So I thought I should mention this again before you download this : WWT works on PC's and Macs, you need to install the latest .NET framework (the reason my installation went foul at first), and be aware that this program is a BETA. It doesn't state beta on the site, but it claims it's a beta when you launch the program.

I'm no astronomer, but I went around exploring it. Here are some screenshots:

4 different ways to view data on WWT:

1. Earth - This is the planet Earth of course. You can view Aerial, Hybrid, Street, and even Night view among others.
2. Planet - You can view other planets from the list next to this box, and also see the moon, Jupiter's moons, among others
3. Sky - This is the main universe view. There's a lot of ways of viewing the universe, like by microwave, infrared, x-ray, gamma, and other advanced views
4. Panorama - These are like live camera feeds from other places like McMurdo, Erebus and a few others.

View many tours made by users, make your own tour, and it's really fun.

You can rate tours and view profiles. (Hopefully some Live ID integration sometime soon, for those that do use it, and it wouldn't be mandatory. Imagine sharing some stuff with your friends real easy.)

                                                                                            Tour maker.

Right click anywhere on the universe, and instantly receive any data associated at that point. (You have to press the "Close" button or the "X" near the magnifying lens to get rid of the info box. Clicking on the universe won't get rid of it).

                                                           Geospatial data and content search filter are at the bottom.

The Earth has never looked any better. (although maybe except in NASA WorldWind)

Earth at Night. NOTE : For some reason, you can't zoom into much detail once at the city level. Not just Night, but also in Aerial, and Road (both based on Virtual Earth). I'm hoping it's just a bug. I would love to zoom in closer. They might put all VE features into the Earth view someday.

So that's all I feel like sharing. You should try it yourself. Remember, it's FREE, works on PC's and Macs, you need .NET 3.5, and off you go.

Yes! I just checked the WWT site today, and found out it's now live. You can download it right now. I'm surprised nobody else has blogged about this yet.

The site is very similar to the Microsoft Surface site in the way it looks and is designed. I'm hoping this becomes a style Microsoft will do more in the future.

There's some tours available. Hopefully they might think of having a blog that we can tune into. Can't wait.

There seems to be a lot more info. than what was previously on the site before. There's a press release info., a way to search for tours, help & support, what is WWT, etc. So go ahead and download it!

Stay tuned! I'll write some more posts about my experiences.

I already thought Windows Live Translator was a heck better than Google Translator, but this seals the deal even more.

Two new features: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AsCA0kVWbZ.8iqKv0RolGXps7hR.;_ylv=3?qid=20080511133036AA6tT6l

• Live Translations - This is an option to pay someone to translate text for you into the language you want. You get the bonus of having a probably more accurate and natural translation, than a machine-made one. It will cost you though - it starts off at $2.99. I typed in 25 words, and that prices goes to $5.74. So you pay them, and depending on the language (translations to Spanish and French take only 12 minutes, and others are up to 24 hours), you'll get them sometime via e-mail. There's a lot of languages that it supports. Live Translation HAS NO RELATION to Windows Live Translator, other than the fact their name is similar. Two separate companies.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
• Encarta Dictionaries - If a word doesn't look right to you, you could also utilize the Encarta dictionaries for direct word translations. It supports: English, Spanish, German, and Italian. The only translations are to English, and from English. Like you can't do Italian to German. Or Spanish to Italian. Only English conversions. I've used the Spanish dictionary for a long time, and it's pretty ok.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Helvecio Ribeiro has the official scoop.

It's been awhile, but now I'm going to tell you my opinions on the MSN Toolbar. To cut it short, USE MSN Toolbar if you're an avid fan of MSN content and want the latest info. instantly from your browser. DON'T USE the MSN Toolbar if you really don't have a thing for MSN content.

