Geeks and some part of the tech world consider it cool to hate everything that comes out of the Microsoft campus. Let me share a few instances.
Microsoft develops Vista and the vocal crowd immediately dubs it a failed product although a majority of these people may have never used the software. Microsoft releases a new "I’m PC" ad campaign and that provides some more fodder to *nix nerds because the ad agency, who Microsoft hired to produce these ads, probably made them on a Mac. Microsoft adds instant messaging in Hotmail and blog headlines scream to suggest that Microsoft is doing this "ages after Google". These are the same people who get excited when Gmail adds a "delete" button though that thing has been present in Outlook since birth.
Anyway, it seems that the age-old trend to criticize everything "MSFT" is on the decline and that’s because there are some things that have gone right for Microsoft in the consumer technology space in recent times:
1. The Laptop Hunter Ads - Their previous campaign featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates got slammed but the new Laptop Hunter ads are proving very effective especially among the 18-34 year olds.
Apple did a great job of putting Microsoft on the defensive. It made them look old, stodgy, complicated to use and unhip. But Microsoft has started to hit back, and younger folks are more cost-focused. Microsoft’s so-called value perception has risen steadily since the campaign began in March, while Apple’s has fallen - Adage
2. Windows Internet Explorer 8 - IE 8 may not be enough to stop the rise of Firefox but some of it’s unique features like Web Slices, Accelerators, InPrivate browsing and visual search suggestions have received positive attention.
Overall, Internet Explorer 8 is an impressive package, and while it lacks the raw speed of Chrome, the flashiness of Safari 4, and the extendibility of Firefox, it does offer reliability and some good features, which could be enough to win it some fans. It's certainly the best version of IE in a long time - ITPro
3. Windows7 - Technically, Windows 7 may have lot of things in common with Windows Vista but it’s better, faster and requires less resources.
In general, I have found Windows 7 a pleasure to use. There are a few drawbacks, but my preliminary verdict on Windows 7 is positive. Even in its preliminary form, Windows 7 looks very promising, and could well help expunge the bad reputation of Vista. - Walt Mossberg
For decades, Microsoft's primary strategy has been to put out something mediocre, and then refine, refine, refine, no matter how long and no matter what it costs, until it succeeds. That's what's exciting about the prospect of Windows 7. It's Windows Vista — with a whole heck of a lot of refinement. - David Pogue
4. Windows Live Mesh - This allows you to synchronize file and files across multiple devices include Windows PCs, Mac computers and mobile phones. It’s one of our favorite web applications and others agree as well.
Live Mesh is both exciting and useful. It erases years of doubt about Microsoft’s understanding of the computing industry and how it’s changing. It proves that the company is no longer interested in simply milking its past successes. Most important, for users, it provides a hopeful glimpse at a future in which heterogeneous devices and environments will no longer be islands of functionality that are hard or impossible to connect - Paul Thurrott
5. Zune HD - The only advantage of having a Zune MP3 player vis-a-vis an Apple iPod is that the former device lets you tune in to FM radio on the go. That perception is likely to change with the launch of Zune HD that features a Wi-Fi enabled touch-screen browser and support for HD radio.
The thing kind of rocks. In your hand the Zune HD has a nice, solid feel, with good heft to it and a surprisingly thin profile. The OLED screen looks absolutely stunning — even at severe viewing angles, colors were super bright, edges were crisp, and text looked beautiful. While the OS isn’t finished, we didn’t notice a single hiccup while jumping through menus or playing back HD video - Engadget
6. Bing - Just when 60% of Internet users were feeling satisfied with their existing search engines, Microsoft rolled out Bing to take on Google. Some early reviews from tech pundits suggest that Bing has enough potential though it may not be a "google killer" yet.
A search engine with solid relevancy plus some new features that might hook a few of them into staying - Danny Sullivan
Bing is a solid improvement over the previous search product, and it beats Google in important areas. It will help Microsoft gain share in the search business. It’s surprisingly competitive with Google - Rafe Needleman
7. Office Live Workspace - Enough has been written about the demise of "desktop software" at the hands of "web applications" but the immense popularity of solutions that bridge the online and offline world prove that people still prefer to have both choices.
