Microsoft have released a new product for photosharing called “Max”.
Its built on Win FX, which is the technology going to be used in Vista.
Here’s what the site has to say :
Microsoft® Codename Max is not like any other product. That’s because it’s not a product—it’s your opportunity to try an exciting new user experience from Microsoft. Max is built on the next-generation WinFX Runtime Components technology that will drive the development of Windows Vista® applications. Today Max lets you make lists of your photos and turn them into beautiful slide shows to share with your family and friends. Tomorrow…who knows?
With just a few clicks, you can create lists of your favorite photos, arrange them in the layout of your choice, and express them in beautiful views. Preview your photo lists as you build them until your presentation is perfect. You can even use our super hot 3D Mantle View™ to really show off your work!
Download Max now or read about it on The Max Blog
29.Nov.05 
Downloads 
Read more 
Comment (1)
I personally dont like the sound of this, there is too much advertising around us as it is without it appearing in our OS as well :
Recent reports claim that Microsoft is thinking about giving away software for free and basing its revenue on a model that was made famous (perhaps even created) by its archrival Google.
The reports claim that Microsoft could be looking at releasing ad supported versions of products like Microsoft Money, Microsoft Office or perhaps even Microsoft Windows.
The reasons for this strategy on Microsoft’s part could be many, but one of the critical ones could be that software upgrading by consumers is not really happening at the pace at which software is developing.
Full article at CoolTechZone
23.Nov.05 General Read more Comment (1)
Theres an article at Dennis Forbes’ site about Vista power consumption when using the new Aero Glass skin :
One of the major new features of Windows Vista is the Aero Glass experience (both as an API for applications, and the shell itself). Aero Glass in essence turns your desktop into a video game: Instead of the current model where the GDI draws on a 2D palette, updating the video card memory (making using of acceleration routines that the video card supports) only when changes occur, the model of Aero Glass is that of a traditional game: With every “frame” the scene is wiped clean and re-rendered from scratch, layering “textures” that represent application canvases on onto 3-D polygons and building the user experience from there.
This system will attempt to push 60-90FPS of user experience goodness through your video card.
In many cases this will max out even high end video cards. Even where it doesn’t, all of the shaders and T&L engines on the video card are engaged - the additional power consumption will be considerable.
23.Nov.05 General Read more Comments (0)
Some shots of the installation of build 5231 have been leaked onto the net :
23.Nov.05 Screenshots Read more Comments (0)
Speculation is circulating around the ‘Net as to which particular PCs will be able to run Windows Vista. Word is that each system’s graphics card will determine how smoothly Vista will move. The operating system will be shipping with four different themes, ranging from Classic XP to Aero Glass, with each theme demanding more graphical horsepower. Aero Glass will be the most intense.
Currently, Microsoft is stating that those who wish to push the capabilities of Vista have the following setup:
* DirectX 9 framework
* Windows Display Driver Model
* 32 bits per pixel depth with 64MB of graphics RAM
* 2.4GHz processor
* 512MB RAM
* Graphics card capable of handling Windows Presentation Foundation
Taken from arstechnica.com
17.Nov.05 General Read more Comments (0)
For people with access to the Vista betas through MSDN, there is an installation guide over at installvista.com :
Windows Vista Installation Guide
The follow installation guide is for Beta 1 ( Build 5112 ) of Windows Vista.
Pre-Setup
# Download the 2.42 GB .ISO available through MSDN.
# Mount the image, also known as the .ISO file, to a DVD disc.
# Alternatively, you can use Daemon Tools to mount the image to a virtual drive. *Not Recommended
# Insert the DVD disc into your CD-Rom drive and restart your computer.
# Hold the key F8 while your computer is booting. You will be prompted with a screen that allows you to choose a device to boot from. Using your arrow keys, select your CD-Rom drive.
Setup
# Windows will then load files and prepare for the setup.
# You should see a screen that gives you 3 options: Install now, View the release notes for Beta 1, and Repair problems with Windows startup.
# Click on Install now or press “I”.
# You will then be prompted with a screen that says in a large font: “Install Windows”. Click next.
# Enter your product key and click next.
# Read the License Terms and then click the circle that says “I accept the License Terms”. Click next.
# The only option at this point is to click custom, the upgrade option has been disabled for this build.
# This screen allows you to choose where you want Windows Vista to be installed and what your computer will be named. Click the current computer name, LH-*************, and enter what you would like your computer to be named. Click “Click here to select where to install Windows”. The screen will display your hard drives and their partitions. You will need to install Windows Vista on an empty partition. Please note that the partitions will not be the exact same size in megabytes as the hard drives. Click next to proceed with the setup.
# You will now see a screen that says “Windows is installing…”. Eventually, your computer will restart and the screen will now display “Completing installation…”.
01.Nov.05 General Read more Comments (0)
Theres a review of IE7 over at ZDNET.
Over all it seems a big improvement over the sloppy current release and previous incarnations. A lot of this, I put down to the increasing market share of Firefox, my current browser of choice.
Some of the new features include :
Extreme makeover
The toolbar and address bar areas of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Vista have been totally redesigned. The address bar is now locked at the top of the window so that hijackers can’t replace it with phishing or spyware substitutes. Words have been eliminated in favour of iconic buttons so that only the bare essentials are displayed. In all, it’s a very clean and sophisticated look for an Internet browser.
Zoom, zoom, zoom
As you already can with Opera 8, Microsoft, Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Vista will allow you to zoom in on text and photos within a given Web page. By hitting Ctrl+ or Ctrl-, you can adjust the size of any Web page. This is great for people with disabilities.
Goodbye messy toolbar add-ons
In its desire to eliminate clutter, the new Internet Explorer does away with toolbars for the most popular search engines by integrating search engines from AOL Search, Ask Jeeves, Google, MSN Search and Yahoo Search directly into the browser. Of course, FireFox already allows you to do so.
Full review here.
Web designers have been cursing microsoft for years, expecially those using css to build sites as all the previous IEs have included a fundamental bug in the way they display css - resulting in a lot of extra hacks being put in the code to cater for ie users. Hopefully this will be fixed in the new version, this may be not be a blessing though as the old versions will still have to be catered for - it could end up being more of a nightmare, we’ll have to wait and see.
01.Nov.05 Reviews Read more Comments (0)
