I remember seeing a title to an article about the fact that Bing is going after Yahoo not Google. However, I didn't read it

If you think about it, it really makes sense though. Recently Microsoft has been attempting to sell its search to Yahoo. If that did happen, Yahoo would just focus on advertising and content for the most part. The thing is, why would Yahoo buy search from Microsoft if their search engine gets even less traffic then theirs?

Which seems to me is a pretty big reason why Yahoo has said no to the search deal. However with the launch of Bing, that could change. Since Bing is hovering around (if not exceeding) the amount of search it gets compared to Yahoo. If Bing keeps its stance in the search market, and grows too, it could be a big bargaining chip to get Yahoo to accept the search deal. But of course, it might not help at all. Maybe for Yahoo, but since Microsoft would then be getting more search than Yahoo, it may not need Yahoo to accept the deal.

Makes sense, does it not?

I guess Microsoft was pretty serious when it said there was a 75,000 download limit for its new beta product, Microsoft Security Essentials. For anyone who really wanted to give it a go is going to need to wait or get it another way, if you know what I mean.

I myself have been using MSE for a day or so, ran a quick scan and a full scan. Thankfully, nothing was found (I hope). For those of you who are wondering, it is basically Windows Defender for viruses with a real-time protection addition.

Also luckily I haven't had to deal with the real-time protection and I would like to avoid using it for as long as a possibly can. Anyways, seeing as this is a process constantly running in the background, you are probably wanting to know "How much memory does it use?". I can answer that for you too! And surprisingly, it isn't much. As you can see in the screenshot below it only uses a little less than 4MB, which is really good for real-time protection. You know, seeing as ones like McAfee take somewhere around 100MB.



Here is a full screenshot of the main page of the MSE program, which as I have mentioned, has a resemblance of Windows Defender.



As you can see, you can set a time for a scheduled scan, but the options are somewhat sad. You can only choose from: Daily, Sunday, Monday, ..., Friday, or Saturday. You would think they would have better options to choose from, or if you could be more specific and choose every other day or something of that sort, but you can't. Of course you can choose the time it runs (It would have been dumb for them not too...) but it also includes a very interesting and good option of having MSE check for new updates and definitions before it runs a check. It never made sense to me to waste about an hour or so of my computers time and not have all the proper updates and definitions.



I would recommend everyone get MSE and try it for themselves. I myself have uninstalled my previous antivirus program (Avast!) and currently trusting my whole computers security to Microsoft's Security Essentials. I will see how that goes and report back, but I won't have much to report since I am pretty careful about where it is I go and download from the internet.

If you are wondering when Microsoft Security Essentials will be officially released, I cannot say for sure, but I remember hearing rumors that it would be before the end of 2009, and possibly in the fall, but one cannot be to sure.

Another thing, sadly MSE won't make it into Windows 7. Seeing as Windows 7 is just about to be shipped out to manufacturers and MSE won't be done by then, it obviously cannot be included. Hopefully it will be included as an update later on or in a Service Pack, but we will see.

Have you noticed something about the Zune advertisements? Yeah, the fact that there aren't really any. Microsoft did have some, but I never really saw them aired.

The current problem is, Microsoft is advertising the Zune Pass. How many people really know what a Zune is? You can check out a couple on YouTube:



As you can see, the Zune isn't really advertised. So the Zune isn't getting known. The Zune is a great product, and with the ZuneHD coming, it will be even better.

Your probably wondering whats my point? It's simple really. Microsoft is trying to get people to buy a Zune Pass without establishing what a Zune is, and what it is capable of doing. Right now, the iPod is an iconic symbol of an MP3 Player, music player, whatever you want to call it. It is really true. I myself am that way, when someone says MP3 Player, iPod!

So Microsoft, if you want to get your Zune product out into the open, for everybody to know about, advertise the Zune and not the cards and such that can go with it! You must attempt to remove the iPod as an icon for the music player, and then, just then, you can try to do your deed.

Thats right, currently you can download Safari 4 Beta, and Apple seems to be touting it a bit to much.

