Tag: microsoft

Tell Me Why I Should Care About IE 7

ie7I’ve been vaguely following the release of the public beta of Internet Explorer 7. There have been some good reviews, some bug reports and a lot of hubbub in general.

In the past, I would have immediately downloaded the program, installed it and used it exclusively. But this time…I am profoundly uninterested. I am convinced that IE has fallen so far behind Firefox (mostly thanks to the multitude of add-ons and extensions) that the race is over. Some reviews cheer the addition of RSS and predict that IE 7 will spell the end of many feed readers. I think not.

For one thing, there are a lot of very good feed readers out there now, and anyone who is already using one is, by virtue of knowing what RSS is and how to read it, reasonably tech savvy and unlikely to abandon whatever reader he or she is currently using in favor of IE 7. Additionally, the killer news reader application will be an online, not offline, reader. The sole reason I use Bloglines is because, while not perfect, it provides synchronization of my feeds, regardless of whether I use my home computer, my office computer or my laptop. If I mark a feed as “read” at home, it’s still “read” when I check later from the office. No need to reread and remark old posts, the way I would have to with an offline reader.

I suggested weeks ago that Microsoft figure out some way to easily synchronize feeds over multiple computers, perhaps via Foldershare. Until that happens, RSS in IE is a nice feature, but it won’t reshape the RSS world.

The other stuff IE 7 adds is nice, but again, Firefox is so far ahead, I think Microsoft is playing for second- at least as far as the technorati goes. Granted, IE will always have a huge user base because it will be the browser of choice for the out of the box computer users. But I just can’t get fired up about it.

Can anyone tell me why I should care about IE 7?

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Windows Live Messenger

livemessengerI’ve started beta testing Windows Live Messenger, the forthcoming new edition of Windows Messenger.

I’ve never been more than an occasional user of instant messaging programs because nobody I know uses them. In theory, I like the idea of instant messaging as a way to keep in regular touch with family members across the country. Once again, I wish I could get my extended family to try it.

I’m going to give Windows Live Messenger a try for at least the next month or so and see how things go. I use jknpublic@hotmail.com as my email address for instant messaging purposes if you want to give me a shout.

Once I’ve played around with it, I’ll post my thoughts about the features and improvements.

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How Microsoft Can Win the RSS War

Scoble links to a blog post by Michael Affronti, a program manager for Microsoft’s Outlook team, about planned RSS integration in an upcoming version of Outlook. I use Outlook for email and probably always will. I have often scratched my head about why Outlook (unlike Outlook Express) doesn’t have newsgroup integration- thereby making users launch another program to read newsgroups. Now it looks like Outlook will have a built-in RSS aggregator so users won’t have to look elsewhere to read their RSS feeds (there’s a screen shot on Michael’s blog post).

Here’s how Microsoft can win the RSS war:

1) Make the RSS integration seamless. The screenshot looks pretty sweet in this regard.

outlooknews

2) For the love of Elvis, give us a “mark ALL feeds as read” button. The lack of this is a Sage-killer for me.

3) Figure out a way to give us 3 big viewing panes: a list of feeds; a list of post titles; and the post itself. Give me an integrated way to click to the post page AND home page of the blog I’m reading. In most of the RSS readers I have used, the first two columns make the window where the actual blog post appears too narrow. Outlook has a good pane structure now, so this should be easy.

4) Give us a way to synchronize our feeds, including read and unread, over multiple computers (via Foldershare, perhaps?). Scoble mentions the need for synchronization in his post. Foldershare, Foldershare, Foldershare. Say it with me…

5) Get this release out there before Firefox and/or Sage makes Outlook as an RSS reader as yesterday’s news as it’s in the process of making Internet Explorer. Firefox (and the multitude of extensions for it) is seriously kicking Microsoft’s butt as far as the browser feature war goes. I just don’t know if Microsoft can move fast enough to keep up. I hope it can (I have owned Microsoft stock for a long time), but I bet it can’t.

Alas, there are also ways Microsoft can lose the RSS war:

1) Take forever (see above).

2) Remove elements and features that people are expecting (think Vista).

3) Release something that does what other RSS readers do, but doesn’t represent an evolutionary advance. People need an evolutionary advance to switch. That’s why Internet Explorer dominated the browser market pre-Firefox.

Outlook still owns the email business and no one has come out with the ultimate RSS reader yet. Microsoft can win the RSS war if it moves fast enough and gives people something that is significantly better than what we have now. That sounds easy enough, right?

UPDATE: Mike busted me on my lack of numbering skill in the comments. I just fixed it. There are three reasons why I can’t count : (1) I’m bad at math, (1) I can’t type and (1) I’m bad at proofreading 🙂

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Windows Live Mail Update

I received an email invitation to join the beta test of Windows Live Mail (the pending overhaul of Microsoft’s Hotmail service) today. Having poked around a bit, it looks like my outside-looking-in impression may be correct- it looks like the easy winner in the three horse race for online email domination. Of course since, unlike Gmail and Windows Live Mail, I have not wrangled a Yahoo! Mail beta invitation, I can’t really compare all of them. Enough whining- here are my impressions.

