Slashdot Mirror

College Student writes "Microsoft has officially unveiled 'Origami', a paperback-book sized portable hybrid (laptop & PDA). From article: 'The new machines will connect wirelessly to the Internet and carry full-sized hard drives, but they are not intended to replace current PCs....The new PCs are expected to sell for between $599 to $999, but Microsoft said it is possible to sell one for $500 if the manufacturer selects components carefully.'" More details at the official Microsoft site, and via Channel 9 a look at the system with the UMPC general manager.

spyrochaete writes "Microsoft has just made available their latest beta preview build of their Internet Explorer 7.0 web browser. New features such as tabbed browsing and RSS subscription are summarized in an animated tour. MS welcomes feedback at the Internet Explorer 7 newsgroup." There's also a Channel 9 interview available, as well as commentary on the IEBlog. Update: 01/31 19:58 GMT by Z : prostoalex wrote in with a link to a review of the release at PC Magazine.

spyrochaete writes "Microsoft has just made available their latest beta preview build of their Internet Explorer 7.0 web browser. New features such as tabbed browsing and RSS subscription are summarized in an animated tour. MS welcomes feedback at the Internet Explorer 7 newsgroup." There's also a Channel 9 interview available, as well as commentary on the IEBlog. Update: 01/31 19:58 GMT by Z : prostoalex wrote in with a link to a review of the release at PC Magazine.

Ruliz Galaxor writes "IEBlog posts that Internet Explorer 7 will support a native XMLHTTPRequest object as many other browsers currently do. This will mean no more ActiveX MSXML objects to implement AJAX functionality. It looks like Microsoft is seriously trying to make the lives of us web developers easier. Of course you'll still need to use the Microsoft.XMLHTTP ActiveX object if you want to support IE6 and older."

brainstem writes "Recently, King Crimson founder, guitar master, and all around eccentric musical genius Robert Fripp spent a few days at the MS Campus recording soundscapes for Vista. Fripp, who has been at the forefront of electronic guitar composition for more than 35 years, first using analog tape delays, then with digital effects. He infused his unique brand of Frippertronics on the MS crowd. The Channel 9 site has posted a 25 minute video, chronicalling the event. Now I guess I finally have a reason to leave the default Windows sounds enabled."

brainstem writes "Recently, King Crimson founder, guitar master, and all around eccentric musical genius Robert Fripp spent a few days at the MS Campus recording soundscapes for Vista. Fripp, who has been at the forefront of electronic guitar composition for more than 35 years, first using analog tape delays, then with digital effects. He infused his unique brand of Frippertronics on the MS crowd. The Channel 9 site has posted a 25 minute video, chronicalling the event. Now I guess I finally have a reason to leave the default Windows sounds enabled."

bariswheel wrote to mention an episode of 'Going Deep' on Channel 9 which takes a hard look at the architecture of Windows Vista. From the post: "Rob Short is the corporate vice president in charge of the team that architects the foundation of Windows Vista. This is a fascinating conversation with the kernel architecture team. It's our Christmas present to all of the Niners out there who've stuck with us day after day. This is a very candid interview." Topics discussed include the history of the Windows Registry, and the security/reliability of Microsoft's upcoming operating system.

tlhIngan writes "From a developer's blog, Windows Vista will no longer support DVD-ROM drives that do not handle region coding in hardware (RPC1 drives) - thus preventing playback of DVDs that are region/CSS encoded with those drives. Not a big problem, as RPC1 drives haven't been officially manufactured since 2000 (and Microsoft claims their drives are all broken), but for those with hacked drives (RPC2 with RPC1 firmware), or move the RPC1 drive to new computers, well, no more DVD movies for you!"

sylverboss writes "The Microsoft Team RSS blog is reporting that IE7 is adopting the RSS icon used in Firefox. They all agreed that it's in the user's best interest to have one common icon to represent RSS and RSS-related features in a browser. The increasing collaborative efforts between the browser vendors in the last few weeks is an honest attempt to create a standard Web interface for everyone, no matter what browser is used."

sylverboss writes "The Microsoft Team RSS blog is reporting that IE7 is adopting the RSS icon used in Firefox. They all agreed that it's in the user's best interest to have one common icon to represent RSS and RSS-related features in a browser. The increasing collaborative efforts between the browser vendors in the last few weeks is an honest attempt to create a standard Web interface for everyone, no matter what browser is used."

teslatug writes "Channel 9 has an interesting video interview with Chris St.Amand and Jeff Stucky who test and debug Microsoft.com. They reveal some of the big problems they used to face such as recycling processes every 5 minutes due to memory leaks and 32 bit limitations, and being unable to push more than 10 Mbits of data to their datacenters due to Windows' networking stack limitations."