So here's some good points that I could think about the new MSN Toolbar:

• Very fast and responsive - Like when I press one of the buttons, a small box with some articles headlines comes out in just a second. I don't find it at all slow, and it's pretty interactive enough.
• Live search box - It's hard to not find a toolbar with a search box included these days, and Live search isn't so bad.
• Nice look and design - The look is overall pleasant. I like the way the boxes that pop out are designed with several tabbed categories and a search box that pertains to the content the box is from.
• It's free - like most other toolbars
• Utilizes Silverlight - Though they could probably do more, this is an interesting use of Silverlight right on a browser

What I don't like :

• Search button to big - They could conserve space if they made it into Live's magnifying glass icon
• Top portion of beveled bar too shiny - I find that the top portion of the beveled bar is just too shiny. They could tone it down a little, or make it just slightly darker again at the very top
• Live searching opens up a new tab/window - If you use the Live search on the toolbar, it opens up a whole other tab/window. Kind of annoying and you don't have an option to fix this
• No customizable buttons - You can't make your own buttons like you can on the Windows Live Toolbar. Nor choose any.
• No customizable search - Again, unlike the Live Toolbar, you really can't customize what search engine you can use.
• No options panel - There's a nice help button   but that's not enough where you can't change the settings
• It's just MSN content - More or less, it's just MSN headlines in a nice shiny box and toolbar. But it's still MSN when you go to the site. Most people, including myself, find that the way most MSN sites are designed, is that they're just plain paltry. Until MSN can design much better looking sites, chock full of great content and features, then it's not a great pull.
• IE-only - Microsoft's "openness" doesn't show through this toolbar as well as the Live one when working with other browsers beyond IE

Overall, I don't suggest you download the toolbar. It's not worth it. I installed it about a month or 2 ago, hid it in the browser, and just opened it again today. You just really have to be an avid MSN fan to appreciate this. I'm hoping Microsoft will update their Live Toolbar with some new and better goodies (though it's nice and fine now) and make it compatible with other sites.

That's what I have to say. Here are some screenshots:

For now, you can download it from this site : http://beta.toolbar.msn.com/Default.aspx?loc=en-us

So the Zune 2.5 update came around of Monday, 5/5/08. This update contains many of the features that users have been asking for (that got removed in the new software), and now we finally have it.

So what's new? Well there's:

• gapless playback
• improved syncing controls (syncing groups)
• metadata editing
• auto playlists
• better Zune Pass - more marketing (ad), and instant playback of songs (not just 30 sec. preview) of a friend's Zune Card song
• TV shows - Episodes from NBC, MTV, MTV2, Nickelodeon, Sci Fi Channel, VH1, Ultimate Fighting, Comedy Central, Anime, [Adult Swim] - only a few series from each network. Anime has the most with 11 different TV series. Hopefully more will get added. About $2.00 each (
• Browse by genre (music an video) or by series (video)
• Flagging for purchase - If you receive a song from another Zune user, you can flag this song if you wish to purchase from Zune Marketplace, and you'll be asked to confirm this when the Zune syncs. If you have a Zune Pass, you can just add it to your collection in one click.
• Live Messenger integration - The "Show what I'm listening to" status for Windows Live Messenger now works with Zune as well. Something that a few Zune users have been wanting. (though I still prefer playing on WMP 11).
• Zune Card for Facebook and MySpace - It's much easier to get a card working for Facebook, MySpace, and even Live Spaces. Or any site with an HTML widget/sandbox.
• Build a reputation within the Zune Social - With this release, you can earn achievement badges in Zune Social that are displayed on your Zune Card. Similar to Xbox LIVE, these are graphical icons on your Zune Card that represent milestones like being the top listener of an artist, passing a specific number of total plays, helping other users in the Zune forums and more.
• New "My Social" Page - The page shows what your social is like, from what you're doing to what your friends are doing. Lists show up as well as you can hover over albums of friends' cards to take a quick look.
• Album reviews and fan comments - You can write an album or artist review directly on the artist’s page.
• Built-in friends - New members joining Zune Social now get out-of-the-box Friends to help them get started. These are music editors from the Zune team will now automatically be part of your initial friends list when you join the Social.
• Finding friends - It’s become easier to find people in the Social Zune Social members have new options to add information like name, location and biography, to their profile page. This makes it easier for others to find someone and add them as a friend in the Social or to identify someone asking to be added to your list.
• Multi-device syncing - Now that many of us have multiple Zune players in the household, this version lets you sync more than once Zune at a time. Also new in this release, you can drag-and-drop content to a Zune player that is not yet connected - and that content will sync the next time the player is connected to the PC.

