I love these new ads. Looking at the number of consumers at the recent IT Show who walked away with netbooks, you know the market is now very much focused on low cost, efficient, light weight machines. It is really hard to consider coughing up $4k to $5k for a laptop in this current economic climate, no matter how much you like a particular logo

I wish there is some way I can participate in this ad campaign…I know it is just an ad but imagine; You find it, you keep it! That just starts my mind wondering…

Laptop Hunters #2 - Giampaolo

Laptop Hunters #1 - Lauren

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The next version of Windows Live Wave 3 suite of products is now available for download on download.live.com.

This includes Windows Live Movie Maker, Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Mail, Outlook-Hotmail connector , Windows Live Messenger among other programs.

To initiate the process, download the Windows Live 3 Installer (direct .exe link) and select the programs you wish to install as in the older versions.

Chris Jones writes: "This wave includes significant updates to our software applications for your Windows PC, and in the next few hours, we will release public betas (download.live.com) of the latest version of the Windows Live suite of PC applications, including Messenger, Mail, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Writer, Toolbar, and Family Safety."

In the new Windows Live Writer you will find the new YouTube integration and a more pleasing GUI. You can now upload videos directly to YouTube from Live Writer and that should leave screencasters/vidcasters really happy. Of course, Microsoft’s own video service, Soapbox, is one of the available upload services.

The new GUI also makes Live Writer look and feel more like a web authoring tool. Most noticeable are the tabs at the bottom of the screen that will allow you to toggle between “edit”, “preview” and “source” mode. The cleaner and more white-based design also gives Live Writer a less cluttered and more polished look.

Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta (quite a mouthful) has also seen significant changes. First up, the design is now more streamlined. It now work and feel alot like the well-loved and equally free Picasa photo organiser. Despite its beta status, this program loads fast and searches your harddisk for photos and video files quickly and unobtrusively.

With this release, Photo Gallery has learnt a new skill; it now recognises faces and allows you to tag them. This is a neat trick and allows you to quickly tag photos much like the way you tag friends on facebook.

I am not completely sure but it seems like Photo Gallery has also added a few more functions under its photo “fix” toolbox. Overall, the interface is now much more intuitive than in previous versions.

The one application that receives the most facelift is perhaps Live Messenger. This venerable IM tool has keep its UI for a long time. The tweaks made in this release may not be earth-shattering but is definitely significant. Microsoft finally adds Aero effect to Messenger and now it looks more at home on the Vista.

You can now customise the size of the display pix for your friends and group your BFFs together under the Favourite tab.

Another new feature, is the “What’s new” tab broadcasts the latest status updates of all your friends in one central location. Much like the side-bar in facebook.

The conversation window has also been updated. Although all these aesthetic changes may look good, those who are on smaller screen resolutions may complain about the amount of screen estate that has been sacrificed for the sake of looking good. Despite this, I am sure the majority of you will love the new look.

Overall, I love the new wave 3 release. I haven’t had the time to go through all the features and goodness but from what I am seeing now, I am confident it will resonate well with the masses. Windows Live suite has finally arrived!

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Hardwarezone published their review of IE 8 beta 2 this morning. It was a good review of some of IE 8’s latest features but I disagreed with the title. I know this is not the first time a technology site describes IE as playing catch up but that doesn’t make it factual.

Here’s a copy of my comment on Hardwarezone:

I sincerely disagree with the title. I can count around 7 to 8 new features in IE 8 beta 2 from your article. These are not the gimmicky add-ons but are real enhancements to make your web browsing a whole lot easier. This list of new features alone shows that IE 8, instead of playing catch-up, is actively innovating to improve the web experience.

My favourite feature by far is the new colored tabs. IE8 studies your clicks to learn how tabs relate to one another — tabs that you open from the same search page are all highlighted with the same color, and can be closed or moved as a group.

For those who have been using firefox and other browsers, you should give IE 8 beta 2 a try and see how much it has improved. It may not be your perfect browser but it does have some interesting features that may enhance the way you work.

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These are what I know about the new Zune:

1) Capacity has been boosted to 120Gb and 16Gb on the flash player

2) Zune owners will now be able to use the device’s built-in Wi-Fi to download songs.

3) Zune will make recommendations based on the songs you are listening to

4) There will be new channels like “work-out” music programmed by experts

5) Zune will also come with two games–Hexic and Texas Hold ‘em–and adds support for audio books in the Audible format.

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Gadget3.com recently published a story on the Grid Girls. Read the article here. In case you don’t know, this is a big push by Microsoft to bring its Silverlight technology into the main stream. What better way to do that than to use it to power the most anticipated event in Singapore history; the inaugural Singapore F1 race! Head on down to the Grid Girls site now!

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