JRiddell writes "Security developers for the four major browsers recently met together to discuss Web security. The meeting, hosted by Konqueror's George Staikos, looked at future plans to combat the security risks posed by phishing, ageing encryption ciphers and inconsistent SSL Certificate practise. IE 7 is one of the first browsers to implement some of the ideas discussed such as colour coding location bars and an anti-phishing database." From the article: "The first topic and the easiest to agree upon is the weakening state of current crypto standards. With the availability of bot nets and massively distributed computing, current encryption standards are showing their age. Prompted by Opera, we are moving towards the removal of SSLv2 from our browsers. IE will disable SSLv2 in version 7 and it has been completely removed in the KDE 4 source tree already."

JRiddell writes "Security developers for the four major browsers recently met together to discuss Web security. The meeting, hosted by Konqueror's George Staikos, looked at future plans to combat the security risks posed by phishing, ageing encryption ciphers and inconsistent SSL Certificate practise. IE 7 is one of the first browsers to implement some of the ideas discussed such as colour coding location bars and an anti-phishing database." From the article: "The first topic and the easiest to agree upon is the weakening state of current crypto standards. With the availability of bot nets and massively distributed computing, current encryption standards are showing their age. Prompted by Opera, we are moving towards the removal of SSLv2 from our browsers. IE will disable SSLv2 in version 7 and it has been completely removed in the KDE 4 source tree already."

lastberserker writes "The first official beta of the next MS Office is out. PC Magazine already has review with screenshots. Check these blogs for more details on new UI, new file format, and the killer app; plus much more in your friendly neighborhood Wikipedia." From the PC Mag review: "Instead of the cluttered, hard-to-navigate interface that sprouted up haphazardly over the past 20 years, Office 12 introduces a new interface based on tabs that organize sets of functions under headings such as 'Write,' 'Page Layout,' and 'Review,' plus a combination toolbar-and-menu called the ribbon, which displays a different set of icons and menu items depending on the tab selected, and displays different sets of icons depending on whether you're working with text, graphics, tables, or other kinds of data."

lastberserker writes "The first official beta of the next MS Office is out. PC Magazine already has review with screenshots. Check these blogs for more details on new UI, new file format, and the killer app; plus much more in your friendly neighborhood Wikipedia." From the PC Mag review: "Instead of the cluttered, hard-to-navigate interface that sprouted up haphazardly over the past 20 years, Office 12 introduces a new interface based on tabs that organize sets of functions under headings such as 'Write,' 'Page Layout,' and 'Review,' plus a combination toolbar-and-menu called the ribbon, which displays a different set of icons and menu items depending on the tab selected, and displays different sets of icons depending on whether you're working with text, graphics, tables, or other kinds of data."

lastberserker writes "The first official beta of the next MS Office is out. PC Magazine already has review with screenshots. Check these blogs for more details on new UI, new file format, and the killer app; plus much more in your friendly neighborhood Wikipedia." From the PC Mag review: "Instead of the cluttered, hard-to-navigate interface that sprouted up haphazardly over the past 20 years, Office 12 introduces a new interface based on tabs that organize sets of functions under headings such as 'Write,' 'Page Layout,' and 'Review,' plus a combination toolbar-and-menu called the ribbon, which displays a different set of icons and menu items depending on the tab selected, and displays different sets of icons depending on whether you're working with text, graphics, tables, or other kinds of data."

GraemeDonaldson writes "According to this IE Blog entry, Microsoft seems to be serious about supporting non-IE browsers. Mention is made of a Windows Media Player plugin for Firefox. The Windows Genuine Advantage validation process now works in Firefox too. From the article: 'Basically, customers said "We want to make sure our PCs are running genuine Windows and have access to all the content on the Microsoft Download Center; the experience when we're running a Mozilla browser is not great. Do something about it." Brad's team did. I think that's a good thing for customers.'"

DJ-Dodger writes "The Microsoft Blogs are all buzzing with news that the .NET Framework 2.0, Visual Studio.NET 2005 and Sql Server 2005 have released to manufacture. Michael Swanson's blog has a nice run down of what's available now and what's coming. The short version: MSDN Subscribers can download everything now, everybody else can pick up their copy after the November 7th launch." The .Net framework is downloadable from FileForum.

