The first thing you might notice about this new beta is the speed improvement, but you’ll also find additional browsing tools, such as basic form autofill, full page zoom, support for autoscroll, and a new way to drag tabs into side-by-side view.

That side-by-side view looks pretty good, although I don’t think it will be of any serious use unless you have a big monitor. I usually work on a 1650×1200 monitor, and I still find websites side-by-side distracting. That being said, this feature can be put to good use when researching. You can have same functionality in Firefox using Tab Splitter

Again, I have to say I like where Google is going. I still don’t believe Chrome is solid enough to use full time and I don’t like to use multiple similar applications, but it is getting there. What are those features which prevent you from using Chrome?

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The pre-beta release adds several requested features to the web browser. Among the form auto-completion, full page zooms, a middle-click auto scrolling feature, user profiles and Greasemonkey support. The later still has to be activated by launching the Google Chrome browser with the -enable-user-scripts parameters. This is best done using a shortcut.

The release notes for this release contain all changes including interesting ones like the force SSL mode which will only load https sites in the browser. That’s a pretty clever method of getting rid of most phishing related dangers on the Internet.

Check out the instructions on how to download early release versions of the Google Chrome web browser.

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I’m typing this is as I sit here waiting for the 134mb file to download so I can’t give you my opinions on the update yet but here are some views from nerds others who stayed up all night waiting for a software download for a scoop:

The surprising Live MovieMaker is sporting the Ribbon UI:

“Making its first appearance in the Windows Live suite, Movie Maker Beta is a solid new application lacking in basic features to make it actually useful.” – LiveSide

The vastly improved Live Mail:

We’ve been using Windows Live Mail to manage our LiveSide email for our individual accounts and for feedback and tips, and it already has been far superior to Outlook, even with the Connector, for managing multiple Hotmail accounts.  Now with better performance and a new calendar, we’re even happier” – LiveSide

The fantastic Live Writer:

Alot of what is in this new beta was seen in the Live Writer CTP back in June, like the SDK we have already discussed, and nothing is new from that point of view. Obviously the UI has changed to look more in line with the rest of the Wave 3 products” – LiveSide

The elegant Live Photo Gallery:

Photo Gallery had been a solid tool that does what it should do, and with additional features that helps you to better manage your photos and share them with the rest of the world… The software, although still in beta stages, is quite stable and functional. However, it is quite disappointing that it doesn’t have the consistent look and feel with the other Wave 3 application” – LiveSide

It also includes a new API which is going to be great if developers and online photo haring services begin taking advtanage of it:

brand new, simple framework that enables developers to create photo and video publishing plug-ins. The framework defines a set of interfaces that facilitate communication between Photo Gallery and the plug-in. The plug-in developer has creative control of the user interface of the plug-in and handles the details of communication with the 3rd party service” – LiveSide

The less advertising focused Live Messenger 9.0 has too much new stuff to describve in just a few sentences so download it yourself if you’re that interested!

looks awesome, despite reports about Microsoft backing away from a supposed WPF-based design” – Paul Thurrot

There are also updates to the Windows Live Toolbar and Family Safety software, but who cares about them?!

Haha, anyway enough of that. My download is finished so I’m closing Writer down to update and trying all of this for myself!

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It’s been remarked upon of late that the concept of beta software has changed dramatically over the last ten years. Perhaps Google was a major influence (sigh… Gmail) or perhaps the Internet in general.

The terms ‘alpha’ and ‘beta’ have become muddied and confused over the years. Here is what these initial releases once meant:

Alpha Builds: Alpha releases where (and still are) largely internal builds used for evaluating the code. This stage of the product includes UI re-design, features being dropped in and out and lots of bug-fixing. Traditionally by the end of this stage the product would be code complete and usable.

Beta Releases: Either ‘closed’ or ‘open’. Beta builds were nearly feature complete and should be stable enough to be used. The point of a beta release wasn’t to discover any bugs in the software, but to discover bugs which the developers hadn’t yet discovered themselves through internal testing. Some of these are obscure and need wider testing.

Refresh Candidates: We see these less frequently these days, but a RC release is code complete. No new features will be introduced and all that’s left to do is find and fix the last few remaining bugs.

What these mean today:

These days I have no idea how exactly the development cycle works. Most developers seem to want to get usable software into users hands as soon as possible which is both good and bad.

ZDNet described this back in 2005 as:

Beta tests are getting longer, less restricted and more common, as companies tinker endlessly with their products in public.

The good is that many more bugs are picked up during the development cycle, user feedback can contribute to the project and it gives the software greater publicity then if they only tested internally.

The bad is that beta software can give a company or service a permanently muddied name. People expect beta software to be usable both performance and feature wise and anything which isn’t gets slammed. I have been guilty of this myself in the past.

When it comes to reviewing pre-release software, performance and stability should never be included as part of the review. Instead the focus should be on the possibility and promise of what the software is aiming to do.

I’ll try to remember this myself as I write and review products.

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What you need to do is to follow me on Twitter so that I can invite you to Kwippy. Yes, that sounds pretty strange but from what I can tell the only real option to invite other users is to invite the Twitter followers. I’m also not sure if I can repeat that indefinitely or not.

So if you want an invite you need to follow me on Twitter. Use the following link to my profile. I’m not really sure about the differences between Twitter and Kwippy, if anyone is using both services feel free to post a comment to explain things.

The only valid reason for using any of them would be to receive tips from readers that way.

Update: I can also invite by email. Just discovered the option on my profile page. If you prefer that way let me know here in the comments. Below are two screenshots as requested by Dark Kosmos:

My public Kwippy profile for those who already have a Kwippy account and would like to follow me.

