Following lots of complaints an online ad for Internet Explorer 8 has been removed, the ad is said to have shown a woman projectile vomiting. Shortly after the complaints Microsoft removed the ad.

The ad apparently showed a woman looking through her husband’s history which results in her vomiting. Apparently the a video can still be seen on YouTube. The ad was meant to promote Internet Explorer 8’s InPrivate browsing feature, instead of promoting Internet Explorer 8’s functionality it ended up causing controversy.

A lot of viewers were said to be so disgusted with the ad that they thought that it was a fake, presumably made by Apple users.
Microsoft stated “We make a point of listening to our customers”, and the intention of the a was meant to be tongue in cheek.

Check out the full statement on ComputerWorld.

Did you see the ad? What was your thought?

If you’re a fan of Packard Bell’s iMedia desktop range, you’ll be interested to know that the company have decided to ‘refresh’ the models with new features and designs.

As reported from Pocket-Lint, Packard Bell hopes that the move will encourage customers who are looking to buy a feature packed and cost effective system.

Some of the specs included in the iMedia desktop range offer processors such as the Intel Core 2 Quad processor or an AMD Phenom II X4 and RAM up to a whopping 8GB.

Customers will also be able to decide if they want extras such as an Blu-ray drive or DVB-T TV tuner with remote control and Wi-Fi.

If you’re interested in hearing more about the new iMedia range, head to the link above.

There are rumors emerging that state that Microsoft will offer a multi-license ‘family pack’ version of their Windows 7 Operating System. Apparently if you read the EULA (End User License Agreement) there are references mentioning the previously unannounced family pack.

There is a section in the EULA which is titled ‘Installation And Use Rights’, within this section a sentence reads ‘If you are a Qualified Family Pack User’, this seems to suggest that a Family Pack will be released, reading more into the EULA it seems to suggest that the Family Pack will allow Windows 7 to be installed on up to three computers in one household.

Apparently the Family Pack is available for Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Home Premium E (European). It is doubtful that this will be available for other versions of Windows 7 as Home Premium is the most suited for a household environment.

As more details emerge we will keep you informed, check out ComputerWorld for the original report.

Following the Tuesday release of Mozilla Firefox 3.5 it is being reported that a patch is on its way to stamp out several bugs. This patch is said to be released within the next few weeks. The release will be called Firefox 3.5.1 and is said to fix at least three bugs and also sort sort out some ‘topcrashes’.

Mozilla received over 6.5million downloads within the first 36 hours of the release, and on the whole it has been a success. There is a common crash with Firefox 3.5’s new JavaScript Engine TraceMonkey, this problem has been fixed and is just waiting for the rest of the patch to be finsihed before its released.

If you receive any crashes be sure to report them to help Mozilla smooth out common problems, if you do come across a problem Mozilla usually prompts you with Mozilla Crash Reporter.

If you haven’t yet downloaded Mozilla Firefox go here, or click on help, check for updates.

Head over to ComputerWorld for further details.

Has you version of Firefox 3.5 been running stably?

Following yesterdays first look review of Microsoft Office 2010 InfoWorld have now posted a slide-show showing the new look. The thing that I fee grabs your attention more then anything is the way it fits in with Windows 7.

There are 14 slides in all and they show a couple of different views of Word, Excel, Access and Outlook. Quite a lot of emphasis is put on the new ribbon bar, the ribbon bar seems to be very useful when it comes to Outlook. The slides also show us how much the re-design of the applications has take place.

Don’t forget to check the SlideShow on InfoWorld.

What your thoughts on the new Office 2010? Will you buy it?

With our recent look into the Snow Leopard Beta release it is becoming obvious that Apple are literally given every aspect of the Operating System a once over. With all these changes and how much redesign Apple are undertaking a lot of experts believe that this will be the update for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

Beta testers are extremely impressed with the release and from what we can gather all in all there are only just over 50 fixes which have been made during the complete Beta stage of this release.

The main issues that have been fixed relate to USB audio distortion, power management with firewire and problems with Bluetooth printers. Apparently there is only one current unfixed known issue, this is an issue which occurs when saving email to your hard drive, this issue is expected to be fixed soon.

Check AppleInsider for more details.

With the recent release of Nvidias Ion graphics chipsets becoming more and more popular in modern notebooks, Nvidia have now started working on its replacement. Nvidia are said to be developing an Ion 2 which is expected to be released in the latter part of the year.

Nvidia are keeping quiet on the new chipset however some details have been leaked, whether they are correct or not is yet to be seen.

The Ion 2 is said have almost twice the processing performance of the original Ion, with this improvement graphics should be cleared and faster. The Ion 2 is currently in its early stages of development so these are not hard figures at present, either way it is a good thing for the notebook industry.

As more becomes clear on the Ion 2 we will keep you posted, be sure to check out Engadget and SlashGear for more information.

