I just found a bit of an oddity within Windows concerning the Windows Live Call feature of Windows Live Messenger (that’s an awful lot of Windows) and wonder if anyone can shed some light on it.

Basically, Windows Live Call seems to have embedded itself within the ‘New’ menu in the OS for no apparent reason – screenshot below.

Why would someone need to create a call in a folder? Even weirder, when clicked, I get a message box telling me that “Some features may not be available in this conversation”, regardless of whether I’m running messenger or not.

Now, I don’t use Windows Live Call – Skype is far superior – but I’m baffled by the failed attempt at tighter Windows integration. C’mon Microsoft, get with it.

My favourite cross-platform syncing tool, Foldershare, is doomed to die soon.
In its place will spring Windows Live Sync, a tool promising the same great features, and then some.

Click the link below to read the full letter from Microsoft, as it also explains how to prepare for the upgrade, because your libraries will be lost by Windows Live Sync.

Let’s hope this new version’s really something, hey?

[http://www.foldershare.com/syncpro.htm]

I have to be honest – I was impressed by some of the new features showed by Google Chrome and IE8. There I said it! Yup, I was wowed by a Micro$oft product, don’t laugh. However, I swear by Firefox, and was in two minds about switching – why leave the browser I love just for some features, wait, do I choose Chrome or IE8?

After some digging, I found I didn’t have to. Here’s a roundup of the best extensions to have features from IE8 & Chrome in Firefox:

• Accelerators in IE8, those little shortcuts to web services, can be exactly replicated by IE8 Activities for Firefox – remember to install accelerators here afterwards! For the more technical minded, have a look at Operator, which focuses on Microformats to provide a similar – but more advanced – experience; as with the activities, check here to find Operator user scripts. I much prefer Operator and would recommend it, but for simple accelerators, IE8 Activities for Firefox will do fine.
• Webslices manifests as Webchunks in Firefox. How d’ya use it? Just install it, and when you land on a Webslice enabled page, Webchunks will alert you and let you subscribe to it in a special toolbar. That’s all you gotta do! You can easily keep an eye on your ’slices with a click, and the toolbar will change to visually alert you when there’s an update. Have a look at eBay’s Webslice search portal, and StumbleUpon’s Buzz Webslice.
  UPDATE: Webchunks has been updated, with a function now better than the original. You can now subscribe to any part of a webpage, regardless if it’s a coded Webslice or not. Get the latest version here.
• You may think that Chrome’s new tab interface is cool, but the original idea was actually stolen from Opera! To put it into FireFox, check out Speed Dial and Auto Dial, two extensions that work in different ways to fill blank tabs with something useful.
• The smart location bar is better known as the Awesome Bar to us Firefoxians. To add domain highlighting, install Locationbar², and site-specific browsing from Chrome can be put in a more workable form in Firefox courtesy of YubNub LocationBar (read more about how to use YubNub here), or manually add Quick Searches for your favourite sites.
• Incognito/InPrivate mode isn’t exactly reproduced for Firefox (yet), but for now we have Stealthier, an extension that disables certain browser features that leave tracks; it ain’t pretty but it works, for even more protection combine it with Tor and TorButton.
• Whilst individual tab isolation isn’t available yet, we can remove permissions from certain tabs. Tab Permissions will let you selectively remove access to Images, JavaScript, MetaRedirects, Plug-ins and Subframes, so you can take away things that will crash a tab until we get the power to separate tabs.
• Application Shortcuts, a cool feature from Chrome, sounds a lot like Prism, a project from Mozilla Labs which lets users run Webapps right from the desktop. For that streamlined creation in-browser, install Prism on your system, then add the Prism extension (Windows only) or the Spectrum Bookmarklet (cross platform). These webapps don’t get automatic offline functionality like Chrome’s unfortunately, but with Gears you can get offline access to some apps in the browser.
• Like the SmartScreen feature of IE8, which is called Safe Browsing in Chrome? This one’s baked into Firefox! Just pop open the Security Tab in Firefox’s options and make sure the options to tell you if a site is an attack site and forgery are checked. Easy as.
• Finally, Firefox’s download window can be moved into the status bar with the Download Statusbar extension. It’s not as aesthetically pleasing as Chrome’s implementation, but it does the job.

