new earth online

In preparation for the long (very long) run up to Windows 7, Microsoft have started a blog to let the community know what they're up to with it, and to get meaningful comments back.

So far there isn't much there, just an introduction to the blog and a few comments on what the posting of comments should be used for. It might be worth keeping an eye on though to see what innovations (if any) they make. Oh, and by the way they've not yet got an RSS feed - pesky Microsoft programmers.

Link: Engineering Windows 7 blog

The first service pack for Windows Vista has now been released to the public over Automatic Updates. There are unfortunately certain circumstances it will not appear in the updates list for, as the Windows Vista Team have blogged about:

• You have a driver installed that is not supported
• You have a pre-release of SP-1 installed
• You already have SP-1 installed
• Your operating system is running a language it's not been released for yet. So far it is available in English, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese

For me it's the first in the list that is causing me issues - SP-1 is not compatible with early Creative drivers, something which they've not updated to many peoples dismay since early last year! I'll be installing SP-1 anyway, and will report back with anything I notice about it.

For years there have always been attempts at making decent shell replacements for Windows - some successful, some not so quite. Out of all the ones I have seen so far, none have really sparked my interest. Cairo is the latest one I've noticed, and it does actually look quite nice. Certain aspects of the new UI are very "mac-like" in appearance and that certainly doesn't have a negative effect - it's a really nice looking UI.

Link: Example of the Cairo UI from their news page

Unfortunately it's impossible to try it just yet though as it's not yet available for download - but it might be worth keeping an eye on if you're a Windows user.

Link: Cairo

Microsoft are one not to be outdone by improvements to the way users interact with mobile devices. Last year we saw the Apple iPhone showing gestures are a viable way for users to interact with a GUI on a mobile device. This year Microsoft shows that they can do the same with the changes to Windows Mobile 7. It looks very different to the previous iterations of the mobile operating system with vast improvements over the look and feel when using it for everyday tasks such as reading emails.

Link: Microsoft Windows Mobile 7