I’ve been using the “Wave 3” since the day they came out. I’ve come across a few bugs that I think the team should be aware of.

Windows Messenger

When you boot up Windows & Messenger is set to start automatically. When the Messenger windows pops up ( along with the “today” screen. It freezes for about 20-30 seconds. I know its not just me, because I’ve installed it on many of my family & friends computers & it does the same thing.

Windows Live Mail

I’ve never gotten Photo mail to work in live mail beta, when I go to add the picture to the message it shows up as a big white blank space.

More recently I’ve been having a crippling problem with Windows Live mail. It refuses to send or receive any mail from my hotmail account. The error message is below, I have also tested this on a few of my personal computers.

Unable to send or receive messages for the Live (volvoshine) account. To send and receive messages in your Hotmail account, go to http://hotmail.live.com on the Web, or try again later. To get help from Windows Live Customer Support, go to http://support.live.com and click Windows Live Mail in the list of services. Server Error: 0x80004005 Server: 'http://mail.services.live.com/DeltaSync_v2.0.0/Sync.aspx' Windows Live Mail Error ID: 0x80004005

Keep up the good work guys…

A great game comes around a few times a year.. An amazing game comes around once or twice.

The blinding light burns my eyes as I race across the top of glittering skyscraper. Far far below a city bustles and goes about its day unaware of my race for life. Roofs become pathways, Walls morph into springboards  and vaults. Not far behind I can hear the angry  shouts of the blues. They won’t catch me… I’m a runner and this is my city.

Sound a little strange to you?

That's the concept for the new Xbox 360 game Mirrors Edge, a 1st person platformer . In Mirrors Edge you play as Faith a “runner”. Set in a dystopian future where the government controls every form of electronic information. Runners are the only way to move information from one place to the other. Loosely based on the French sport of parkor, where players attempt to do the most gravity-deifying stunts possible. Most of the game involves you running for your life, from your enemies. However you do this a way only mirrors edge could do. You swing off skyscrapers, vault off walls and hang on for dear life on zip-lines. The entire game can be played with out shooting a single shot, guns are available to the player if they wish however. 

So what do I think of Mirrors Edge?

I love it!! To me it is the same kind of genre bending game play that Bioshock offered. You have never played a game like this before. Gameplay aside your jaw will drop when you see Mirrors Edge graphics… They are in a word, Insane. Brilliant primary colors clashing with stark white. I’ll you decide for yourself…

See what I mean, the pictures above are all in game screen shots. You really have to play the game to get the full effect of the graphics. if you get vertigo from just looking at the last picture….bring your seasick pills with you.

I’ll update this review when I finish the game, stay tuned…

How many times have you wished that you had your own personal geek?

Remember that time when you had a network problem in Windows Vista? It popped up a little icon on the taskbar that said something like “Do You want Windows to try and fix this problem?”. That was all well and good, but how often did actually work?  Most of the time sadly no….

Digging around in the control panel of Windows 7 build 6801, I found something very interesting.

It seems that Microsoft has learned that even the best OS has problems from time to time. All of the menu choices above, when clicked on take the user to a troubleshooting prompt.

After the user clicks on the prompt, everything is done automatically… yes automatically.  No crazy menu options to jump through or advanced settings to change.

You can even drill down to a more exact problem if needs be.

I’ve found that 70%-80% time that this troubleshooter was able to fix the issues I was having. That's a huge improvement over the 15-20% when using Vista. This is just the tool that people like my grandparents need, Its very powerful. But also very user friendly. On the very odd occasion that anyone would want to turn this tool off, Microsoft has even provided for that 

So thats troubleshooting in Windows 7, This release of Windows is getting my more excited everyday. I don’t know how much I can take.

I recently got upgraded to the “New” version of Hotmail.

I’ve been scanning the blogs over the past couple weeks. All I’ve been seeing is hotmail bashing and hating. I say… they don’t know what their talking about.

Here is what the new Hotmail looks like.

  What's all the hate about…? It mainly seems to stem from Hotmail not rendering pages correctly in web browsers. So far i’ve had no problems with the upgraded Hotmail. I will say that it is much much faster then the older version.  So I really have no idea what everyone is having problems with.

Fresh & clean are the two words I think of when it comes to Hotmail’s UI. It falls in line with all the rest of the “Wave 3” releases. I really like the way Microsoft is going with these newer releases.

So leave a comment if you having problems with Hotmail… I’m not.

