IE8 Beta 1 was released this MIX! The current beta of IE 8 is cosmetically similar to IE 7, lacks a spell checker. On the other hand, it does come with some developer tools to view HTML/CSS/JavaScript with the ability to trace the JavaScript Stack. No live editing of code yet. How would you change IE 8? Go ahead and leave your comments...

Here are my thoughts/observations/ideas/rants/.../etc:

 * Domain Name highlighting is a good addition
 * Visually Identical to IE 7
  * Renders ACID 2 nice and well
 * Gets a 17/100 on ACID 3
 * No spell check (yet)??
 * Lack of easy interface customization
 * No compelling new features
 * Channel 8 is quirky on IE 8

What i'd like to see in the final release:

 * Auto detect best rendering solution based on script/css errors
 * Manual switch rendering modes without the need to restart browser
  * Easy customization of Interface including changing position/size/color/icon of all UI Elements
 * Developer Tool with capacity to modify code
 * Spell Check please
 * Better ACID 3 scores
 * A product with a more continuous development cycle with decent feature updates and refreshes
 * A good offline browser engine for AJAX sites (similar to Google Gears)

Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 officially RTM'd on Feb 4, 2008 . The RTM build was nothing but RC Refresh 2 code ; so some of them testers already had the RTM before they knew it. The testing part was really fun - I kinda liked it even. But then came the RTM gold bits , wasn't as pleasant as expected ; partly because us techies got the binary standalone installer for RTM not the Windows Update way. My system was a fully loaded Vista Ultimate with loads of installed software and loads more of tweaks - it was running on minimal services, which i suspect to be a partial cause of my 48 hour installation ordeal. The installation went on for a solid 36 hours (on an infinite cycle) before it failed and I reinstalled vista and i'm in the process of getting all the software back on.

Normal users have nothing to worry, your final two updates required to make the jump have been delivered in the previous patch Tuesday. You should expect SP1 to be delivered via Windows Update sometime in March/April.

Vista SP1 brings with it many tweaks including fixes for the infamous file transfer issues. And of course Ultimate users continue to get dust.

Update: Seems like I wasnt the only one having SP1 RTM install issues, and Microsoft has fixed them.  And here is more info on post SP performance.

This is a funny one, super awesome funny.. i suggest you watch this

Life At Microsoft - The Truth Revealed

Requires Silverlight : a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications. Silverlight supports fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality video to all major browsers running on the Mac OS or Windows. -says microsoft.

Jake from 8bitjoystick has broken the news on 360's latest revision codenamed 'Opus' and 'Valhalla'. In short, Xenon age cases are going green with Opus internals and Valhalla will unify the CPU and GPU into a single chip thus further reducing cost and hence lower prices! hurray!
The 360 is currently on Falcon, Jasper is expected in Fall 2008 [price drop this holiday season??]; Opus is not expected hit retail shelves, and will most likely serve as replacements to the RROD's we send in. Valhalla is expected to be last of 360's iterations before the 360 becomes last generation and a new XBOX takes over.

And now on to Major Nelson; new updates to xbox.com - you can now modify profile information from within the site :)

In rather unrelated and disheartening news, January 2008 NPD numbers show the 360 at third position (which is usually reserved for the PS3). This drop in sales could be attributed to supply chain issues Microsoft is facing and well Blu-Ray gains in the format wars. But the overall numbers (cumulative) still point to a strong second for the 360 and a rather laid back bottom-of-the-pile for the PS3.

Thats all the 360 news for now folks.

So it's been a year since Vista made it to consumer space. Vista's launch was primarily affected due to inadequate hardware support and high hardware requirements - something of a pin prick when targeting the mass market that Windows has been addressing all along, and then we had a small but vocal group complaining about UAC, Speed, Photocopying, etc... That would be old news, but something that makes most Ultimate users groan would be the lack of Ultimate Extras, and yet somehow mysteriously filling up 15gigs of space upon first installation.

So whatever happened to the promised Extras?? I have seen nothing cutting edge, no innovative service and no unique publications that were made available in the past one year. I think the Extras team needs to get its act together, Give us free Live OneCare, free Hotmail Plus and then I will call this a promise fulfilled.

If you haven't been following the happenings of Ultimate Extras, here is the list of the cutting edge software made available:

• Windows DreamScene -nice bling-bling ; counts as an Extra
• Language Packs -no way this is an Extra
• BitLocker & EFS enhancements - should have been available to all Windows users
• Hold 'Em Poker Game - not worthy of Extra status
  

The text balloon is an excerpt from an entry on Google Blog - the official 'Google to the rest of the world' blog page. Could this mean that Google is concerned? Not for you, but for itself! Google has been till date undeniably the leader in Search and hence information management. "Information Management" translates to something like "We know what you did <insert yesterday/last summer...>"; of course Google has been working hard to project an image of upholding privacy of its users. While a certain independent organization thinks otherwise, and the same article also reasons "Why Not Microsoft". The entry on Google Blog, might sound sensible, if you consider Privacy Internationals own statement

