n-blue | WL Messenger 9.0 Beta build 9.0.1407.1107

Some early screenshots of Windows Live Messenger 9... some pretty cool features slated: IM spam blocker, sign in from multiple PCs, custom sounds per contact... looking fw to it. They really need spell check and tabbed IM. Getting MessengerPlus! is fine but there's no reason not to have it IN the actual product.

n-blue | WL Messenger 9.0 Beta build 9.0.1407.1107

-ZB

BetaNews | TiVo launches in Canada, but without HD

What the Fuddleduddle (reference to Trudeau) TiVo! Canadians are not second class citizens... News flash -- the Loonie is worth more than the Greenback :-)

I guess TiVo has a surplus of non-HD PVRs and wants to dump them north of the border... hmm no thanks. Bell, Rogers and I'm certain that Shaw also provide PVR capabilities so keep your silly boxes - we don't need or want them...

BetaNews | TiVo launches in Canada, but without HD

-ZB

Monday Inspiration: User Experience Of The Future | Design Showcase, Monday Inspiration | Smashing Magazine

We've all heard of the multi-touch interface of the iPhone and Microsoft Surface. Here are some more examples of really nice looking interfaces that provide amazing End User Experiences:

Monday Inspiration: User Experience Of The Future | Design Showcase, Monday Inspiration | Smashing Magazine

-ZB

Top ten terrible tech products - Crave at CNET.co.uk

Blasts from the past such as the Apple puck mouse :-) Number 10 is Vista... ouch.

I've been posting lots of negative Vista articles here lately... Vista is a good OS -- I firmly believe it is an improvement on XP from a security perspective. The problem I have is that it is very bloated and bulky. The graphical 'improvements' are really not significant - especially when you consider the hardware required to enable the Aero Glass interface...

Top ten terrible tech products - Crave at CNET.co.uk

-ZB

Windows XP outshines Vista in benchmarking test - ZDNet UK

Wow -- this is a bit of arrogance from MSFT's side -- "The world wasn't 100 percent ready for Windows Vista". So it's the World's fault that the vastly bloated OS cripples even modern hardware...

Anyhow -- bottom line on this good article is that XP SP3 is twice as fast as Vista (with or without SP1).

Windows XP outshines Vista in benchmarking test - ZDNet UK

-ZB

mediabistro.com: FishbowlNY

BAM -- you're outta here...

Seems Emeril Lagasse has parted ways with the Food Network... I guess they couldn't pay him what the toothpaste companies were paying him. I still don't get the correlation between him and toothpaste (garlic breath maybe?)...

mediabistro.com: FishbowlNY

-ZB

Google Plans Service to Store Users' Data - WSJ.com

The topic of "GDrive" or Google Drive has been around for years. A place where users can store all (yeah right) their data in the "Google Cloud" of mass storage. There have been many companies that have tried this model in the past -- many have failed but some have survived (Xdrive).

Some clever folks have even devised a way to map unused storage from your gmail account into your Windows OS so that it appears as a separate drive. I've used this method for backups of my resume etc... and it works quite well.

The pricing model (or advertising model in this case) remains to be shared with the public but you can stand assured that Google will make something that will be free (and adequate for most) and will have an up-sell component to it (ex Picassa storage). Will it be ad-driven? That remains to be seen...

Google Plans Service to Store Users' Data - WSJ.com

-ZB

Web Traffic Snarls Sites on Black Friday

Happy Cyber Monday!

It seems that many people bucked the trend of lining up at Wal-Mart at 4AM to get a deal and decided to sip their coffees and eat left-over Turkey while shopping on-line last Friday. Black Friday seemed to have been a success at some of the brick and mortar shops as well as the online stores (like Victoria Secret - I wonder if the buyers were mostly male or female - I digress)...

It seems that today -- Cyber Monday -- will be a day where MANY people will be doing some shopping online -- nearly 1/3 of the US population in fact... and MANY will do so at work! Wait, listen, can you hear productivity declining as the clicks increase at Victoria's Secret? How do you explain that picture of the woman in panties on your screen to your boss?

Web Traffic Snarls Sites on Black Friday

"National Retail Federation on Sunday predicted that Monday will show a sharp increase, with '72 million consumers planning to shop online from home or at work tomorrow, up from 60.7 million in 2006 and 59.0 million in 2005.' The NRF survey found that 31.9 percent of adults will shop on Cyber Monday, up 17.3 percent over last year."

-ZB