The shoutbox has pretty much outlived its usefulness and will be leaving by the end of the week. Something related to yesterday's updates will be taking its place instead.

This is your last chance to say goodbye, use it, abuse it, etc. Go nuts.

If you visited the site a little while ago and were greeted by a bunch of error messages, that was because I was updating the comments system and moving all the old data over.

So support for Gravatars has been added, and the look and feel has been cleaned up to make it easier to distinguish one comment from another. Lots of code has changed (and subsequently, three years worth of posts had to be republished!), so if you notice any bugs or kinks that I might have missed, give me a shout and I'll fix them up.

Last year, Microsoft released the first beta of Internet Explorer 7. Since I had access to it through the Longhorn + IE7 technical beta program, I started using it as my primary browser so that I would be in a better position to send in feedback and bug reports. Several months later, Beta 2 was released to the general public - a huge improvement over IE6, with lots of new features and a much more standards-compliant rendering engine. I would have never considered going back to IE after my experiences with Firefox, which I had been using since the Phoenix days, but I kept an open mind and waited until Beta 2 was released so that I could get a complete picture of what IE 7 is going to look like when it's released later this year.

Today, I'm going back to Firefox, because IE 7 hasn't given me a compelling enough reason to switch. Don't get me wrong - there are a number of features in it that I really like (Quick Tabs being one of them), but almost every one of them can be reproduced in Firefox using a handful of freely-available, lightweight extensions. Most IE addons, on the other hand, are either not free, or simply don't have the same kind of tight integration with the browser that Firefox extensions do. I think that's been one of Firefox's biggest strengths - the massive repository of user-contributed extensions that add value to an already excellent browser.

Sorry IE, you've lost this round. Better luck next time though!

Here's the second installment of the "cool/useful apps for WM phones" series of posts. :)

Smartskey is a key remapping tool designed to make one-handed operation of Pocket PCs easier. It's written by "water" over at the XDA-Developers forum. This app might not be as "exciting" as VoiceCommand was, but it's still very useful.

One of the limitations of many Pocket PCs is that they don't have physical buttons for the Start menu and the OK/Close option. That means you need to touch the screen to launch apps and close them, which is a little clunky. Smartskey remaps the left and right softkeys on the phone so that if you press and hold them down for a moment, they serve as Start and OK/Close buttons respectively. It also allows you to customize the functionality of the D-pad while you're on the phone screen. I've set mine up so that if I push the D-Pad down, it pulls up the recent calls log; I don't have to touch the screen to get to it.

It's quite customizable, and it makes your Pocket PC feel a lot more like a phone once you get it set up. Try it out. You'll need to create a free account on the XDA-Developers forum to download the files.

Office 2007 Beta 2 is now available as a public preview.

Windows Vista Beta 2 was also released to tech beta participants on Connect this morning (downloading it as I type this), and should also be available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers. According to the Windows Vista site, the Customer Preview Program (CPP) will begin in the coming weeks. If you've been waiting for the public beta, the wait is almost over... :)

I didn't get a chance to go for the opening show as planned because of a project deadline, so I went this evening instead. I'll try to keep this short.

Firstly, yes, reading the book was certainly more enjoyable than watching the movie for me. The book really keeps you hooked until the very end, and it's difficult to reproduce that when you have to condense everything into a 2.5 hour long movie. So yeah, the movie could have been better, but it surely wasn't close to being as horrible as the critics made it out to be; I've seen much worse movies getting higher ratings.

Basically, let me put it this way - if you've read the book (which was so damn good), chances are your curiosity will get the better of you, and you'll go watch the movie regardless of what anyone else says anyway. That's what happened to me, and I personally didn't regret it. On the other hand, if you haven't read the book and aren't planning to, you have nothing to lose, so go check it out.

The Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) kicks off in Seattle this week. A number of people have asked me if I'll be attending and blogging like I did last year. Unfortunately, I won't be going this time because of other commitments.

It should be an interesting week, with Beta 2 builds of Windows Vista, Longhorn Server and Office 2007, all coming together.

