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1. Comment - Hubble Space Telescope crashes again, and fix may not come until February

   (Oct 17, 2008 - 9:01 PM)

   Oh come on, Hubble has already surpassed its anticipated life and delivered results beyond imagination. The sad thing is that there's no replacement in sight, instead money is put into the International Space Station, which has taught us little that we did not already know from Mir.
   
   And don't forget the Voyager's are still going, still calling home - but I have to wonder whether we could do that again.
   
   The only reason that Hubble won't get fixed is lack of courage.
   
   But I do wish the US would do something about its finacial systems, their failings are doing far more damage to US prestige than any failings wrt Hubble.
   
   No matter what happens Hubble has to be second only to Apollo 11.
   
   BTW I'm not a US citizen, or an amerigophile. And I think NASA will get it fixed, just like they fixed the camera on one of the Voyager's

2. Comment - The Windows name: Is there special significance to '7?'

   (Oct 15, 2008 - 7:23 PM)

   Surely the question is not what an OS has to do with your cattle, it's what it might do to your cattle

3. Comment - Is Windows 7 slimming down to speed up (development)?

   (Sep 24, 2008 - 4:31 AM)

   "WM a duplicated version of outlook", what utter nonsense!!
   
   Windows Mail(WM) meets a similar need in Vista as does Outlook EXPRESS(OE) on XP, but it is in no way a duplicate. But by your implied definition all mail clients would be a "duplicate of outlook", Thunderbird, Eudora, Pegasus etc
   
   WM is way less functional than OE, no HTML support, no stationery support, no offline help, the list goes on and on. Worst of all is that migration from OE to Windows Mail is a nightmare.
   
   If WM were a "duplicate" in the sense that I think you mean it, then surely it would be easy to migrate from OE to WM, I can assure you its not, for most users its their worse fears come true, yes I know I already said that!!
   
   The exact same deficiencies are found when comparing OE with Windows Live Mail (WLM), and it has exactly the same migration issues. I conclude that WM and WLM are branches from the same trunk, but that trunk could not have been Outlook EXPRESS, the differences are too stark. I suspect the trunk may have been conceived in MS's skunkworks as a Thunderbird knockoff.
   
   Real Outlook is a totally different product, it's part of the Office group of products - it does mail + calendar + task management + hooks into Word, OneNote etc.
   
   There's an awful lot of OE users out there, and unlike WMP and Messenger it manages key parts of personal and small business records. The Live crew must make migration from OE to WLM a lot easier than it is today - they could do worse than to talk with the Office Crew, migrating from OE to Outlook 2007 is a walk in the park.
   
   The only thing I know about Movie Maker is that not even Bill G could figure out how to use it - there's a great email from Bill to the product manager chronicling his woes.
   
   I know quite a lot of people who use WMP for watching DVD's. Is there a Live Media Player - I don't think so.
   
   I'd also jettison Games, HyperTerminal, Paint Brush, WordPad, Calculator, Snipper, Contacts, the resurrected Schedule++ that's in some Vista's and maybe even Notepad.
   
   On the other hand I'd bundle the Office spell checker and open it up for all and sundry to use.

4. Comment - Is Windows 7 slimming down to speed up (development)?

   (Sep 24, 2008 - 2:58 AM)

   leojei - FYI
   
   Dell Australia has stopped loading eval copies of stuff unless you explicitly tick the boxes on your order. But you can't get XP except on a very low end system built from obsolete components.

5. Comment - 'Wave 3' of Windows Live Writer reveals some loose ends

   (Sep 19, 2008 - 5:19 AM)

   The current release version works just fine for me, I'm using it for live and wordpress. I find it easier to use than similar products. It may not have all the features of other products, but nor does it have all their defects and idiosyncrasies.
   
   I'll wait for release product. I was hoping it would use the Office 2007 UI, doesn't look like it tho'.