Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

And once again clearing my browser of all the interesting tabs I opened this week. Not many – I have been working too hard on deadlines!

Microsoft Technologies

IE8 has been released and being rolled out. I have been using the beta and RC1 for months. Time to get the real thing now. Download IE8 now.

The Windows Experience Blog has some page load time tests for IE8 versus Firefox and Chrome.

Embed your live calendar on your website or blog. Sarah Perez posts a how to.

Sarah also posts on the instructions to setup POP3 for hotmail – now available worldwide.

Some interesting comments over at Daily Dose of Excel about the future of VBA.

Doug posts up a cool excel window minimise /maximise animation piece of VBA.

Gadgets

Doug shows off a portable wireless hotspot in a backpack.

Internet

The Technium posts a treatise on the concept of building a fan base of 1,000 true fans in order to generate a living. There is a follow up with some reality checks on depending on True Fans.

Live side gives us Face book comes to Windows Live Frameit Power Toy.

This is a “real” blog post. Doesn’t feel that way yet? That’s cos I am still rambling. Or is that why it is a real blog post? Maybe this has something to do with the fact that it is the absolutely unheard hour of 6:30am and I was awake at 5:30 and have consumed a very nice coffee and am buzzing!

So lets deal with the facts involved here. First off the screen door slamming about 3 metres from head while I was asleep and in the middle of a strange confused dream where I was involved in counter terrorist warfare including a shootout in a barn where I stopped bullets matrix slow motion style using a leather cushion and then encourage the last remaining terrorist to shoot himself so I could rescue the civilian hostage (predictably a woman) rudely awoke me. Particularly as that was followed up with scratching sounds on the door. I went to the door with my big stick (kept beside my bed) and found a gecko on the inside: conclusion neighbours cat (that I daydream about sending to cat heaven) was chasing the gecko and leaped at the door slamming it shut.

Got lots of things to share today.

Starting off with Windows 7:

• Engineering Windows 7 have listed a bunch of changes made to Windows 7 since the Beta was released.
• They have also written a very interesting article about how they built the Windows 7 Boot Animation.
• The Windows Team Blog has a list of the new Windows Media Centres features in Windows 7.

Crossing to Windows Home Server we have these posts:

• Susan the SBS Diva blogs about Backing up the desktops in a small network.
• Windows Home Server Team link to an article about synching two Windows Home Servers using SyncToy. I use Synch Toy a lot to keep numerous folder pairs synchronised. Combined with Livemesh this makes keeping the data between my server and my clients servers synched a cinch!

Now over to Microsoft Office:

Security vulnerabilities were announced today in Microsoft Excel and also in Drupal.

See the Official MS security advisory (968272), and the explanation by ars technica.

Our advice for now would be to be EXTREMELY careful when opening any Excel spreadsheet, Word document or PowerPoint file that is emailed to you. Rule of thumb – if you don’t know the person who set you a file (any file) NEVER open it. If you weren’t expecting the file from someone you do know then email or call them and ask them if they sent you it and if so what it is BEFORE opening it. I trust that MS will release the appropriate patch shortly.

The Drupal security vulnerabilities have been announced on the Drupal website and upgrades and patches released for both version 5 and 6.

For our Jethro Consultants Web hosting customers this means an immediate patch for those who are on maintenance contracts with us, and for those who are not they pay us by the hour to apply. We get to those as soon as we can. We are also busy upgrading our own websites.