Samsung is also expected to showcase working, pre-production models of their upcoming hybrid hard disks with 128 to 256MB NAND flash caches. They claim that the larger caches should be able to hold enough data so that the drives only need to spin once every 10 to 20 minutes. I hope we get to see a live demo of the actual performance during the keynote on Tuesday.

Many of you know that I've been a longtime fan of Windows Desktop Search. Besides being a solid desktop search application, WDS also has this extremely useful concept of aliases. You can read more about this in the "Aliases and Application Launching" section of my review (which I haven't updated for a while, by the way). Unfortunately, WDS still refuses to install on my desktop which runs XP x64.

I finally got tired of the eternal wait. I needed my aliases, so I turned to an alternative - SlickRun. And slick it certainly is. This tiny app (a mere 170KB download!) allows me to create aliases to do pretty much exactly what I was using aliases for in WDS, and it's extremely customizable. It even does auto-completion of aliases - something that WDS didn't do. If you're new to the world of aliases, the site offers a bunch of "MagicWord Packs" to get you started.

Fellow keyboard-addicts rejoice! No need to dig through the Start menu anymore, and no need to scatter icons all over the desktop and taskbar. If you want a really quick way to launch your apps and search the web, but don't want to (or can't) install WDS, check this out.

Google Notebook launched this week as the latest Google Labs project. Labs is basically what Google describes as a "playground" for "ideas that are not quite ready for prime time." I've been playing with Notebook for a couple of days, and while it's already a handy little tool in its current form, I can see why it's been launched as a Labs project - I'm sure they're still busy cooking up stuff to take it one step ahead of other similar services out there.

Notebook, as the name suggest, gives you a centralized scrapbook where you can aggregate bits and pieces of information from various different sources. Let's say you had to write a paper on a particular topic. You could create a notebook to save clippings as you do your research on the web, for example. If you were collaborating with a group of people, you could even share your notebook with them. It works by installing an add-on for Firefox or IE, so browser integration is great, and saving clips is simple. Since your notebooks are tied to your Google account, you can also access them anywhere you go.

So what could the Googlers have in store for us that made them release this initial version as a Labs project? Garrett Rogers discovered some tidbits in the code, and Marc Orchant briefly describes what could be coming in the future. As a Blogger user, the second possibility is most interesting to me. Here's why - as I skim through my RSS feeds in NewsGator Online daily, I save pieces of news and articles to my "Clippings" folder if I think I might want to blog about them. Now imagine if I could save interesting clips of info from various different sources (not just my RSS feeds) in a notebook that seamlessly integrated with Blogger. I bet that would make things a whole lot simpler!

Microsoft has just made a public beta of Windows Media Player 11 for XP available today. The initial reviews are highly positive. Here's one from PCMag, for example - "it's a lot more fun to use than any other media player, and just as powerful," they say. And having used the app in the latest Vista betas, I have to agree - this is one big step up from current generation media players, including WMP10 and iTunes. You have to try it!

One of the most strikingly noticeable changes in WMP11 is the UI overhaul. Gone are the days of the boring, unending flat list of songs. Instead, you get a much richer media library that takes advantage of album art to make navigation easier. The default library view, for example, groups tracks together by album and displays album art for each one, clearly separating them out. Other views display album "stacks" that are not just visually appealing, but are also a much more natural way of grouping similar items together. It's very cool. You have to play with it to see what I mean.


The synchronization engine has also undergone some big changes, and you now get the ability to "reverse sync" as well, which means you can pull songs off your portable media device and into your library. I'm not sure if this is allowed for DRM-protected files, but I imagine those would be restricted. Other than that, there are lots of other little changes that just make the whole experience a whole lot better.

