Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it has begun releasing service pack one (SP1) for its newest operating system, Vista.

Microsoft is hoping the long-awaited release will inspire consumers and businesses to adopt the Vista operating system, which has been plagued by bugs and glitches since its release in late 2006.

Many industry insiders believe enterprise confidence in Vista has been on the decline since the initial release and wonder how Microsoft, which had five years between XP and Vista to plan, botched it so badly.

So you’re thinking “okay, I have Vista, and I’m ready to upgrade to SP1 and fix these issues.” Not so fast. Microsoft also announced that not all Vista owners will be able to download SP1 initially. Microsoft is planning a phased deployment of SP1 downloads, but hasn’t detailed how this plan will be carried out, so it looks like you’ll have to wait your turn. Sounds like they’re expecting a high number of downloads.

More information on Vista SP1 can be found here.

This has got to stop. 

A widely-published story yesterday played out a personal nightmare for a Jacksonville, Oregon man who returned to his home this weekend only to find it being ransacked by more than 30 people.

The people rummaging through his personal belongings had seen an ad on the popular trade/auction site Craigslist, which stated everything in the home was free for the taking. 

He was tipped off while driving home when he saw a truck pass by and noticed it was packed with his own belongings. Upon pulling the truck over he demanded his property be returned, only to be told that the ransackers had a right to his property because they were responding to the Internet ad. 

He, in effect, lost everything: his clothes, front door, windows, and even the swing on his front porch. His horse was later returned by a woman who responded to the ad out of concern that the horse be taken care of. Once she figured out the ad was a cruel hoax, she returned the horse. 

Someone is responsible for this and you can bet it wasn’t the homeowner. He suspects that it was probably an evicted tenant that posted the ad which has in effect ruined his life. 

Craigslist responded to media requests for comment by saying that it couldn’t divulge information about the person who posted the ad without a subpoena and also noted that it has a “strict” policy about posting illegal or false information.

It isn’t the first time this has happened. There have been numerous reports of the same situation occurring as a result of a fraudulent ad being posted on Craigslist.

You would think Craigslist would get the hint. The world is full of bad people…people that will do the worst of things, including offering your property to other individuals and they won’t bat an eye in the process. 

I can tell you if it were me, I would sue the pants off of Craig, the brainchild behind the popular site. You’d think in this day and age with the technologies available, that Craigslist would require proof of ownership for ads that involve real estate or other highly-valued items. It’s negligent for not doing so and should pay the price.

Who’s going to offer all of their personal possessions to strangers anyway? Come on.

***NOTE*** I’m only posting this because I’m a HUGE Red Soxs fan and it’s pretty cool that the Soxs travel on all away games with their EMC data center in tow.

Facing a relief pitcher on the road? Pull up videos with the help of EMC and watch his delivery…very cool story here.

The U.S. Department of Defense has asked Google to remove pictures of Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas after Google posted the 360-degree snapshots in its Street View feature of Google Maps. 

Street View gives users of Google Maps a first-hand, ground level view of streets and cities throughout the United States using a camera mounted to the top of cars leased by Google which snap 360-degree pictures as the cars move about select cities in the U.S. The pictures are then uploaded to create a computer-generated virtualized version of the cities it maps. 

The Pentagon said national security risks led them to ask Google to remove the pictures of the “drive by” at Fort Sam Houston. But if you’re a terrorist and you know how to open a PDF, posted by the government itself, you’ll find a detailed map of the base online, which doesn’t make sense to me, but whatever, I’m a civilian. 

Google in Knoxville? 

Apparently Google went too far this time, although the technology is amazing. Speaking of the Google Map Street View cars, I saw one on Tuesday at the intersection of Morrell and Westland, only the camera had been covered by a clear garbage bag…it was raining. It’s not the first time I’ve seen one of the so-called Google Cars crawling through Knoxville. You’ll know the car when you see it…it has a long metal pole on the roof of the car with a camera mounted to the top. 

What about ORNL? 

I couldn’t find any shots of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory or Y-12 on Google but can only wonder whether the Department of Energy will follow the Pentagon’s lead?

Microsoft announced today that a beta version of its new Office Live Workspace is open to anyone and everyone who wants to take a test drive. 

The concept behind Office Live is to virtualize Microsoft Office programs like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in an on-line format available at anytime from anywhere. 

Some of the features? You can save more than 100 Microsoft Office documents on the Web, access them from almost any computer with Internet capability and even open and save files directly from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.