WinCustomize.com never closes. But for those of you with real jobs in the United States, we hope you have a happy 4th of July weekend! Enjoy the good weather if available! 
WinCustomize.com is funded largely by software developer Stardock (whom I work for). Stardock, which today makes popular Windows enhancement and utilities software didn't start out that way. From 1993 to 1999 Stardock mostly made software for IBM's OS/2 operating system.
In those days, the "OS Wars" were very spirited and bitter at times. IBM and Microsoft were vying to be the successor to DOS. Microsoft's answer at the key moment was Windows 3.1. IBM's solution was OS/2. Windows obviously won, but when one looks at it in hindsight, one has to wonder how this occurred.
In 1993, users had two choices. They could run DOS + Windows 3.1 which was, to put it charitably, not very stable. Windows 3.1 could run Windows programs and it could run most DOS programs (though not games, for that, users would have to exit back to DOS to play them).
The second choice was OS/2. OS/2 could also run Windows programs. And it ran DOS programs far better than Windows could and in many cases, even better than DOS (because it could give DOS programs more "conventional" memory). Even DOS games ran under OS/2. On top of that, OS/2 had an object-oriented desktop shell called the Workplace Shell (which Windows 95 borrowed heavily from to make "Explorer"), had preemptive multitasking, protected memory, a flat memory model, an accelerated game environment called DIVE (before there was a DirectX), and could run true 32bit OS/2 programs which supported multithreading.
So how did OS/2 lose? OS/2 was so far in advanced of Windows at the time. It could run all the software Windows could run and then some. It was more powerful. It was faster. It was pushed by IBM. It was cheaper even. This is something Linux advocates should think about, btw. For all the touting Linux (or Mac) users give their respective OSes, it is unlikely that any OS will ever have as big of an advantage over Windows as OS/2 did in 1993. And yet it lost.
Again, how did OS/2 manage to lose out? The answer is complicated. For one thing, Microsoft was able to leverage the power of inertia and make special deals with OEMs. IBM had to license Windows for a set price from Microsoft. There were OEMs at the time who claimed that Microsoft was selling DOS 6 + Windows 3.1 to them for $10 and including Office with it if they agreed not to have any systems with OS/2. Meanwhile, IBM was supposedly having to pay Microsoft $20+ for each copy of OS/2 in licensing fees and IBM, operating under a previous anti-trust consent decree couldn't blatantly sell OS/2 at a loss like Microsoft was doing with Windows at the time.
By the time OS/2 was starting to pick up ground, Windows 95 had arrived and a year later, Windows NT 4.0 arrived which, while not quite as good as OS/2, was "good enough" and Microsoft had gotten the third party support through every effort they could think of (and every "effort" later got them into trouble).
So now IBM and Microsoft have settled their differences with Microsoft paying IBM $850 MILLION. I guess one has to wonder whether all those OS/2 ISVs who also suffered immensely could seek settlements. 
Go, a company that helped pioneer pen computing has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft. Go's ordeal with Microsoft was told in detail in the excellent book StartUP
Read the full thing.
Thanks in large part to the efforts by our partners at Paradox, Galactic Civilizations II is getting some great coverage over in Europe:
Finland:
http://www.pelit.fi/uutiset/uutinen.asp?id=15715
Germany:
http://www.gamestar.de/news/pc-spiele/strategie/26422/
Microsoft has brought back veteran product closer, Chris Jones to manage the Longhorn project. Chris Jones was one of the primary forces behind getting Whistler (Windows XP) out the door.
He replaces Joe Peterson in managing Longhorn's day to day movement towards release.
"Chris Jones…was brought back from COSD to save the (Longhorn) product," said one source.
Longhorn has seen a number of features removed during its beta journey including WinFS, the Business Framework, the Side bar, the scripted shell, and other elements. Longhorn is currently scheduled for release in mid-2006. The first public beta is due out this Summer.
Mary Jo Foley has more..
In a few days, we'll be closing the beta to new users. Gamers will be able to pre-order at the discounted price but the beta will not be available again to try until late Fall.
So if you want to be part of the beta program, pre-order now.
DirectX started out as a rogue operation at Microsoft. Back in 1995, the future of gaming at Microsoft was something called WinG. But a group of renegades at Microsoft had a different vision and created DirectX. Now, at 10, DirectX has evolved into quite a powerful, fully featured, game development environment.
GameDaily Biz has an interview with Chris Donahue at Microsoft over the past and future of DirectX and what it'll mean as Longhorn approaches.
Over on the WinCustomize.com news page I gave my two cents on today's ruling. Based on the poll I saw on News.com, 2 out of 3 people disagree with the ruling. What a shock. "But...I don't want to have to pay for other people's work..I want it for free.."
I know a lot of people who pirate software, games, music, movies, etc. I don't harp to them about it. What ticks me off are the companies that actually make a business model out of serving pirates. eDonkey and Kazaa and the like made millions of dollars by enabling people to steal other people's stuff.
And in turn, they have harmed consumers in ways most people don't realize. Copy protection has gotten nastier, DRM has become a household term, and licenses have gotten more and more restrictve. Not that such schemes don't get cracked -- they do -- but the record industry (whom I'm no fan of either) and the like have figured out that those who don't pirate can be made to buy more stuff with more DRM to make up for those who would have bought stuff but were able to download it for free from Kazaa or something.
Such services cheapen the value of hard work too. The other day I read someone complaining how WindowBlinds was "too expensive". It's twenty bucks for crying out loud. That's just a bit more than a Pizza dinner. A decent cooking knife costs $50. An AutoScanner is $140 (and I can tell you with some experience that the production/profit margins on these things is pretty significant). Cheap shoes are $50. Stuff costs money. Yet we'll see someone complain that a software product that took years to perfect that people run every day for years that costs $20 is too expensive. And why? Because places like Kazaa have made software look worthless.
People will complain about paying $40 for a game that took two years to develop and provides support to the user but you rarely hear the same people think twice about paying $40 for a small box of legos where the buyer will never interact with the company. Places like Kazaa and their ilk devalue intellectual property. And the results hurt us all in ways that people don't realize.
Software piracy isn't as huge of a deal as many make it out to be, but the mainstreaming of it through these peer-to-peer services were steadily making piracy something that even the newbie down the street was able to do which definitely takes revenue away from hard working software developers, musicians, etc.
Today was a big win for those of us who value intellectual property. Companies like Grokster and Kazaa and others who profit off of enabling people to conveniently steal software, music, videos, etc. are now on notice thanks to today's Supreme Court ruling on the issue.
The Supreme court found that peer-to-peer providers are indeed liable for how users make use of their network. I for one am pretty pleased with this outcome on a number of levels.
A few years ago, Napster took the world by storm. Its developer was hailed as a visionary and the company became a household name. But many developers, including us, were pretty unhappy with the whole thing. Automated piracy is not revolutionary or innovative. Many companies (including Stardock) had thought of such file sharing concepts in the past but did not invest in them because it would be difficult to keep people from pirating. But companies and individuals with fewer scruples not only went forward with such ideas but profited greatly from them and won both fame and fortune.
These companies exist, IMO, purely to profit from people pirating other people's work. Perhaps these guys will find real jobs now and earn money honestly.
The Supreme Court wrote:
"There is no evidence that either company (Grokster or StreamCast) made an effort to filter copyrighted material from users' downloads or otherwise impede the sharing of copyrighted files," Souter wrote. "Each company showed itself to be aiming to satisfy a known source of demand for copyright infringement, the market comprising former Napster users."
While the court will, in future cases, need to clarify some of the elements of its ruling, I think this is a big win for people who create intellectual property. I don't have a huge angst about piracy per se, but I have a lot of angst about companies in the business of profiting from it.
Scientists have found a way to bring people back from the dead. Sort of. The first successful test subjects were dogs which were drained of all their blood, replaced with saline solution that was just above freezing and then revived 3 hours later with no brain damage.
This could be a boon for battlefield casualties as well as for those in accidents where a lot of blood has been lost. There is also great potential for this to be used to put someone into hybernation for the long term to prevent someone from dying.