PaulSpoerry.com

Microsoft seems to finally be getting serious about coming up with some ads that fight back against Apple. I mean let’s face it, Apple’s advertising has always been stellar but the latest round of the Mac vs PC ads were just genius. While MS’s ads aren’t quite as “fun” they do seem to be attacking Apple at the “core” (lol) of the differences between the two computing platforms.

The “Laptop Hunter” commercials have a simple concept. Shoppers are offered a free computer, if they can find one within their budgets and that meets their other priorities. Giampaolo’s criteria: “portability, battery life and I’m looking for power,” all for under $1,500. Giampaolo describes himself as technically savvy and someone who likes to customize a PC.

He begins his search with Windows PCs, but briefly looks at Macs. “This is so-o-o sexy,” he says while picking up a MacBook.”But Macs to me are about ascetics more than they are the computing power. I don’t want to pay for the brand. I want to pay for the computer.”

Check out the ad:

Ok a couple things to point out here… if you want the breakdown on the machines check out this Microsoft Watch article which does a detailed break down on the hardware this guy looked at. While this ad is effective, my only bitch about it is that if Giampaolo were technically savvy (aka a geek) then he would have known exactly what he wanted from the very beginning. He would have researched them on the net. The MacBook wouldn’t even have been a consideration because he already knew what his needs were. Of course… that would make for a short commercial.

After months of hard work and more than six months since their previous stable release, the uTorrent team has released version 1.8 of their BitTorrent client, with significant improvements and updates.

uTorrent is the preferred client among many BitTorrent users. In December we reported that the number of uTorrent users worldwide had more than doubled in a year. At the time, 5.1% of all Windows PCs had the BitTorrent client installed, and this number has probably been growing further since then.

One of the most significant updates in the latest version of uTorrent is that it comes with built in IPv6 support, which improves connectivity and thus performance. Other new features are better Windows Firewall registration on Vista and improved distribution of new connections across torrents.

uTorrent 1.8 can be downloaded from the uTorrent website, and the list of changes, improvements and additions is available in the forum thread announcing the release.