows folder)
• 18% faster recovery from standby for some USB hubs
• 25% faster local file copying from location to location on the same disk
• 45% faster remote file copying from a non-Windows Vista system to an SP1 system
• 50% faster remote file copying from SP1 to SP1 systems
• 50% faster read time for large images
• fixes for common crash and hang problems caused by Windows Calendar, Windows Media Player, and drivers included with Vista
• better compatibility with third-party diagnostic tools
• a password hint during initial setup of SP1

Comparing SP1 to Vista? Which Vista?

It sounds good, but one big question - what are the performance comparisons being made to? As our own David Murphy reported in August, Vista has already received performance fixes for file copying in its 938979 'Performance and Reliability' update.

It's not clear whether Microsoft is comparing Vista SP1 (which will contain all publically-available fixes made to Vista since release plus additional improvements) to the original (and slow) early 2007 release of Vista, or whether SP1 will contain additional file copying zoom (call it "Vitamin Z") over the current state of Vista.

I'm hoping for the latter - but I'm prepared to be disappointed.

The Clock Ticks...

In any event, it won't be long until we can all try a near-final version of SP1. According to Foley, the release candidate (RC) for Vista SP1 will be an early Christmas present for Vista users, with public availability set for the second week of December.

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Google Chrome 5 Now Available for Download, Linux and Mac Users Welcome

Google Chrome 5 has finally graduated from beta and is now a stable release, Google announced in a blog post on Tuesday. The latest version of Chrome also happens to be the first stable release for Linux and Mac users.

"Today’s stable release also comes with a host of new features," Google said. "You’ll be able to synchronize not only bookmarks across multiple computers, but also browser preferences -- including themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings, preferred languages, and even page zoom settings. Meanwhile, for avid extensions users, you can enable each extension to work in incognito mode through the extensions manager."

In addition, the Chrome 5 browser incorporates several HTML5 elements, including Geolcation APIs, App Cache, web sockets, and file drag-and-drop, Google said. To try some of these features out, you can navigate to HTML5 specific websites like scribd.com, or head over to your Gmail account and drag and drop attachments.

Not included in Chrome 5 is Adobe Flash integration, though Google says this will change with the full release of Flash Player 10.1.

Chrome Download

Mozilla to Put Mac OS X 10.4 Support on the Chopping Block

PIQOO | www.piqoo.blogspot.com

Listen up Mac fans - if you wish to continue running Mozilla's Firefox browser, you may want to considering upgrading your OS, at least if you're still rolling along on Mac OS X 10.4. Going forward, Mozilla will no longer support Tiger with upcoming Firefox releases.

"We would like to take advantage of more modern technologies on Mac OS X, and 10.4 support has been a hindrance," Josh Aas, one of Mozilla's Mac experts, said in a mailing list post. "We are planning to make the decision to remove 10.4 support final and remove the code from the tree. If you have any strong objections please let us know now."

Predictably there has been a spattering of objections, such as one user who laments that "I still have two PowerPC machines that use OS X 10.4.11... As it stands now, it is impractical for me to update either machine due to lack of funds." Another user suggested Mozilla create two browsers, "one with all the fancy new stuff, then one for us poor people that can't drop $3,000 at the drop of the hat."

For those that object, we have a much better solution - see here.