Microsoft has announced the pricing for Windows 7, due to be released on October 22. The Home Premium upgrade version will cost $119.99 — ten bucks cheaper than the comparable version of Vista! Other news outlets are trying to spin this as “8% less”, but we know you, dear readers, aren’t fooled by such sleight of hand. Windows 7 Professional upgrade will run $199.99. The full Home Premium version is $199.99; and the full versions of Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate editions will be $299.99 and $319.99 respectively. Does the Ultimate edition really offer $20 more in terms of functionality? I don’t know!

If you haven’t picked up Battlestations: Pacific for the Xbox 360 (and PC) then you’re doing it wrong. For an RTS, I really, really enjoy it. I just think of it as Battleship. Anyway, the Volcano Map Pack DLC will be available tomorrow for 560 MS points through the Xbox Marketplace while PC gamers will see the expansion on June 25th through Windows Live. Hit the jump for the Volcano trailer.

Hot on the heels of their successful advertising campaign to make consumers see a PC running Windows as a better value than a Macintosh, Microsoft is now declaring “It’s Better With Windows“! The new website, aimed at Asus Eee PC users, reminds us that “Windows helps you quickly and easily get online and connect to your devices and services — without dealing with an unfamiliar environment or major compatibility issues“! Oooh, burn! Watchoo gonna do, Linux?

Poor MacDrive. The latest hot tamale of a rumor says that, starting with Snow Leopard (10.6), Windows users will be able to access Mac files without the use of any special software. You’d mount the Mac as you would any other Windows machine.

This is probably the easiest review I’ve ever had to write. It’s about the Clickfree Traveler, an automated backup solution that works with both Windows and Mac; it’s the size of a credit card, as the video here tries to show! (Presumably Linux folk have all written, in raw machine code, their own backup applications.) Literally, you plug it into the USB port of your computer, a small window pops up with a countdown timer, and then it automatically backs up your home directory—/users/ndeleon/ in my case. Provided there’s enough space on the Traveler for your data, it’s all over in a matter of seconds. It’s pretty darn painless.

So XP Mode is a major bullet point in the list of Windows 7 features. Yay! Except that the way it works — by using Microsoft Virtual PC and a legit copy of Windows XP SP3 — requires that your CPU have Intel VT virtualization support. Whoops, not all CPUs have that!

If you’ve never worked in an office where an unsuspecting co-worker gets an e-mail sent out on his or her behalf announcing that happy hour drinks are on the house, you haven’t LIVED! It’s the perfect way to teach someone that they should always, always, lock their computer whenever they head over to the break room to find that someone drank all the coffee and didn’t bother to make another pot. Those days may be about to end, though, thanks to Phoenix Freeze.

So what game would you consider to be the most played ever? Solitaire? Castle Wolfenstein? Maybe Everquest or Quake? Well, guess again. The oldest (and most frequently installed) game ever is minesweeper.

Hey there, multi-touch! With this, the SmartTrack Neo [JP], you can add multi-touch capability to your PC. A hot $50 for this life saver.

Of the many flavors of Windows 7, due out this summer, the Starter Edition has received perhaps the most flack. It’s limited to running only three applications at a time, something most computer users find absolutely ludicrous. Microsoft isn’t targeting Starter Edition for your everyday desktop PC, though: they’re targeting it at netbooks.

Macalope wrote a great analysis deconstructing the arguments made by the MS “Apple Tax” document as well as all of those freaky little commercials they’ve released so far. Here its. Feel free to frame it:

WRONG: Roger Kay’s Microsoft-sponsored “Apple tax” analysis is out of line! Let me show you a detailed analysis of how he pads and distorts the costs!

One thousand nine hundred ninety-two - what a year: Bush, Sr. booted in the Japanese Prime Minister’s lap; Boris Yeltsin announced that Russia would no longer (publicly) target the United States with nuclear weapons; the Washington Redskins (Go Hogs!) beat the sad Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVI; Microsoft released Windows 3.1, complete with Minesweeper; EuroDisney opened in France; Wayne’s World and Basic Instinct hit the silver screen (among other “classics“); the Mall of America was built; William Jefferson Clinton was elected 42nd POTUS; and, last but not least, Dr. Dre released The Chronic.

The geeks at Redmond might already be rolling out the Release Candidate of Windows 7 to select beta testers. A few of those testers have leaked some info including the releases name: 6.1.7048.winmain_win7rc1.090211-1625. Those two little letters of RC probably indicate that this is the release that many have been waiting for. The last beta, build 7022, is just a minor upgrade over the 7000 public beta, but the RC should offer enough goods to tempt upgrades.

Cuba is trying to eliminate its dependency on Microsoft Windows by launching and promoting a homegrown version of Linux called Nova. Government officials say they want to ween as many of the country’s computers off Windows just in case the operating system has hidden hooks into the CIA, NSA, etc. Can’t have that, now can they? Linux, free and open source, also gels with the country’s ideology. Hooray for Cuba, then.

Microsoft has been putting together the Windows 7 Technical Guarantee Program and it appears that it’ll likely go into effect starting July 1st of this year. It’s that program that lets you purchase a machine with Microsoft’s current operating system and then upgrade it to the newest one when it launches, similar to what the company did when getting ready for Vista.

It’s true what they say: show regular people a Microsoft operating system that they haven’t seen yet and a Linux desktop environment that they’ve never used and they won’t be able to tell the difference.

Russian programmer Dmitry Zavalishin is working on a revolutionary new concept for an operating system. In Zavalishin’s Phantom OS, snapshots of the entire system will be continually saved to disk, preserving state for running applications and active data. There are no files in the traditional sense, instead a file is merely an object with persistent state. Neat!