Microsoft is surprising me by seeming to get more customer friendly these days. The latest concession to XP diehards and hapless victims of Vista is the offer of a new self-support service based on Windows 7.

Now before you cynically counter with a comment about the "self-support" part, let me explain that the online service, the Fix It Center (http://fixitcenter.support.microsoft.com), is designed to automatically find and fix many common computer and device problems. It also helps prevent new problems by proactively checking for known issues and installing updates.

What you do is download software that consolidates the many steps of diagnosing and repairing a problem. In other words, you just might be able to save yourself the huge hourly cost of a technician to fix your computer.

Fix It Center is in beta, but is in a very useable state according to those who have tested it out. As for XP and Vista users, we all know Microsoft will soon end security updates for XP, and Vista can't be far behind. Fix It apparently gives users of these now "older" versions of Windows some of the same functionality that only Windows 7 provides by default, according to CNET.

We don't really know. Microsoft began adding a button to some of its online help documents a few months ago. That number is now up to about 300 fixes and growing.

The software scans your computer when you want it, looks for potential problems that corresponds to its database. You can then either use a list of automatically applied fixes or take control and implement some of the suggestions manually.

For example, the service can reset Windows security back to the defaults; delete lower and upper filters for CD devices; resolve print spooler issues; resolve sound issues; and reset TCPIP downloads. It all sounds technical, but supposedly, if it works (and I can't tell as I recently reloaded my Vista system from scratch), then you will not need to know. As it is developed, the tool holds out the possibility of being very useful for small to medium sized businesses. It is not just in savings, but in freeing up your IT person to have time to strategically think about developing the business, instead of trying to figure out, yet again, how to fix a computer before the next customer walks in.

Fix It actually came into existence about 18 months ago. It is only now Microsoft is offering the service on the Windows XP and Vista help pages.

Microsoft plans to end all support for XP, including security updates, in April 2014.

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A reader sent me a nice PowerPoint presentation on Internet trends by Morgan Stanley analysts Mary Meeker, Scott Devitt and Liang Wu. In the presentation given on 12 April, they make the not-so-stunning-anymore prediction that "mobile will be bigger than desktop Internet in five years".

I mean with the iPad out and the growing use of mobile technologies, the question is not "if" but "when". A number of slides in the presentation stand out that back this assertion and bring it to life.

This is one showing that the mobile Internet is ramping up faster than desktop Internet did, with Apple devices leading the charge. They have compared the iPhone and iTouch, NTT docomo i-mode, AOL, and Netscape by putting the growth of subscribers or users on a quarterly basis.

It shows that the non-Apple technologies basically peaked or levelled out after Q19 of being launched. Meanwhile, Apple's adoption is shown on a steep ascending line after Q11. At that same period all of the three other technologies had a combined user base of 57 million. Apple iPhone and iTouch devices have about 85 million users.

Other pointer trends include the fact that globally, social networking users surpassed email users in July 2009. The time social networking users spent communicating surpassed time spent on email as far back as November 2007.

"Mobile is ramping faster than desktop Internet did and will be bigger than most think," they believe. This is due to five converging trends, which they list as "3G + Social Networking + Video + VoIP + Impressive Mobile Devices". Sounds like a recipe we are going to have to get used to, all of us with clumsy fingers.

What a week it has been, with volcanic ash clouds filled with glass threatening to bring down planes in the sky and people travelling in Europe and to Europe stuck in airports across the world. Putting aside the inconvenience thousands of people and the economic harm, it is interesting to note how a simple natural occurrence can bring human technology to a grinding halt. It's as if Mother Nature is sending out a little smoke message (relative to the major disasters that have hit recently, like the earthquake in Haiti) to see how we cope without our machines. We are stuck.

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