Trevin Chow

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed and follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!

Windows 7 is now available on Microsoft Store for pre-order!  

As mentioned earlier today, we have both Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade and Windows 7 Professional Upgrade heavily discounted at $49 and $99 respectively.  This discounted pre-order is available in limited quantities and for a limited time. 

Other information

• When placing you’re pre-order on Microsoft Store, you’ll have 3 options for getting the product on October 22, 2009:

1. Download – the quickest and easiest way.  We even store your product key so you don’t have to keep those pesky software boxes in your closet or silly stickers taped to your monitors.
2. Download + Backup Disc – for those that want convenience of downloading, but also a physical disc to use later.
3. Ship the package product – we’ll ship you the fully packaged product on or about October 22, 2009.   Arrival time will vary depending on actual shipping time.

• All editions of Windows 7 available on Microsoft Store include both 32-bit and 64-bit editions.  If you choose to buy Windows 7 for download, you will get access to both downloads.
• Discounted pre-orders are available starting June 26, 2009 and will continue while supplies last, or until July 11, 2009 whichever comes first.

Starting Friday, June 26, 2009 you will be able to pre-order Windows 7 on Microsoft Store!  By being first to pre-order, you’ll get it for at least half off and be one of the first to get it. Quantities will be limited.*

How?

Windows 7 is coming on October 22, 2009 and it’s easy to get it fast and save a bundle on upgrades to Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional.

Pre-order either product at Microsoft Store starting tomorrow, and you’ll snag it for at least 50% off with Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for $49.99 and Windows 7 Professional Upgrade for $99.99!

You’ll have 3 options for getting the product on October 22, 2009:

1. Download – the quickest and easiest way.
2. Download + Backup Disc – for those that want convenience of downloading, but also a physical disc to use later.
3. Ship the package product – we’ll ship you the fully packaged product on or about October 22, 2009.

All Windows 7 editions include both 32-bit and 64-bit regardless of whether you choose to download or the packaged product.  So techies, don’t worry, we have you covered

Want more info?

Go to the Windows team blog and find out all the details.

* The offer begins on June 26, 2009 and will continue while supplies last, or until July 11, 2009, whichever comes first.

Today, we announced the Windows 7 Upgrade Option and Windows 7 pricing. Microsoft Store is also participating in this program and offering a free* copy of Windows 7 to qualifying purchases on Microsoft Store of Windows Vista from starting June 26th, 2009.

The Windows 7 team blog summarizes this program as it relates to buying a new PC with Windows Vista:

…you don’t have to wait until GA to get a new Windows PC. In fact, we know many people need that new PC sooner – for back to school specifically. And we have the answer for people who need a new PC now but still want to get Windows 7 and that’s the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program, which kicks off tomorrow, June 26th! Anyone who buys a PC from a participating OEM or retailer with Windows Vista Home Premium, Business or Ultimate on it will all receive an upgrade to the corresponding version of Windows 7 at little or no cost to customers.

On Microsoft Store, we are offering the Windows 7 Upgrade Option for any purchases of Windows Vista Home Premium, Business and Ultimate starting on June 26, 2009.  On or about October 22, 2009, we will send qualifying customers an email with a promotion code and instructions to get your free copy of Windows 7.  You will have the option to download it for free, or choose to have a packaged copy shipped to you.

If you have any questions, hit me up in the comments or on Twitter.

*Shipping charges and any applicable taxes may apply

Microsoft Bing launched today publicly, and color me impressed.   I was always a fan of portions of Live Search, but the improvement they’ve made across the board with Bing is impressive. It’s nowhere near a Google knock-out punch, but it has marked improvement in key areas, that it’s going to be hard for people to ignore how well Bing performs. Perhaps John Battelle’s 2009 prediction of “at least a five point gain in [Microsoft] search share” will come true after all?

Searches to try to see some of the new functionality:

1. “Up” – will give you movie showtimes in your city
2. “Up” video search will give thumbnails of videos, but the best part is when you hover over each with your mouse pointer.  Instant preview!
3. “flights from sea to nyc” shows you airfare predictions based on Farecast technology with one click access to 30-day outlook on fare prices.
4. Medical searches like “swine flu” – see the left hand side for categories to help refine your search (Articles, symptoms, causes,…), related searches (who knew there was a  “1976 swine flu scare”?) and also returns credible results at the top from the Mayo Clinic.
5. Using Bing Maps, simple food searches like “pizza” will auto detect your location and show you all matching nearby restaurants .

This obviously isn’t an exhaustive list, but are neat improvements I’ve noticed in my usage over the past couple of hours.  Anything cool I’m missing?

While trying to upgrade a few Wordpress plugins, I got this error message:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 7680 bytes)  

After struggling with trying to fix this, I found a really easy solution – increase the Wordpress memory allocation size from 32 MB to 64 MB.  To do this, edit your wp-settings.php and change line 13 from:

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '32M');

to

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');

Simple, easy and delicious. No more memory issues for any plugin upgrades!