Great new update, huh? What else do you think the Zune could use?

Here are some good sites that I thought you should read if you're interested:

Zunerama - http://www.zunerama.com/zune-software-2-5-overview.php

WinSupersite - http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/zune25.asp

I HAVE A ZUNE - http://www.ihaveazune.com/?p=1212

I HAVE A ZUNE (badges) - http://www.ihaveazune.com/?p=1226

Gizmodo - http://gizmodo.com/387446/zune-25-update-brings-tv-shows-more-social-networking-improved-software-features

Engadget - http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/06/zune-2-5-update-brings-tv-downloads-zune-card-sharing/

Also, in other Zune news :

Zune's are coming to Canada on June 13th. - http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=942f31a9-4a99-4155-a9da-18413a22d7d1&k=95737

Zune by now has sold 2 million units - http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/05/09/microsoft-surpasses-2-million-zunes-sold-apple-sells-2-65-million-ipods-month

The popular i'm Making a Difference initiative that Microsoft launched a year ago, is still going on, and also now supports Hotmail.

The same 10 organizations to choose from are still there. You can use the same one as you did for Live Messenger, or you can pick a different one for Hotmail. It works out great either ways. So every time you send an e-mail to someone, a bit of the ad revenues that Microsoft receives goes directly to the organization you picked. It's so easy (something you probably do often enough) and it really helps out somebody.

Here's how to do it :

1. Go to http://mail.live.com/ and sign in.

2. Check out Options and go to More Options

3. Go to the Customize your Mail section and select i'm making a difference

4. Pick the organization you would love to support

Select Save. That's it.

So just send e-mails, and you're helping your cause. An extra bonus is that instead of the usual ad that gets attached to the bottom of your message when you use the web version (if you use Live Mail client, no ads at all!), you instead get a little tag that shows how you're helping out by using Live Hotmail. Really neat.

And people claim that Microsoft is just another one of those greedy corporations. :^)

Also of note, the i'm site launched a new featured called the Community Corkboard. The Community Corkboard "is an open forum for discussion and dialog. Post your thoughts and opinions about the topics that matter most to you, and check back often to keep the dialog going." I personally find it rather cool and creative. This an the whole i'M initiative is really different from the usual boring Microsoft, and I encourage MS to do neat things like this. Here's a screenshot:

You just hover around the edge of the visible Corkboard to get around the board and view other notes. To launch a note, you click the top part of it. You can also make your own character avatar (called Muggins on the site). Live Messenger could use this built-in.

The whole site is pretty educational and fun to work with. I really suggest you go for it.

Microsoft has released a small tool for photographers that offers rich metadata editing, and a geotagging function. It's called Pro Photo Tools 1.0.

Features include :

• address to latitude/longitude conversion
• latitude/longitude to address conversion
• loading track routes stored by GPS devices
• placing images on track routes based on time stamps, with a visual adjustment tool
• integration with Virtual Earth for
  -- text based location searches
  -- interactive placement of photographs
  -- visualization of track routes
  -- 2D and 3D map browsing
• RAW image support
• edit numerous metadata fields

Though you have to wonder why Microsoft can't simply just include this within Vista/Live Photo Gallery. It would be much nicer if Microsoft could just make a nice all-in-one photo editor solution, instead of bits and bits of photo tools. I'm hoping that a combo of Live Photo Gallery, Pro Photo Tools, Photosynth, HD View, Group Shot, and all of Microsoft's other work in digital photo technology can all come into one.

