A First Look at Longhorn

The next build of Longhorn is now finished and WindowsDevCenter.com has a nice first look. Longhorn is expected to ship by 2006, but I'll believe it when I see it. I'll probably be using SuSE Linux 12 as my desktop OS by that time...

Whirr bang pop chirp

Ever take you car to the mechanic and try and describe the noise it's making? Then you'll appreciate this link! Engadget has a post about Hitachi recording wav files of hard drives going bad. It's appropriately named "The gentle sounds of a dying drive." Listen, cringe, and enjoy!

Google Press Center: Zeitgeist

The Google Press Center has released the April Zeitgeist. Nice to see that Kill Bill hits #4 on the popular queries list.

Blog reading made easy

Do you follow multiple blogs, RSS feeds, and news sites on a regular basis? At times it can get overwhelming trying to stay on top of all that information. I've waited for a tool that will help organize all this information and make it easier to sort through. I read an article in Wired magazine that mentioned Bloglines.com and decided to give it a try. After using it for a day, I was completely sold on it. It effectively manages massive amounts of data and presents everything in a very readable format. If you only follow a couple of sites, the beta Kinja site is similar, but has a nicer aesthetic. I don't think Kinja could keep up with 20+ news sources, but for 4-5 Ito would be great. Both are definitely worth checking out.

Azureus has a shiny new release

Version 2.1.0.0 of Azureus was released today. It includes a ton of upgrades and some bug fixes. Download, and enjoy! If you're not familiar with Azureus, it's a java bittorrent client. There are versions available for just about every platform.

Gmail Under Fire In California

Cali. Democratic state Sen. Liz Figueroa wants Gmail to scan your email in real-time only, and not keep records or sell your information to other companies. Her bill has been approved by the Cali. senate. I'm not for sure what Sen. Figueroa is fussing about, because Gmail's privacy policy seems pretty straight forward, including the following: "We will never rent, sell or share information that personally identifies you for marketing purposes without your express permission." I don't consider a beta email system such a threat to my privacy -- I know NO email system connected to the Internet will be 100% secure and private.

Grandma's Spyware Tool

Spyware removal applications just jumped the shark. Yahoo is now offering spyware removal tools as part of their free beta toolbar. Too bad it only works for Internet Explorer. I guess anyone that still uses IE probably needs a dumbed down spyware removal tool anyway...