DJ-Dodger writes "The Microsoft Blogs are all buzzing with news that the .NET Framework 2.0, Visual Studio.NET 2005 and Sql Server 2005 have released to manufacture. Michael Swanson's blog has a nice run down of what's available now and what's coming. The short version: MSDN Subscribers can download everything now, everybody else can pick up their copy after the November 7th launch." The .Net framework is downloadable from FileForum.

parry writes "Microsoft announced today at the MVP summit that Office 12, the next version of Microsoft Office, will have native support for the PDF document format. Support will be built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, OneNote, Visio, and InfoPath." From the article: "Currently, on our OfficeOnline site, we are seeing over 30,000 searches per week for PDF support. That makes a pretty easy decision"

In honor of Microsoft's 30th year, Epeeist writes "The BBC is running a Have Your Say article on Microsoft at 30." From that article: "Microsoft will always adapt and buy into other areas to keep themselves at the top. They're the company everyone loves to hate." While they're reflecting, most people are focusing on the now. teslatug writes "Brian Jones, a Microsoft PM on the Office team, has just confirmed that the new default XML format of Office 12 is not compatible with the GPL. Brian believes that LGPL may be compatible, but others have raised issues about the ability to redistribute." Relatedly, shades66 writes "Microsoft's Alan Yates tripped over his own words in responding to the Massachusetts Information Technology Division's late-August declaration for OpenDocument and other open software standards." For some more colourful commentary, smooth wombat writes "John Dvorak has written an article for MarketWatch in which he postulates that the reorganization by Microsoft is actually a prelude to its breakup into three separate entities."

spongman writes "Channel9 has a video of Anders Hejlsberg demoing C# 3.0. The new language enhancements include implicitly typed locals, extension methods, strongly-typed lambda expressions, anonymous types, and LINQ - a builtin SQL-like syntax for data access. The spec, samples and a working compiler can be found on MSDN."

Robert writes "Microsoft finally released more information about their Sparkle product on a Channel 9 MSDN video. Sparkle is vector based XAML system for doing applications that may have traditionaly been done in flash. Ars Technica's Josh Meier has a few things to say about it, too."

Mouldy Punk writes "Infoworld is reporting that WinFS Beta 1 has been released. The new relational file system for Windows is posted on MSDN Subscriber Downloads. This release is designed to offer developers a preview of WinFS capabilities. WinFS will be in beta when Windows Vista ships and will RTM afterwords. WinFS, when it ships, will be available for download for Windows Vista and possible support for Windows XP is being considered. The distribution mechanism for WinFS will be through an add-on download much like the .NET framework is today. Tom Rizzo also notes that there is a new blog dedicated to Win FS."

prostoalex writes "The Computer Science Department at the University of Virginia has published a comparative study of security in Java and .NET in Portable Document Format. DevMktg blog on MSDN summarizes the findings saying that due to careful design process, .NET presents security advantages over Java platform in several areas." From the article: "Where Java evolved from an initial platform with limited security capabilities, .NET incorporated more security capability into its original design. With age and new features, much of the legacy code of Java still remains for backwards compatibility including the possibility of a null SecurityManager, and the absolute trust of classes on the bootclasspath. Hence, in several areas .NET has security advantages over Java because of its simpler and cleaner design."

Bill Hilf, Microsoft's Linux Lab Manager, got his answers to your questions back to us in time to publish them just before the San Francisco LinuxWorld, where he is speaking. Before you ask: Yes, Microsoft PR had a look at his answers before he sent them. So if you have any follow-up questions for Mr. Hilf, please post them below and I'll try to ask at least a few of them in person at LinuxWorld. 1) Start with the obvious
by Raul654

Dear Mr. Hilf - Surely by now you have to have been accused of helping Microsoft try to exterminate Linux. How do you respond to such accusations?

Bill:

I get that occasionally, you bet. But usually after I explain what I'm actually doing, it helps clear up the conspiracy theories (of which, there are quite a few). The truth is my job is to help Microsoft have a clear, unbiased and knowledgeable understanding of Open Source Software (OSS): the technology, the development models, how the community works, the pros and cons, and the mechanics of the overall process. So, no, Microsoft is not out to exterminate Linux or Open Source, Linux and Open Source Software will continue to be part of the software industry. My job is to help Microsoft have an understanding of the Open Source technology world.

