Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

There has been a lot of negative press about Windows Vista, mostly undeserved, though some of the initial problems with Vista like file copy speed were a problem. However in general the Vista Operating System is a vast improvement of Windows XP in a number of key areas; Security and patching , system stability, application and driver support, plug and play and networking, user interface, and features.

One of the most common things I hear about Vista is that it doesn’t work as well or is not as good as Windows XP. In every case so far I have been able to educate the people saying this and show them just why it is better than XP in these key areas. In every case with a little hands on user training and demonstration of the killer features (like search and virtual folders), the security and system stability, wins these people over. Slowly I am converting all my clients and friends to Vista.

I can absolutely state that most of my support calls from clients originate with Windows XP machines. Almost without exception my Vista clients do not call for operating system or application issues. As a business supporting hardware installations, I much prefer selling Vista to XP, as I know there will be less issues. I now refuse to install XP on a clients machine and recommend a hardware upgrade to support Vista.

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Some of my take aways from this conference:

• Client apps should be experience first, tech second – e.g. they are built for the consumer to use – the back end stuff should be largely invisible.
• These apps should live on the cloud and be able to synch across devices and platforms invisibly.
• 3rd party extensibility is important.
• Authentication and login (including Open ID) on websites can now be performed using the exposed LiveID framework – 460 million LiveIDs in se on the net.
• Twitter back channels can liven up the day – thanks to @NickHodge, @laflour, @aussienick, @DamianM, @kiwitwitter and @JamesHip.
• RSS, ATOM, JSON, SOAP feed data is available from the LOE (Live Operating Environment) to describe changes, news etc from the LOE.
• Fiddler is a Web Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect allHTTP(S) traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler includes a powerful event-based scripting subsystem, and can be extended using any .NET language. Fiddler is freeware and can debug traffic from virtually any application, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and thousands more.

May be more but that will do for now.

Live Mesh announces an update affecting all platforms

Windows Vista SP2 hits the streets today - Sarah has a full list of the enhancements and fixes in Vista SP2

Tony Morgan posts a though provoking piece with 10 reasons why he doesn’t like most Christians. I would agree with them all.

Rodney Olsen posted this cool video about technological and futuristic trends. I have added it here also.

The New Windows Live site has launched and is open for business

Check my site here.

Look at all these articles explaining the goodness:

Windows Live Wave 3 services launch today

Windows Live update ships: After years of waiting, we create a Group

Windows Live Wave 3: Homepage

Windows Live Wave 3: Photos

Windows Live Wave 3: SkyDrive