Matthew@MSN : Major News

Announcing Windows Vista - Clear, Confident, Connected: Bringing clarity to your world [rev0]

matthewsoft — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 19:51:00 GMT

I thought I would have to blog about this at the very least - come on, it's Windows.

Well kids, it's not going to be Windows 2006 - that would be too 1990s. Windows Codename “Longhorn” is now going to be known as Windows Vista, the next version after Windows eXPerience, in case you're confused. The news broke yesterday, but Microsoft hadn't made an announcement until this morning. It's clear to me that Microsoft branding/marketing is no longer happy with being the boring old company of the past, instead they want to be like Apple. Well, they have a long way to go and unfortunately a lot of boring old people still use Windows and they don't seem very happy. haha Just kidding to all those who don't like the name, but I think it's kinda neat; then again I can't get enough from marketing. At the very least, if Microsoft didn't create these wonderful crazy names, then what would we have to talk about? Well, maybe about all the children dying of starvation in Niger because of a new famine there, but *sigh* I live in the USA.

Ugh, now I seem kind of jaded - lol, this is what happens when you don't blog enough.

Anyway, Windows Vista Beta 1 is coming August 3 and might RTM [release to manufacturing] May-October 2006. Already people have been registering “vista“ domains like 'microsoftvista.co.uk', 'vistafordummies.com', 'winvista.net' [that Microsoft didn't already get] and even selling them on eBay.

Also, be sure to check out some blogs and news stories for more information:

Microsoft Watch: Longhorn to Be Christened 'Windows Vista'
Robert Scoble: Speculation over new Longhorn name all over the blogosphere
ActiveWin.com: Official Longhorn Name is Windows Vista
Bink.nu: It's Official: Windows Codename Longhorn is Windows Vista! Beta 1 on August 3rd
Neowin.net: Longhorn To Be Named 'Windows Vista'

@Matthew

Microsoft Passport Network 3.0 coming soon... [rev1]

matthewsoft — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 09:16:00 GMT

Some of you may have noticed some new Passport logos last night. Hopefully that means Microsoft Passport Network 3.0 will be launching shortly. Passport will loose the .NET name and focus on being used for mainly Microsoft sites. eBay and others have already removed Passport support from their sites. Although Passport was initially developed as a single sign-in service for the revolutionary web services market, Microsoft soon scaled it back as the Hailstorm initiative failed. Although this doesn't mean that Microsoft isn't committed to web services.

The new Microsoft Passport Network will be much more user friendly, making it easier to manage the information stored in a user's account. MSN Account Services site will be focused on providing an easy gateway to all that information, including marketing preferences, your children's accounts, account credentials, privacy and security.

The upgrade appears to be in progress now, but here's a little sneak peak of the new features and UI [sorry, you have to scroll down when opening the image].

Update [2005/04/27 16:58 -6]: Mess.be has also reported on the new Passport, although they're mistaken on a number of points.

>View "Create a security key" (for strong-credential sign-in).

Security key was discontinued back in the beginning of March and is expected to be redesigned. However, the security key may have been removed for security reasons as Passport 2.5 is upgraded to 3.0. That is to say, that upgrading secure information could in itself be a security risk and the information was deleted to prevent that - part of Microsoft's increase security awareness. Security key is used as additional protection against extremely private information, such as bank statements stored in MSN Money, so most people will not need to set up this service.

>View "Add or change your Mobile credentials" (probably linked to MSN Messenger 7's Offline/Mobile Messaging feature).

Mobile credentials is nothing new and will not be tied with Mobile Messaging, which will still need to be done at the MSN Mobile site. Adding a phone number and PIN to your Passport allows you to easily sign in to Passport on mobile devices. You can also sign in to Passport on a computer with this phone number and PIN if you add @passport.com to the end of the phone number.

And finally the unoffiical MSN Messenger enthusiasts site Messenger Blog is giving a link to one test bed although I would highly recommend that you don't go playing around with it. It's possible to harvest any information in a number of test beds since security is generally not enabled when debugging. Soon enough we'll all be able to play with it.

/update

@Matthew

MSN Messenger 7.0.0777 is released to the public! [rev0]

matthewsoft — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 05:06:00 GMT

Today MSN Messenger 7.0 was finalized and released to the web [RTW] for public consumption. Jeff Wilkes and others have reported being able to get it from the official site, but I just tried and got 6.2, so try the Neowin download link.

Also, MSN Spaces has removed beta from it's name, increased storage from 10 MB to 30, added more themes, announced 4.5M Spaces created, and launched What's Your Story?. However, there will be many more exciting things from the Spaces team later on and eventually more storage as a universal platform is completed.

Press releases:

More press:

@Matthew

PS--Thanks to Paul for most of this stuff.

The NEW Microsoft Network

matthewsoft — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 06:19:00 GMT

Tonight Microsoft officially launched the new version [a/k/a wave 10] of MSN.com. The site loads much faster, emphasizing content and search services more than advertising. With the launch of the new site comes the final release of the more precise, more powerful MSN Search. The new search has been in development since March 2003 and beta since November 2004. The engine is using MSN’s own web crawler [MSNBot 1.0] and Newsbot service that launched back in July 2004. New features include search results in RSS, faster performance and more results from other MSN properties. The search engine is also featured on Microsoft.com now. For more information, visit:

The online tour.
Two PressPass articles, How to Build a Better Search Engine: MSN Launches New Internet Search Service, and MSN Launches New Internet Search Service Designed to Give More-Precise Answers in Less Time.
MSN Search Fact Sheet and MSN Search Answers Fact Sheet.
The quite lengthy MSN Search Reviewer's Guide [helpful tips].
On the MSN Search team's blog.

If you want to be nostalgic, I was still able to access the old search on either IE's Search Assistant or IE's Auto Search, and the old tour is still up [with sound!].

Some press:

NYTimes.com - Microsoft Introduces Its Own Search Service
ClickZ Network - MSN Campaigns For Search Share in Integrated Effort [wow, big ad blitz!]
C|NET News.com - Microsoft kicks off search effort
PRNewswire - MSN Launches New Internet Search Service Designed to Give More-Precise Answers in Less Time [probably more permanent link]
MarketWatch - MSN unveils its new search engine
Geek.com - Microsoft announces MSN Search [guess who commented]

Additionally, the MSN Toolbar Suite [Desktop Search] team has launched a new beta build to address some bugs. More information about the changes can be found on their blog. Also be sure to check out the user testimonials.

Please submit any feedback to MSN Support or the Channel9 Wiki.

Although this means that a number of betas have gone gold, there are more betas right around the corner, like MSN Shopping beta. It’s another much cleaner interface over the predecessor and quite like Windows Marketplace.

Now that MSN has kept me awake when I wanted to go to bed early, I’m going to go crash. Have fun everyone!

@Matthew

PS--I kept forgetting to blog about the v6 updates to Microsoft TerraServer [another play toy in MSN Sandbox].

Update: I quickly added some press links. I see Google's and Yahoo's [Inktomi] stock price going down soon. Also, much thanks to Paul for posting a lot of this!