i shuai dot org

MSDN Subscribers can now enjoy Beta 1 of Windows Vista.
Can I get a hoo-ray? No? Okay.
Apparently, you have to be a MSDN subscriber. MSDN is the Microsoft Developer Network, a.k.a. Coding Heaven.
Except, if you are not a MSDN subscriber (I believe MSDN comes with Visual Studio 2003, which is what I have, and I’m almost sure it comes with Visual Studio 2005.) you have to try to…sign up with your passport for it. And it’s not cheap.
Ranging from prices from $199 to $2,799, it just may be so expensive you want to format your hard drive to Linux. (beep)
Or, you can try to get a torrent. Which I’m sure is possible, but I’m not exactly supporting the idea.
I’m sure if you’re that desperate, you’ll wait for the official beta 1 to come out, if there is one. I’m not sure of that…
…or if you’re a torrent dude, you may just get one, I’m sure you torrent guys out there know where to get them.

If you just information, here it is.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/default.mspx would be a site you would get more information. Previously known as www.windowsvista.com.
You can get more information by clicking “For Developers” under “Learn more about Beta 1″.
Alternatively, you can be lazy, and you can click here.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista
Information about downloading Vista and cool visuals are there.

You can get even more information (only a bit, though) by lcikcing “For IT Pro’s” under “Learn more about Beta 1″.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/default.mspx

To view the breathtaking, inspiring vision here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/vision.mspx

Well, that’s that. There was a video, but I’m afraid the low-quality media cannot be found by me…

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 Only Available for Windows.
http://www.dvhardware.net/article4322.html

Microsoft has answered a few questions regarding the launch of Internet Explorer 7:

Platforms. We currently plan to make IE7 available for Windows XP SP2 and later. This will therefore include availability not only for the 32bit version of Windows XP SP2 but also for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 SP1 both of which are due to be released soon. As Dean commented in his original IE7 post on this blog we have heard the requests for support of Windows 2000 but have nothing to announce at this time.

Outlook Express. It’s great to see the questions on Outlook Express which is a separate product team to Internet Explorer and is not part of the IE7 plan. The Outlook Express team is hard at work on great functionality for the new version of Outlook Express, which is shipping with the next release of Windows. There are no plans to ship the new version of Outlook Express before the next release of Windows. The Outlook Express newsgroup is a great place for discussion about that product and to leave feedback for that team.

[Extracted from: http://www.dvhardware.net/article4322.html]
The real article:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/28/382054.aspx

Oh well. Like IE is not a POS for Mac, anyway…

1000 Used Apple iBooks to be sold for $50
If you just happen to live near Richmond, VA or around the area, you’re in luck. If you live farther, this may be a deal you would want to drive to. Or take a plane to, which I don’t recommend.
These iBooks (used) are being sold for $50. Personally, I would get one if I just happened to be in the area, but I’m in Cambridge now. Shoot…
Anyway, this could be a deal someone’s interested in.
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.php?start=0&catid=18&threadid=499705
School Site:
http://www.henrico.k12.va.us/

Family Guy Movie Leaked!
Yes! Just what we needed: some leaked screenshots from the Family Guy Movie!
Alright, it’s only four pictures.
But the question is, where the he11 did this guy get these?

Somehow the uncensored, straight-to-DVD movie has been released to the world of P2P sharing, more than 2 months before the official release date! Mad <3 to whoever did it, and just hope you don’t get caught.

Ah. The P2P community is the one that always gets them…
Well, in case you didn’t click the link above, here it is:
http://www.sandstorming.com/index.php/2005/07/family-guy-movie-leaked-2-months-early-with-screenshots/
Oh yeah, and in case you’re wondering, I’m not supplying the torrent link

Is Flash Over? I don’t think so.
A company called Backbase B.V. has created an application/application platform called AJAX. AJAX is supposed to be a rich internet application maker that would be like Flash. At least, that’s what I thought.
On further inspection, I found that it wasn’t built on a kind of application platform. It looked like HTML and some CSS, with a lot of JavaScript.
On even further inspection of the source code, I found out it was built on XML. Lots of XML. In fact, it looked like it was totally built on XML.
Though the website looked good, I found the “interface” to be slow and the response was a bit delayed.
When looking at the samples, I found that it looked like lots of websites I’ve seen, nothing new.
Is there something I’m overlooking?
http://www.backbase.com/

Skype vs. Gizmo
RandomThink.net posted an article about Skype vs. Gizmo. Sans all the details, it basically compares Skype and Gizmo, including the size of the program, multiple features, price, and other things.
In the end, the author decided that Skype had the slight edge. Read it here:
http://www.randomthink.net/archives/2005/07/08/skype-vs-gizmo-project/

Can Your Printer Identify You?
From this story from the Electronic Frontier Foundation there is a story about if the printer encodes your serial number into paper you print.
Here is an excerpt:

On Nov. 22, 2004, PC World published an online article stating that “several printer companies quietly encode the serial number and the manufacturing code of their color laser printers and color copiers on every document those machines produce. Governments, including the United States, already use the hidden markings to track counterfeiters.” (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118664,00.asp). According to the article, the high fidelity of outputs from color machines to their original documents suggests that counterfeiters can potentially succeed in creating high-quality counterfeited currency and government documents using these machines. At the request of the United States Secret Service, manufacturers developed mechanisms that print in an encoded form the serial number and the manufacturer’s name as indiscernible markings on color documents. The Secret Service and manufacturers would be able to decode these values from the markings and in the event a color machine was used to print a suspected counterfeited document, these values would be used with customer information to discover the identity of the machine’s owner.