In fact, Microsoft has benefited from OSS, has participated in OSS projects, and feels that OSS will continue to have an important role in the ecosystem. Both commercial and open source offer specific advantages. And several development models can and should coexist in healthy competition. After many years of working in both environments, a mantra I've seen pay off numerous times is "choose technology to fit the need" not based on a belief or religion: in other words, if the software doesn't solve the problem in a cost effective way, belief and religion won't stop the IT guys' cell phones and pagers from ringing at 2 AM, and that goes for *any* technology, regardless of the development model.

2) Open Standards
by Oriumpor

How does Microsoft internally deal with Open Standards and Open Document Formats?

I suppose more generally: In your testing is it solely relegated to Linux in the Server role, or do you address End-User issues as well?

Bill:

We are interested in all sorts of distributions, commercial and non-commercial, of Linux and we test many types of Open Source software overall.

We are very active in helping our product teams test out their open standards implementations. For example, we are currently doing this with Windows Server R2 (a release of Windows Server due out later this year) and its support for NFS and NIS. In a broader answer to this question, Microsoft strongly supports the promotion of open standards. Microsoft's participation in standards bodies such as IETF, W3C and OASIS, and our royalty-free contributions of technology to Web Services standards supports this commitment.

That said, Open Source does not equal Open Standards. It surprises me that this is an issue that(some) people still don't really comprehend. Let's break it down:
* The term "open standards" describes the results of a process for establishing uniform technical specifications (when used in the broader sense);
* While the term "open source," by contrast, refers to a software development and licensing model.
* Open standards may be implemented by software developed under any development and licensing model - non-OSS and OSS alike.

The VCR is a good example of a standards-based product that allowed any video tape* to play on any player - providing a marketplace of competitive VCR implementations, competitive tape media suppliers, and commercial opportunities.

*go ahead, someone say "Hey, but what about Betamax?" - but you get my point.

3) Penguin Aid?
by deathcloset

No doubt one of the activities of microsoft's linux lab is testing the security of linux.

My question is this: if you find a security vulnerability in linux, do you inform the linux community about it?

Bill:

We definitely look at security technologies in OSS in general, including Linux, but we do not actively do security code audits on Linux/OSS. We do occasionally stumble on bugs by accident in various products, and we always email the parties concerned, and it's up to them to do the right thing from that point on.

Let me give you some examples. Michael Howard, one of our security gurus here at Microsoft, has come across some issues in some projects, such as Apache.

As a company, we strongly believe in and encourage responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities. The practice of reporting vulnerabilities directly to a vendor is beneficial to everyone. It helps to ensure that customers receive high-quality software updates for security vulnerabilities, without exposure to malicious attackers while the update is being developed.

In my team's day to day work, we have discovered bugs and submitted fixes upstream. For example, the smbtorture test suite included with Samba had a bug that we identified. We provided a backtrace to the developers, and it was fixed and committed.

We also found some problems with the GAIM Instant Messaging client. GAIM's MSN via HTTP feature didn't work. The bug was noticed by our team because we had a real need for MSN via HTTP on our Linux desktops. So we fixed the issue and submitted the patch upstream.

4) Can Microsoft Ever Give Us Free As In Freedom?
by nurhussein

We've heard a lot about MS having a lower TCO etc., and who knows it may even be true in some cases, but does Microsoft realise that the reason some of us are on Linux is for the "Free as in Freedom" part? This may matter not to the PHBs, but some of the Linux users MS is trying to court such as HPC consist of engineers and scientists who operate things like particle accelerators and are unfazed by the "complexity" of Linux and appreciate the freedom to be able to customise it to their needs?

Can Microsoft ever be as liberal with their operating system as Linux developers are with Linux?

Bill:

Great question, and as someone who has spent time in the academic world as well as in the HPC world, I very much understand your point.

There's always a trade-off between modularity and integration, or said another way, there is always a balance between the ability to customize anything and everything and the ability to deliver a consistent, tested and supported software solution to a broad base of users.

This is not a Windows vs. Linux thing but more of a software design issue. The key is realizing that there's a continuum of possible trade-offs. With increased integration you have certain advantages and disadvantages, and conversely with increased modularity you have other advantages and disadvantages. As an operating system designer, you can pick where you want to be on this modularity/integration spectrum.

Microsoft has found that pursuing a balance, rather than one extreme, is a successful approach that fits the needs of our users and customers in a broad and effective way.

For the global software ecosystem, the best environment for innovation is the coexistence of OSS and commercial software. There is a good review of this successful interaction between software models here.