It’s surprising how fast the Firefox developer community has responded to the features from the latest browsers, although some of these features were around before Chrome and Internet Explorer hard coded them in.

Is it possible that Firefox will be able to pull of these features better? How will it affect the browser shares? Stick around to find out.

I fire up MSN as usual, and notice something strange.

A white box is appearing under some of my friend’s Display Pictures, but not others.
It doesn’t do anything when clicked, there are no options, and it just sits there next to the webcam and option buttons.

What could it be? A status box? A new feature? A secondary DP?
I have no idea. Maybe readers or Mess.be can throw some light on it.

Update: Aaron_S has pointed out that it’s an office icon in the 9.0 beta. That still leaves the question, what’s it doing in the current build? What is it’s function?

Update 2: Microsoft say it’s just a bug [http://messengersays.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!5B410F7FD930829E!37203.entry]

Windows command line is weak – it lacks a lot of advanced functions and is generally bloated.
The solution to this is Unix.

However, a lot of people are reluctant to give up their Windows environment for a full blown Unix install.
Fair enough, there’s Cygwin.

However, there’s a way that lets you keep your existing files, user area, and command line, while adding Unix functions. You don’t need to set up Unix to use GNU tools on Windows.

The UnxUtils project is focused on porting useful GNU programs to Windows.
Thinks like wget, chmod, env, sync and many others.

How do we get it?
Just download it from UnxUtils website and unzip it to a folder. Then open a command prompt, navigate to /usr/local/wbin folder, and run the commands by typing them, just as if you were in Unix.

TIP: Extract UnxUtils to C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USER NAME so you can run them straight away from a default command window.

[http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/]

There are many flaws with the Office Assistant. As well as being annoying, it generally just doesn’t help, giving basic tips in an almost patronising way.

I want Office Assistant to actually live up to it’s name.
Office Assistant should be able to process commands given to it in a simple, human language.
It should be able to do things when files, images, and text are dropped onto it.
It should process Outlook Alerts graphically, possibly use Text to Speech.
It should have it’s own set of wizards and tools.
It should be able to search the net for resources too, copyright free ones.

If only Clippy did these things, he wouldn’t be hated as much.

Micro$oft are rolling out a free collabarative tool, which can share notes, calendars, contacts and files.

It works suprisingly well, using Windows Live ID as a login, and you get a fair bit of storage. Admin tools are easy to use and it Sync’s nicely with Office 2007. 

[http://workspace.office.live.com/]

If you’ve tried out Windows Live Mail, or Outlook Connector, you’ll notice that something called “DeltaSync” is used to connect and synchronise Hotmail email, contacts, calendars, and notes. Great! But I don’t want to use Outlook or Windows Live Mail – after a bit of digging, I found the DeltaSync URL.

http://mail.services.live.com/DeltaSync_v1.0.0/sync.aspx

Now what? Open Outlook Express/Mail.app, add a new HTTP account, and punch in this URL.
Simple yeah? Wrong.

It seems that DeltaSync will reject any clients that haven’t been pre-aproved by Microsoft, and at the moment, this list isn’t very big. DeltaSync should be made open, as I’m sure there are plenty of Mac users who want to access their Hotmail in Mail.app or Thunderbird.

I’m a fan of shell scripts, and this guide fulfils my fandom.

It shows how to create a shortcut to the Windows Eject Device dialogue, and how to map it to a hotkey.

Similar to the OS X Ejection key, I’ve found this really useful.

[http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/create-a-shortcut-or-hotkey-for-the-safely-remove-hardware-dialog/]

A while ago I switched to FireFox for two reasons; Google Browser Sync, and the (now obsolete) YouTube HD plugin. I’ve not looked back since, and used FireFox every day.

However, I also love Windows Live Messenger, and I’ve noticed something not quite right.

If I navigate to a web-based part of Messenger – whether it be Hotmail, Spaces, Support etc – It opens in Internet Explorer, regardless of the fact that FireFox is my default browser.

This isn’t on, Microsoft! Let us use whichever browser we want!