Hotmail Gets a New Look

Microsoft’s Hotmail is getting an overhaul. The new version, called code name "Kahuna", is still in beta. The new design makes it look more like Outlook. Also, the new version of Hotmail will offer automatic inbox refreshing and a preview pane that will enable Hotmail users to read and respond to e-mail without having to leave their inbox. Security additions will include enhanced phish and spam-detecting techniques, and better virus detection. There may be more integration with MSN Spaces and Messenger. Some say the redesign is a long time coming, especially since its competitors have been offering new features and designs for some time now (ie. Yahoo! Mail). If Hotmail morphed into web-based Outlook, would you use it over your current free email provider?

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The RIAA is at it again. A 14-year-old named Britanny Chan is being sued by the RIAA for illegal downloading using P2P technology. The record labels that are the plaintiffs in the suit are EMI, Warner, Universal and Sony BMG. They tried and failed to get to Brittany, then 13, through her mother in a lawsuit that was dismissed, forcing them to sue the girl herself. It seems that illegal downloading has been the downfall of the music industry…or so they claim.

Or could it be the inflated CD prices? Or maybe the fact that the labels tried to fight the mp3 craze instead of jumping onboard and offering legal downloads at their own website? Oh no. It’s definitely 13-year-old girls with computers that has brought them to their knees. Please.

The IE7 team is debating what icon to use on websites that has an RSS feed available. Apparently, they don’t want to use a simple orange icon with text (like "RSS", "XML", or "FEED") because that would be too cryptic to the average user. Right. And the little icon with the star is going to be so meaningful to the average user. Their decision is going to be partially based on user feedback, so I suggest you comment now.

New from Google: a Google RSS Reader, called simply Google Reader. Now I was pretty happy with my free SharpReader, but it’s Google, so I have to give it a try. The first thing I notice about the Google Reader is that it’s not a software download, rather a web-based reader. The interface is very Gmail-esque, too. (Ooh, maybe they will combine Gmail and Reader one day…that would be cool.) You can add subscriptions one by one, but I have too many for that, so thankfully, the Google Reader offers the ability to import from an OPML file. This seemed to take longer than I thought, but it was all worth it. The Google Reader even brought in my SharpReader folders and applied these as "labels" to the feeds. Labels and the ability to star items are a couple of Gmail features that have been used in Reader. Since I love Gmail, it’s hard to not love Reader. Very user-friendly, very simple, very good.

There’s a new browser on the scene. A startup from Palo Alto unveiled what’s being called a "social browser," Flock. The browser is "built specifically for a new, emerging generation of Web users, one that isn’t satisfied passively browsing media online," according to Business Week. Flock wants to be a dashboard for collaborating, blogging, sharing photos, and more. It does everything a normal browser does (and by normal, I mean Firefox), but has several important additions. These may or may not be things Firefox could do with extensions, but with Flock they are built-in.

Flock will make blogging easier for one, by eliminating the need to do any coding in order to post, change fonts or add photos. (For the record, though, I don’t do any coding now.) When you right-click on a web page, a blogging wizard comes up that automatically creates links, citations, and quotes that are ready to insert into a blog. A horizontal bar on the browser also can load photos from Flickr, so they can be dragged and dropped into the blog post.

Flock expects to have the public beta available in about two weeks. You can sign up on their home page to receive the announcement. In the meantime, you can see screenshots on one of the developers’ blogs.

The third podcast is here.

I posted a comment over at the Vault9 blog, aka the BlogMad blog, about how I hoped they would be different than BE when it came to the battles. The highly unfair, rigged, BE battles. (In case you missed it, BlogMad is a new blog community that will be coming soon.) After commenting, I got an email back from the founder about how they are going to revolutionize the battle of the blogs. I was sworn to secrecy, but it sounded awesome. I’m really looking forward to this! I can’t wait until BlogMad is open for business. Sign up now!

Rumor has it that Microsoft is planning to release a Windows XP Service Pack 3. Microsoft France’s technical and security director Bernard Ourghanlian said last week that
a third service pack for Windows XP will become available after the
next version of the client OS, Windows Vista, ships at the end of 2006.
I don’t think he was supposed to tell us. Before his slip-up, Microsoft was not confirming the Service Pack’s release; but today the official announcement was made."Unofficial" information on what SP3 will include is available at The Hotfix. Ethan Allen (yes, that’s really his name), creator and administrator of The Hotfix, is a beta tester for Microsoft. He discovered the technologies that were to be in SP2 before its release and posted those updates on his site prior to the release of SP2 in August 2004.

You can download the pre-release version of SP3 if you register on The Hotfix forums. According to the website, the updates include Windows log-on improvements and features that fix current problems with connecting Windows XP computers to various networks. There is a possibility that Windows Media Player 11 will be included when MS releases SP3, but IE7 will not be included. Bummer.

The rock band, Switchfoot, is angry about the DRM being used by record labels today and the trouble fans are having importing the band’s music into programs like Apple’s iTunes. In a recent music forum post (that’s apparently been removed), the Switchfoot bassist says, "My heart is heavy with this whole copy-protection thing. We were horrified when we first heard about the new copy-protection policy that is being implemented by most major labels, including Sony (our own label), and immediately looked into all our options for removing this from our new album. Unfortunately, this is the new policy for all new major releases from these record companies. It is heartbreaking to see our blood, sweat and tears over the past two years blurred by the confusion and frustration surrounding this new technology. It is also unfortunate when bands such as ourselves, Foo Fighters, Coldplay, etc. are the target of this criticism, when there is no possible way to avoid this new industry policy."

He then explains how to crack the DRM. (Even though Sony removed the post, the full text was thankfully copied and pasted here). Explaining his actions, he states, "We deeply regret that there exists the need for any of our listeners to spend more than 30 seconds importing our music, but we’re asking as friends and partners in this journey together to spend the extra 10 minutes that it takes to import these songs."

I say we all buy the album and crack the DRM just on principle!

I like BlogExplosion, I really do. Until they came along, there was not a good site for generating traffic to your blog while also getting to discover lots of other cool blogs at the same time. They have done some amazing things over at BE. And that’s why I wasn’t sure if I should post this or not. I don’t want to come across as if I’m really angry, it’s not a huge deal. It’s more like a pet peeve right now…

But it’s the Battle of the Blogs. It used to be fun. It used to be cool. I miss those days. I know they have a lot of changes lined up for it, but they can’t come soon enough for me. I had heard people talking about how the battles had become unfair. People weren’t reading the content, they were just voting based on whose template was prettier. Or people were voting for their friends. Or whatever. I thought that was just a bunch of hot air until I recently lost my battle to a blank page. That’s right. A blank page. My competitor’s server was down the entire battle, yet somehow she won. There’s just something fishy about that. I think some people over there have gotten together and have decided to just vote for each other. So wrong.

It’s not really BE’s fault. It’s the fault of whoever these folks are that have decided that they will vote for their friends no matter what. (That’s the accused ringleader linked there. Guilty ’till proven innocent, it seems.) It’s not that we’re THAT UPSET over losing a silly little game. It’s that we’ve lost the simple fun that came from playing. We lost having a fair shot at it. We lost the ability to enjoy it. When people cheat, it just takes the fun away, you know?

So, when I heard that there’s a new blog site about to launch, I knew I would have to check it out. It’s called  BlogMad and you can sign up now.