As if it wasn't enough that Apple feels the need to bundle their browser by hiding it within Apple Update for Windows (also putting the check mark on by default), I can't even install Safari as easily if I wanted to. I tried a month ago, and couldn't. I tried today and couldn't. All I got was this stupid message:

Thanks Apple. Now I find that I don't need to try such a stupid browser that can't install right on my computer. Forget it. I was going to actually try Safari, but I still see no compelling reason after coming with this error.

Photosynth made a great appearance on CSI: NY when it broadcasted 5/1/08 Wednesday night.

In this episode, the team uses Photosynth to help recreate a scene of interest (the main ballroom of the academy's celebration) from the many phones and cameras collected by the CSI team The devices get connected to the computer, the Photosynth software analyzes them and then it's ready to explore.

In the first part, when the team uses Photosynth,  they use it to determine who the murder victim was leaving with out the door.

In the 2nd part of the team using Photosynth, they find out another suspect about to leave the ballroom at the time of the murder victim's speech. Both clues have shown to be quite helpful, thanks to Photosynth.

I thought this was pretty neat. Microsoft didn't even have to pay the producers of CSI: NY to get this on. CBS was quite happy to have the latest technology right on their show.

Here's some articles of interest:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2008-04-29-microsoft-csi-product-placement_N.htm

http://labs.live.com/Photosynth+Solves+The+Case.aspx

I thought Live QnA would be discarded someday, but the team actually game through. They gave the site a whole new look.

The new look is kind of good. Simple, yet pleasantly aesthetic enough. I'm really digging this new UI from Live.

So here's what's new:

• New look - of course this is the main thing. The UI is now very much simpler, aesthetic, and just better to work with. Very clean and organized. Though I might have kept the same site layout the same as the previous one with the refreshed look, this one isn't too bad. I just wish more space could be filled instead of being left blank (you see this more on the right column). Though I heard they're going to put advertising later. Overall, I like it.
• Emphasis on tags - You can't go pass a page without seeing a tag space box. I love the tagging. I like how they made them look better.
• Q&A Pane on every page - Just like tags, there's pretty much a Q&A pane on every page. It's at the top of the page where you can "Ask a Question" or "Answer", and you can just select from there. Pretty handy.
• "Comments" section in user profile - Now you can view spots where you added your latest comment. Can be useful if you need to check back.
• "Top Reputations" and "Top Scores" section in Superstars - There's now 2 different ways to view how the users in the community rank. Top Reputations shows the users who contribute a lot to QnA, have many stars, and are found very helpful by other users. Top Scores is whoever gets the most points in the monthly/yearly period. It's a way to get the competition going.
• Top Contributors - Users who participate a lot, and are also helpful get a "Top Contributor" logo on their user profile picture. Helps identify who's very active and reliable.
• RSS - There's more opportunities to get a feed on something, like the question's status, new questions that appear under your favorite tags, a specific user, etc.
• Live QnA is now Live Search QnA - In what I thought was pretty dumb, the Live team decided that QnA should fit more closely to the search experience, so it's now Live Search QnA. Just like Live Search Maps that could simply be shortened to Live Maps.

The newer things are great, but I felt QnA missed and dropped a few things with this new update:

• No points for just voting - I used to vote a lot because I liked help picking what I thought was the best answer, and at the same time getting a point. Now there's NO points rewarded to people that vote. I find that pretty sad. Giving users the incentive to vote, will allow the community to pick better answers to the top. With no incentive (or points), users will find this as a waste of time and probably find some other way to contribute. You still get 4 points if the answer you pick also got picked by many users as best, but I still want that one point.
• Text box - It's still not WYSIWYG like Yahoo! Answers is. You have to double space for blocks of texts to have a space between them. Text box input tools (like bold/italics/underline, bullets, hyperlink, etc.) are still not available, which would be a great help and feature on QnA. There's a spell check button, but that should be included with IE! Overall, QnA should really revamp the text input system to make it rival that of Yahoo! Answers. Mediocre won't do the job anymore.
• No friends mini-network - You can't connect with many users personally on the site, like you can with Y! Answers. Having the ability to have a mini-network for friends on QnA would be great. You can find out what you're friends are up to (without needing to find them), and help answer questions they might have. It's a win-win.
• No deleting/editing questions and answers - There's still no absolute way you can edit/delete questions and answers if you don't like them. They stay there permanently. You could add comments to suffice, but it's not the same. You can edit the question right before an answer appears, but that's a pretty small time frame. How hard is it to include this function?
• No way to block users - Suppose you don't like this pesky user. You should be able to have protection from such things. If you could block really nasty users with a single button click, that would be nice.
• Search could be better - It's kinda improved. I just wish there were more ways to filter out results. Like making the open/voting more noticeable and let you search through a timeline or specify how far back you want the results.

