Microsoft is really delivering on different platforms

While I was upgrading my Anti-virus from AVG to NOD, I needed to uninstall Microsoft Defender (I've been suspecting the two of them to cause a few problems on my computer lately). I didn't find the uninstaller for Defender, so I went over to Microsoft to download Defender's installer.

Being greeted by the validation screen, I suddenly remembered that I was running Firefox and got a little scared that I had to switch browser to be able to validate my Windows XP (no Vista yet) installation.

But I decied to give it a try, and pressed the validate button. After downloading and installing a small program, the validation process went as smooth as it does in IE, and after a few minutes Microsoft Defender was uninstalled.

Thanks for letting me use the browser I want to use, MS :-)

Why I wont switch to Windows Vista

I'm not moving to Vista for two reasons:

1) Visual Studio 2003 wont work, and therefore I can't do my .Net 1.1 development on Vista
2) Vista needs a faster, more beefed up computer than the one I have

So, why can't I just switch to Visual Studio 2005? I have it installed, and I really like using it. It's a bit slower than VS2003 in some ways, but that's something the added effectivity of VS2005 weights up for.

No, the main reason is that I can't switch the framework version we're using in our product from .Net 1.1 to 2.0 just so that I can install a new OS!

And why can't I just buy a new computer? Because a new computer is expensive, and changing computers every year because a new and better hardware configuration or OS exists isn't an option. I remember that when I first got my M4, I really felt that it was a fantastic computer with all the memory and CPU I'd ever need. I to be honest; I haven't changed neither the OS nor any of the programs I'm using in my daily work, so in theory my computer should still be up to snuff!

A nice little utility

Just read about this fantastic tool (I can't find where I read about it, but thanks anyway..!). Since I use Mozilla Thunderbird for email and Microsoft Outlook as my calendar (reason: Thunderbird is faster, and hasn't been exposed to viruses and attacks in the same way as Outlook, and I need to keep my appointments in Outlook since ActiveSync only works with Outlook..).

This fantastic utility from Michael Scrivo really gives me the best of both worlds, I can keep on saving my appointments in Outlook without having to launch and have Outlook running with full UI in the background!

Thanks Michael!