WMP 11 also includes the new URGE music store, which is the result of a partnership between MTV and Microsoft. CNET has a glowing review and calls it "a fantastic service that we recommend trying, even for just the 14-day free trial." You can use URGE as either a subscription service like Napster or Yahoo Music Unlimited, or as an a la carte music store like iTMS and MSN Music. But one thing that really stands out is the incredible level of integration that URGE has with WMP11 - you can search through the entire store...however many millions of songs that is...using the same search box that you use to search through your local library. It's instantaneous and it does auto-completion.

Everytime I used my laptop or booted back into the XP partition on my desktop, I missed having WMP11. Not anymore!

It's my brother's birthday, and he just turned 26!
Happy Birthday, man! Go have a blast!

If you've been using the Windows Vista beta builds, especially on a dual-boot system, you've probably had to deal with bcdedit.exe, the replacement for the simple boot.ini file that exists in XP. According to Microsoft's FAQ on the subject, the following is the reason for the change:

BCD was created to provide an improved mechanism for describing boot configuration data. With the development of new firmware models (for example, the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI)), an extensible and interoperable interface was required to abstract the underlying firmware. This new design provides the foundation for a variety of new features in Windows Vista (for example, the Startup Repair tool and Multi-User Install shortcuts).

That's all well and good, but it doesn't explain why it's such a dog to use. If you skim through the FAQ page, you'll see what I mean. It's a mess.

Well, some folks over at PROnetworks have created VistaBootPRO, a nice graphical frontend for bcdedit that's much more user-friendly and easy to use. A great tool to add to your Vista beta-testing arsenal. :)

I just got an email informing me that I'm not one of the 10,000 finalists in the Google Da Vinci Code Quest. I did solve all 24 puzzles correctly, but I guess I wasn't one among the first 10,000 people to submit the final puzzle. I had a class that morning, and I submitted the last puzzle about 40 minutes after it went live. Bugger.

Finalists were supposed to receive a cool cryptex replica with instructions to enter the final round. Looks like they're already starting to pop up on eBay. :D

It was a fun contest nonetheless, and I enjoyed solving a new puzzle each day. Now I'm eagerly awaiting the release of the movie this week. Opening night, here I come!

In my post a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I would write about some of my favorite third-party applications for PocketPC phones. Well, as promised, here's the first.

The reason I chose to write about Microsoft Voice Command first is because I feel it's one of those must-have apps that you simply should get. As you might have noticed, most compact PocketPC phones, including the T-Mobile MDA are scarce on buttons. For most purposes, you're going to end up using the stylus, or just your fingers to select items on the touch-screen. This is primarily the reason why people refer to smartphones as "phones that are also PDAs" and PocketPCs as "PDAs that are also phones." There's no doubt that if you put a vanilla smartphone and a PocketPC side-by-side, the smartphone is going to be easier to use as a phone. But that's where Voice Command comes in.

Once you install this on your PocketPC, you'll almost never end up scrolling through your contact list or tapping on the on-screen keypad to call people. How is this different from voice dialing that's included on virtually every modern cellphone today, you ask? The difference is Voice Command does true voice recognition, and allows you to call anyone in your contact list without having to manually set up voice tags for every single person first (which, as you might imagine, is far too tedious). You can also dial new phone numbers by just saying "Dial [number]"

But that's not all. Voice Command is like your very own butler, Alfred (Batman reference, in case you didn't get that). You can just push a button and say "What is my next appointment?" and your phone will look into your calendar and read out the details of your next appointment. Or if you're driving, and you want to listen to some tunes, just say "Play" followed by the name of the song, and the phone will search through your media library and play the song for you. You can launch applications, ask for a list of missed calls, check your battery status, and do a bunch of other fancy things.

So go check it out. I liken it to desktop search; once you start using it, you'll wonder how you ever did without it. :)

The sixth week of the quarter has just come to an end, and that leaves five more weeks until summer. Even though the coursework load has been pretty intense, I've really been enjoying it.

