OK, I know I’m a few days late on this one but I thought it was still worth highlighting for those that missed it. Microsoft has backtracked on the artificial limit it had threatened to place on Windows 7 Starter Edition – at least according to Microsoft expert Paul Thurrot on his Windows SuperSite.

The deal was that once Windows 7 was released Microsoft would target a particular of flavour of the OS directly for netbooks, called Starter Edition. This would have the limitation of only allowing three applications to be running at one time, and you’d get a ‘computer says no’ message if you tried to launch any more.

Naturally, pundits were up in arms about this rather Noddy sounding approach- after all, you’d have your browser, your Word application and Spotify open and then you’d be stuck having to shut something down to say, run a video.

Then again, maybe there was something in this. If you’ve actually used a netbook you’ll know that as great as they are in concept they do have their limitations.

Keyboard and screen size are well known, but the 1.6GHz single core Atom that most of them run with 1GB of RAM is not actually that fast at all. After all, it might be lighter on its feet than Windows Vista, but there’s no doubt that Windows 7 is more taxing for a netbook that Windows XP.

So maybe there was some sense in it, protecting poor consumers from the curse of struggling mini machines.

Or maybe not.

Perhaps the great collective that is Microsoft possibly realised that users who found their little netbooks slowing down to much could take the drastic measure of shutting down the applications themselves. It’s a crazy approach, I know, but it might just work.

After all, if Microsoft was to limit itself in that way, the likes of Ubuntu could suddenly find themselves enjoying a bit of a boost, and that’s not something that the folks of Redmond would care for much.

Wolfram Alpha is a not a search engine. It is not Google. This is something that many people who have heard of it do not quite get, which means that if you use it like Google you won’t be getting the best out if it.

To be fair, to get the most out of it, you’d probably have to be Spock, with a full and complete understanding of formulas, calculus and er.. like, science in general.

From our research here are five types of tasks that Wolfram Alpha handles really well - followed by examples of five searches that really should be left to Google.

Conversion - Want to know how much a certain amount of money is in another currency? Simple – just type it in and Wolfram Alpha will give you the figure in your local currency, and then helpfully in a number of other major currencies. If your currency you want isn’t in that immediate list then just type in the currency after it. Don’t know the name of the currency? No problem, just type the country, and Wolfram Alpha does the rest – eg. “500 euros kenya” - £440.94 and 53,000 Kenyan shillings. But I’m sure you knew that.

Comparison – Wolfram Alpha makes it very easy to compare items. Just type in any two things e.g. “London, Tokyo”, and you get data about each placed next to each other, which makes it easy to see it all at a glance.

Combining terms - If you want detailed information about several things, on Google you have to search for them one at a time. In fact, the more terms you enter into Google the more confused it becomes. Wolfram Alpha loves more queries, and as long as it has data on them it will spit out comparative data in a clear graph or chart. Example: if you want info on “apple microsoft dell HP” you get their comparative trade prices, a chart comparing Market Cap, revenue, employees and much more. Add in ‘Lenovo’ though trips it up, as it clearly doesn’t have data on the latter.

Calculation - Wolfram Alpha is based on Mathmatica, from Wolfram Research, so it’s no surprise that if you enter in mathematical formulae it will be in computer heaven e.g. x^2 sin(x).  If you enter in “14.9% apr 6 years” it will also estimate the loan amount for you with graphs – in a flash.

Detail - If you type in ‘nearest star’ it won’t just give you an answer – it will tell you the difference from earth, it’s magnitude, it’s spectral class, it’s surface temperature and it’s mass. Wolfram Alpha is a bit of a nerd like that. However, in this case it’s also WRONG! It gives the answer as ‘Proxima Centauri’, whereas everyone knows it’s actually the Sun!

Here are five things that should really be entered into Google.

Sports – it doesn’t know much about football teams. I mean real football teams, where they kick the ball with their foot – not pick it up and run with it types. Enter Liverpool Football Club and it gives you nothing. Do the same with Manchester United, if you must – no dice.

Celebrity – if you want to know the latest on a celeb, don’t use Wolfram Alpha. It will give you their name, date of birth, place of birth and a timeline. Not much gossip though.