[Extracted From: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/wp.php]

The color would be a bright, hard-to-see yellow. See the whole article for more details, plus test sheets and how you can help.
Some people think this would be good to stop counterfeiters, but I think that these companies have just crossed the thin line between valid tracking and privacy-intruding tracking.

The link to it is: http://metaatem.net/words/

I tried my name “Shuai” and got this:

Very cool. On the page, there is open-source source code for the main source code and the js wrapper (spell) source code.

Plus, it has links to the Flickr images.

I have one bone to pick with this though; some of the images are kind of hard to read:

…but it’s a cool tool.

Microsoft named next-gen OS Longhorn to Microsoft Windows Vista. Wow.
I like the Vista name, fresh, cool, and somehow colorful.

Huge Image Preview!

Anyway, the folks from BetaNews apparently knew about this and:
The folks at Redmond have long pointed to the user interface of the next generation Windows release as one of its major selling points. Now, Microsoft has chosen an official name for Longhorn with just that in mind. Enter: Windows Vista.

Word of the new name leaked out late Thursday after Microsoft tipped off journalists and enthusiast sites of an impending Longhorn-related announcement due Friday morning. “Windows Vista” was first mentioned at a Microsoft sales conference in Atlanta, according to reports.

Bringing clarity to your world.

Today we live in a world of more information, more ways to communicate, more things to do. There is more you can do and even more you can discover.

Every day, millions of people around the globe rely on their Windows PC to manage their increasingly digital lives. While familiar tools for managing digital information are powerful, today’s world requires more.

In today’s digital world, you want the PC to adapt to you, so you can cut through the clutter and focus on what’s important to you.

Introducing Windows Vista™

It enables a new level of confidence in your PC and in your ability to get the most out of it.

It introduces clear ways to organize and use information the way you want to use it.

It seamlessly connects you to information, people, and devices that help you get the most out of life.

Bringing clarity to our world!? I think Microsoft needs some glasses!!

There is no formal release date for Vista, but Microsoft is saying “Arriving 2006″. And: 2006 is weirdly Times New Roman. My instinct is that it will change, and it is ready to change.

Beta will be avaliable soon: Beta 1, “targeted at developers and IT professionals”, will be available by August 3rd 2005.

Hmm. Is anybody going to get it? It’s not too far away, August 3rd.
There’s not much information after that. Microsoft not releasing more? We’ll get more…

Damn Terrorist S.O.B.s!!!!
Four more attacks in London today!

At around 12:45, blast hit in central London’s Warren Street tube station, where one man was reportedly hurt and then explosions or attempted explosion were found in two other tube stations and a 26 route bus in eastern London.

Minor explosions occurred on two Underground trains and a bus, leading to part of the rail network being closed down on Thursday.

The incidents were reported at lunchtime on Thursday, exactly two weeks after four bomb blasts in the London transport system!

In the east of the city an explosion blew out the windows of a bus. The driver reported no injuries.

Even though some explosions were not gone off properly,, these terrorists sons of b*hes are at it again!
Only one person was injured this time.

This was the last straw to my dad, my Internet was canceled. Damn! I won’t be regularly posting on the blog, but I will serve invites still, but a bit late (go to library every 2 days). I’ll find a way to get past this.

Second thing. I heard this on G4, I think. Microsoft to buy the Adware giant Claria? I mean, what’s the meaning of this? Oh, the price is $500.
Claria (formerly Gator, makers of Gator e-wallet!) has an anti-spyware pledge. No anti-adware pledge?
One thing is that Microsoft AntiSpyware starts by making the default option when dealing with Claria spyware/adware/malware is “ignore”. Odd, eh?
http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/images/msas-claria-070105.png

What “good” would Claria do for Microsoft?
-Data about surfing habits collected by Claria. (12.1 terabyes in November 2003), and Claria recently claimed to c|net networks that it was 120 terabytes!
-Experience with targeted ads for Microsoft’s software. Like it’s not around the world and more already.
-Rivaling Google.
-As the New York Times (where the story seemingly surfaced) quotes: “…fears the move could bring an outcry as critics portray Microsoft as a corporate Big Brother, trying to track every mouse click on the Web and profit from it.”

Frightening. Microsoft buying a much-sued company. Well, M$ has been sued quite a number of times, so…

Everyone, scan your computer for spyware using CounterSpy (not M$ AntiSpyware Beta) available from www.sunbelt-software.com to remove Claria and hope a. the deal is canceled and b. Claria dies.

Lastly, more Microsoft news. Microsoft is offering Windows OneCare, a “comprehensive PC health service that goes beyond security to take an integrated approach to help protect and care for your computer.” Antivirus, basically. Putting them straight into the Symantec and McAfee battle for Antivirus solutions.

Microsoft on Windows OneCare Live:

Benefits
-Provides a comprehensive PC health service
Windows OneCare helps protect and maintain your computer with an integrated service that includes antivirus, firewall, PC maintenance, and data backup and restore functionality.

-Works automatically to help provide hassle-free protection and maintenance
Windows OneCare automatically takes care of key tasks such as running antivirus scans, updating the antivirus engine and virus definitions, updating the firewall, and running a monthly PC tune-up to improve and maintain your computer’s performance.

-Continuously evolves to help protect you from the latest threats
Because Windows OneCare is a service, you will not need to wait for a new version in order to help protect your system from new threats or to take advantage of new features. Windows OneCare updates itself automatically over the Internet so you always have the latest technology.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/onecare/default.mspx is the link to the Microsoft description page, the real site is
http://beta.windowsonecare.com/. Coming soon to Beta. Not now. Soon. (go Kaspersky)
Now the beta is actually Invitation-only. I will try to get invitations to anybody if I can actually send them out. You need to take a survey to be nominated for the beta testing and then you need to then wait ’till Summer 2005 (….now) for it to activate. Wow.