1) It looks a lot like Outlook, which I and a zillion other people use for our email. This familiarity will give it a head start in getting people to use it over the other less familiar applications.

2) In addition to the usual email folders along the left side of the window, there are tabs for Calendar, Contact and Today at the top- again similar to Outlook (though in Outlook these tabs are at the bottom left of the window below the email folders). The Calendar tab doesn’t work in my account, but this is a beta version so that’s not unexpected. The Contacts tab works, though I could find no import feature to import my contacts from my desktop Outlook application. That may be a feature reserved for the paid upgrade version (Outlook Live)- I don’t know. The Today tab shows links to a tutorial and a feedback page. In sum, the look and feel is an improvement over Hotmail and more intuitive than Gmail’s conversational structure.

3) You can add topical folders to store mail by clicking a link at the bottom of the standard email folders. I didn’t see a way to create rules to direct email into chosen folders, but that may be coming.

The issue in my mind is how many features will be added to this free version and how many will be held back for the paid upgrade. Clearly, it’s a work in progress, but add some features (RSS functionality, perhaps) and Windows Live Mail will replace Hotmail, its predecessor, as my web based email of choice.

I’m going to use Live Mail and Gmail regularly over the next few weeks and I’ll report my impressions from time to time.

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Microsoft to Remove Sony Spyware

I thought I was through with this story, but I have to add one more nugget. I and others previously wondered if Microsoft might add the Sony BMG spyware to the list of bugs removed by Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool. Well it seems it will.

According to this post on the Anti-Malware Engineering Team blog:

We are concerned about any malware and its impact on our customers’ machines. Rootkits have a clearly negative impact on not only the security, but also the reliability and performance of their systems.

The post goes on to say that removal of the Sony software will be included in the upcoming editions of the Microsoft programs.

Good job Microsoft.

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Will Microsoft Exterminate the Sony Bug?

Ed Bott has called for Microsoft to include the removal of Sony BMG’s spyware in the next update of its Malicious Software Removal Tool, which is updated every month. He admits it’s a longshot, but this is a rare chance for Microsoft to be viewed by all as the good guy.

Mark Russinovich, the guy who discovered Sony’s spyware, has analyzed Sony’s so called patch for this spyware and reports that the patch is more menace than medicine.

Whoever is the decision maker for Sony on this issue is a walking bad decision.

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What Ed Said

rootkitAfter I posted the update below, I read Ed Bott’s excellent takes on the Sony spyware issue here, here and here.

I think Ed nailed it, although I don’t think Sony’s lame attempt at placating consumers by issuing the patch that isn’t really a patch is much of a step in any positive direction.

Sony is going to continue to get slammed about this until they do the right thing. This will be an interesting litmus test of the power of bloggers to generate a policy changing buzz. I hope we succeed.

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Windows Vista

vista

I’m not all that excited about the (late next year) forthcoming new version of Windows (now called Vista, previously called Longhorn), mainly because it sounds like Microsoft has decided to leave a lot of the previously heralded features out and the end of next year is a long, long way away (plus the release date will undoubtedly move back several times).

However, Paul Thurrott (Windows guru) has an interesting review of the recently released beta version 1.

Installation seems to be easier. I’m dubious of the new desktop search, because it can’t be as good as, but may spell the end of, my beloved X-1. My Documents, which is somewhat of a nightmare now, especially in Windows 2000, seems to have miraculously become more confusing, which is not what most computer users need. The Parental Controls stuff sounds promising, since my kids will be well supervised computer-wise by the time Vista ships. Tabs in Internet Explorer 7 looks very useful and is, as Paul points out, very overdue. Microsoft still seems to be optomistically pushing voice recognition, but everybody knows that its no more than a neat toy that is utterly useless for increasing productivity for most users (though undoubtedly of great value for people with disabilities). Networking (perhaps the most important thing) looks spotty in this release, but will undoubtedly be fixed in future beta releases.

I was a beta tester for Windows 95 and it was sort of fun. But these days I just want my computer to work. I think I’ll wait until the end of 2006 or better yet, the middle of 2007.

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Proof Positive

That if enough people blog loudly about an issue, they can make a difference.

Microsoft was rumored to be negotiating to purchase Claria, a company that has been associated with spyware. Everybody from Ed Bott to Dwight Silverman wondered why Miscrosoft would do such a stupid thing.

Today word was leaked that Microsoft is not going to buy Claria. One of the reasons- the adverse PR that would have resulted.

Mark one up for the good guys.