I was reminded this evening that I had not watched a Cranky Geeks episode in a while. Cool stuff. Check it out.

2008 Archive Shows

05.21.2008: Episode 117: Google Gives User Data to Police, Microsoft’s New Plans for Yahoo!, HP Sets Sights on Teen Tech..

05.14.2008: Episode 116: Is the 3G iPhone Imminent?, HBO on iTunes?, Is Google Paying for Android Support?

05.07.2008: Episode 115: OLPC May Abandon Open Source, Web Attacks Taking Off, Netflix Eyes Set-Top Boxes

04.30.2008: Episode 114: Will Microsoft Bail on Yahoo!?, Mozilla’s Fennec Mobile Browser, Nintendo Vetoes Wii Price Cuts

04.23.2008: Episode 113: Web 2.0 Conference, Ballmer Slams Vista, Are Mac Clones for Real?, iPhone Video Threat

04.16.2008: Episode 112: Blockbuster to Buy Circuit City, Tech Patent Bill in Trouble, Linux Subnotebooks

04.09.2008: Episode 111: Windows 7 On Tap?, Yahoo! Wants a Better Offer, EU Allows Mobile Phones on Planes, 3G iPhone?

04.02.2008: Episode 110: Is Google Catering to the CIA?, Warner’s Proposed Music Tax, Microsoft’s OOXML Format War

03.26.2008: Episode 109: Sarah Lacy’s Take on the South by Southwest Conference

03.18.2008: Episode 108: Japanese ISPs to Ban File Sharers, China Blocks YouTube, Botnet Scams Exploding

03.11.2008: Episode 107: iPhone Open for Business, Anonymous Net Posts Illegal?, FCC May Take On Comcast

03.11.2008: Cranky Enough for Ya?

03.04.2008: Episode 106: Google Aids S.F. Homeless, Comcast will Stop Spamming You–for $2, YouTube to Offer Live Video

02.26.2008: Episode 105: Game Developers Conference Wrap-Up, EA After Grand Theft Auto, Is Microsoft Really Opening Up?, Facebook’s Hiccups

02.19.2008: Episode 104: Hostile Takeover for Yahoo!?, HD-DVD Exits Stage Left, DoubleTwist Defies DRM, An Underwater Car

02.13.2008: Episode 103: Yahoo! Spurns Microsoft, Is Microsoft Doing a Zune Phone?, Is HD-DVD Dead?, 3D Television…

02.05.2008: Episode 102: Google’s Objections to Microsoft/Yahoo!, Is Microsoft Overbidding?, Is Dell Doing a Google Phone?

01.29.2008: Episode 101: Music Provider QTrax in Humiliating U-Turn, Googling for Malware, One in Four iPhones Unlocked

01.22.2008: Episode 100: Macworld Recap, Apple’s Movie Rentals, 40 Hours of Battery Life?, a $2,500 Car

01.15.2008: Episode 99: CES Wrapup, What Will Bill Gates Do Next?, Best Buy Nervous About TV Conversion, HD Format War

01.08.2008: Episode 98: Join John Dvorak for an Intimate Tour of This Week’s CES Show, Plus Vegas Highlights

01.02.2008: Episode 97: Tech Journalism at the Crossroads, The Problem with Blogs, Automating Online News Delivery

Too many devices in your life? Microsoft wants to help you simplify, and on Wednesday it launched a limited technology preview of Live Mesh.
Microsoft said Live Mesh is its new “software-plus-services platform and service that uses the Web as a hub to centrally connect people to the information, applications, people and devices they care about most.” The preview is currently limited to a relatively small number of testers, but a larger beta is expected later this year.

Harder, Not Easier

The platform came about, wrote Microsoft’s Amit Mital on a company blog, following an internal discussion about digital life. The Web is central to Microsoft employees’ lives, he noted, and they stay connected to it through a variety of devices.

“Unfortunately, at least initially,” Mital wrote, “every new device I add makes my life a little harder, not easier.” He said there were many times where he would find that a file was on another machine, or he couldn’t access something because he was offline.

Hence, Live Mesh. It allows devices to work together, data and applications to be available from anywhere, sharing to happen with just a few clicks, and your information to always be up to date and available.

In practice, a user signs up with a Windows Live ID and then goes to a personal Live Mesh page. The user then adds a device to a personal “device mesh,” which allows each Windows device to become “aware” of others. Mitral noted that, in the future, Live Mesh will support the Mac and various mobile devices.

Alternative Delivery Models

After a device has been added, there are a few changes in the device, most notably a new notifier icon in the Windows Taskbar. When a user hovers over the icon, a list of devices, news feeds and folders in the mesh pops up.

