Microsoft strikes back? - Windows Live Messenger, Windows Media Player 11, etc

I just installed the latest beta of Windows Live Messenger and Windows Media Player 11. Though I haven't played around with WMP11 yet I should say that Live Messenger is looking good. But one downside - it has tons of stuff I will never use but which still clutter the interface.

After some searching on Google I found A-Patch for Windows Live Messenger - a cool program that strips out many (and I mean many!) unwanted interface enhancements from Messenger. Check out the screenshot that shows my Messenger window after I stripped it down with A-Patch.

And for those that upgraded to Yahoo Messenger 7.5 and got a shock when they saw the bottom ads on the contact list window - there's
a registry fix for that.

And finally about Windows Media Player 11 - it looks very retro-modern but I will have to actually start using it to see if it can be any serious competition to iTunes. Watch this space. :-)

A yawn, Hamachi and Stormy Weather

I awake from deep slumber to post again.. tada! OK I know no one is going to be surprised or even looking forward to this post. Its been a rather whirlwind schedule these past few months and I conveniently shelved my blog during this period. So here's a short post to keep things live.

Hamachi - this is a 'cute' piece of VPN software that is virtually zero configuration required (except to make the necessary firewall settings to allow the Hamachi adapter access). Pretty useful if you want to use the Internet to form a private network (home office use, playing LAN games etc).

Stormy Weather - this is a book by Carl Hiaasen. I just finished listening to it on audible. Its seriouslly comically and the author sure knows how to weave a tale.

Internet Explorer 7 beta preview 2

So I tried the IE7 beta preview 2. It looked OK but caused problems with software that used the ".URL" file type among other things. E.g. if I clicked on a URL in a Yahoo Messenger chat window it opened the Yahoo folder on my hard disk instead of the URL. And some random crashes. Whatever.

And it looks like Microsoft is becoming more psychedelic in the color schemes it uses for its software. The IE7 setup color scheme looked pretty wierd and non-Microsofty. Not to mention news I read some place that said that Vista will have guitar strains as a part of the Windows sound scheme.

Here's an important link - how to uninstall IE7 beta preview 2. And thats what I just did now.

A funny telemarketing call

Here's a quick one. I get a call today from one of those telemarketing companies hawking the next big telephone yellow page service. I could tell right away that she was reading from a prepared script. How you ask? Well she goes like this, "We have been getting a lot of calls asking about Internet service providers in Chennai and we have been referring them to ABC Company in Adyar and XYZ Company in Anna Nagar". The least they could do was actually substitute ABC and XYZ with some real names of our competitors. :-) Oh well, we live in a mechanical world after all.