Neowin.net

According to today's Independent (a UK broadsheet) and Intel, only a 1/3 of people living in the United Kingdom know what WiFi is. WiFi, which stands for Wireless Fidelity, allows mobile users to connect their laptops to the internet and other devices without having to use standard hardwire networks.

The survey, conducted recently, found that many people thought that the phrase WiFi was cockney rhyming slang (e.g. Dog and Bone : Phone) for "Wifey". Other people who participated in the survey answered that they thought Wifi was a Japanese island, or an exotic fruit.

Asides from showing a shocking level of IT ignorance in the UK, the results do highlight Intel's attempts to get Britain wirelessly connected. Combined with a motivation for shifting Centrino packages, Intel is really hoping to raise awareness and get people using the wireless hot spots they've been setting up with BT over the last year. Intel and the Wireless industry would love to see the UK brought up to the same level of wireless proliferation as in the USA.

View: Intel

Microsoft have also updated the wireless capabilities with SP2, which in previous service packs have been dubious at best. The new wireless network setup wizard (screenshot) allows users to easily deploy and manage networks, and at first glance appears to be reasonably effective. Asides from these major additions, there are many more subtle changes that XP SP2 has brought in (NX code, improved security and stability). The No eXecute technology will allow users with AMD chips to have a bit more protection against nasty bits of code, yet the true extent that it will protect it's users is really un-known; it currently seems to be more of a PR thing than anything else. Intel / no NX chip enabled users will benefit from what could be described as a "toned down" software version of NX, called DEP (Data Execution Prevention - screenshot).

As a user, my computer does seem to be doing tasks a bit faster than before; basic tasks like loading up explorer windows or getting desktop properties up are definitely going faster than under SP1. The only minor problem in encountered with SP2 was to do with MS Messenger. XP re-installed MS Messenger (to be expected) after I’d previously removed it, and on rebooting post install continued to load it up even though MSN Messenger is running! Silently wasting 5 megs of Ram, it's annoying and something Microsoft doesn't seem to want to tackle! However, it's thankfully removable. I haven't had any of the problems that a few people have mentioned, and would thus recommend SP2 to all. To people who might have had bad experiences with earlier beta releases of the service pack, I'd urge them to try the final version, which is (somewhat obviously) substantially more polished than the betas.

Note: This post has been updated since it was originally posted this morning.

Note from MS: the file package is optimized for network installs and that it is three times bigger than the download from AU/WU.