"However we are aware that – in the words of the executives – "ad space is now the only game in town," and with Microsoft needing to play catch-up with Google there is a real threat that the organization could abandon privacy reforms in favor of ad revenue - or at least divert funds away from real protection and toward PR. The 2008 rankings will identify whether this fear will be realized."- Privacy International

The reasons why I believe Microsoft will not abuse the Yahoo buyout is because:
* Microsoft has been through enough lawsuits and anti-trust fillings.
* They have absolutely no experience in the "Online Business", and their earnings reviews makes this darn clear.
* Hence they will play watch-and-learn with Yahoo! (and hopefully Yahoo will cares <for you>!)

So imho, Google is either scared at the prospects of competing with Microsoft or they care too much for the people of planet earth (which will soon become an oven).

Edit: Some good (unbiased, really...) points here. 

Edit Again: I use Gmail & Google Services, in fact this domain uses Google Apps. Without doubt, Google Apps is a superior product. 

The latest Acid Test is out (Version 3). Every major browser available in the market has failed to score a 100.
The Stats are:

• Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11  ; Score: 50/100 , moderately smooth distorted animation
• Opera v9.25; Score: 47/100, little or no animation
• Internet Explorer 7; Score: 13/100, animation! where?
  

 And among the beta software,

• Opera v9.5 Beta; Score: 60/100, beautiful animation ,but not complete.
  
• Firefox v3 Beta 2; Score: 55/100, slightly less beautiful animation, but much better than firefox 2.

For those of going psychedelic over this, here is what Acid Tests (in context of browsers and html): "Acid2 is a test suite published and promoted by the Web Standards Project to identify web page rendering flaws in browsers and authoring tools." - from a more reliable Wikipedia.

You should take these test scores with a grain of salt. For example: While Firefox 2 flips over with Acid2, it  scores a 50/100 on Acid3 (with a visibly better looking result) than Opera 9.25 (which prides itself of being most standards compliant) scored a 47/100 with a less than stunning appearance.One thing's for sure, Internet Explorer has a long way to go.

Long Zheng, cool dude from Australia, put this table up on his (more famous and better written Blog). So i've decided to make a Kill List, what should Microsoft retain and what should they kill! And by kill, i mean the brand and service; by transferring current user accounts to the equivalent service (and add some <good>features to them).

So here is the Kill List

Service	Yahoo Equivalent	Microsoft Equivalent
Content Portals	Yahoo.com Yahoo Auto Yahoo Finances Etc…	Msn.com MSN Auto MSN Finances Etc… Merge
Country-specific Content Portals	ex. Yahoo7.com.au	ex. Ninemsn.com
Account Management	Yahoo ID Transfer & Merge Keep Open ID Support	Live ID
Personal Homepage	My Yahoo!	Live.com
Search	Yahoo Search	Live Search Kill and bury, Transfer dataset,patents
Casual gaming	Yahoo Games	MSN Games
Mapping	Yahoo Maps	Live Maps
Instant Messenger	Yahoo Messenger	Live Messenger
Mail	Yahoo Mail	Live Hotmail
Community Help Service	Yahoo Answers	Live QnA Merge dataset
Photo Sharing	Flickr	Live Spaces Add Flickr support to Live Without goofing up Flickr
Blogging	360°	Live Spaces
Widgets	Yahoo Widgets	Windows Sidebar
Search Advertising	Yahoo Search Marketing	Microsoft adCenter Both suck, come up with better ideas.
Mobile	Yahoo Mobile	Live Mobile
Web Development	Yahoo Developer Network Merge/Unify Keep Legacy Support	Dev.Live.com
Web Mashup Tools	Yahoo Pipes	Popfly
Website Services	Yahoo Small Business	Office Live
	Geocities
Social Events	Upcoming	Live Events
Social Bookmarking	del.icio.us	(Advertising deal with Digg)
eCommerce	alibaba
Music Service	Y! Music/MusicMatch Transfer of service	Zune Marketplace, MSN Music
Music Software	Music Jukebox Transfer of features	Windows Media Player

Some of services are hard to compare and in general need to be gracefully merged. Branding is something of a prick, but i'm sure Microsoft will figure out something long and confusing, such as: Microsoft Live Search Marketing adCentre! 

Edit: let's not kill Live Hotmail.(see comments)

Edit Again: Yahoo Music Unlimited subscription service shuttered. Transfer of service to Rhapsody. 

Zune 8 now ownable for $179!! Or you could get a fat Zune 30 for about the same price +/- 5 bucks. But will you do it? Settle for a bigger older version with greater capacity and mammoth dimensions? Ohh well, save yourself the ridicule and grab a Zune 8 now! Before stocks run out (and they actually did <sometime back>- the 80gb ones)...Now if only i lived in the US and had $179; I'll just whistle by and expect them to pay me $44 Billion to use a zune.