Social networking - Wolfram Alpha is very scientific and takes things rather literally. If you type ‘Twitter’ into it – you get a dictionary definition and the fact that its first recorded use was 635 years ago. Clearly it isn’t into the whole Twitter thing!

Planning your evening out – Type ‘Greek restaurants london’ into Google and you get a list with their location.  Do the same in Wolfram Alpha and it gives you the Greek translation of ‘Greek restaurants london’. Nerrrrrrd.

Philosophy - It relies on humans to provide it with data. Type “is there a god” into Google and you’ll get links to a wealth of philosophy. Ask the same of our new friend and it gives you, “Additional functionality for this topic is under development…” You’re telling me.

So as discussed previously, today is Working From Someone Else’s Home Day, and as a result I spent the morning at my parent’s-in-law’s house – my own abode being unsuitable due to lack of work room vs. children playing issues.

Earlier in the day, I scared the life out of my sister-in-law who popped round but wasn’t expecting me to be there. She is however, very much expecting, and when I called out to say hello, she nearly had the baby right there – which really would have put a crimp in my work day. Luckily waters were not broken and minutes later I was back in splendid isolation once again.

Interestingly the ‘IT PRO office working from home adventure’ had attracted some attention, not only over at the Press Gazette, but also from some of my Twitter followers. When you don’t have the face-to-face interaction of conversation with one’s colleagues, the casual exchanges over Twitter do seem to make more sense. Well as least some of them do.

After lunch, I headed off to do the road warrior thing, by working from the local Starbucks, which would be my third place of working that day. If you plan on doing this, do try and use a laptop, rather than a desktop computer, as setting up your PC and monitor on the small round table is bound to get you strange looks, and you’ll have to find a power plug too. Luckily I had both a laptop and a table next to a said plug, so all was well.

Oddly though, there was no Wi-Fi available in the branch. Starbucks without Wi-Fi? Surely this is like Starbucks without coffee? (I’m sure some would say that’s not necessarily a bad thing). I admit that I did briefly try and hop onto the seemingly unsecured wireless network of the Carephone Warehouse next door, but firstly it didn’t work, and secondly it’s illegal (probably) so I didn’t. Enquiring, it turns out that this branch is betwixt Wi-Fi services, as the Starbucks T-Mobile deal ends and BT takes over. Way to go on the smooth transition their guys.

Fortunately, I Can Haz mobile broadband – integrated into my notebook (yes, posh), so there’s was no need to whip out my dongle, no doubt to the relief of many. It did make things a little slow though as though I had a full five bars of Vodafone’s HSDPA service, it’s not as snappy as a decent Wi-Fi connection.

Settling down to work, with latte on desk, the bustle of the coffee store was quite welcome after the silence of the morning, but once a hoard of children descended on place after school I was somewhat disturbed. When you’re in a public place you do need to zone everything else out, though that said I am intrigued what the couple to the left of me are talking about. And on the upside the tunes are better than the neighbours - New Order, Bizarre Love Triangle - nice, David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes - cool.

So don’t rely on Wi-Fi, bring a spare battery, and a pair of headphones and iPod/Spotitfy account (in case of tune suckage) and work can be done. I was able to communicate via IM and email to my colleagues complete what I needed to do so it’s been a good change of scene. Yes, I haven’t missed the phone ringing, but I wouldn’t want to do this all the time. It’s a good option on occasion to help to improve the work/life balance, but I do feel though that it will work best for those that have the luxury of an office space they can go to - to shut the door and concentrate. I’m not sure the nomadic existence of the road warrior is something I’d relish every day.

As you can see from my colleague’s blogs, as part of the National Working From Home day, the IT PRO team is – working from home.

That said, right now I’m not actually at home – I’m at someone else’s house entirely. Let me explain.

At home, I don’t actually have a room I can go into and shut the door and get work done – at least not since my daughter was born, when the second bedroom that functioned as my study became her bedroom. (Not that I begrudge her this of course).