A user can, for instance, add a folder to the mesh, which adds it to all the devices in the mesh. A side Mesh Bar is available via Internet Explorer, which provides information on user activities and notifications and allows the user to remain up to date with any changes.

The contents of a folder can also be easily shared with others in a mesh, such as vacation pictures. If someone in your mesh adds pictures or notes to the shared folder, Live Mesh gives you a “News” update.

With Live Remote Desktop, a user can also directly access and control other devices in the mesh from any browser, such as a home PC or from someone else’s PC.

Live Mesh is part of Microsoft’s attempt to reposition itself, said Mark Margevicius, a research director with industry research firm Gartner. Just as it did when the Internet first hit, he said, the company “fears becoming irrelevant in the future IT world.”

The new platform could become one of the alternative delivery models for IT, he said, adding that Gartner has predicted that a variety of such models will emerge. Although Microsoft is in a unique position to leverage legacy systems for such an alternative model, Margevicius said he “won’t be surprised” if other companies offer similar platforms.

Source: CIO Today

Users don’t care about the difference between rich Internet apps and desktop apps. They just want software that is simple to use no matter where you lead them.

Dejan Cancarevic posted his most used CSS tricks on his blog, StylizedWeb.com. You might want to shoot over there and check them out.
1. Rounded corners without images.
2. Style your order list.
3. Tableless forms.
4. Double blockquote.
5. Gradient text effect.
6. Vertical centering with line height.
7. Rounded corners with images.
8. Multiple class name.
9. Center horizontally.
10. CSS drop caps.
11. Prevent line breaks in links, oversized content to brake.
12. Show Firefox scrollbar, remove textarea scrollbar in IE.

If you don’t read any other blog articles today (besides this one!) read Steve Rubel’s The Future is Web Services, Not Web Sites.

 He speaks of brand messages on the Internet expanding beyond just a single website image. The constellation consisting of many satellite sites involving social community profiles will represent the brand as importantly as today’s main website.

Here’s a bit of critical information as an introduction to Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008. Start the research now. We’ll be having more conversations very shortly. Thanks.

Windows Server 2008, with its built-in Web and virtualization technologies, enables you to increase the reliability and flexibility of your server infrastructure. Learn how new virtualization tools, Web resources, and security enhancements can help you save time, reduce costs, and provide a platform for a dynamic and optimized datacenter. Powerful new tools, such as Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS7), Server Manager, and Windows PowerShell, allow you to have more control over your servers and streamline web, configuration, and management tasks. Advanced security and reliability enhancements, such as Network Access Protection (NAP) and the Read-Only Domain Controller, harden the operating system and protect your server environment to ensure you have a solid foundation to build your business on.

Webcasts
Watch these 90-minute Windows Server 2008 webcasts and learn how your organization can leverage the enhancements in Windows Server 2008. Tune in for live webcasts and stream or download webcasts for on-demand viewing.

Virtual Labs
Try out Windows Server 2008 during a virtual lab. It’s simpleno complex setup or installation is required. You get a downloadable manual and a 90-minute block of time for each module, and you can sign up for additional 90-minute blocks anytime.

Podcasts
Stream or download these TechNet audio podcasts onto your favorite podcast software or mobile device. These podcasts are free and do not require registrationjust click, listen, and learn about Windows Server 2008.

Get more info at the Windows Server 2008: Web, Virtualization, Security, and a Solid Foundation for Your Business Workloads website here.

The 4th beta of the Firefox 3.0 browser was released Monday and includes more than 900 enhancements over the previous beta.

Mozilla said the new beta includes improvements to performance and memory usage, fixes for stability, and platform-specific enhancements. Some of the enhancements include a new download manager to make locating downloads easier; a full page zoom feature that allows you to zoom in and out of pages more easily; and integration for Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux that features platform-specific icons, buttons, and other user interface elements.

Get the beta 4 download here.

BeetTV.com interviewed Marc Mercuri, a Platform Incubation Team Architect at Microsoft recently on Tafiti. Tafiti is an experimental search product which combines the companys Live Search offering with its Flash competitor, Silverlight. According to Microsoft, Tafiti, which means do research in Swahili, is designed to help people use the Web for research projects that span multiple search queries and sessions by helping visualize, store, and share research results.

Primarily Microsoft seems to intend Tafiti as a means of showing off Silverlight and indeed, Tafiti has a gorgeously slick front end. Search results occupy the main portion of the frame and the right hand side holds a shelf where you can save search results via drag-and-drop.

On the left is a carousel which allows you to cycle through the various search result options Web, Images, etc which can also be saved. All of your saved search results can be shared through Windows Live Spaces.

Very cool video demonstration.