Beginning March 1st, Google’s tipping over the dominoes and starting the phase-out of Internet Explorer 6. March 1st begins Google’s drop for IE 6 support in regards to Google Docs and Google Sites. “As a result, you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products — as well as new Docs and Sites features — won’t work properly in older browsers,” says Google.

March 13th begins (Google-owned) YouTube’s drop of IE6. “The latest YouTube interstitial (messaging) is part of a campaign to encourage users to update their browsers in order to enhance their overall site experience,” notes the YouTube blog. And, as forewarned, Google will also be dropping IE6 support for Gmail and other Google Apps sometime in 2010.

So, what’s a web surfer to do? I channel Beyonce when I say I’m going to “introduce you to some new things and upgrade you, I can up, can I up, let me upgrade you.” Upgrade to a more modern browser! Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox are all great choices. There’s also Opera and Safari.

Yay? Nay? According to Ars Technica, IE6 held 1/5th of the browser market early this year — not too surprising since Windows XP came packaged with the product. This may be largely due to the fact that many IT departments haven’t made that upgrade decision yet. But lots of people, including a numerous web developers and designers, despise the outdated browser and some have even come together via the “Hey IT” group.

Aten Design Group, a Denver-based design company with a sense of humor, will be bidding farewell to IE6 on March 4th. The funeral services will be held at their offices.

Come mix and mingle with Denver’s top IE6 mourners. We’ll have a special time of remembrance, a round of IE6 darts, and plenty of food & drinks.

Do you want to upgrade your Vista or Windows XP computer to a Windows 7 system? But you don’t want to spend the money for a new computer? Past versions of the Windows operating system have all grown “more resource-hungry than the last,” reports the Sydney Morning Herald. Each time a PC user wanted the latest Windows system, that user usually had to buy a new, better computer — more RAM, better processor, etc., whatever the need may be for running the new Windows system. Then came the acclaimed Windows 7 OS.

Zazz, an online retailer, refurbishes a number of computers running Windows XP. And since “Customers started asking how these computers would run Windows 8,” Zazz media manager Scott Lewis had his team run a few tests. The results of his tests? Upgrade to Windows 7 already! Upgrading is especially recommended for computers running a dual-core processor and at least 2GB of RAM. However, those with less are also encouraged to upgrade. Surprisingly “Photoshop ran faster on Windows 7 even with 1GB or RAM,” says Lewis.

If you’re ready to upgrade, be sure to read Jeremy’s post on Windows 7 Upgrade Eligibility and Paths. Also, check out the Sydney Morning Herald article for more information on Lewis’ findings and a few useful links.

With the release of Windows 7, there are many different options to upgrade. In typical Microsoft fashion, there is some complexity to upgrading to Windows 7. This blog will explain the difference between “upgrade eligibility” and “upgrade paths”, and let you know your options based on which version you are currently running.

Upgrade Eligibility:

You are eligible to purchase an upgrade to any version of Windows 7 if you own any previous version of Windows starting with XP or later. Windows 98, 2000, and ME don’t qualify you to purchase an upgrade. If the PC you want to install Windows 7 on has a version of Windows older than XP, you will need to purchase a full retail or OEM version of Windows 7.

Upgrade Paths:

An Upgrade Path is a scenario where you can install Windows 7 without needing to back up your files. For example, if you are currently running Windows Vista Home Premium, and you want to go to Windows 7 Ultimate, you would be able to insert the Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade disk while running Vista, it would then “convert” your Vista operating system to Windows 7 Ultimate; However, if you are currently running Vista Home Premium and you want to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional, you would have to back up your files and perform what’s called a “clean install” by rebooting your system from the disk and re-installing the operating system from scratch. You can only perform an upgrade path from the following versions of Vista to the corresponding versions of Windows 7:

Supported Upgrade Paths

Note: If you are upgrading from any version of Windows XP you will have to perform a clean install. There are no supported Upgrade Paths from Windows XP.

Yesterday, Microsoft released the second Service Pack (SP2) for Office 2008 for Mac. This update makes some stability and speed improvements to this version of Office, as well as adds some new document collaboration features.

The developers of Office 2008 for Mac SP2 listened to customer feedback to improve on this very popular software suite for the Mac. With this update, program such as Word and Powerpoint will launch faster. Excel also features speed improvements, most notably with faster calculations. Users can also customize their default Themes to include their preferred fonts, color schemes, layouts, etc.

The biggest improvement brought by SP2 is in the area of document collaboration and file-sharing. Office 2008 for Mac now supports seamless integration with Microsoft Office Live Workspace. This free file-sharing network now supports Safari 4 and Firefox, which will make it easier for users on all platforms to access their documents. Microsoft SharePoint, the enterprise level document sharing server, now has a better user experience for collaboration with Mac documents.

To download Office 2008 for Mac SP2 for free, check out this direct link from Microsoft. For a free trial of Office 2008 for Mac, check out this previous blog post.