I have downloaded, installed, and tried out Safari 4, and I myself must admit it is actually quite cool, though its a little odd how Apple is touting Safari's 150 features.

Some people take the big image as 150 new features, but in reality, Apple just means 150 features, and I am not saying 150 is not a lot, but I just want people to understand there are not 150 more features in Safari since its last release.

Now lets go on to Safari's new look, as you can see on the Safari site as you look around, you will notice that Safari 4 looks like another browser, Google Chrome. While thats just fine with me, since it seems like Google Chrome took from Safari, and now Safari is taking back

Apple seems to also have a real problem with listing features people care about or not listing features people expect in a browser. You can see a list of all 150 features in Safari, and a lot of them are quite whoey to me.

Full-Page Zoom - Umm, this is a new feature in Safari 4, and let me just say, this has been in Firefox for quite some time, and even in Internet Explorer, possibly since IE6.

Next-Generation Standards Support - Personally, I would not consider that a feature when you go on listing your "Next-Generation Standards Support".

Plug-in Support - What Apple means by this is things like Flash. C'mon... If a browser can't support something like that, turn around and run. Its expected... besides Apple nor the browser maker really decides if it is compatible, companies such as Adobe make it compatible with the browser, not the other way around.

Java Support - Just as above, this isn't a feature due to the fact Apple doesn't make it, Sun does.

HTML 5 Offline Support - If it is supported online, it better support it offline!

Bookmarks Library - I better have a place to see the bookmarks I have saved.

Auto-Complete Web Addresses - Every browser again...

AutoFill - Other then Apple mentioning this 3 times (Though yes, it is listed for information, forms and passwords, it is one feature)... Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer have this for sure, and no doubt every other browser as well. Nothing new, or different.

Auto-Remove History Items - Internet Explorer can remove history items older then FILL_IN_THE_BLANK days, why bother mentioning it?

Tabbed Browsing - Internet Explorer has it, Firefox has it, Opera has it, need I continue?

Movable Tabs - Good for you Apple! Sure you may have been the first to do this, no one cares, all browsers seem to be able to handle this.

Help - Lol. Wow, a feature? Seriously, I don't know how to denounce this other then just ...

View Installed Plug-ins - Just like the bookmarks library, If I install it, I sure better be able to see if its there!

RSS Reader - Another feature in every browser under the sun.

Bookmark RSS Feeds - Internet Explorer can do this too. Well done Apple! I am glad you can catch stay caught up with Internet Explorer's lack of features!

More RSS Stuff - Apple goes on to mention 9 other RSS features such as sorting, searching, unread indicator, and so on, all those are in other browsers as well.

View Source - Are you serious Apple? Again? What an innovative feature, you can now view the source of the page you are viewing. GENIUS!

Unicode Support - Nice, a browser that supports Unicode, never seen one of them befores! Oh wait, Hello Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera!

International Web Content - Isn't this practically the same as Unicode support? Sure it might have different encodings, but a lot of sites tend to be UTF-8 encoded (Like this one ).

Right-to-Left Text - All browsers again, or at least a majority.

Built-in Google Search - Did Apple also fail to mention the fact that you cannot add other search engine providers like Firefox and IE can? Ooopsie!

Bookmark Search - Mentioned 2 times... Firefox supports it, and IE has partial support for it by typing it in your address bar

Find - Ctrl + F in other browsers, anyone?

Phishing Protection - Apple should mention the fact that they were about the last browser to integrate this, seeing as Paypal was about to ban all Safari users from using their service until Apple incorporated a phishing protection service. But as said, other browsers have had it, for some time.

Secure Encryption - Apple describes this as if Safari does this for each web page, and that Safari is practically creating it. Which of course just isn't true, the site must have an SSL certificate...

Empty Cache - Awesome Sauce! I can delete files on my own computer from when I was browsing with a click of the mouse. GENIUS!

Clear History - Almost as innovative as emptying the cache...

Default Font Preference - Another thing browsers also have, your not the only one to have it in your browser, Apple.