There's just something really satisfying about successfully completing operating systems projects, because they're just so freaking cool. For the first project, I had to write a shell similar to bash. This is pretty much one of those standard projects that you'll see being assigned in any decent OS course anywhere. As one of my challenge problems (think of it as sort of like extra credit), I read through the documentation for the GNU Readline library and implemented tab-completion and a command history for the shell as well. That actually made it a lot more usable, as you can imagine. ;)

The second project involved jumping right into the Linux kernel and writing a driver for a lockable RAMdisk. Lots of crazy synchronization issues, and potential deadlock situations to watch out for in this one. The worst part is if you didn't detect and handle a deadlock, the whole machine would lock up and you'd have to power it down and back up each time. :D Made debugging an absolute nightmare, but it's lots of fun to be programming at such a low level and seeing how everything comes together. Even better, for the next project, I'll be working on writing a filesystem. Good times! :D

The Halo 3 trailer was not the only highlight of today's E3 event. BillG dropped a bombshell announcement as well. "Live Anywhere" is a new initiative to extend Xbox Live to the PC and supported cellphones.

Since Live Anywhere will be built into Windows Vista (along with DirectX 10), you'll basically be able to have cross-platform multiplayer sessions on Live. You could be sitting in front of your Xbox 360 with a bunch of friends, while someone else could be using a PC running Vista on the other side of the continent, and you could set up a multiplayer game.

This is huge. It's a totally unprecedented move, and if executed properly, it could really bridge the gaps in multiplayer gaming. Seeing how successful Xbox Live has become, I'm hoping Microsoft will be able to pull this one off too.

Edit: For more details, check out Engadget's coverage. Scroll down to 3:45PM.

The Chief is back.

Hell yeah!

As expected, ABC has launched a new site offering free, ad-supported streaming episodes of popular TV shows, including everyone's favorite, Lost.

The UI, including the video itself, is all Flash. On one hand, that means the "pre-show" interface is pretty slick, but the downside is that you can't watch the videos in full-screen mode! The quality of the videos is actually pretty good though.

This is supposed to be an initial test-drive that's going to last until the end of June. There are no details about future plans yet. I'm not sure how popular this is going to be without the ability to watch the episodes in full-screen, but considering the fact that it's the first time something like this is being offered, it's a good start. For now, I'll just stick to using my DVR. :)

Towards the end of my post about Exchange last week, I mentioned that there was one other thing that made the whole setup all the more sweet. I was talking about my new T-Mobile MDA, a PocketPC phone.

My last phone, as some of you know, was a Symbian Series60-based Nokia 3650 smartphone, and when the time came to upgrade, I was looking for either another newer Symbian device or a WM5 smartphone. Then T-Mo launched the MDA here in the U.S., and I fell in love. :)

The MDA (also known as the MDA Vario, HTC Wizard, i-Mate K-Jam, Qtek 9100, or Cingular 8125) runs the new Windows Mobile 5.0 OS, and features a 200MHz TI OMAP850 processor, 64MB of RAM and a 128MB ROM, with a MiniSD flash memory expansion slot. Being a PocketPC, input is primarily stylus-based, but there's also a nicely hidden, full QWERTY keyboard that slides out from the side. And at the back, is a 1.3MP camera with a tiny little flash.

Now, since the phone runs WM5, the Exchange Server integration is nothing short of amazing. Contacts, tasks, calendar events and emails sync over-the-air with ActiveSync using WiFi (yes, it has a 802.11b/g radio) or the carrier's data plan. I actually find myself reading and responding to emails between classes because it all just works so damn well. And the handwriting recognition is great, so I almost never have to slide the keyboard out either.

The 2.8" 240x320 QVGA display is bright, vivid and crisp, and automatically switches to landscape mode when you slide out the keyboard or turn on the camera. The form-factor is surprisingly compact for such a powerful device. Granted, it's not RAZR-thin, but it's small enough to fit in my palm when the keyboard is tucked away.

There are just so many cool things about this device that one post simply doesn't do it justice. I've been scouring the web, looking for interesting third-party apps built for the Windows Mobile platform. After all, it's the apps that truly set smartphones and PocketPCs apart from regular cellphones. I'll share my thoughts on some of the best ones I've found in future posts.