We try to provide the transparency and flexibility you describe through our Shared Source program. The Microsoft Shared Source Initiative is a range of programs and licenses to make Microsoft source code more broadly available to customers, partners, developers, governments, academics and other people who are interested. Shared Source now serves more than 1.5 million developers through source code access programs. What surprises most people when I tell them about our Shared Source program is that 99% of the >70 programs have full redistribution and modification rights.

5) Stranger in a strage land
by winkydink

Doesn't working at MS isolate you somewhat from the OSS community? What do you do to keep your OSS perspective and skills current?

Bill:

Believe it or not, I use more different types of OSS here at Microsoft than I've ever used before. Our team uses over 40 different flavors of Linux and BSD, plus several commercial Unix variants. Beyond this, we use an ever-growing number of OSS applications. In my spare time, I'm even learning some stuff about Windows J

I also interact with the OSS community and am in contact with many people in the OSS development community from all sorts of different projects. It's important to keep open lines of communication. We may not always agree, but the dialogue is always open and friendly.

6) Why doesn't Microsoft release Microsoft Linux?
by amper

The subject says it all (mostly).

One of the primary reasons Linux is somewhat inferior to commercial offerings when considered as a general-purpose desktop operating system is that there is a lack of a single guiding human interface standard for the various groups to work toward. Companies such as Apple Computer and Microsoft have invested large amounts of money in human interface studies, and although much of this information has been made readily accessible to the public, it would appear that very little of that information has been put to good use by F/OSS developers.

With Apple using the BSD branch of software as its operating system core, do you see a future for a Microsoft-branded Linux distribution, using a Microsoft-developed HCI design?

Though there is a large amount of enmity in the F/OSS community toward Microsoft, it cannot be denied that Microsoft's development methods are demonstrably capable of producing quality software. Could Microsoft serve as a catalyst for consolidation within the community, while remaining true to the F/OSS philosophy? Could such a strategy be profitable for Microsoft?

Bill:

Without question, our strategic bet is on Windows. Windows Vista and Longhorn mark the threshold of our next wave of innovation. This might sound a bit like an 'I drank the Kool-Aid' type answer but I've seen what we've built and are in the process of building, and I've seen what we're architecting. Our developers are creating products and technologies that are redefining what is possible with software. It's an exciting time to be at Microsoft.

But you raise a good point, which is: can there be a positive reciprocal relationship between Microsoft and the OSS development community? I strongly believe the answer is "Yes" and I spend a lot of time trying to help this relationship mature. There is a great amount we can learn from one another, and we have just begun to explore the potential of this relationship.

7) Samba
by miltimj

Is one of your projects to assist in analyzing Samba source code to help coworkers better understand the SMB protocol?

Bill:

This is not something we do, but as I mentioned above, we do use the smbtorture test suite in our labs and we do test for Samba interoperability.

8) Execs trying Linux?
by unsinged int

Have you ever managed to get any of the big shots (for example, Gates) to sit down and try Linux for a few minutes? If so, what did they say? If not, why not? Did they have an allergic reaction and try to run away from you, or have you not asked?

I think it would be interesting to hear the opinions of people at Microsoft who actually have tried Linux (with KDE, OpenOffice, Firefox, etc.), versus the standard "Linux is evil" public relations line.

Bill:

All of our executives see and occasionally use non-Microsoft technologies. This is certainly going to get me flamed, but the Microsoft executives I have worked with are typically very technical, sometimes extraordinarily so. They grasp new technologies very quickly. Sometimes they say "Hey, that problem was solved five years ago - is that it?" -- other times they say "We've got some work to do". I personally have not had an experience here where someone said 'Linux is evil!' Microsoft is a company with deep roots in technology, so most people here approach technology - our own or others - with a technologist's curiosity and interest. Easily one of my favorite things about Microsoft is its culture of curiosity about technology and its potential.

9) Windows Services for Unix
by dtfinch

Microsoft has long offered Services for Unix free for download to provide a unix-like environment on Windows. I've seen rumors and speculation that SFU will be included by default in Windows Vista, with some GPL'd portions replaced or rewritten to maintain compliance. If it's true, what level of functionality and compatibility can we expect?

Bill:

You should attend my LinuxWorld session this week J

I can't confirm what functionality will be in what version of Windows Vista. However, I can confirm that the next-generation of several components of Services for UNIX are being integrated into Windows Server 2003 R2. The NFS client, NFS Server, User/Name Mapping, Telnet Server & Client, Password Sync and NIS Server components of Services for UNIX are all present in the Windows Server 2003 R2 builds. In addition, a revamped POSIX subsystem, the "Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications" or "SUA" is also available as an optional install in R2.

