Outlook.com has officially gone out of beta and into full time production use. A lot of people have already transferred their Hotmail to the new Outlook.com. There is a definite improvement in the user interface, speed and options.

Outlook.com has been in preview since last summer, drawing a lot of attention to it’s very simple yet powerful interface, lack of targeted advertising (with some shots fired at Google’s GMail in several ads) and speed.

Through the preview, Microsoft has heard a great deal about customers’ favorite features, the way they use the product, and how well Outlook.com is delivering on the company’s vision for modern email. For example, Outlook.com lets customers connect to popular social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Today, millions of people are using those features to keep up to date with friends’ contact info updates, photos and tweets. Outlook.com is also designed to make it easy to send hundreds of photos and videos in a single message — all powered by SkyDrive. After only six months, nearly half of all people using Outlook.com have already used SkyDrive to share more than half a billion photos and Office documents.

I just got a new email asking to update to Skype as they are starting to move from Messenger. If you’ve been putting it off, now might be the time to start the upgrade.

Hello, Starting April 8th, we will begin upgrading customers from Messenger to Skype. The process will take a few weeks to complete. April 8th is the first day you may be required to upgrade. This is a bit later than the March 15th date we previously mentioned to some of you as we wanted to give you more time to make the transition. To keep chatting with your Messenger contacts, simply upgrade to the latest version of Skype using the instructions below and sign in using a Microsoft account (this is the same ID you use to sign into Messenger). Once signed in, your contacts will already be there. You’ll be able to instant message and make video calls with them just like before, and start discovering new ways of staying in touch, including Skype on your mobile or tablet. Upgrade now

Yours sincerely,

The Messenger and Skype Teams

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about how much free space is left on a Surface Pro and how much better Apple’s MacBook Air is with it’s free space. Ed Bott has gone through and taken a deep look at both systems and not only how much free space is involved, but how each company measures their space to begin with. Who is deceiving who with this missing space, and is it that big of a difference? Read the article. It’s very interesting and revealing.

Microsoft has been absolutely pummeled in the press and in reader comments this week by pundits and customers alike. They feel cheated by the amount of free storage space available to them on the new line of Surface Pro devices.

But is that criticism fair or even valid?

The next Xbox (720/Durango/Next) is rumored to require a persistent internet connection to prevent the usage of used games. So far, the user reaction to this rumor has been completely negative. Out of the thousands of comments I read on the linked article, Reddit and other forums, I haven’t seen one that was positive. For me, I love to play single player games when the internet is down. If that’s not happening, I’ll play a single player game: New Super Mario Bros. U. I’ll skip the new console in favor of one that does support the single player game. Regardless of it is to stop used games, a required internet connection does a lot more than just that. It stops me from playing games, which is why I buy a console. If I can’t play, there is no reason to buy. Simple.

This is the same reason I won’t be buying the new SimCity – persistent internet connection required. I don’t pirate my games. But, if my network connection goes flaky and I can’t play the game (single player with no network needed), then that makes the purchase worthless.

If this rumor turns out to be true – sales will suffer. GameStop and other used game outlets will fall. I would also expect to see a LOT more piracy going on. If they can’t play a game because of some DRM – that DRM will be defeated very fast. And users will flock to it. Not to pirate the game (although they will, of course), but to actually PLAY the game they paid $60 for.

Edge is citing "sources with first-hand experience of Microsoft’s next generation console" saying that games for the system will be available via download or as Blu-ray discs with a capacity of up to 50GB. The disc-based games will reportedly all ship with an activation code tying the game to a single user account, making the disc essentially worthless on the second-hand market.

With more online risks, you would think users would do more to protect themselves online. A study by Microsoft shows that this really isn’t true. In a world of growing online risks – with passwords, credit cards and other personal information getting into the hands of criminals – it is a necessity to keep yourself, and your personal information, safe.

Your home PC may be the only place you look to secure, but a growing number of attacks are aimed at mobile devices. With a lot of newer technologies such as cloud storage, online banking, etc., your mobile device may have a lot of information that you may not even think about.

Keep safe out there. Protect your information. Once it’s out there, it is a very long and difficult road to getting things back in order.

“Mobile devices often have just as much, if not more, valuable personal information stored on them as a home computer, making mobile devices equally attractive to data-stealing criminals,” said Jacqueline Beauchere, Microsoft’s incoming chief online safety officer. “The latest MCSI results demonstrate that no matter where or how people access the Internet, exercising safer online habits is essential. There are steps that people can take and technologies that they can employ to help prevent them from becoming a victim.”

Even though the Surface Pro doesn’t go on sale until Saturday the 9th, it is already being seen on display at several retail outlets. Some places are allowing pre-orders, while others are just showing off the hardware.

Engadget has confirmed that the Surface Pro tablets have indeed started to appear in some retail stores, which will include Staples and Best Buy. WinBeta.org reports that at least some Best Buy stores are allowing people to pre-order the tablet if you purchase a $50 gift card.

Also, to quell a rumor going around: Microsoft is not offering a Windows RT to Pro trade-up program (at this time, anyway). Rumors were stating that the trade-up program would give you full retail value for your ‘old’ Windows RT tablet when upgrading to a Windows Pro powered tablet.

SkyDrive has been updated to bring improved sharing and permissions and easier to use HTML5 features on a touch screen device. Very welcomed changes. I like the visual indication of who you are sharing with, nice touch!

We’re ringing in the new year with a few improvements to SkyDrive.com. You now have a single, unified view into how each of your files is shared so you can more easily control who has access to your files. We’ve also added more HTML5 features for touch devices making the SkyDrive experience faster and more fluid across devices and we’ve introduced more drag-and-drop capabilities to make it easier to manage your files, photos and documents.

The US Department of Defense has bought $617 million worth of Microsoft licenses, including Windows 8. Apparently, even though this is a large amount of money, it’s actually a very good deal compared to past offerings.

“There’s a move afoot throughout the department to bring about efficiencies in the [information technology] world,” David L. DeVries, DOD deputy chief information officer, told American Forces Press Service. “We took a long, hard look at it … realizing that the Department of Defense relies upon the network and upon information technology to do its business.”

Under the agreement, the Army, Air Force and DISA can begin using the newest versions of Microsoft products, including Microsoft Office 2013, SharePoint 2013 and Windows 8, officials said, adding that Office 2013 provides enhanced security and content management tools.

Not to make a connection between Vista and Windows 8 other than sales results, the adoption rate of Windows 8 is slower than Vista was in the same time frames after their release. Although, to be honest, PC sales in general are a bit less, too.

Windows 8’s failure to stay abreast of Windows 7 or even Vista is not hard to explain, said analysts, who have been predicting a weak reception for the new operating system, blaming a weak economy, the OS’s confusing dual user interfaces, enterprise upgrade fatigue after migrating to Windows 7, and competition from rivals’ tablets — including Apple’s iPad, Amazon’s Kindle and Google’s Nexus — for customers’ technology dollars.

After some friends and I were talking about software piracy and why some people do it and why, I thought of making a quick 3 question survey (simple and sweet) about it. Please, if you could spare 30 seconds of your time, could you take this anonymous survey regarding software & OS piracy. I will share the results (numbers and stats only, there is no identifying information collected) in a week. Thanks for your help! This is no way a scientific study, or used for anything other than personal curiosity.