Microsoft Windows Live Messenger Beta

Screenshots

 

Atlast in the form of Windows Live Messenger, we can send offline messages to MSN users. As usual, the UI is great and attractive. And it can only sit on top of Windows XP.

 

 

Microsoft Windows Live Mail Beta

First I want to thank my good ole friend Suresh, for giving his Hotmail ID for me to try Windows Live Mail Beta.

For a couple of months, I was reading many blogs & news about Microsoft Windows Live Beta usage. Even I have registered for a Beta testing Live Mail, HOTMAIL didn't send any invitation till now. But I have got a invitation for Windows Live Messenger. So now Im using my friend Suresh 's Hotmail ID to have a feel on this. Since then Gmail offered its email Service in a AJAX model, Yahoo & MSN also converting their legacy web based email system to AJAX based. Not only these AJAX applications are fast, they also give a liveliness to the user. 

Like Outlook Webaccess (Exchange Server), we have Windows Live Mail in 3 Panes.

Just a single click shows the message in Last Pane, & a double click closes the Second(Middle) Pane & makes the third one bigger, which is easier to read mails with large text content.

When we request for a process (clicking a message etc.,) we can see a small box with a message (intimating us)
"Working on your request....", which is like "Loading....." in Gmail.

Rich Text Box Editor in Windows Live Mail

Unlike Gmail Rich Text Editor, Windows Live Mail Editor supports automatic spell check. There you can see kiruthik, asdasd, underlined. But note the word Suresh(which is my friends name) is not Underlined. Even in MS Word, when you register the product in some name, it won't add that name into dictionary!! But its here!! Cool na  

Listing Address Book

Right Click in Windows Live Mail

Also, the mailbox size is made to 2GB.It was previously 250MB for a US Resident, 8 times more. Im using Windows Live Custom Domains, which will captues mails to your-domain based email (mail@kiruthik.net, etc.,) & its simple to setup. Just we have to change the MX record!!

Update :

Even I have got the invitation, but I have deleted the mail without reading the subject!!! So, this will also suit in My Stupidity column.

Now, I have 40 invitations to Windows Live Mail,  which can be sent to email Ids associated with my Windows Live Custom Domain registered mails!!!

Few days before, Google announced its Google Talk integration with Gmail, and now its ready to use. This is a nice idea of integrating Gmail & Google Talk called Chat. Also, it will be good in places like office where messengers are not allowed. Nice UI as well.

New column like Quick Contacts showing friends who are online in Google Talk

When we click on the contacts, it will open a small frame to start conversation. Or, if you move the mouse over it, it will just open that contacts' detail.

A small window like frame with two buttons in the bottom

Go off the record will not save the conversation, and I think its not necessary to say about Block senthil <user>. The pop-out is to make the window a new page, without disturbing the current one.

The new message is placed with a Orange color head.

Also, when we opt to save the history it is getting saved immediately. You can see it there in the above image.

Minimized Chat Window within the Gmail Page

We can minimize the chat window like what we can do in Meebo, e-messenger.net the web based messenger alternatives.

Cute, light weight smiles and small icons.

We can expect both MSN & Yahoo 's new webmail based in AJAX to have the similar feature.

Now search giant Google offers a new service in Gmail, which will help us to view the Chat(text) conversations inside Gmail.

The chat logs can be viewed & searched, like emails and also it can be sent as email. Even we can move the message to Inbox, we can add a star etc. This new feature of google has to be enabled to before use.

So I enabled it few hours before and tried to archive it. Its cool

In my Google Talk (gmail) account, Im connected to very few people, & hence im not using it often. But I can say that its very simple & low resource hungry application when we compare it with Yahoo Messenger & Hotmail.

I used to save all the Chat conversation in Yahoo. The main difference between both is : In google, the chat conversations are stored in Gmail Account, and in Yahoo it is stored in the PC where you are using the Messenger. So, we have to enable archiving in Yahoo each time we re-install the messenger / we loggin in different machine. Also in Yahoo its is saved in Profiles folder in Yahoo installed directory with a .dat extension and its encrypted. The best about Yahoo is you can send offline message, but not in Google.

Update : Now Google Talk supports Offline messaging, which is also saved in the Gmail.

IBM, the industry giant is also ready to give its UDB DB2 for free. Last year Microsoft offered, SQL server 2005 Express Edition  without any charge. Also, Oracle in the same time offered its 10g Express Edition for free.

Database giants set their basic version for free, which is mainly due to the free & open source databases like MySql, Postgre SQL etc.,  Basically I work in Microsoft Technologies/Products, but for certain things I still use MySql. Also many hosting companies provide Windows hosting with free MySql database. Even Sun lets its source out & making Solaris 10 free to download. 