Integrating this functionality in Windows Server 2003 R2 provides native support of cross-platform management tools, Windows/UNIX interoperability and UNIX to Windows application portability. This is a big help for many of the customers I talk to and something I will demonstrate at my LinuxWorld session this week.

10) Beat em or Join em?
by jdehnert

Having been in IT a looong time, I'm pretty familiar with all of the major players.

All of them have their +'s and -'s, but one of my biggest gripes about Microsoft is that instead of trying to leverage OSS, they continually try to crush or marginalize it. Over time I find myself less and less likely to consider a Microsoft solution because I know that over time Microsoft will try and make that solution less interoperable with all of my other solutions.

Microsoft would sell more software to me if I could be sure that they are NOT going to try and lock out all of my other platforms going forward.

Given your current position, does it look as if Microsoft will continue to try and marginalize OSS, or will they do an about face and work to try and ensure ongoing interoperability?

Bill:

If there's one thing that I'd like people to take away from this interview, it's that we can, and should, cooperate and learn from one another.

We love to write great software. One thing Microsoft knows well is the art of 'co-opetition' - competing and also cooperating. Both Microsoft and OSS technologies will continue to be around. We can compete - and competition is healthy - but just as important, we also need to cooperate and make sure that we pursue interoperability as a common goal. We need to be comfortable doing both, simultaneously. We need to have an open, mature relationship.

The key to making this happen is to have open lines of communication. If someone in the OSS community runs into a technical interoperability problem with Microsoft products, I want to know about it. In many cases, we'll be able to do something to resolve the issue. There may be a solution that already exists. Or the problem could be related to an issue that might need to be addressed by one of our product teams. But at the very least, I'll try my best to help and give you a straight answer.

One of my first demos to a high-level executive involved showing some standards-based Linux/Windows interoperability scenarios. I expected to receive an "If it's not built here, then I don't care" kind of response.

To my surprise, his reaction was the opposite: "This is good--we should do more of this type of thing." And I've seen this commitment from many others here at Microsoft, in a variety of roles. At the end of the day, we want software to "just work" too. That's what great software is all about.
If you'd like to contact me directly, I can be reached at billhilf at microsoft dot com.

------

brajesh writes "Chris Wilson has posted on IEBlog about the Standards and CSS in IE7. According to the post, "In IE7, we will fix as many of the worst bugs that web developers hit as we can, and we will add the critical most-requested features from the standards as well. Though you won't see (most of) these until Beta 2". Further,"we will not pass this (Acid2 browse) test when IE7 ships.""

brajesh writes "Chris Wilson has posted on IEBlog about the Standards and CSS in IE7. According to the post, "In IE7, we will fix as many of the worst bugs that web developers hit as we can, and we will add the critical most-requested features from the standards as well. Though you won't see (most of) these until Beta 2". Further,"we will not pass this (Acid2 browse) test when IE7 ships.""

brajesh writes "Chris Wilson has posted on IEBlog about the Standards and CSS in IE7. According to the post, "In IE7, we will fix as many of the worst bugs that web developers hit as we can, and we will add the critical most-requested features from the standards as well. Though you won't see (most of) these until Beta 2". Further,"we will not pass this (Acid2 browse) test when IE7 ships.""

gdsotirov writes "Today on the IE blog the availability of two new beta tests - Windows Vista Beta 1 and Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1 - was announced. These tests are mainly targeted to developers and IT professionals. Thus the betas are only available to MSDN subscribers. Tom's Hardware has details as well." From the article: "While the code also includes an early look at the new user-interface design, the majority of end-user features in Windows Vista will not be included until Beta 2. In addition to these fundamentals, Windows Vista Beta 1 also includes the Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1 built into the platform. The technical Beta of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP SP2 also is available today." Any early thoughts, MSDN subscribers?

pHatidic writes "Something strange is a brewin' at Microsoft these days. Check out this video interview with Kim Cameron, Microsoft's Architect of Identity, about Kim's Laws of Identity." From the post: "We have undertaken a project to develop a formal understanding of the dynamics causing digital identity systems to succeed or fail in various contexts, expressed as the Laws of Identity. Taken together, these laws define a unifying identity metasystem that can offer the Internet the identity layer it so obviously requires. They also provide a way for people new to the identity discussion to understand its central issues. This lets them actively join in, rather than everyone having to restart the whole discussion from scratch."

