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.

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.

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!