If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

The folks over at JCXP.net have screenshots and a download of a recent IE7 build.

Had a chance to install and play around with this a little. Definitely a huge improvement over the beta1 i had installed. UI is refined and usable. You can see a lot of Vista in the UI already. New Setting screen, RSS feeds are more usable tho i do not like the way Microsoft took RSS feeds in IE 7. I prefer the Firefox LiveBookmarks method. In IE7, basically you bookmark the feeds XML file and it formats it into a pretty CSS view ala Sage. While the eye candy is here, rendering is completely hosed in this build. Pages like Digg, Slashdot and Meebo are completely useless as they cant be rendered correctly. I realize this will all be fixed but it makes this build useless for daily use. Its nice to see what changes they have made to IE but this is definitely a install for a day or two then uninstall.

read more | digg story

Report: PS3 to sell for $399, cost $494 to make - News at GameSpot

While still awhile away for the next-gen console releases, more and more details are coming out each day. Today is the rumored $399 price tag for the PS3. While its not a huge surprise, it is a little disappointing. With the xbox360 rumored to be $299 and the Revolution to be even cheaper($199?,$249? maybe?) its going to be the first time consoles are going to go head to head on features and hype. All this sounds strangely familiar from 10 years ago. Sega was a dominate force in console hardware at the time and had just released the Sega Saturn. While it sold good in Japan, US has a lukewarm response for a few reasons but one main one was the $399 price tag it carried. Months later Playstation was released by newcomer Sony at $299. Pretty much the rest is history. Sony is now the #1 console manufacture and Sega is out of the hardware market. Will history repeat itself? Guess we’ll know in less than a year.

With this all said, this upcoming battle of console is still light years ahead of what was happening 10 years ago. Alot of people, including myself, believe that the xbox360 is being rushed. I believe the original xbox still has plenty of life left in it. Also the lack of a next-gen optical reader, which brings up another point. Yesterday in an interview, Billy Gates mentioned something about a HD-DVD drive being in the Xbox360 at some point but the initial batches will have just a DVD ROM inside. Does this mean that I will need to rebuy an Xbox360 if I want HD-DVD? Also Microsoft’s E3 showing was a little weak considering the Xbox360 will be in people�s homes in less than 5months. Dev kits were still Alpha, the lack of Perfect Dark Zero, no Halo 3 news, no “system seller” launch title. If you listened to the MS keynote at E3, it was all about Xbox Live which is there strong point at the moment. With the success of XBL, you had to see it coming that the Xbox360 was going to be designed around it. While i see this as a good move on MS part, I really wasn�t feeling all nickel and dimming going on with the Marketplace, Premium Content, and different XBL levels. I don�t know about you but I’m not dropping $300 just to buy T-shirts from VelocityGirl, i want to play video games, not shop Cafepress!

Rumor has it, Microsoft is going to be making changes to there Action Pack subscription for registered Partners. For those of you know don�t know about this unsung gem, basically you register with Microsoft as a partner (free) and pay $299 initially then $199 yearly renewal to get Microsoft’s entire (almost) software library. My best guess is that all you out there who are getting MAPS with lets say… shady credentials, might find themselves getting a stripped down version in the near future or none at all. They are in the process of adding a 4th tier of partners. This 4th tier will be required to complete 1 or 2 Microsoft exams, have a current subscription to MAPS and a few other requirements. This seems to be a two fold decision to weed out the non-legit MAPS users and to separate the registered partners into a more suitable category. Not sure how long until this takes effect but from what I’m told, it would be just a matter of months. So, enjoy those MAPS subscriptions while you can guys.

Microsoft Office Visio 2003 Connector for the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer MBSA

Found this little gem over on Microsoft TechNET. Its a COM plugin that loads with Visio 2003 and it monitors network shapes on the Visio drawing that contain either a network name or IP address. Any shape with these custom properties will display a Smart Tag allowing a network scan using Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer. The shapes will become color coded based on their Security scan so you can see which computers need attention right from your Visio diagram. This is a great tool for Administrators who are having a tough enough time keeping up with all the Service packs and Critical updates that get released.

To create a new drawing for use with MBSA:
1. Start Visio 2003 and from the Choose Drawing Type dialog, choose the Network category and the Basic Network Diagram template.

2. From the Network and Peripherals stencil, drag and drop a Server shape onto the drawing page. After the shape is added to the page you should now see an MBSA menu item on the main Visio menu.

3. With the Server shape still selected choose Custom Properties from the Shape menu.

4. In the Custom Properties dialog fill out the Network Name property with a valid network name and click the OK button.

5. The Server shape is now configured for use with MBSA. If you hover the mouse over the Server shape a smart tag will be visible. This smart tag contains the same Perform Baseline Security Scan menu item that is also in the main MBSA menu.

6. Selecting the Perform Baseline Security Scan menu item from the smart tag menu or the main MBSA menu will display the Perform Scan dialog with the available scanning options.

7. The Perform Scan dialog will list any shape in the drawing that is properly configured for use with MBSA. Select from the list the machines you wish to scan, select the appropriate scan options and click the OK button.

8. During the scan the Status window is displayed showing the current status of the running scan. From this window you can also cancel the current scan by pressing the Cancel button.

9. After the scan has completed successfully, the report window will display the contents of the scan report that was generated by MBSA.

Each scan report is stored in the individual shape and is visible in the Report window when a shape that contains a scan report is selected, this way these shapes can be copied to other drawings and the scan report data will stay with the shape.