I’ve got my hands on the pre beta build of Windows 7 which was handed out at PDC, build 6780. The reason for a micro review? There’s no point doing a write up of the new features, what’s changed and what’s not working as it’s been covered all over the place, so I’ll just share my thoughts from what I’ve tried so far and what I do and don’t like.

Hit the link below to read my write up and view some more images

I’m sure all you Aussies out there already know about the Rudd government’s plan to filter out the internet. But guess what, it’s not just for protecting children. It’s been announced that it will be a two tier system, with level 1 being content which is not suitable for children (which internet bill payers can opt out of) and level 2 (which can’t be opted out of) which blocks out illegal content.

It’s fair enough to block illegal content, but realistically where will it end? Will it get to a stage where anything which is controversial (stem cells, abortions, DARKCOLD) or could cause change (startling revelations or things you’re not meant to know) will be blocked out? I don’t want my government deciding for me what is appropriate and what isn’t. I want to protect the internet, and I don’t want to be fed selected news and facts from major media authorities.

It’s not all bad though, for example it will stop pedophiles, terrorists and any other bad people from accessing content. I believe though what they should be doing is going after the people who make the stuff and put it on the internet/share it in the first place, so it doesn’t make it on there. Harsher punishments maybe?

No content filter is 100%, even China’s great firewall. In China all content gets mirrored and sorted through to make sure everything complies, but information can occasionally still get through. We’d need to have a system like China’s for it to work well enough but if we did we’d be living in a very controlled environment. This is also not to mention what will happen to the speeds, with one of the proposed systems reducing speed by 75% (the fastest reduces the speed by 2%). I can’t believe they’re seriously considering this knowing what it will do to the speeds considering how frustratingly slow our internet is at the moment compared to the rest of the world.

In closing, I’m willing to bet it’ll (later in its life) destroy BitTorrent and other upcoming sharing protocols as well (which I use to download Linux ISO’s) because they happen to also get used by pirates. I remember using proxies back when I was in high school to get around internet filters, and I was a teen. People will figure out how to get around it.

You can read more about the plan over at BBC News.

Microsoft decided to be evil and prevent the latest beta versions of Windows Live Messenger and the Live Wave 3 applications from installing on Windows Server 2008. I can understand why they made the decision (hell it’s a server class operating system, not something which typical users should be using) but I still found it annoying. I know there are great alternatives like aMSN but out of principle I figured out how to get the thing installed while running server 2008 x64 (and likely others), and I’ll share it with you.

First thing to do is download resource hacker (free tiny download). We’re going to use it to modify the installer (the only real thing stopping us here; the applications work fine).

Once in resource hacker, go to file -> open. Select the wlsetup-web.exe file (could possibly change later). Now in the left pane open up CONFIG -> CONFIG0 -> 0. Click on the text field in the right pane and hit control+F to search for “os productType” (without the quotation marks). It should now be selected. Simply change the word to the right of it from “workstation” to “server”. Now just above the right pane hit the “Compile Script” button. Now go to File -> Save.

Run the installer and it should work!

Here’s something I hadn’t seen ’til now - an image editor which lives inside the internet browser, though I do love any advancement in cloud computing. It’s pretty similar to an older version of Photoshop, and is something handy to play with if you’re just like me and don’t have access to the delicious new version of Microsoft Paint which will be in WIndows 7.

Click here to have a play with Sumo.

Here’s an interesting video to make you think.

I have to confess how I feel about USB gadgets; a lot of them are complete rubbish. But from the rubbish comes something which is actually useful. Similar to the Nintendo Wii, the USB Webmail Notifier will light up when you have email, but what seals the deal is it can check webmail accounts like GMail or Yahoo! mail.

Check it out via USB Geek.