Perception - the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information, according to Wikipedia. However, it seems people’s perceptions are too self reliant on hearing, rather than their experiences in terms of sight.

At this stage you must be asking yourself what this has to do with technology at all - and rightfully so. However, it seems that perception is one of the most important factors for a successful product in the technology world.

One prime example of this is Windows Vista, the newest version of the Microsoft Windows family. Some people say, including myself, that Vista is a revolutionary product that has a vast improvement over previous versions, including Windows XP. However, there are also some people who do not have the same feelings towards Vista.

Whilst I respect that everyone has different opinions, and that Vista is not for everyone, it gets on my nerves when people use other people’s opinions to judge the system themselves. I mean, I have been told so many times that Vista is “slow” or “shit”, however when I ask these people if they had used the program I usually get the response of “no”, or “not, but my friend did and they said it was not good.”

So, when I saw Microsoft’s experiment released earlier this week to see how people’s perception of Vista would change if they didn’t base their assumptions on what others thought, I laughed. It proved the point that people don’t seem confident enough to try the system out themselves – instead, they rely on other people’s thoughts or messages as to how they will judge the system.

The experiment consisted of getting a few people and asking them what they thought of Windows Vista. They all said responses like “slow”, “bad” and “I heard all this bad stuff about it”. The interviewers then told them that they were going to show them the new Windows operating system, named Mojave. They showed them the operating system and let them use it, then asked for their opinion. The responses were great, and all positive. However, they were stunned when the interviewers told them that they had in fact been using Windows Vista all along. To see their reactions were curious, and their responses were plain hilarious – “But…. why is it so fast” was one response, and another was that “[they’re] going to go out and buy it straight away”.

You can see the experiment yourself at www.mojaveexperiment.com.

Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours - it’s that easy. We’re not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.

The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 is June 17, 2008.

Download and install Firefox version 3 today, and help Mozilla Firefox set a world record!

Congratulations to Morsolo who won a copy of Norton 360 on our Forums! If you missed out, don’t forget to sign up and take part in future events!

Competition Announcement:

[15-06, 19:45] MiCCAS The time has come. The winner will receive a copy of Norton 360, but we also have something else for all the entrants! All will be revealed soon.
[15-06, 19:46] simpsonsfreak And now it’s time to announce the winner. The winner is…
[15-06, 19:47] simpsonsfreak …someone on this forum…
[15-06, 19:49] MiCCAS … someone on this forum who is very lucky…
[15-06, 19:51] simpsonsfreak … and who gave us a suggestion to improve the website…
[15-06, 19:52] MiCCAS … yes, and their ideas were excellent!
[15-06, 19:52] simpsonsfreak Alright. The winner is…
[15-06, 19:53] MiCCAS *drum roll* ….
[15-06, 19:54] simpsonsfreak * simpsonsfreak continues drum roll
[15-06, 19:54] simpsonsfreak …
[ 15-06, 19:57] MiCCAS Wow those drum rolls are really awesome! *sways off-topic*
[15-06, 19:57] simpsonsfreak …
[15-06, 19:58] MiCCAS And, the winner is…
[15-06, 19:58] MiCCAS Morsolo, for his excellent entry at http://www.miccas.net/forum/showthread.php?t=35 - But don’t stop sending in your suggestions, keep ‘em coming as we take every single suggestion into account.
[15-06, 19:58] simpsonsfreak But wait, there’s more. Since the entries were of such great calibre, we’ve decided to also give prizes to every other entrant, too.
[15-06, 19:59] MiCCAS That’s right. I’ll PM all the entrants to get their details so we can send through their prize.
[15-06, 19:59] simpsonsfreak And the prize is…? You’ll just have to wait to find out!
[15-06, 19:59] MiCCAS Once again, congratulations to Morsolo, and a big thankyou to everyone who entered.

It appears that users are experiencing issues accessing MySpace.com, both in Australia and Internationally. At this stage we have no word from MySpace staff, however we will endeavor to find out what is happening.

Found out something we don’t know? Comment it below! Want to discuss this? Post in the “Myspace down in Australia and Internationally” post on the MiCCAS.net Forums!

UPDATE (11:33pm): MySpace is back up!

Microsoft has today announced that it will partner with HP to begin distributing it’s Live Search-enabled toolbar on all HP consumer machines that are to be released during 2009, in the US and Canada.

Together with the Toolbar, the search engine of the browser will also be defaulted to Windows Live Search. The Silverlight based toolbar will also feature a range of HP specific buttons including that of the Snapfish system and HP customer support. Microsoft seem very confident with this deal, saying “This is the most significant distribution deal for Live Search that Microsoft has ever done, and we are very pleased to be partnering with HP to help bring Live Search to millions of consumers across North America.”

Let us know what you think, via the comments below or by posting in our newly revamped Online Forums