Just how old is your iPod? A year or two, perhaps? You may not have to replace it just yet. Apple says that they've build their iPods to last at least four years. This claim was made following Chicago Tribune's report weighing up the complaints regarding Apple's music player.

With millions of iPods being sold each month, Apple is likely to get complaints about faulty units. Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris assured the Chicago Tribune that iPods have "fairly low" failure rate of less than 5%.

The newspaper's report took into consideration other evidence that points to a higher failure rate, including unscientific online polls and the word of famed Microsoft analyst Rob Enderle, who claims that iPods have a 15% failure rate. Kerris countered the claim, saying "The vast majority of our customers are extremely happy with their iPods."

So if Apple's right, and you neither bought a lemon nor kick your iPod around, learn to love it if you don't already dote on it - it and you could be together a while.

After a lot of back and forth, rumors and denials, Microsoft has now confirmed that the name of its new brand of multimedia devices will be Zune. As expected, the project will focus on music primarily - at least for the time being. As hinted in an interview with Billboard Magazine, depending on the success of the devices, a gaming-oriented Zune product might eventually see the light of the day. But it's safe to say that for now, Microsoft aims to compete with Apple, not Sony and Nintendo.

Chris Stephenson, General Manager at Microsoft, commented, "Under the Zune brand, we will deliver a family of hardware and software products, the first of which will be available this year. We see a great opportunity to bring together technology and community to allow consumers to explore and discover music together.Â?

The first incarnation of Zune is set to arrive within the year, and employees working on the project have noted that with Zune, Microsoft is approaching multimedia in a holistic way, providing not only connectivity with as many Windows-powered devices as possible, but perhaps more importantly, trying to build a community, a social music network that enables users to connect with others to "discover new music and entertainment".

I remember after reading a news article about the "merging" of the two widely used instant messengers, MSN Messenger (now Windows Live Messenger) and Yahoo! Messenger, I was ecstatic. I thought to myself, Now this is inter-connectivity and that, they should have had thought of this a long time ago. Even though both big name dot coms are being adamant in their campaigns to make their interoperability plans a reality, it seems that a big hurdle is blocking the way.

According to reports, Microsoft is still in limbo, whether to include the Mac version of Windows Live Messenger in the party. This news doesn't really come as a big shock to us of course. But, quite frankly, the whole purpose of this so-called merge, is to keep in touch with your friends and relatives from wherever they are in the world. And in my humble opinion, Microsoft is losing touch of that big picture.

The delay of the video iPod is raising a lot of buzz on what the next incarnation of Apple's ever popular digital player will be. Here are some of those rumors and why Think Secret thinks they will remain likely as rumors:

Rumor: The next-gen iPod will surface as a "talking" iPod  - with voice-activated controls.
The Rumor Buster: According to Think Secret sources say yes, the talking technology is there. But no as Apple has yet to figure out how to implement it. Plus the company doesn't think a talking iPod would be a big seller.

Rumor: Apple's next iPods will be lit by organic light-emitting diode displays (OLED)
Rumor Buster: Again Think Secret sources say Apple ruled out the display technology due to the limited life-span of OLED displays. Plus OLEDs don't shine out in direct sunlight. Apple will continue to use LCD displays.

Rumor: iPod will go wireless because the MS iPod Killer (a possible rumor itself) due out by Christmas will feature Wi-Fi functionality. The rumors were so convincing the Daily Mail ran a headline announcing Apple and Microsoft's "race to launch wireless iPod".
Rumor Buster: iPods will not go Wi-Fi because it doesn't fit Apple's media player plans explained the sources. Wi-Fi will compromise battery life which is one of Apple's top priorities for its portable devices. Plus going wireless means slower transfer speeds and Apple has no plans for a music store interface that enables users to purchase and download songs on the go.

Rumor: Apple has put its iPod phone (or iPhone) development plan in deep freeze but will thaw and release it next year.
Rumor Buster: Several analyst reports have suggested that the possibility of a 2006 release for the iPhone is as cold as as ice.

In a span of five years Apple is on the verge of launching its fourth OS while rival Microsoft hasn't released anything new in the same period of time. The question is, according to George Ou, is this a case of too much, too soon? George says Apple investors may hear the cash register singing and ringing as Apple peddles a new OS to its customers almost year. But what about the Apple People? In case you missed it George was reacting to Apple's tweaking of MS.

George puts it this way: If MS charged its users for its Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2 will PC People be happier? According to George nothing like an annual OS upgrade to make the often silent IT Dept techies launch a mutiny against MS. Unless of course, they also happen to be MS stockhloders.

We're not Apple Persons so we can't verify George's opinion. But come to think of it, maybe its time to buy Apple stocks now that they're on the bargain side!