prostoalex writes "Robert Scoble interviewed Steve Ballmer on the topics of blogging, innovation at Microsoft, Microsoft's work with developers and other things. Video is available in WMV format." From the interview: "Did IBM out innovate us? I don't think so. I don't think they've done much interesting at all. What about Oracle? I don't think they've done much innovative at all. What about the open source guys? Ah, the business model is interesting but we haven't seen much in the way of technical innovation. People cite Google. Google has done some interesting stuff."

prostoalex writes "Robert Scoble interviewed Steve Ballmer on the topics of blogging, innovation at Microsoft, Microsoft's work with developers and other things. Video is available in WMV format." From the interview: "Did IBM out innovate us? I don't think so. I don't think they've done much interesting at all. What about Oracle? I don't think they've done much innovative at all. What about the open source guys? Ah, the business model is interesting but we haven't seen much in the way of technical innovation. People cite Google. Google has done some interesting stuff."

Suddenly_Dead writes "Microsoft's new command line shell, MSH or Monad, has entered the beta phase. Channel9 Wiki has information on how to download this (complete with Guest ID), and other related info."

RzUpAnmsCwrds writes "According to an MSDN Channel 9 interview with an Office file-format developer, the next version of Microsoft Office (Office 12) will default to newly-developed XML file formats in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The new formats will apparently include XML files along with other files (images, etc) inside of a Zip file. Microsoft will also be providing extensive documentation of the new format to the public through MSDN. The developer likewise announced that Microsoft would be releasing updates for Office 2000, XP, and 2003 to read and write the new formats when the new version of Office is released. If this interview is correct, it could mean the beginning of the end of Microsoft's proprietary file formats." Coverage at Beta News, Information Week, and the Washington Post.

RzUpAnmsCwrds writes "According to an MSDN Channel 9 interview with an Office file-format developer, the next version of Microsoft Office (Office 12) will default to newly-developed XML file formats in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The new formats will apparently include XML files along with other files (images, etc) inside of a Zip file. Microsoft will also be providing extensive documentation of the new format to the public through MSDN. The developer likewise announced that Microsoft would be releasing updates for Office 2000, XP, and 2003 to read and write the new formats when the new version of Office is released. If this interview is correct, it could mean the beginning of the end of Microsoft's proprietary file formats." Coverage at Beta News, Information Week, and the Washington Post.

Yankovic writes "Looks like MS will not support IE7 on Windows 2000. 'It should be no surprise that we do not plan on releasing IE7 for Windows 2000... [S]ome of the security work in IE7 relies on operating system functionality in XPSP2 that is non-trivial to port back to Windows 2000.' While security fixes will still be available until 2010, I guess that means the only browsers with tabs for W2k will be Opera and Firefox." All the details about an MS product's fall into senility available at the lifecycle page.

GraemeDonaldson writes "Another member of the IE dev team, Tony Schreiner, has revealed details of IE7's tabbed browsing implementation including the fact that the user will retain control over how tabs are handled." From the post: "Regarding script, there is no "target='_tab'" feature or any direct access to tabs from script beyond what is available with multiple windows today. We are working on balancing the default behavior for whether a window opened from script opens as in a new frame or a tab. Currently, windows that have been customized, such as hiding a toolbar or making the window non-resizable, will default to opening in their own standalone frame, whereas ordinary pop-up windows will open in a new foreground tab. CTRL-clicking and middle-clicking links will open those links in a background tab."

GraemeDonaldson writes "Another member of the IE dev team, Tony Schreiner, has revealed details of IE7's tabbed browsing implementation including the fact that the user will retain control over how tabs are handled." From the post: "Regarding script, there is no "target='_tab'" feature or any direct access to tabs from script beyond what is available with multiple windows today. We are working on balancing the default behavior for whether a window opened from script opens as in a new frame or a tab. Currently, windows that have been customized, such as hiding a toolbar or making the window non-resizable, will default to opening in their own standalone frame, whereas ordinary pop-up windows will open in a new foreground tab. CTRL-clicking and middle-clicking links will open those links in a background tab."

