Let’s gloss over the promised extra ads from Microsoft and the sale itself. Let’s gloss over the downtime. Let’s even gloss over the frequency of people who are on Skype appear offline but are both online and available. While we’re at it let’s gloss over when messages you or they sent appear hours later.

Skype was free, Skype was easy, it was enough to gloss over a lot.

Skype has installed crapware on one of our systems without my permission.  I’m not impressed. Skype has installed crapware called ‘EasyBits Go on many Skype users systems with or without permission, including business users. It appears that only Windows users have been affected.

It cannot be properly uninstalled. Skype have confirmed it’s not malware exactly but have not kept users informed nor provided a solution to the problem.

If you’ve been affected you can get rid of it following these steps.

I am unsure why Skype would do something this foolish.   As for EasyBits go I think it’s quite clear why they took part in this. As they said, “Since the update, game sessions have jumped from 850,000 top daily game sessions to over 7 million game sessions globally yesterday.” Well, isn’t that peachy?

Now anyone, please, is there a better alternative to Skype than Google phone?

Both Microsoft and Google have made quiet announcements highlighting a push into PC gaming.

Microsoft’s Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer reckons Windows 8, will be designed with gaming in mind and released in 2012. Microsoft did some hilarious back-pedalling from that position so you can decide who you believe, the CEO of the company or the company.

You can get some sense of where Microsoft is going with gaming below. The video is an internal release showing the concepts and principles of what the Windows Gaming Experience (WGX) team hopes to accomplish. This likely ties in with the changes being made to Windows LIVE. Microsoft have also clearly seen the potential of the virtual items market.

Google isn’t sitting still either with their new emphasis on Chrome Web Store to act as the gaming marketplace. A position which slots in nicely with their Chrome OS moves. I have looked at this store but there’s a very long way to go before they outdo even the likes of Apple’s money machine.

So PC gaming is returning but it’s with a twist. More social, more browser and web focused. No doubt Steam will get in this too at some point as it’s already halfway there. However this needs great games and frankly Farmville won’t cut it. A lot of opportunity there for Indy devs who can wind through this maze.

Some time ago I posted about the exciting developing technologies of Microsoft’s Kinect and Google’s GoogleWave.

GoogleWave flopped which is a shame but the Kinect has done very well indeed. The Kinect is a hardware device, currently for the Xbox only, which uses a 3D camera to sense movement and gesture allowing for a new and natural kind of input system. This means hands free gaming. I’m sure it will find other platforms and there is a lot of scope for even further improvement where maybe we won’t need a mouse, keyboard or even a touchscreen one day.

Microsoft has sold 10 million units, making it the fastest-selling consumer electronics device ever, It has beat both the iPhone 4 and iPad in sales, which are also phenomenally popular. Guinness World Records gaming editor Gaz Deaves said “No other consumer electronics device sold faster within a 60-day time span, which is an incredible achievement considering the strength of the sector”

Some time ago I wished the loathsome monster which is Windows Live dead.  I still feel the same way but it hasn’t happened yet, not for want of trying.

RockPaperShotgun have a good article on the woes of this Games for Windows Live.  It’s interesting to note that Microsoft haven’t released games for ages.  It would seem their foray into the games market is over and they will stick to what they make money on instead.

You know Windows Live is such crap.  I mean that.

Firstly there’s the email which doesn’t do it’s job on junk mail filtering.  Then when you try to mark it as junk the server doesn’t respond.  And that’s half the issue with their email, it is frequently down.  Nowadays all I get is junk there, I simply don’t use it.

Then there’s Games for Windows LIVE which I truly despise.  Fallout 3, an otherwise excellent game, uses this awful system.   When I first installed Fallout 3 Windows LIVE was automatically setup in Xbox mode instead of PC mode and I very nearly wasted money getting a game expansion which would only be available for the Xbox version of the game.  After berating Microsoft for it they helpfully advised me they’d not have refunded my money or even my ‘points’ if I made the mistake of trusting them.  They also didn’t bother to help me fix the problem.  Fortunately Google search solved that one for me.

I recently reinstalled Fallout 3 on Windows 7 which, despite coming for the same company, is a decent job.  However, again Windows LIVE struck.  This time a bug in Windows LIVE and Windows 7 made the game fail.  Don’t these people have any internal communication?  That problem too was fixable via Google search.

I do use MSN messenger, another Windows LIVE branded product.  This one has not been such a disappointment but I’m trying aMSN again which seems to be better implemented and doesn’t have adverts.