Since a recent promotion and re-pricing of Apple’s MacBook Pro series, Apple have seen a boost in their personal computer shipments. This growth wasn’t greatly expected due to the current economic climate. Apparently Apple have sold 2.5million Mac’s in the second quarter of this year.

The three month growth equalled approximately 4% for the quarter, if figures continue to stay this way Apple will have an annual growth of around 12%, this figure is slightly shy of their 14 % average yearly growth over the last three years, however given the current economic climate Apple shouldn’t be too disappointed with it.

For more information be sure to check out AppleInsider.

It has been speculated that Apple are planning to end their partnership with graphics company Nvidia in future versions of the iMac and laptop ranges in the next few years to come.

The news is according to MacRumors, who have obtained the info from SemiAccurate. They have said that the reason to continue the partnership is because of Nvidia manufacturing defects that were found in various MacBook Pro models.

It now looks likely that Apple will choose to return to Intel-based chipsets as they will want to avoid any further manufacturing defects in future models.

Theres more info over at MacRumors, let us know your thoughts on the news.

We reported in a post last week that Microsoft announced it’s pricing for Windows 7, but it seems that many of us still have questions about the pricing for all of the variants of Windows 7, such as Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate.

The pricing for the successor to Vista is a complicated one, as there seems to be some deals on offer before the operating system is released. The latest is from Costco, who claim to have the cheapest price on the market.

Computer World has explained in detail the pricing for all versions of Windows 7. Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade will cost $49.99 and Windows 7 Professional Upgrade will cost $99.99. However, there are still some better deals to be had on these prices from Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart’s and Costco.

In other Windows 7 news, we reported on Saturday that Microsoft were thinking of offering the OS in a USB drive form, but that could work out too expensive for them. Although this would be a far better option for those who have a netbook with an optical drive.

According to InformationWeek businesses that use AT&T will soon be offered subsidized netbooks from companies such as Acer and HP, these netbooks are said to have imbedded 3G modems. This move is said to be a push from AT&T for businesses to realize the potential of netbooks using mobile internet.

AT&T is partnering with CDW and is hoping to release the netbooks under two year mobile data contracts for around $199, the company is also said to be releasing the Panasonic Toughbook with integrated 3G modems.

AT&T is also said to be release the netbooks to customers who sign new deals for home DSL and mobile broadband. Verizon are also offering discounted Hp Mini’s for new mobile data customers.

Most of ColorWare’s custom paintjobs on devices are usually bright and vibrant; however ColorWare’s latest design is a matte black MacBook Pro. They call this the Stealth MacBook Pro.

ColorWare are becoming more and more famous for their great quality paint jobs, and this is no exception. With this design they took a $4,249 MacBook Pro with 8GB DDR3 and a 256GB Solid State Disk and repainted it with their matt black “zero gloss” paint, this paint is said to be fingerprint-resistant.

The retail price of the MacBook Pro Stealth is said to be $6000 and only ten units are up for sale. Check out the original report on SlashGear, which includes some photos of the Stealth.

Do you like the look of the MacBook Pro Stealth? I really like the look of the MacBook Pro Stealth however cant warrant the extra $1700+ dollars it costs.

Computer hardware manufacturers A-Data have revealed they are releasing what they call “the first flash drive compatible with Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)”. The confusing thing about this is that all pen drives I’ve used with Windows 7 Beta have been compatible.

Prices are yet to be revealed to us however the drives are said to support up to 30MB/sec read speeds and the capacities range from 8GB to 64GB. The flash drives are also said to support Windows ReadyBoost, this technology allows your system to utilize the drive as if it were RAM, the idea of this is to increase performance, however Windows Vista also adopted this technology and it never really took off.

Whats different about this 30MB/sec flash drive compared to the other 30MB/sec flash drives out there is unclear and perhaps it is just a gimmick. Head over to Engadget for further details and some photos of the product.

ArsTechnica are reporting that a Linux developer has created a new kernel patch which could possibly allow the FAT filesystem on Linux without paying Microsoft licensing fees. At this time it is still unconfirmed whether or not this will defiantly not infringe Microsoft patents, we will keep you updated as we find out more.

The person who created the patch is called Andrew Tridgell, he is currently one of the developers behind the Samba project, this is the second patch he has created to try and workaround Microsoft’s patents. The first patch did work however it provided too many limitations for users, such as not allowing long file names.

For a detailed look into how this patch works be sure to check out ArsTechnica.

iBUYPOWER have recently announced they plan to release a new series of liquid cooled gaming PCs. The new PCs will be available in three different model versions which are all quite unique.

The three models are called the XLC V1, XLC V2 and XLC V3 all of these models are contained within the Coolermaster HAF series casings and all of them have liquid cooling.

The three prices that these models will be released at are $1,399, $2,159 or $4,299, due to the price range there is a lot of difference between the models.

