While Mac users bob and gasp in the wake of the release of Apple’s new operating system, Snow Leopard, Windows users are gloating (a bit preemptively). As Microsoft gears up to unleash its long-awaited operating system, Windows 7, friends and foes alike are hailing its amazing security. One industry publication declares that “the new version of Windows is stacking up to be the most secure to date.”

That’s a high and mighty claim for an operating system that has historically had more bugs, viruses, glitches, malfunctions, spyware, malware, and problems than all the other operating systems combined. Ok, that sounds a little harsh, but when you’re a household name in computing and founded by the erstwhile richest man in the world, people will throw rocks at you. Those rocks came in the form of a veritable torrent of hack-happy engineers unleashing their twistedness to deconstruct Windows versions from the system BIOS up. It’s been going on for a long time.
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Out with the Old Zune, In With the New Zune HD

The Zune is joining the ranks of cast-off technology as Microsoft rearranges its product line to keep pace with morphing media consumption. Paul Thurott recently blogged, “I met with the Zune folks today and one bit of information than I can discuss immediately is that the Zune HD will be the only device type going forward.”

Microsoft currently produces several models of the Zune: 4GB Zune, 8GB Zune, 16GB Zune, 80GB Zune, and the 120GB Zune. All models wil effectively be discontinued. A backward glance at Zune’s history reveals a rocky three years of difficult competition with other media producers. Launched in an unsuccessful attempt to dethrone Apple’s domination of the mobile media market (still unsuccessful), the Zune somehow managed to gain a sizeable following.
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