Microsoft will add Office web applications to their Office Live Workspace service sometime later this year and that might give them an edge over Google Docs as existing Office users are more likely to prefer Office Live because integration between Office (on the desktop) and Office (in the cloud) would be much better.
8. Windows Live Skydrive - Other than Adobe (they have Acrobat.com), Microsoft is the only "Internet giant" that offers a free file hosting service on the web with plenty of storage. AOL have closed their XDrive service, Yahoo! never offered any online storage while rumors of Google GDrive have been circulating on the web for long but nothing concrete yet.
This slide neatly sums up the main differences between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.
Web 1.0 - That Geocities & Hotmail era was all about read-only content and static HTML websites. People preferred navigating the web through link directories of Yahoo! and dmoz.
Web 2.0 - This is about user-generated content and the read-write web. People are consuming as well as contributing information through blogs or sites like Flickr, YouTube, Digg, etc. The line dividing a consumer and content publisher is increasingly getting blurred in the Web 2.0 era.
Web 3.0 - This will be about semantic web (or the meaning of data), personalization (e.g. iGoogle), intelligent search and behavioral advertising among other things.
If that sounds confusing, check out some of these excellent presentations that help you understand Web 3.0 in simple English. Each takes a different approach to explain Web 3.0 and the last presentation uses an example of a "postage stamp" to explain the "semantic web".
If you are using SlideShare to host your PowerPoint (or Keynote) presentations, the good news is that you can now use the same service to also upload MP3 recordings of your conference talks and the audio can then play in sync with your actual presentation slides.
The Advantage: Earlier, SlideShare required users to upload MP3 audio files to an external site (like your own web server or some podcast hosting service) but that led to problem - if the external MP3 hosting site went down temporarily for some reason, your SlideShare presentations too would go into silent mode for that duration.
Now that both the MP3 audio and presentation file are hosted on the same service (SlideShare uses the very reliable Amazon S3), the performance and availability would be much better.
Here’s a demo on how you can sync slides and MP3 recording using the audio synchronization interface of SlideShare.
Limitations: SlideShare policies require that you use their MP3 hosting service only for uploading "recordings of a presenter talking" so if you want some background music to play with your photo slides, you’ll still have to hunt for other places to upload those MP3s.
Back in December 2006, Google introduced an Audio ads service that allowed advertisers to run campaigns on AM/FM radio stations using the familiar AdWords interface. Google’s foray into traditional radio advertising was not very successful and therefore, in February 2009, Google decided to shut down their radio ads service.
We have decided to exit the broadcast radio business and focus our efforts on exploring internet-based solutions that will deliver relevant online streaming audio ads. These plans include discontinuing the Audio Ads platform within AdWords and selling our Automation business [dMarc], which is the system we built to integrate with broadcast radio stations.
The last batch of Google Ads on radio stations will run on May 31, 2009 but just as we though that Radio Ads on Google are gone forever, Google has posted a new job requirement for their online Audio Ads business and surprisingly, the requirements lay special emphasis on "Radio".
As an Account Executive for Online Audio Advertising, your goal is to drive revenue by selling Online Audio Ads solutions to top-tier advertisers. This is a high-adrenaline, client-facing sales role requiring deep Radio and Internet expertise, proven sales ability with a particular penchant for closing deals, and a broad base of industry contacts.
The minimum requirement for applying to this job is "at least six years of progressive work experience, including Online Radio, in advertising sales, marketing or consulting, with at least five years working with or at agencies."
Looks like Google is all set to try audio ads on radio again but this time, the focus has shifted from "traditional radio stations" to "Internet based radio stations".
Google Online Audio Ads, if extended outside radio, could be great news for podcast producers as well as most of them still haven’t found any decent solution to monetize their podcast shows.
Geeks and some part of the tech world consider it cool to hate everything that comes out of the Microsoft campus. Let me share a few instances. 
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