Tim posted about Live.com saying why he 'doesn't' like it here.

Here's my take on the topic.

While Tim sees 'no compelling reason' to use it. I think I've found a few...

I do agree with Sean that it live.com makes a great homepage; while this depends on how you customise it
here is why it works great for me.

Live.com allowed me to group a lot of my online usage in one place; which saves space and memory!

Here's how:

Every morning here are some of the things I tend to do online

- Check my email accounts
- Read blogs
- Read news from several news sites
- Check the weather
- View stock information
- Search for stuff online

Using live.com  I managed to group most of the above in one place.

And here's why.I dont have to open Sauce Reader to read blogs;open news sites in several tabs/browser windows to check latest news for each ..etc
I also dont have to open hotmail...

The advantage in the bit above that you get from live that I can see 'parts' of each section before I decide to read news so that if there's nothing new; then I just wont read...

So overall it does reduce work by having things grouped.

The things I dont like about Live.com
-------------------------------------
- It's slow; on broadband it takes more than a 5 or so seconds to load!
- The above become more of a problem with more usage! The more I like live.com the more I'll add stuff to it the slower it becomes :-(
- I also dont like the current UI - The previous one (where you could customise border colours was much better IMO
- I REALLY would like to be able to access ANY email account I have through live and not just Hotmail.

It's been a while since I last posted but here I am posting again. I've deliberately delayed posting till I get something done (which I still cant do) but now decided to post anyway.

I've been using Windows Vista now since build 5308 was out and as I mentioned in some of my previous posts I am generally very happy with my experiences. Recently I've tried to setup WinFX, VS 2005 ...etc on Vista and here is where I am having some very annoying issues.

I can get WinFX working just fine on Vista but ASP.NET just doesnt like me, on build 5308 I failed several times to get IIS7 installed but after I installed build 5342 this has not been the issue and I ran into another problem. Windows Vista just wouldn't allow me to run aspnet_regiis even if I am logged on as Administrator stating an access denied error - anyone know how to fix this?

Also, trying to build any ASP.NET app in VS on Vista always returns a 'Error loading config file ....'

I was hoping to get all these sorted before I post, but I looks like this wont happen.

Any pointers appreciated.

And on a side note; I've recently started another blog on Geekzone which I aim to keep focused on security related topics so drop by there if you are interested in security stuff...

Following this

Apple have just released a piece of software that allows people to run XP on their intel based machines.

All future versions of the Mac OS will include this software.

More details here

While working in Visual Studio yesterday I accidentally hid the tabs that show the open files, and couldnt figure out how I did that or how to reverse it. With a bit of looking around in the Visual Studio menus (after failing to find an answer in google) it turns out that I changed the environment settings from Tabbed to MDI.

To get this back to what it was the solution is, go to Tools->Options, click on Environment then General and select the tabbed option.

I read in The Press yesterday that ICANN will be meeting in Wellington from 25-31 March and that one of the things that will be in discussion is the registration of the .xxx domain extension. Apparently the Bush Administartion is trying to stop the realization of this domain extension. For the following reason.

"Over 6000 people made their objects by either E-mail or a letter. They are afraid the new .XXX domain extention will legitimize the porno industry."

I'm not sure what legal consequences the realization might cause but IMO having the extension available will really make things better. The porno industry will exist regardless of it being legal or not and content will remain available on the internet. So by having the extension made available, perhaps this could improve things in the following.

- A new law could be created to make it illegal to have adult content in any non .xxx domain
- Given the above occurs, all adult content will have to exist under the above extension
- Given that becomes the case, it will be very easy to block adult websites hence resulting in a safer internet for kids ...etc

Not long ago I installed a copy of the Windows Vista Feb CTP sadly though, my graphics card was not good enough to show the aero graphics, I've been enjoying using Vista a lot lately and just couldnt resist not having the AERO graphics, so I went and got myself a nice new card, and finally, I can now see the AERO UI, very very nice!

You can even choose your favourite color theme, adjust the intensity, enable or disable the transparent glass ...etc

Very cool. Here's a screenshot illustration...

It looks like Chris Auld has started his live blogging from Las Vegas for  MIX06. Keep an eye on his blog for live info on whats going on there.

Here's his first post and I'm sure there's more to come..

Ok this was known to be possible, but it wasnt known how. Well now a solution has been posted, you can find it here

Nice! Here's a picture showing XP on Mac

I dont know how long this has been the case, but it looks like Windows Live Mail beta is now available no non US residents. I've signed up for this a while back and received my invite today.

- I can now enjoy a hotmail account with 2Gb space, nice, wont have to worry about downloading my messages every now and then now.
- It integrates very nicely with Windows Live - I really like the grouping of services that Windows Live does. My wish tho is that Windows Live would allow you to plug in other email accounts to it than just hotmail, this will be very handy if it happens I think.