Anyways, those are my main dislikes against Live QnA. Overall, the new update is good. If you want to simply get answers to a question from REAL people, Live QnA is a good site for this.

People have been begging Microsoft to make a lower-end version of Office, without making it as awful as Microsoft Works.

Maybe soon, Microsoft will offer such a thing.

So what could be expect in Microsoft Office Lite? Well here's what I think:

• Ads - Of course, there has to be ads when it's free. I'm guessing maybe a banner ad at the bottom (text ads are too annoying when creating docs). Worst would be one of those ads where you hover over text, and a ad display pops out. Ugh.
• Most Office 2003 features, with an Office 07' look - The simplish functionality of Office 2003 (or older), with a more modern twist. Some sort of Ribbon-eque look and maybe some new themes.
• Works right in a browser - All you need is a Live ID, and you're info. can work just anywhere there's a browser or Lite program. Full support for IE, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.
• Easy synchronization to Live Mesh - One-click saving to Live Mesh to easily share and collaborate with people.
• Save in the popular Office formats - No more .wks (spreadsheets), .wdb (database), and .wps (processor). Just plain regular .xlsx, .docx, .pptx., and other OOXML formats for better standards.
• Free - Most basic thing of course. Completely free. The only "pro" upgrade is Microsoft Office.
• Integration with other Live services - At least some things. Like the Outlook alternative would probably be Windows Live Mail. Live search box in a corner. Simple solutions like that.
• Add-ons and extensions - Let them be available.
• Lightweight - These are rather simple, so why make it complex?

That's what I basically would hope to see in Office Lite. Any other suggestions?

A bit late, but I'm going to cover Live Mesh. So Live Mesh came out earlier this week. From what I've seen, I would state it as a service where users can easily synchronize their devices, and be able to access most content from these devices.

Nice service, though I'm not particularly interested. Probably because I don't really have a lot of devices worth synchronizing.

Most people have had a positive view on what Microsoft's offering in Live Mesh. Live Mesh isn't just a service, it's a platform. It'll be opened up for a lot of people to work with, and mobile and Mac support is coming soon. I'm not going to bother with screenshots and everything, but I'll hand out some good useful links:

Official Live Mesh site : http://mesh.com/

Basic info. about Live Mesh : http://www.liveside.net/blogs/main/archive/2008/04/23/live-mesh-it-s-everything-we-told-you-about-and-a-lot-more.aspx

First look at Live Mesh : http://www.liveside.net/blogs/main/archive/2008/04/23/live-mesh-technology-preview-first-look.aspx

Find or share Live Mesh invites : http://sharemesh.com/

Mary Jo Foley's list of 10 things she think we oughta know about Live Mesh : http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1355

A new MSR video got on the web, and it's pretty fascinating to see some of the the things that the video shows.

I like to point out Live Mesh, Surface Sphere, and Windows Search. First, Live Mesh.