The cheapest model has 6GB of DDR3 of Memory, this moves up to 12GB on the top end models. The cheapest model also has a Nvidia Geforce GTX275 graphics card, whereas the top end model has 3 x Nvidia Geforce GTX285. As you can see the models differ quite a bit, for a full breakdown of component listings check here here.

Check out Engadget for full details on the product here.

Microsoft have released some product videos which show of some of Windows 7’s best new features. The videos are brief and to the point and there are currently four videos, one of the videos can be seen below, the rest can be seen on neowin.

The first video explains how Windows 7 is quicker, easier and more responsive. Not only this but it shows the Operating System has a stronger subsystem which makes installing new devices a lot easier.

The second video shows how easy the new search function is to use, it also shows the improved window control which seems a lot less awkward. Another thing it shows is how quick you can call up favourite play lists and how Internet explorer has adapted. This video also briefly mentions the new Live Photo Gallery and slightly touches on home networking.

The third video introduces you to Windows Media Centre and shows how with the addition of a TV tuner your PC can act like a DVR. This video also mentions that graphics have never been better thanks to the new DIRECTX 11 which is available for Windows 7. One other thing the video briefly mentions is about how easy it is play your media on devices around the house with no hassle.

The final video speaks about reliability, responsiveness and safety. The main aspects covered in this video relate to parental controls and how you can manage how much time your child spends on the PC and what games they are allowed to play. The final part of the video mentions how less security alerts will be popping up during your computer usage.

I found the videos extremely informative and I was taught some things that I wasn’t aware of having tested Windows 7 for 6 months, remember if you want to see all the videos head over to neowin.

It is being reported that a version of Microsoft Office 2010 has leaked onto the Internet, although this may not be the final version reviews are already starting to emerge. One of the main intentions of Microsoft Office 2010 is to fit in with the upcoming Windows 7.

One of the applications that has noticed the biggest change is Outlook, the new version of Outlook is said to have a refined design and has re-arranged a few commonly used things to improve usability. One of the most impressive new features is called Quick Steps, quick steps work similar to a macro, basically the idea of it is to streamline repetitive tasks so that they are achievable in one click.

One of the major new things that Office 2010 offers is a 64-bit version of the software, this is the first time Microsoft have created a 64-bit version of Office, there is not much to say about the new 64-bit version as it is pretty self explanatory.

For a detailed look into Office 2010 check out InfoWorld.

With Mozilla launching the popular internet browser Firefox 3.5 yesterday, experts were impressed however suggested that they would need to do more than that to stay competitive with the ever expanding browsers that have emerged lately. With this in mind people have been asking what they want with the next major version which should be called Mozilla Firefox 3.6 and released sometime in 2010.

The SearchEngineJoural list the following as the most popular features for the next major release to have they are as follows: better performance, more personalization and customization feature, new navigation feature, improved web app support, taskfox, enhanced session management, customizable browser, better identity management and a new tab page.

Myself I find Firefox 3.0 sufficient for what I currently use an Internet browser for let alone the release of 3.5, and I think that is the case for most users, some users are still happy with Internet Explorer 6! So while I do understand that Firefox 3.5 does fall short in some aspects whether this is something the majority of users will dwell on I very much doubt.

Check out the original article on SearchEngineJournal.

What’s top of your Firefox 3.6 wish-list?

Information Weekly is informing us that the Google App Sync for Microsoft Outlook has now been repaired; the app will now work correctly with Microsoft’s Windows Desktop Search. The plug-in was released in June, and it was meant to allow Outlook users to connect to Google Apps, giving them access to contacts, calendar data and e-mails.

Just one week after the launch, Microsoft warned that the Google App Sync plug-in had disabled Outlook’s ability to search for data in Outlook when using Windows Desktop Search. Google have admitted that they worked closely with Microsoft to fix the bug, and that they appreciate their help

Google hopes that its new Google App Sync will help to make life much easier for users of Microsoft Exchange to try its hosted apps. As you would imagine there would are a number of questions for those who would like to make the switch to Google Apps, get all your answers to your questions here.

According to a Mozilla counter, Mozilla Firefox 3.5 has been downloaded over 2 million times since its launch yesterday, June 30, 2009. It is said that the latest browser update was being downloaded between 30 to 63 times per second around the globe.

By noon downloads had already reached a million copies, and Firefox director Mike Beltzner said that at one stage Firefox 3.5 had a download rate of almost 80 per second. Beltzner has been telling Computer World that they decided to take a more low-key approach to the launch of Firefox 3.5, compared to last year’s Firefox 3 launch.

More than 8 million copies of Firefox 3.0 were downloaded last year in the first 24 hours, but much of that success had to do with its huge promotion. The reason for such a huge promotion was due to Mozilla’s attempt to beat the Guinness World Record for the most single-day downloads in one day, and yes, it did beat it.

Watch a video review of all the new features in Firefox 3.5.