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has alerted users that Netscape's latest browser appears to break the XML rendering capabilities in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Dave Massy, a senior programme manager for IE, warned users in a blog posting that after installing Netscape 8, IE will render XML files as a blank page, including XML files that have an XSLT transformation. What a week for Netscape 8.0; first the browser needed several fixes hours after its release, then it was discovered that without IE installed, Netscape 8.0 will not install, and now IE needs Netscape uninstalled to work."

theodp writes "On Tuesday, Microsoft was granted U.S. patent no. 6,895,426 for treating electronic mail addresses as objects, which Microsoft notes allows email addresses to be easily added to a contact list, copied to the computer's clipboard, or double-clicked to open the related contact information for that email address sender. After the reaction to news of his first patent, betcha inventor Dan Crevier isn't too eager to let folks know about this one."

loconet writes that early yesterday morning, "Dean Hachamovitch, IE product unit manager, confirmed that IE7, like Opera and Firefox first did years ago, will have tabbed browsing as one of its new features. Asa Dotzler,from Mozilla, points out that Dean reminds IE users who have not upgraded to XP that tabbed browsing can be added to IE through 3rd-party add-ons." cryptoz adds a link to this InformationWeek story which says that the tabs will be very "'basic' due to fears from Microsoft that tabbed browsing might scare off too many users. The feature is only being included because IE is slipping in the browser share market."

Tim writes "With Beta 1 of Longhorn less than two months away, Microsoft is looking at a new marketing tool to help promote its new Windows: bloggers. According to BetaNews, Microsoft's "Team 99" evangelism effort will be composed of bloggers that will become Microsoft's voice to the masses. Robert Scoble said Team 99 was once secret, but has been revived and Microsoft is now accepting nominations. It's nice to see Microsoft recognizing the power of blogs, but the move is likely going to draw accusations that Redmond is trying to buy off bloggers to hype Longhorn."

Brandon writes "Over at the official IE Blog, Sam Fortiner has posted some very detailed information regarding Alpha PNG Rendering in IE7. From the article: 'As the dev who implemented the support, I can state that it was neither a bug-fix nor did it require a re-write of the display engine. Instead, it ended up being somewhere in-between the two and required what I would call "feature work." Implementing transparency support for PNG images required a significant amount of modification to the image decoding and display pipeline in IE along with a significant amount of new functionality added to the PNG decoder.'"

Brandon writes "Over at the official IE Blog, Sam Fortiner has posted some very detailed information regarding Alpha PNG Rendering in IE7. From the article: 'As the dev who implemented the support, I can state that it was neither a bug-fix nor did it require a re-write of the display engine. Instead, it ended up being somewhere in-between the two and required what I would call "feature work." Implementing transparency support for PNG images required a significant amount of modification to the image decoding and display pipeline in IE along with a significant amount of new functionality added to the PNG decoder.'"

Brandon writes "Looks like the IE team is trying to catch up to some of the major OS browsers. They have finally added proper PNG support and have fixed numerous CSS bugs. The full post is on The Official IEBlog." From the post: "We're doing a lot more than this in IE7, of course, and we're really excited that the beta release is almost here - we're looking forward to the feedback when we release the first beta of IE7 this summer. Stay tuned for more details as we get closer to beta."

An anonymous reader asks: "Microsoft's Channel9 forums now support handwritten and hand-drawn comments. The ink comments are displayed as GIF images so anyone can see them, but to add your own message you must use IE and either a Tablet PC or have the Tablet PC SDK installed. Apparently Microsoft is going to make the source code available for the new feature so other sites can add ink support too. Will we be seeing more ink enabled forums in the future, or is Channel9's ink a novelty that will soon be forgotten?"

sriram_2001 writes "In a major hiring coup, the MSN Search blog announced that Yahoo's head of Research and Development, Dr.Gary William Flake has now joined MSN. According to Oshoma Momoh, General Manager, MSN Search, Dr.Flake will be 'responsible for bridging the innovation happening between Microsoft Research and MSN and for setting the technology vision and future direction of the MSN portal, web search, desktop search and monetization engine.' Dr.Flake is also the first person to be directly hired as a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer, an elite group that has Dave Cutler and Anders Hejlsberg among other luminaries"

naylor83 writes "Four weeks ago, Opera's CTO Håkan Lie put forward the Acid2 challenge to the IE developers at Microsoft. The Web Standards Project has now silently published the promised browser test. Somewhat surprisingly, both Opera and Firefox fail to correctly render the test page. Obviously though, they're no where near as lousy as Internet Explorer. More screenshots are available at my blog, as well as at other people's."

sriram_2001 writes "Dave Massy, a Microsoft employee who works on the Internet Explorer team has a response to the Mozilla Foundation's Mitchell Baker's comments. Specifically, he responds to the claim that IE is a part of the operating system. 'IE is part of the Windows Operating System so that parts of the OS and other applications can rely on the functionality and APIs being present. To be clear there are no Operating System APIs that IE uses that are not documented on MSDN as part of the platform SDK and available to other browsers and any other software that runs on Windows..'