Starting today, major PC manufacturers will be offering a promotion with new PC’s that allows you to upgrade to Windows 7 at a later date for free. To help boost computer sales right now, Microsoft is offering this promotion to users that purchase a new computer installed with Windows Vista. Their hope is that people will not put off buying a new computer in order to wait for the release of Windows 7 on October 22nd.

Participation in this program varies between different manufacturers. Check out this Microsoft page for the complete list of participating manufacturers. That link also contains the complete FAQ on the Windows 7 free upgrade, if you have any questions.

Also starting today, Microsoft is opening up a heavily discounted pre-order program for Windows 7. To reward loyal customers, Microsoft if selling a pre-order of Windows 7 Home Premium for $49.99 and Windows 7 Professional for $99.99. This is 50% off the standard upgrade price. To pre-order your copy right now, check out the Miscrosoft Store.

Microsoft also announced the estimated retail prices for Windows 7 yesterday. The upgrade prices are as follows:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade): $119.99
• Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade): $199.99
• Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade): $219.99

The full retail boxed version prices are as follows:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99
• Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99
• Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99

Al of these products will start shipping on October 22nd.

I really like these aggressive pricing techniques from Microsoft. Let’s hope everyone will upgrade to Windows 7 right away, and we can finally put Vista behind us. Check out the Windows Team Blog for even more information.

According to AppleInsider, Microsoft has granted HP the right to downgrade the operating system installed on new computers to Windows XP for another year. Currently, HP allows purchasers of new PC’s to downgrade their OS from Windows Vista to the eight-year-old Windows XP. However, this right was set to expire in July as Microsoft transitions to the new Windows 7 release.

With this new extension, HP will be able to offer its customers the option of Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP on new computers (once Windows 7 is released). This extension will last through April 30, 2010.

Since many Windows users were extremely reluctant to upgrade to Vista when buying a new computer, offering a Windows XP OEM alternative was essential for hardware manufacturers. These “downgrades” basically transferred the Vista user license to XP Professional at no charge, with the option of upgrading to Vista for free in the future. This is how the Windows 7 downgrade program will work as well.

Will users remain skeptical of the Windows 7 ugrade? The buzz around the internet is saying Windows 7 will receive a much more favorable response than Vista did, possibly making these downgrades obsolete. Maybe once Windows 7 is released it will finally be time to say goodbye to Windows XP (and Vista).

For Windows users that do a lot of work in programs like Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 or After Effects CS4, now may be the time to upgrade your Vista system to 64-bit. Microsoft officially crossed over from 32-bit to 64-bit with Vista, and making the change has never been easier. Windows 7 will push 64-bit even more, and their down the road goal is to eliminate 32-bit operating systems all together.

What is the difference between a 32-bit OS and a 64-bit OS you may ask? I’ll tell you. A 64-bit OS essentially uses a data path that is 64-bits wide, allowing the system to transfer data around in packets that are twice as large. This speeds up your basic, underlying system performance. Perhaps the biggest advantage to a 64-bit OS, however, is the ability to utilize nearly unlimited memory. Windows XP and Vista 32-bit editions are limited to only 4GB of RAM, and those systems can only make use of about 2GB of that RAM. With Vista 64-bit, you can upgrade your RAM to 16GB or higher without any problems. That is where the new Adobe CS4 programs really shine.

All CS4 applications are designed to work with a 64-bit OS and harness extra memory beyond 4GB. Tests by Adobe have shown speed increases in Premiere Pro of up to 200% on 64-bit systems with 16GB of memory, over maxed-out 32-bit systems. With the price of memory upgrades at an all-time low, upgrading to 16GB or higher should run less than $500. For someone using HD workflows in CS4 Production Premium, the immediate leaps in productivity make this upgrade a no-brainer. Vista also makes upgrading to 64-bit as painless as it can be, but you will have to check to make sure all of your harware has 64-bit drivers. You will also have to upgrade your Adobe software to the latest versions and tweak the memory usage settings in the individual programs.

You Mac users have nothing to worry about because Mac OS Leopard is already 64-bit capable. So go ahead and throw another 32GB of memory into your system and watch your render speeds go through the roof.

Adobe recently released a white paper outlining the benefits seen in using CS4 Production Premium after upgrading to 64-bit Vista. This white paper should answer any additional questions you have and give you some guidance. Karl Soule also oulined some of the benefits of upgradaing in his blog as well.

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Yesterday Microsoft announced on their Windows blog that Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 is now available to the public. This is the release candidate (RC) version of SP2, which means it still needs to be tested by people like you before its official release to the public through Windows Update. You can download SP2 from the Windows Customer Preview Program page.

Some of the major improvements found in SP2 include support for Bluetooth v2.1, improvements to the RSS feed sidebar, Blu-Ray Disc recording capabilities, and the inclusion of Windows Search 4.0.