"Redmond, start your photocopiers", "Redmond, we have a problem". Just some of the jib-jabs that Apple has thrown at the MS camp over the years, actually to be really specific, these statements were seen on Apple posters during the 2004 annual developer's conference in San Francisco, when its Tiger operating system was unveiled and its fiercest rival, Microsoft, was working on its next-generation Windows operating system, Vista, known then as "Longhorn.''

Now, with the delayed release of the Windows Vista and the unveiling of the Leopard this August at the World Developers Conference, it won't be surprising if Apple is again up to some serious psychological war - in the form of posters, sidecomments, taunting and all that. Which makes me think, what other blows could Apple dish out to the Bill Gates camp?

And if you think MS is ignoring these, no they aren't. According to Greg DeMichillie, senior analyst with Directions on Microsoft, "there will be another round of, 'Why can't Microsoft get Vista out?' which Microsoft would just assume not happen...It's a bit of an embarrassment for the company". It seems that Apple's well-honed and innovative marketing strategy could be the tech version of a slow striptease. With that, let's see what other tricks and wisecracks Apple has for MS.

From the Nimble company blog comes the story of an employee that used the Microsoft line of operating systems from the very beginning of his career only to make the switch to OS X after the years of frustration became too much for him to bear.

From DOS 2.1 to Windows XP he continued to suffer through instability, insecurity and lack of functionality. Finally, after losing one too many machines to a build up of malware, he decided to go Mac and not look back!

I may have been exaggerating his suffering (in a poor attempt at humor) but the underlying problems that pushed him away from Windows are real and cannot be ignored. The Nimblogger goes on to detail some of the differences between the two operating systems, along with some of the deficiencies that he found in Windows.

Many of the negative points that he makes about XP are legitimate but, he seems to have developed a permanently hostile stance toward Microsoft that cannot be changed. Although most of his assertions are common knowledge and their validity is not in doubt, some of his assertions simply express his now soured opinion of Microsoft.

The number of viruses floating around in the wild facing XP users, the level of style and design savvy apparent in the machines and the "it just works" factor are but a few of the reasons the author gave for making the switch.

Having been a Mac and a PC owner myself, I can attest to the fact that Macs actually do work out of the box better than PCs, and the Nimblogger seems to agree with me. Either way you look at it, more operating systems would benefit everyone; prices would likely be lower, consumers would have more systems to chose from and the competition would foster advancements in technology.

Regardless of what OS you use, learning about the causes behind an experienced computer users decision to switch operating systems can give you more to think about the next time you need to decide on a platform to use.

This new update, aside from containing fixes for Microsoft Entourage 2004, also includes all of the previously released improvements on Office 2004. But the highlight of this nifty download is that it covers Microsoft Office 2004's vulnerabilities, including a potential security breach that hackers may capitalize on, where they can overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code.

This update is applicable to Office 2004 Standard Edition, Office 2004 Student and Teacher Edition, Office 2004 Professional Edition, Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac, Microsoft Excel 2004 for Mac, Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 for Mac, Entourage 2004. You must have  Mac OS X 10.2.8 (Jaguar) or a later version of Mac OS, Mac OS X-compatible processor that is a model G3 or a later and 256 MB of RAM.

A complete and detailed how-to is available upon clicking on the read link just below the article.

Download: [English Version]

Wine (WINdows Emulator) is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API and allows running of Microsoft Windows programs on Unix. Just recently, developer Gnosis was also able to run Internet Explorer on his Mac OS X using this software. Now if you had the same luck as Gnosis, or if you want to try out running IE on your Mac as well, then you might want to hear out this news from the Wine team.

Wine has just been upgraded to v0.9.17. What's new? Read on...

• Still more work on Direct3D shaders.
• Now using the Gecko engine directly for MSHTML.
• Better support for apps switching to full screen mode.
• Support for multiple joysticks.

Before you rejoice and start looking for the latest Wine version, the developing team wants to let you know that binary packages are still in the process of building and will take a few days to be available.

Is there an MS iPod Killer or isn't there? That's the question. Recently Reuters cited deep throats close to MS claiming the company has plans of selling its antidote to the iPod epidemic by Christmas. Well, Microsoft said reports of its mysterious MP3 music and video player are based on "speculation and rumours." This despite unnamed music industry execs squealed to the New York Times that they have received briefings about the product.

If such a product exist, the iPod rival is said to have wireless internet capabilities for downloading music without a PC. Why does MS need an iPod Killer in the first place? Nate Elliott, a digital home analyst at Jupiter Research, said it was out of  frustration because "Microsoft... have made no significant headway into Apple's dominance of the market." Elliot added that if MS wants its software to be the dominant music platform it needs to get a product out in the market ASAP. "Microsoft is not a hardware company but they have shown that when they really want to make a success of something they are willing to do it themselves...example is the Xbox."

Elliott also said Microsoft would have a challenge breaking Apple's hold on the market.