I initially missed this story last week about recent research that found that those who download music illegally are also 10 times more likely to pay for songs than those who don’t. Thankfully TorrentFreak pointed me to it. The research findings are welcome news I’m sure to all modern day pirates...

For those interested in what Outlook 2010 is shaping up to look like, here’s a few screenshots from the Microsoft PressPass Image Gallery. You may have read our post on Exchange 2010 a few days back. Whilst we were mostly critical of the increasing reliance on email, we also made mention of some of...

I’m getting sick of all the stories that people are writing about this so-called 60% quit rate with Twitter. It’s hit all the news sites by now, and is gaining widespread acceptance. The problem though is that it is unclear what it is based on. Here’s the grab from the Nielsen blog that reported...

I agree with Joe Wilcox and his take on the current position Microsoft finds itself in: a very difficult one. Times are tough. Interesting then, that announcing a drop in revenue last week resulted in an increase in stock price. I’m no stock analyst and I’m not going to event try to understand...

Further to my post yesterday, I thought I’d dig a little deeper into some of the applications taking advantage of the new Facebook Open Stream API (announced on Monday).  This video from CNET is a wonderful demonstration from Microsoft’s Brian Goldfarb where he shows two Open Stream enabled...

It’s a big day of Service Pack Releases from Microsoft, with the following being made available today: Office 2007 SP2 Office 2007 continues to improve with a substantial list of enhancements and fixes. Whilst every product in the Office suite has received attention, the major focus (as we’ve mentioned...

It’s early in the backlash cycle as people come to terms with what Facebook is and isn’t providing via its Open Stream API (and developer Wiki). Check out Xobni and Seesmic for details on some of the early examples of how it can be implemented. ReadWriteWeb however offers a slight lament at how...

One of the things that has made Twitter so popular is its simplicity and the 140 character limit. The reason I’m hardly on Twitter anymore is because it is too simple and has a 140 character limit. Yep, I can happily live with it going mainstream and having @oprah around doesn’t faze me at all (as...

Well this one certainly hasn’t had the hype that Windows 7, IE8 or Windows Mobile 6.5 has experienced. And perhaps you aren’t exactly sure what BizTalk is yourself. You wouldn’t be alone. BizTalk is one of Microsoft’s enterprise tools, and has been powering away for almost a decade. It’s now...

I’m a big WordPress fan. Especially the self-hosted variety (like this blog is). So I’m always excited to see the new stuff coming in future versions. What get’s put into the wordpress.com (or wp.com for the tired-fingered amongst us) hosted versions usually makes it into the self-hosted release...

I’m really excited about the upcoming Windows 7 RC availability (who isn’t?). As the Windows 7 Team blog announced on Friday, it should be appearing on MSDN on 30 April, with the public release to follow on 5 May. I’ll be downloading it straight away, as will millions of others I’m sure. What’ll...

Good to see some credible rumours about Windows 7 being published. May 5 seems to be the day when Windows 7 RC goes public (and hopefully earlier for MSDN and TechNet subscribers). A week later on May 11 Windows Mobile 6.5 might be released (or perhaps not). But before those releases we’ll have Office...

Yep, big title. Big job. Everyone will have an opinion of today’s announcement that Aneesh Chopra has agreed to serve as America’s Chief Technology Officer (see also The Washington Post article). TechCrunch for example doesn’t seem too excited with the choice, and there’s been plenty of discussion...

Yesterday’s news about the clowns at The Pirate Bay being found guilty should come as no surprise. Justice has been done. Sure, many will make hair-splitting arguments about how they didn’t break the law (the letter of the law), but to me it is the spirit of the law that has been upheld (although...

Most of us have a love/hate relationship with email. In spite of all its problems, email is still the main communication mechanism of corporate existence. That’s despite the spam, incessant interruptions and lack of proper tracking functionality. I wonder if you’ve considered how insidious email...

Most Australian’s won’t have had the fortune of seeing Deadliest Catch – it’s a show where a bunch of blokes do blokey things on ships that are always caught in The Perfect Storm while trying to catch crabs. No joke. I’ve seen an episode and thought it was the biggest load of drivel I’ve...

Stories like this (Activist Charged for Inciting ‘Twitter Revolution’) and this (Inside Moldova’s Twitter Revolution) from Wired are always hard to gauge. Are they deliberately trying to be silly, or are they just reporting the silliness of the world? In this case it is hopefully the...

Thanks to those wonderful folk at Soul Solutions I was notified of an update to the Virtual Earth 3D control. You simply head over to Live Search Maps and click on 3D. You’ll be prompted to install the control if you don’t have it already.   But before we go on, a quick gripe first. After...

FriendFeed has had a lot of coverage this week. But then again so has Windows 7, Twitter, TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop, so there’s a chance you may have missed it. When the new FriendFeed beta was unveiled on Monday I was certainly intrigued (in fact so much so that I’ve spent most of the week...

Sometimes I have to wonder. With the SPAM stats growing all the time (Microsoft recently pegged email as being 97% spam – download the report here – the 97% stat is on p12) and the number of communication mechanisms such as Twitter and IM now considered mainstream, I’m beginning to think that...