So, now a days people are more interested in going for free packages rather closed source / paid softwares. In 2003, when I was working in Indian Red Cross Society, New Delhi, I used to meet many people across the globe & who are from non-IT field talking about free softwares. And now many people here in India prefer free / open source products. In general, students are very much interested in open source softwares, so these are the main reasons for the giants to let their basic versions for free.

A Trip to Vedanthangal

Last weekend myself with Senthil Raja, Arun, Prathap, J Prakash went to Vedanthangal. Actually we planned to Vandalur zoo, but, I saw in some TV Channel a day back that Vedanthangal 's season is going to end, so extended the route to see the birds. Vedanthangal is around 80 kilometers from Chennai / Madras (from thiruvanmiyur). We started here at around 2 pm, and reached there by 3:30 pm in bikes.

Vedanthangal, one of India's largest bird sanctuary, spreads around 75 acres of water & a bit land, which is a bushy with trees, ideal for birds to nest. Water mold covers most of the water surface, so the unclosed area is full of fishes & toads. We saw many birds, and none of us are bird watcher so we don't know the name, but we saw many birds with long-bills.

But, the main problem we faced was, we had nothing to zoom, even we neither had binocular nor SLR cameras. There was small 50 meter outpost-kinda  building, which had a binocular which is zoomed to particular area & was given 15 seconds by the sanctuary people to the visitors watch. But there were many foreigners with big sized SLRs & binoculars, enjoying!!!

My new camera Canon Powershot A610 was used to take the above snaps. And the time was around 3:30 it was bright sunny, so every object illuminates...

Update : Just today, (08-Feb-2006), I saw in Sun TV about Vedanthangal and it was good to see, the birds closely. Even some birds where feeding their young ones. and some with Eggs. So, go with a binocular or a SLR camera.

Update : Now you can rent  a binocular in Vedanthangal!! That too for Rs 10 / hour.

 

My Canon Powershot A 610

Two weeks back I bought Canon Powershot A 610 Digital Camera. Sony Mavica FD-73, was my old camera which I used hardly for a year in 2000, which was a floppy disk model and it can hold only 10 images in one media. Later, my cousin Sudhan with whom I roam a lot, had few cameras, and also  Canon PowerShot S410, so I had no intension of buying a digital camera. And the truth was I want to sell my Sony Mavica FD-73 before buying a new one.

But, last year  I was interested in buying a new camera, so I started searching and reading many reviews. I always recommend Canon, Sony & Nikon cameras. So, I selected  Sony DSC-W5, Nikon Coolpix 5600, Canon PowerShot D450 & Canon PowerShot A610 in October. From then, I took nearly two months to select Canon PowerShot A610.My budget was around 300$. But in a good deal we can get this for even 225$ (with a Dell.com coupon). Here in India, the price is around 16,500 INR (around 350$).

And memory card I have 256 MB SD which is not even sufficient for a one day shoot. So Im planning to buy a 1GB SD Elite Pro Kingston from Buy.com

Specifications :

5.1 Mega Pixels
4x Optical Zoom
4x Digital Zoom
ISO Rating : Auto, 50, 100, 200 & 400
Focus : Auto & Manual
Exposure compensation : -2 EV to +2 EV in 1/3 EV steps
2.0″ vari-angle color LCD with up to 10x playback zoom
Program AE, Shutter-speed priority, Aperture priority and Manual modes
Shutter speeds : 15 seconds to 1/2500 second
Inbuilt Microphone & Speaker
and more...

Canon Powershot A 610 is bit bulky, & its difficult to keep into your shirt pocket, but still the size gives you better result!!

Canon Powershot A 610 Back side View

Back side View with Credit Card (to Compare)

Canon Powershot A 610 compared with my Credit Card

Canon Powershot A 610  Side View showing the USB, AV & power supply port.

Top view of Canon Powershot A 610 with Minimal Zoom

Also, I will post more photos soon, & Im planning to write a review soon

Create username / ID with a dot in Yahoo

Email ID / Username of Yahoo, the web giant can have alphanumerics, with underscore ( _ ) the only used special charachter. But, now they have included dot (.) as a part of their username / id  special character list. The best of all is if you have a yahoo Id before you can then integrate it with the new one, means you can have two username pointing to the same mailbox. Cool    Click here to integrate your existing account with another one. 

If you have a yahoo mail Id like : kiruthik_kumar then you can also create kiruthik.kumar pointing to kiruthik_kumar. Even you can change the primary account to the new one. Also you can login with that!!!

Gmail gives an option to send mails from any email Id provided that is a valid one. (Its very much different from Yahoo's work)

The main difference between the Gmail and Yahoo in this regard is :

Yahoo Supports only one mail Id (that must be also a yahoo Id) both sharing the common mailbox.

Gmail supports any number of email Id(regardless of domain), but its for outgoing mails only. (Even not possible to get mails from your other gmail account/username into one.)