Full-Page Zoom - Browsers already have this... Wait a minute... Didn't I already mention this..? Why yes, yes I did! At the top, and its listed more then once on the feature page as well.

Elegant User Interface - If stolen is Elegant, then it is beautiful!

Inline Progress Indicator - Apple claims they were the first to move the progress indicator into the address bar, but they aren't. Opera already does that.

So if you are starting to get what I mean, you can see that many of those "features" should be removed because they are either repeated, expected, or just plain pointless to mention...

If I did my math correctly, I got rid of ~34 features... and I am quite sure a lot more could be "gotten rid of" as well.

If you missed it, IE8 RC1 is out, and you can download it and try it out!

You can download IE8 at the Microsoft site, and I highly suggest you do so if you are running IE8 Beta 2. While IE8 RC1 does not appear to have a lot of new features, it does have a couple things, such as InPrivate filtering which basically allows you to choose which scripts (Like JavaScript) on a page will be allowed to load, that way you can block them if you don't want information about you to be sent to a remote server.

Also a lot of bugs have been fixed. I remember with Beta 2 I was constantly being logged out of this site, it was so annoying and frustrating I just uninstalled IE8 Beta 2, but since then I have installed RC1 and I have yet to have that problem.

Of course many compatibility issues have been fixed but some rendering problems still occur which should hopefully be ironed out in IE8 Final. It seems kind of odd to me that supposedly after IE8 RC1, IE8 will go Gold... I am an IE user, but I know IE is not the greatest and personally I think IE8 needs to stay in the development stage for a little more time.

Putting those things aside, the future of the Internet Explorer family is finally starting to brighten up with more compliant rendering which all webmasters want, the only problem that will exist, is getting people to upgrade

I got a bit bored today and I found myself search TESS (Trademark Electronic Search System). So I started typing in some random stuff, like Windows Live.

Interestingly enough a lot of results were found on Windows Live. Which it turns out Windows Live isn't what it was originally supposed to be.

Once I looked around at these applications they were all filed on the same day, April 10^th 2006.



Look at a couple of these:
I thought this one was quite strange:

pens, pencils, stationery-type portfolios, clipboards, desk sets, mounted and unmounted photographs, posters, memo pads, binders, paperweights, paper coasters, calendars, notebooks, portfolios, book covers and sticker books; greeting cards; and informational flyers, newsletters, pamphlets, magazines, books, instructional manuals, user guides and reference guides, all in the field of computer systems, software and services, computer networks, wireless networks and the Internet and access and equipment therefor

credit card services; and providing information in the fields of investment and finance over computer networks, wireless networks and the Internet

providing information concerning motor vehicle travel and travel-related subjects; and geographical information for travel, interactive geographical maps, driving directions, travel route information and travel route recommendations via computer networks, wireless networks and the Internet

on-line processing, namely, developing digital images onto photographic paper or merchandise

computer security services, namely, monitoring of computer systems for security purposes

providing on-line computer games, movies, arts, music and sports content via computer networks, wireless networks and the Internet

Of course all these are "Dead" now. I found a "Live" trademark to, one that wasn't abandoned like the rest

communications by electronic computer terminals; electronic mail services; web messaging; providing on-line chat rooms for the transmission of messages among users in the field of general interest; voice chat services; electronic transmission of messages, documents, images, music, games and data; providing on-line interactive bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users concerning classified listings and listings for announcements, events, classes, meetings, activities, housing, real estate, roommates, rentals, for sale advertisements, want ads, employment, resumes, volunteerism, services, community, personals, politics, family, arts and information on a wide variety of topics of general interest to the public; providing on-line forums and discussion groups for transmission of messages among computer users concerning health, family, arts, politics, leisure, romance, work, and information on a wide variety of topics of general interest to the public; voice over Internet protocol services; and Internet and wireless voice and video conferencing.

Which certainly seems like a combination of them all.

In other words, I take it that they applied for many just incase one was rejected they had more to possibly fall back on. Obviously the one they wanted, the big one, was not rejected and became what Live Search is today.

Just thought it might interest you to know.