Bnpositive's Blog

I received this e-mail from Microsoft earlier today announcing Microsoft Office Live is just around the corner:

Microsoft Office Live is just around the corner.
Whether you asked to be part of our beta late last year, or just last week, we want to thank you for your patience. We’ve been working hard to build these exciting new services. We trust you’ll find them worth the wait.

What is Microsoft Office Live?
Microsoft® Office Live consists of three different packages of online services, each designed with the small business owner in mind, that deliver remarkable new ways to grow and run your business online.* The best part – it’s all FREE during beta.**

Microsoft Office Live Basics
Domain name, Web hosting, company e-mail and more
With Microsoft Office Live Basics you can start by claiming your own domain name (for example, www.northwindtraders.com) and, using our easy Site Designer tool, get a professional Web site up and running in minutes. Web traffic reports let you manage your own business Web site without being a Web expert. Company-branded e-mail accounts that match your business domain (for example, [email protected]) helps give your company the professional image it deserves.

Microsoft Office Live Collaboration
Shared Sites and online business applications
Microsoft Office Live Collaboration is ideal for any business where ongoing information sharing and collaboration are essential. Create your own Shared Sites to access and share information – even when you’re on the go – using your company’s own password-protected Web site.^ We also include a variety of online business applications so you can easily manage your customer, project, sales and company information, all in one place.

Microsoft Office Live Essentials
Web hosting, company e-mail, Shared Sites and more.
With Microsoft Office Live Essentials, you get all the benefits of Office Live Basics and Office Live Collaboration, and more. Additional company e-mail accounts with enhanced access features, advanced Web traffic reports, and Microsoft Office FrontPage® software support provide an all-in-one, comprehensive solution for growing and managing your business online.
How will participants join the beta?
Soon we’ll be e-mailing invitations to qualified beta registrants. The invitations will include information on where to go to sign-up, along with a unique product key that lets you access our beta services. So stay tuned for future e-mails from your Microsoft Office Live Team.

Again, thanks for your patience and interest in the Microsoft Office Live beta.

Best Regards,

Your Microsoft Office Live Team
www.officelive.com

Mr. Allen has recently sacked six staff employees from his party boat for drug use. His “rich boy toy” is also widely used by other celebrites and business people. Interestingly enough, he’s also extending his zero-tolerance policy to them as well.

I would guess that most of his concern is over the act itself of having drug use on board, but it also turns out his 303 foot party boat could also be confiscated in ports if drug use is assumed.

Possibly more interesting that that, is Paul seems to have his own spaceship as well:

The Tatoosh is just one of his collections of rich boy’s toys, which include a jumbo jet and a rocket that can carry a pilot and two passengers 62 miles into space.

Source: Paul Allen axes crew in drugs purge on his superyacht on Bink.nu

The fact that Microsoft recently announced it wouldn’t be releasing a second beta candidate to the public for Vista, instead using CTP’s, doesn’t interest me very much.

The article that does interest me though is that Jim Allchin has stated that he would accept a delay of the release of Vista as well as his coincided retirement if the product isn’t up the level he would prefer at the original release date.

The reason that interests me is the fact that I’m sure the blogosphere will be abuzz with comments about Microsoft delaying another release. Yet, if they released on schedule and the new OS has bugs and issues, Microsoft would again be lambasted for releasing shoddy code.

Regretfully, it seems Microsoft can’t win for losing on either front! Mr. Allchin, you release the product you’ll be proud of, we’ll wait!

Source: Microsoft would delay Windows Vista for quality on Bink.nu

Need a quick way to get the product keys listed out of all of your installed software? Check out ProduKey.

ProduKey is a small utility that displays the ProductID and the CD-Key of MS-Office, Windows, Exchange Server, and SQL Server installed on your computer. You can view this information for your current running operating system, or for another operating system/computer – by using command-line options. This utility can be useful if you lost the product key of your Windows/Office, and you want to reinstall it on your computer.

Thanks to Jason Powell again for finding this nugget of joy.

What a great idea. The only way to make it better is if you could choose certain characters and settings to “cartoonify” your chat.

ChatFu: Cartoonify Your IM Chats

Props to Darren at ProBlogger for the heads-up

What is it with all my interesting posts always related to Google? But given the recent activity surrounding the Google iTunes competition, this I felt was pretty fitting. Granted it’s all speculation, but definitely more to news to liven up the discussion.

Google to acquire Napster?

Update: This article on Digg states the original speculation is purely unfounded.