So I started the working day sitting at my wife’s dressing table in the bedroom, with my daughter, (who is two by the way), coming in a couple of times, which was certainly something of a distraction. As she and her older brother will be returning from nursey/school during the working day, I’ve therefore made my escape to my parent’s-in-law’s house. This was a three minute drive, but the transfer does eat into the working morning, which isn’t great when you’re on deadline.

My parents-in-law are both out at work today, so it’s completely silent right now, which is good in that there’s no distractions, but also a downer as I feel as if I’ve been put into isolation for bad behaviour.

That’s why I shall after lunch head out to work at the local Starbucks, just so I can see a bit of life.

Using the power of Wi-Fi, I have moved from the study to the kitchen table, just to put a bit of excitement into the day. To be honest, it’s sort of worn off by now.

I’ll report back from Starbucks later in the day. I know you can’t wait.

This afternoon I attended a Samsung Display division briefing, where a number of its latest and greatest monitor and projectors was on show.

With my IT PRO hat on, (you know, it’s all blue and spangly), I was of course there to see its new business range of displays, such as the very fascinating SyncMaster F2380 with very exciting 16:9 aspect ratio, pivot and height adjustment.

But they also had on show its very new and, really exciting Samsung 2233RZ – a monitor designed for 3D! The 2233RZ is a new display that runs at 120Hz – which is double the frequency of conventional displays. Normally 60Hz is all you need for an LCD, but the reason for doubling it is because of its 3D display prowess.

The 2233RZ is compatible with Nvidia’s new ‘3D Vision’ glasses, which in compatible games gives you a real, actual, 3D image. While we always talk about games running in 3D, of course, it’s still the illusion of 3D as it’s running on a 2D surface. With the Nvidia glasses, the image is turned into true 3D, with real depth information.

I popped on the glasses – which are not the naff red and green lensed affairs you may remember from yesteryear – but a reasonable looking black pair that sat comfortably over my glasses. The effect – using Burnout Paradise - is immediate and impressive, but interestingly as it’s using the depth information already in the game, the 3D starts at the front of the screen and moves back into the distance. Thus the game overlays, showing your score and health and such like, appear to hang in space in front of you - with the game in the background.

It’s not quite as startling a 3D effect as I saw when I watched the 3D movie Monsters and Aliens at the Dreamworks movie theatre near L.A. – but it’s still pretty darn great.

In fact I’d say that the experience mainly suffered from the 22in display just not being large enough. I was told that a 24in model is on its way and that the 22in version is just a taster from Samsung, to test the market.

The 22in monitor costs £450, which seems pricey, but does come with the Nvidia glasses bundled.

Oh, and it does work as a normal display as well, so you can use it for regular Excel spreadsheets and Word.

With my IT PRO hat back on I enquired about real business applications, and the best I got was that companies were interesting in using the display in digital signage, with the 120Hz refresh ensuring a smoother scrolling of advertising text.

Yeah, great – now give me the 3D games!

While the likes of Virgin are happy to go on about their new fat 50Mbit internet pipes, the fact is that is that a sizable proportion of this green and pleasant land have what can only be described as rubbish internet connections.
That’s hardly conducive to watching the BBC iPlayer in HD, or setting up a business.

Stepping into the gap is a company called Tooway, a new brand from Eutelsat, which is, literally, launching a satellite service that aims to bring a 10Mbit service to the UK and Europe with a 1Mb upstream. This will be possible when it launches its KA-SAT satellite next year, which will be dedicated to broadband.

The service will cost £29.99 a month, though the initial outlay of £400 for the dish is likely to put many potential customers off. For a business though that will probably be an investment worth making.

Before KA-SAT reaches orbit, Tooway will offer a 2Mbit service with a 256k upload.

To sweeten the pill Eutelsat, says that it will also be able to offer a triple-play of services such a phone and TV on demand.

The company says the latency won’t be an issue for almost all applications, save perhaps for some online games, but VoIP and video won’t be affected. However, if it does get popular though, contention may be – so you may not get the maximum speed all the time.

On the face of it, Eutelsat could be the missing link for those who really can’t get decent service via ADSL, cable or mobile broadband, and the government should be thankful that its helping it reach its rather modest Digital Britain target of 2Mbit/sec connections for the whole country.