Interesting that Microsoft have taken an entirely different approach to their version of street view. They also appear to be using is as an income generator with advertising playing a major part.

Street Slide: Browsing Street Level Imagery.

Unbelievable (or is it!!) that STILL security flaws in IE from version 5.01 upwards!!

MS delivers emergency IE fix • The Register.

Interesting. Internet Explorers market share takes a tumble since Microsoft gave uses a choice!  See  Quantcast Blog.

Very useful article with some top tips.

via Windows 7 Tips: 19 Tricks to Tweak Windows 7 To Work Your Way !! – Windows Live.

In a bid to lure Google users Microsoft are to have a UK television advertising campaign. Personally I cannot believe it will make much difference and to me is a complete waste of money by Microsoft.

Microsoft launches first UK TV advertising campaign in bid to attract Google users – Telegraph.

They say that impersonation is the highest form of flattery and that is exactly what Microsoft are warning about with a piece of software calling itself Microsoft Security Essentials.

Microsft says that Security essentials 2010 software will instal fake virus scanner then monitors and blocks processes it does not like. It will block access to antivirus and malware websites claiming then to be dangerous.

For more information see For more information see Microsoft Malware Protection Center : If it calls itself “Security Essentials 2010”, then it’s possibly fake, innit?.

Microsoft is extending its connector system. Its original incarnation simply allowed connections to web based mail systems. Integrated into the new Office 2010 (available in June)  and available as add-on to Office 2007  comes a new Outlook Social Connector (OSC). This will allow content from social network sites to be viewed directly from within Outlook.

The first connector already available is for LinkedIn which  lets users view details and photos of contacts from the site within Outllook. It also pulls in updates from the social networking site to keep contacts up to date and allows you send e-mails directly. OSC is to be extended later this year to include Facebook and MySpace.

A feature that is useful when these connectors are installed is that when viewing ANY e-mail Outlook extends the window to display other activities with the person who sent the e-mail. For example these include other mails, attachments, meetings etc.

For more information see the links below:

Outlook Social Connector this is a pre-requisite

http://www.linkedin.com/outlook

Note: All downloads are currently beta versions

Following a sudden disk crash a number of months I decided to review my whole configuration, storage and back-up strategy.

C:\ – 200gb boot drive running Windows 7 purely used for OS and installed applications

G:\ - installed a raid controller  with simple configuration of raid 1 across 2 512gb SATA drives. This is my home directory holding all documents, development code, photos etc

I:\ – external 512gb SATA used for daily synch’s using SyncToy. This utilises a CNM HDD docking station accessed via eSATA allowing me to swap in additional disk drives.

L:\ – external 512gb NAS used for weekly backups

This configuration served me well this week as a sudden power cut appeared to have corrupted one of the 2 raided drives and Windows was declaring an imminent failure. The SATA controller detected this failure and proceeded to rebuild the corrupted disk.

I did lean one hard lesson from previous failure. I had built up a collection of resource material from surfing the web which I never used to back-up as I thought can always find it again. But never quite works that way!!! I now include all of these in my synching/back-ups.

Links:

• SyncToy 2.1
• CnM Docking station

Note: If planning on using SyncToy ensure you have closed applications that may lock files, e.g. Outlook. As these will not be synched and simply give you an empty file. I found this out the hard way!!!

Please find below link to a ‘Loved Up’ themepack for February 2010, all backgrounds include a calendar for the month. These are courtesy of Smashing Mag and the original post is here.

Loved Up Theme for Feburary 2010

Fancy some new wallpaper for your desktop? Here are a selection of 26 to choose from.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/12/31/desktop-wallpaper-calendar-january-2010/