Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

This article is in a direct response to an article on Slate subtitled How Gmail destroyed Outlook. Farhad Manjoo has written an article explaining how to use Google Gears to take your Gmail account offline. However he has badly titled it The Best E-Mail Program Ever and subtitled it How Gmail destroyed Outlook.

If he had just left it titled something like Google Gears provides Gmail with offline capability I wouldnt have minded. But to attempt to use that feature to claim that Gmail is the best program ever or to even more ridiculously claim that Gmail has somehow destroyed Outlook as a result is farcical at best and completely misleading and untrue.

OK lets look at what he says and why.

Here is some selected text from the Tech Net newsletter about Windows 7. Lots of links to resources etc.

For those who haven't yet heard, we've just announced the availability of Windows 7 Beta. I know a lot of you have been waiting for this - and let me tell you, it's definitely been worth it. I've personally installed Windows 7 Beta on 5 different machines - including my neighbour's new Sony Vaio - and they're all running smoothly. Even the lowest spec'ed machine is running really well, and I'm getting more life from my batteries!

The first thing I noticed was the overall performance of the OS. Things just load up faster, and Start Up and Shut Down have improved dramatically.

I’ve got lots of interesting things to share today.

If you like medieval siege equipment then this YouTube video of Mongo the Trebuchet will fascinate you and if you don’t have any particular interest than perhaps just the sight of a flaming fireball being hurled through the air might. Link thanks to Geeks are Sexy.

Another “heads up” from the Sexy Geeks (pun intended) concerns Terry Pratchett and some fancy hi tech science helping him fight Alzheimers.

A Drupal group meetup is on in Brisbane next week – I’m going.

Two new OneNote blogs – from guys in the Microsoft One Note team – John Guin writes on One Note Testing and Jeff Cardon on OneNote Tips & Tricks

Hard Drive Not Found and Data Recovery with Windows Home Server another great story on why to have a Windows Home Server. We are setting up our second one now.

Windows 7. There’s been lots of build up and very little hype. The beta is out and being installed by large numbers of people. I have mine downloaded but haven’t had time to set up a test machine for it yet.

Here are some reviews blogs and other items.

Its been a while since I reviewed some cheeses here. I have had a few different cheeses including a very nice creamy blue while in New Zealand.

The first shown here, the Pecorino is actually a cheese I bought to cook with. It is a hard flaky cheese somewhat similar to Parmesan. It grated into nice flaky strips and melted beautifully into the white wine and garlic sauce I cooked the prawns in. I wouldn’t recommend eating it on crackers though it certainly is flavoursome.

There wasn’t much difference between the Cracker Barrel Extra Sharp and the Mainland Cheddar Masters series Extra Tasty cheese. Both were very classic tasty cheeses with a nice bite to them.