In the video, you can see some screenshots of Live Mesh. At 3:54:

@3:56:

Interesting, huh? Then there's the whole Surface sphere. @3:08 :

@3:56 :

@3:57 :

Then there looks like a new Windows Search (WinFX?). @1:35 :

Really interesting, eh? I hope that some of the screenshots will be a dream come true sometime soon. Here were other things I thought worth noting:

Social Networking:

WorldWide Telescope:

Others:

   NOTE: The times I posted my not be accurate for this embedded player. The one directly on YouTube has an option to turn on better quality and view in full time. So go ahead, and give it a watch yourself.                                                         

I've always had a strong dislike when a site requires you to enter in a CAPTCHA code to verify you're not a spam bot or something. Why do I not like it?

Mainly because I can't read it sometimes. It's so encrypted that you can't even read it. Then you have to enter in a different CAPTCHA, and then sometimes you have to do it again. It's an amazing waste of time is what it is. Here's an example of one of those stupid CAPTCHA's.

Really, can anyone guess what the code is? I have none. I tried bcqr3 and got it wrong. What a joke. Instead, there's been some newer technologies that do better than this. Such as reCAPTCHA. reCAPTCHA is developed by Carnegie Mellon University as a way to help digitize books, at the same time keeping bots off the sites. The text is much more readable than conventional CAPTCHA's, and has proven to be more safe. It also helps with the book digitization system. Here's a typical reCAPTCHA from Dopplr:

Can you read it? It says now unbeaten. Makes perfect sense now, doesn't it? It also lets you choose another reCAPTCHA just in case you couldn't read this one. There's also an audio option, along with a help button. It's a great solution, and I wish the Live team would go for this system instead of the old way.

There's another way of human verification developed by MSR called ASIRRA. Instead of text, it's images that you have to identify. Like for example on their site, there's 12 pictures, some with cats, some with dogs. You're suppose to hover over all the images, and select them if they're cats. When you select, they get an outline around them. The site claims that systems like reCAPTCHA among others "have a common weakness: they use relatively small image databases". I don't know if this really makes ASPIRRA any safer, but it's just as easy to use. I just wished they would limit the amount of images that comes up (no more than 6 please), and make sure the photos are clear enough to distinguish. Here's a screenshot:

Anything would be better than the usual junky CAPTCHA in the first image.

One game is great and easy to get points, while the other isn't as good and you get very little points.

Matt Lauer is the good one. Even though Matt Lauer, from the Today show, just stands there and doesn't say a word or anything, the games named after him. (personally, I would just call it Live Maps Trivia) So this games utilizes Live Maps and associates geography trivia questions with it. You can pan around the map to help find the answer, or use Live Search (the maps didn't help that much).

You can get up to 20 points for each game. There's usually 4 questions, with 3 multiple choices each. If you get a question wrong, you lose 2,500 points (points in this game aren't associated with Club points). Get it wrong again, and you lose another 2,500 points. (HINT : you can't get automatic Live Search help. You lose points if you press the search icon on the answers).

It's a relatively super fast game, and offers a lot of useful points. Plus users get to try out Live Maps. Here is a screenshot:

Then there's Picture This. It's basically a game to help improve the Live Image Search index. Very similar to Google Image Labeler. They're both similar in that they're both designed to help making the image search experience better. Two users selected at random are suppose to work together to pick the best picture results. Pick the same thing, and you and your partner earn some points. However, they both do it in different ways. On Google Image Labeler (GIL), a picture pops up and you and your partner are suppose to come up with labels or tags that best match with it. Get the same label and you guys receive points.

On Picture This, a search term has been entered and you and your partner pick the BEST picture, from a range of results. Just ONE picture that you think really matched the term. If you and your partner pick the same, you both get some points. Both games last 2 minutes long. Personally, I think GIL is better than Picture This. At least I think it will do better to improve the search results on Google than Live. Because on Picture This, many pictures are generally good at matching the search term, and there are a few bad ones you can report. With GIL, you can help add more tags so that if people search them, they'll find it. That's my opinion.

Anyways, you don't really get a lot of points with Picture This, compared to the other Live Search Club games, but you can send them to charity or use it to earn prizes. GIL is basically Google's way of getting free labor, in exchange for a "game".

Here's some screenshots: