I've launched two new beta features for Topicala: Topicala Popular and Topicala People. Topicala Popular helps you discover trending content online, similar to Digg or Delicious, by tracking site visitors via an embedded image. Topicala People helps you find people online using hCard microformats. You can get your information on Topicala People by wrapping it in hCards and either including the Topicala image or pinging our server. These features will soon integrate directly into Topicala's main search. Try them out and let me know your feedback!
I've started testing Windows Live OneCare Beta 1.5.1785.18, switching from Windows Defender. While the Protection Plus firewall alerts are helpful, the TuneUp feature feels lackluster. It doesn't provide enough detail about its actions (like during defragmentation) and lacks advanced tuning options I'd expect, especially given Microsoft's SysInternals acquisition. It's good for automating basic maintenance, but the performance hit and limited functionality don't justify a paid subscription yet.
I just got the XNA Beta and had to tweak the template code a bit to get it running on my older machine (Athlon with a Geforce 2MX). I was getting a Device Creation Exception, and it turned out my graphics card doesn't support multisampling on the backbuffer. Adding "this.graphics.AllowMultiSampling = false;" to the InitializeComponent method fixed it. Hopefully, this helps someone else too! (P.S. Hardware donations are welcome! 😉)
I've reinstalled the latest WPF and WCF beta versions and I'm planning to write some blog posts about it very soon. I'm ready to dive back into WPF and share new insights.
I've updated my Opensearch implementation based on feedback from Michael Fagan. Changes include correcting the short name length, fixing capitalization issues, and adding an RSS search URL using Google Blog Search. Unfortunately, full A9.com integration isn't possible because the search engine isn't on my domain. While proxying results is an option, I feel that would be unfair to Google.
IE7 Beta 2 fixes a rendering issue present in IE6 where select boxes would always appear as the topmost element, overlapping other elements like menus. This fix improves the visual presentation of web pages with select boxes. For more details, refer to the provided MSDN blog link. Further testing with CSS styles is pending.
I've previously blogged about IE7 Beta releases, and now it's time for another update! Beta 2 of Internet Explorer 7 is now available for download. Check out the IEBlog post for more details, and stay tuned for my upcoming impressions.
I've just started testing the Sphere Beta Program. While I appreciate the related blogs feature, I find the blog post search results less helpful. When I search for terms like "AJAX", the related blogs are more relevant than the actual posts returned. I'm not sure keyword searches within blog posts are effective for me. I'd love to see features like RSS subscriptions for results, customizable date ranges (e.g., between 2 and 4 months ago), and a "find similar blog posts" search option.
I've joined the Sphere Beta Program and have some initial thoughts. While I find the related blogs feature useful, the blog post search results for keywords like "AJAX" aren't quite hitting the mark. I'd love to see improvements such as RSS subscription options for results, more refined date filtering (e.g., between specific dates), and a "find similar posts" feature.
I uninstalled Google Desktop Search Beta 2 because it was slowing down my computer. I kept the search index, though, just in case I decide to reinstall it later. My computer's speed is back to normal now.
Google Desktop Beta 2 is slowing down my computer significantly, affecting web browsing, IE7 tabbed browsing, and Blogger's editor. It also hogs CPU and makes Outlook integration and IMAP usage very slow. While the What's Hot widget and Gmail integration are nice, the lack of UK news and email ordering issues are disappointing. I plan to uninstall it soon.
I've downloaded the Google Desktop Search 2.0 Beta and I'm liking it so far. My only complaint is not being able to force indexing when not idle. It seems to be lightweight, which is great for my computer. I've installed the Adsense plugin and the Gmail plugin is a plus. The feed detection is excellent, even better than IE7 Beta 1. I'll post more thoughts after I've used it longer.
After using IE7 Beta 1, I've found tabbed browsing, while a welcome addition, has a few quirks. Modal dialog boxes lock the entire browser, not just the tab, which is disruptive. Tabs don't have tooltips, making it hard to distinguish between similar pages. Closing tabs requires going to the far right of the screen or right-clicking, neither of which is ideal. And finally, new tabs don't open to the homepage, which would be a useful option.
I've been exploring the RSS features in IE7 Beta 1 and have a couple of suggestions. First, it would be great if we could add feeds to favorites directly from the feeds toolbar button, rather than having to navigate to the feed itself. It's an extra step when we've already decided we like the content enough to add it. Second, I'm curious about how IE7 discovers feeds on a page. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Is it just looking for a specific link tag in the head section or is there more to it? It seems to struggle with feeds linked via anchor tags. Overall, I'm enjoying IE7 so far, just want to offer some feedback.
I just completed all the questions on Start.com, and they gave me a link to their new beta site: http://www.start.com/myw3b/. It's supposed to be an all-in-one platform for RSS, search, info, and more. I'm really excited about this and the new Google services – they're making websites so much more interactive!