How many people know how use the networking features in Windows? (besides all the geeks out there)

I can tell you that very very few use the networking features in windows to their fullest extent.  The “Network and sharing center” in Windows Vista was a huge step forward. However users still largely ignored the network features.

In Windows 7, Microsoft has created a feature that everyone can use. Titled “Homegroups” , this feature allow for anyone to make a group of computers and devices on a home network.

The screen you see above is the Homegroup screen that is currently in the (6801) build of windows 7.

Homegroups makes it really really easy to share files and folders across local networks insanely easy.

All you have to do is click on one of the options in the sub list, and you folder or file is shared with your homegroup.

This works great for all different file types. I love using it for streaming high-def video around my network. I can’t wait to see how Microsoft develops this feature.

Before I get started let me just say one thing, I’ve used Vista since it was in beta form (longhorn). I’ve loved (almost) every moment of it. Vista is a much better system then most people make it out to be. My honest belief is that is was not Microsoft fault that Vista had so many problems at launch. I believe that the hardware manufactures  & driver suppliers is what caused the blow up. That said, i’m very glad that Microsoft is learning from Vista’s past & moving on to new and better things.

On to Windows 7, The build that I have been playing around with is the one that was handed out and PDC 2008 (6801).  I was a little hesitant to install it, remembering all the driver nightmares I had with longhorn. My fears where unfounded though, after the install process completed. I was greeted by the desktop with not driver issue in sight

Something some of you may notice is the taskbar at the bottom. The New “Awesome” bar is not turned on be default in build 6801. You can enable it by following the steps here.

One of the major issues with Vista, was the amount of time it took to boot up. Even on majorly geeked out computers such as mine (quad core\ 6GB ram). I am happy to report that this has been remedied in 7. I did a rough timing test on boot up, it came out about 25-30 secs. Much much better then the 1-2 minute boot up for the same computer running Vista. You can start clicking on Icons as soon as the desktop shows up. Microsoft as said that it has accomplished a 15 second boot up running a new build of Windows 7.

For a pre-beta release, Windows 7 is looking very good. I’ve been using it as my primary OS for a few days now. I haven't seen any of the Freezes, Crashes or Conflicts that I did in Vista. I’m going to wager that this the most stable beta ever to come out of Redmond.

I’ll continue posting as I dive deeper into Windows 7, I’l leave you with a few more screenshots.

“Awesome Bar” Grouping

Libraries (aka Win-FS)

Yesterday I got a nice surprise in the mail, The Sprint Branded version of the HTC Touch Diamond. As one of the sexiest devices running Windows Mobile I am very excited to try it out.

Thanks to Noah @ www.Phonedog.com for giving me a chance to check out this phone!

You Can see his Video & written review for the Diamond @ the links below.

http://www.phonedog.com/cell-phone-videos/sprint-touch-diamond-full-review-part-1.aspx

http://www.phonedog.com/cell-phone-videos/sprint-touch-diamond-full-review-part-2.aspx

http://www.phonedog.com/cell-phone-reviews/htc-touch-diamond/at-a-glance-198634.aspx

I now have the complete Windows\Microsoft ecosystem, From Vista to Win Mo right down to Zune & Xbox. The Coolest part about using this phone is that I can now take the awesome Windows Live experience with me wherever I go. 

So far The Diamond has proved to be an excellent companion whither on the road or @ work. It runs on Sprint’s High Speed 3G network. Which I luckily live a coverage area for. The Diamond is great for anyone who wants to make Windows Mobile more user friendly. It also improves Win-Mo’s “Touchabilty” ( I am so trade marking that word). You rarely ever have to pull out the included stylus. One of the only things I would change would be the on screen keyboard (its a bit cramped). But this point in negated by the fact that Sprint offers the Touch Diamond’s sibling, The Touch Pro… Which offers a full slide out keyboard.

Being a windows mobile phone, the Diamond offers Windows Live apps that make keeping in touch with your friends easy and free. Also just yesterday Microsoft announced Live mesh for mobile. Which has the potential to be awesome in the near future.

So if you are looking for a new Windows Mobile Phone, Give the Touch Diamond & Touch Pro a lookie. I also hear gossip that these two phones are heading to the other major carriers (AT&T & Verizon) so there will be a network for anyone… even though Verizon rocks Sprint’s & AT&T’s socks when it comes to network coverage :P

Thanks again to Phonedog & Noah for letting me check out this great phone!