According to MSTN, Microsoft seems to be testing out their relationship with partner Akamai by releasing the pre-RC1, build 5536, of Windows Vista as an .iso for download - but only for the first 100,000 people.

The download page from Microsoft offers two ways of downloading: by a d/l manager or by a direct link to the .iso itself.  (The latter did not work on our end so we gave in and installed the download manager.  The ISO is 2.58GB.)

Microsoft seems pretty desperate to get as much beta testing done as possible so, do both them and us a favor and test this one out…then give feedback.  Because, as much as I don’t feel like supporting a multi-billion dollar company by encouraging their extremely closed off business model, I also don’t want to deal with a crappy OS for the next 5-7 years.  Who knows?  You might even be surprised by the latest Vista experience: “Windows Vista Build 5536: It’s Not Crap.”

MSTN once again comes through for us by alerting us to the arrival of the second beta release of Windows Desktop Search 3.0.  Guess what…this one actually has a user interface!  Who woulda thunk it!?  (I still can’t believe they pushed out a beta without a UI - what a stupid, stupid move.)  This 2nd beta release appears to have one major improvement and one major flaw.

The improvement is in the speed at which it searches - lightning fast.  What took 4-5 seconds to pull up before now takes less than a second…I’m truly impressed.  The resources that WDS consumes have also been cut down.  The flaw, on the other hand, has prompted me to uninstall the app within 30 minutes of installing it: no support for network shares.  According to Brandon Paddock’s blog, this - as well as support for FAT32 drives - will be added in the next release.  Access to network shares is a must for me so, unfortunately, I’m going to have to bail on this beta but WDS 3.0 certainly shows promise.  There’s no doubt about that.

technorati tags:windows, desktop, search, microsoft

According to Angus Kidman of ZDNet Australia, Microsoft has finally confirmed their long-rumored “Live Drive” service: an online offering from the Live.com series of services aimed at providing users online storage to be tightly integrated with the upcoming Vista operating system.  Microsoft’s own John Hodgson confirmed that there will be multiple tiers of services but that the basic service would offer users 2gb of storage for free.

Before that happens, though, we’ll be given 4gb from Google’s identical rumored service.  Then, after MS launches LiveDrive, Yahoo! will present us with 2gb in yet another online storage service. 

Yawn.

technorati tags:microsoft, live.com, livedrive, storage

The makers of this online calendar app Kiko have decided to hand things over to someone else…someone willing to shell out $50K.  This comes as upsetting news as I had started using the application earlier this year and came to really love it.  I certainly hope development continues and I also look forward to seeing what the developers have in store for us next.

The eBay link above basically states that, for $50K, you’ll get the Web site, the domain, and the software behind Kiko.  And, for an extra $1,500, you can have the development team fly out to where you are for five business days to aid you in setting up the Kiko application into a new or existing project.  Not a bad deal.

Just imagine how many times you’d get to say “Kiko” if you bought it.  C’mon…do it.  You know you want to.

technorati tags:kiko, web2.0, calendar, ajax

Google officially announced the launch of their Mountain View WiFi Network.  According to the lead WiFi product manager, Minnie Ingersoll, “this network is a way for us to give back to and engage with the community where our headquarters are.  Another goal of this network is to promote alternative access
technologies by using Mountain View as an example for organizations
considering investments in the WiFi arena.”

A map of the (crazy amount of) available WiFi spots can be found here and you can read the rest of the entry at the Official Google Blog.

technorati tags:google, wifi