Men Are Just Happier People

• Your last name stays put.
• The garage is all yours.
• Wedding plans take care of themselves.
• Chocolate is just another snack.
• You can be President.
• You can never be pregnant.
• You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.
• You can wear NO shirt to a water park.
• Car mechanics tell you the truth.
• The world is your urinal.
• You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky.
• You don’t have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
• Same work, more pay.
• Wrinkles add character.
• Wedding dress $5000. Tux rental-$100.
• People never stare at your chest when you’re talking to them.
• The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.
• New shoes don’t cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
• One mood all the time.
• Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
• You know stuff about tanks.
• A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.
• You can open all your own jars.
• You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
• If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.
• Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.
• Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
• You almost never have strap problems in public.
• You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.
• Everything on your face stays its original color.
• The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.
• You only have to shave your face and neck.
• You can play with toys all your life.
• Your belly usually hides your big hips.
• One wallet and one pair of shoes one color for all seasons.
• You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.
• You can “do” your nails with a pocket knife.
• You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.
• You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.

No wonder men are happier.

Lot’s of activity in the news and blogosphere over the past few days and week suggesting that Microsoft will shift production focus to the Xbox 360 and away from the original. As someone who would have an Xbox 360 right now if it had been more widely available, I can assure you I’d love to see Microsoft step-up their production of the 360 to meet the demand. However, I don’t see Microsoft ditching the original unit anytime soon.

Sony has continued to make money of selling the original PlayStation right next to PS2 in retail outlets. Not only did they continue selling their old unit, but even redesigned it to give it a fresh look. I believe this is good marketing. As early adopters shift their interest to the newer consoles there will be others who would still like a good, entertaining game system.

The other opportunity that I think Microsoft could take advantage of would be to enable owners of old Xbox units to use them as media center extenders. Consoles that would work in cooperation with the new Xbox 360 and any PC equipped with Media Center.

Article: Microsoft deny end of the Xbox

Microsoft has setup “Live Labs” to partner with various research scientists across various groups. These partnerships will focus on rapid development and research on various web technologies and internet delivery mechanisms.

The Live Labs – a confederation of dedicated technologists and affiliated researchers in pre-existing projects from around Microsoft – will focus on Internet-centric applied research programs including rapidly prototyping and launching of emerging technologies, incubating entirely new inventions, and improving and accelerating Windows Live offerings.

And specifically…

Search Labs will focus on areas such as personalization, socialization and improved user experiences while maintaining strict regard for user privacy. In addition, Chandra’s teams will build technologies for data mining, vertical industries and parametric capabilities to go beyond the search bar experience.

You can see how Microsoft is definitely pushing into the web-based model for delivery for as much as possible. Is this really to directly compete with Google and Yahoo!, or is it just because the future of computing will be based on the network.

One thing I do know is the “Live” everything is already starting to bore me.

Source: Microsoft to Set up Live Labs

Microsoft has completed it’s purchase of start-up, Seadragon. Seadragon was founded in 2003 and develops technology used for high-resolution images.

Seadragon, which was founded in 2003 by former Princeton University researcher Blaise Aguera y Arcas, has developed technology that allows individuals to view and interact with high resolution images. The technology could be used in telemedicine, blogging, mapping, virtual books and other areas, according to the company Web site.

Any guesses on what components of this technology Microsoft is most interested in? Obviously blogging and mapping are popular features in Web2.0. I’m guessing they’ll probably use them for those opportunities, but I think there’s probably something else up their sleeve as well.

Source Article: Microsoft gobbles up Seadragon

The new versions of the Office applications will have another little, but significant UI trick up their sleeves. Jensen Harris calls these “textual separators”.

We’ve all been used to little, simple lines in our drop-down menus and in our browser toolbars to differentiate between the various sections of commands. Have you ever asked yourself though, what would make that even better? The Office12 design team did, and they came up with “textual separators”.

Now, instead of scanning the entire menu list reading all the entries and trying to figure out where the functionality is you need, you can quickly scan the “textual separators” for the group of commands that will solve the problem for you.

Great idea!

More info: A Separate Piece on Jensen Harris’ blog

Side Note: “A Separate Peace” is a great book by John Knowles

Is Google’s new upgrade, Big Daddy, already live and underway? Such is the speculation in a recent article I just saw on Digg.com.

The article is from eWeek and discusses the release of a major upgrade that Google has been working on that addresses issues with network and hardware fixes. The article states that this is unusual in that most development efforts seem to be on new functionality and application and not so much hardward focused. But Big Daddy changed that and addresses some problems that have been needing some attention.

A couple of those problems discussed in the article are related to security via phishing exploits and new indexing functionality with some new spiders that have been showing up on some servers.

What’s your thoughts? Anyone have any inside experience of some of these changes?

Source: Google’s Rumored ‘Big Daddy’ Overhaul Makes Waves