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However I just discovered a very interesting blog today called UX.Unleaked which has been providing regular dialogues over the past month on the many builds and developments of the codenamed Windows Longhorn.

I have no idea what the credentials of the author are, but he has a lot of knowledge and insight into the history and development process of Microsoft. In fact he has a number of previously unseen builds on his blog and offers an in-depth commentary.

Longhorn was to contain every revolutionary technology Microsoft had envisioned for the next decade including the much spoken of WinFX. It’s been well documented that eventually Longhorn collapsed under it’s complexity and Vista was created instead using Server 2003 as a base almost completely from scratch in just 2 years.

It was a costly management mistake that has seen a dive in public perceptions and an ongoing struggle for Microsoft to hold a position of similar influence as it did at the beginning of the decade.

Although it was never completed Longhorn was not discarded. Many of the features and code inspired various Vista technologies and have been incorporated into Server 2008 and the upcoming Windows 7.

Looking through the various past builds of Longhorn can give an insight into both the development process and possibly what we can expect from future Microsoft operating systems.

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Flock is built on top of Firefox and the team have been working hard over the last couple months to upgrade Flock to the new Firefox 3 base.

Flock 2.0 Beta 1 was released last night and is a substantial update to Flock 1.2. The official blog said the following:

The Flock 2 beta marks a very important watershed moment for us. And we have some amazing things planned for the remainder of the year, so please help us refine this product by running Flock 2 beta (one), and logging imperfections by using the ‘bug icon’ in the upper right of your browser.

Key changes are primarily to security, stability and performance and no key new features have been introduced. However improvements and enhancements are across the board and include some very welcome changes.

The biggest one for me has been to the People sidebar, previously in Flock 1.2 the number of supported accounts was causing the sidebar to fill up and for accounts to be lost past the border of the bar. Flock 2.0 changes this and makes it easier to see all the accounts at the same time, which you can see here:

Small changes yes, but necessary. It can become easy simply incorporating new features with every release but it needs constant review in order to assess how the existing features can be improved.

Bookmarks and tags are now located in a improved Favourites Library which improves bookmark management and organisation and is also significantly faster then the previous manager.

Performance has been considerably optimised, and Flock now has a larger system footprint, but improves memory management so having multiple tabs never gets out of control.

Aside from these you can also expect additional support for online applications Gmail and Zoho, a new download manager, the awesome bar (of which Flock already had a similar version), improved password manager and much faster page rendering.

To get an idea of what Flock page loading speed is like take a look at this test of Firefox technology compared to Opera, IE and Safari.

Flock is a worthwhile upgrade. Yes it’s buggy but not so much as to cause any major issues, get it here.

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Have not tried it but I suppose it could be possible to grab the music right from the stream but it does not really make sense to do it that way instead of using other means like ftp.

The Reble client has a size of 13 Megabytes and users have to create an account from within the software before they can start adding their music folders and friends to it. The only other requirement is Java 6 or newer.

Friends are added by clicking on the friends button on top of the application. They are then listed in the left pane which also contains the playlists of the user. Playlists can be created from own songs and from songs provided by friends.

Streaming means that songs can only be listened to if the friends are currently online. If they go offline the music cannot continue streaming. The developers are working hard to create a Macintosh client and additional features like selling music which seems to be the revenue model they are heading for.

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I personally do not like the Real Player that much and use the freeware Real Alternative to play the content of that player. There might be however some users that actually like the player and would like to tinker around with the beta version. According to Cybernetnews the beta was not supposed to come out until the end of June.

I can’t really say much about the changes that have been implemented. One feature is a video downloader that is capable of downloading videos from sites like Youtube directly and play them in Real Player afterwards. It will also ship with VCD / DVD burning options which are available depending on edition of Real Player that you use (have purchased). The basic free version seems to ship only with VCD burning options.

While it seems to add several new features I have not seen anything that can’t be achieved with other free tools. I can download the videos using several Firefox extensions or the Orbit Download Manager. Burning is of course more comfortable with real burning softwares such as Nero Burning Rom.

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You can try the following two methods to join the irc server. The first would be to use a java client running on the site that gives out the beta keys. Just head over to worldofwar and the chat will try to auto connect to the server. The second method would be to either use the chatzilla add-on for firefox or a regular client for irc like mirc.

You will have to do the following if you choose the latter methods or the auto connect fails. Type in the following command and hit enter:

• /server irc.incgamers.com

Once connected you have to enter the channel where the contest takes place:

• /join #wow

Sometimes you get a message that your nickname is in use, to change your nickname type

• /nick anothername

The last command that makes you join the contest would be:

• /msg bc enter

Substitute with your email, with your wow account name and select either US or EU depending where you play the game.

You do not have to be present after you have done this few steps, just stay connected and hope that you are chosen by the channel bot.

The server seems to be flooding with people at the moment, I had troubles connecting, just try again if that happens to you. You will eventually make it. Remember the contest runs for 5 days.

Link to the contest announcement

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The second tip on the tvu player beta page deals with the problem that many users seem to face: the problem that they have no picture at all or a very bad one. The entry suggests to do the following:

• Upgrade your Windows Media Player to Windows Media Player 10
• If the problem still occurs, try the following steps
• Have VLC player installed on your computer. Click here to download VLC
• Right click the “TVUPlayer” icon on your computer’s Desktop
• Select “Properties” -> “Shortcut”
• Append ” -v” (with a leading space) at the end of the line in the “Target” box
• If the line in Target box is: “C:\Program Files\TVUPlayer\TVUPlayer.exe”
• then after appending, the line should be like this: “C:\Program Files\TVUPlayer\TVUPlayer.exe” -v

Last but not least I have five unlimited invites for the tvu player beta, if you would like to participate write a reply to this thread.

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