Fuckedcompany.com seems to have been acquired by TechCrunch. Although I would like to shout out *April Fools*, The fuckedcompany website has been closed down and they already have a TC type logo:

Read more about the story at TechCrunch…

With little news coming over the networks and the wires, Windows Live Mail desktop beta has been refreshed and somehow rolled out. Now this is very confusing, as a little time earlier, my application crashed and caused me to restart.

I restarted, and the advertisement pane just vanished. So maybe now the final version won’t have advertisements? Who knows, the adverts are still around on my Windows Live Hotmail and Spaces pages, so who knows.

The new build appears to be 8.0.1226, three builds up from the previous version reported here. No differences are noticed as yet - the beta tags are still in place, and as of 00:43 BST in England, LiveSide hasn’t reported it yet - as it seems, we’re the first people. Check out the screenies below.

Has anyone else noticed that the Google Maps link is now on the front page of Google UK? (or has it been there for ages and I for some reason just realised it now?)

Update: It has been on Google.com for quite a while now but just recently added to the www.google.co.uk page.

Read more about Windows Live Deepfish here at Microsoft Live Labs.
Video: iPod | MP3 | PSP | WMA | WMV | WMV (High) | Zune

The Internet Connectivity Evaluation Tool checks your Internet router to see if it supports certain technologies. You can use this tool on a PC running either the Windows Vista or Windows XP operating system. If you’re planning to run Windows Vista, this tool can verify whether your existing Internet router supports advanced features, such as improved download speeds and face-to-face collaboration using Windows Meeting Space.

The tool is intended to be run from a home network behind a home Internet (NAT) router. Running this tool from behind a corporate firewall or on operating systems other than those specified above won’t produce accurate results. This tool requires administrator privileges to run.

The tests can require up to 10 minutes to complete and do not make any permanent changes to your router. For the most accurate results, your computer should be connected directly to your Internet router, using a wired connection.

Note: Although it is unlikely, testing might interrupt your Internet connectivity or cause your router to stop responding. If you require uninterrupted Internet access at this time (for example, if you are in the middle of downloading a large file, bidding on a time-sensitive Internet auction, or playing an online game), you should wait and do this testing at another time.

Try the Internet Connectivity Evaluation Tool now 

Microsoft “Tahiti” is a relatively new application which runs on the back of the Windows Live ID service and works with Microsoft Office 2007.

You can share from Office, Messenger, the Start menu and even from your system tray. It allows you to collaborate with other people and getting your ideas across, in a simple, clean and productive way. It allows you to share an application or your desktop, relax and watch other people’s ideas, and even track your work by letting someone else work on the same document as yours.

Although we have Groove Server which does this and Windows Meeting Space in Vista, this is a similar but new application which works well on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (all editions) and allows you to work with other people in real time, no matter where in the world you are.
Check out the Microsoft “Tahiti” website
Download Microsoft “Tahiti” now

Here is a very brief 10 step list:

1. Make a list or a How-to tutorial: If you look at past Digg posts, you will find an endless number of ‘Top 10 Photoshop tricks’ tutorials and ‘Top 30 CSS’ sites lists. To top it all, take this post as an example!

2. Flame the RIAA: Post any story that is negative about the RIAA, it is definitely going onto the front page.

3. Flame the RIAA again!: Flame the RIAA again and make it to the top, twice! You can add in MPAA and Sony too to spice it up a bit!

4. A Witty or Catchy title is always a Bonus: Post your story with a catchy title, this applies not only to Digg but to anything you write. ‘Why this is’ ‘How the RIAA..’, ‘5 reasons…’ are a few examples.

5. Write about Digg and Kevin Ross: Diggers love Digg and just about any news related to Digg and its founder.

6. Write about the evil alliance: Writing anything bad about George bush, Fox News, Wal-Mart, Microsoft will get you there…

7. Write about Google, Apple, Firefox, YouTube, Ubuntu: These are the good-doers in Diggers eyes. Write about them and you will be on the front page (I hope). C’mon how many freaking Ubuntu articles have you seen on the front page?!!

8. Get your friends to digg for you: A friend in need is a friend indeed and this applies to Digg as well. Add top diggers to your friends list and Digg their articles. They might Digg your articles in return and vice-versa. You can also get all your 50+ (MSN) messenger contacts to Digg for you, Hey you can even co-ordinate a massive digging session!

9. Use a fancy profile icon: Looks go a long way. On the predominately white background Digg page, bright coloured Profile Icons stand out. You have more chances of being Dugg if you have a colourful profile icon, as this attracts attention.

10. Last but not the least: Write a ‘10 steps to get onto the Digg Front Page‘ article! Hey, it is worth a try…

Over the last few days, the good guys at LiveSide briefly and quietly broke the news about the upcoming Windows Live Core OS (operating system). I wanted answers, so after a bit of research and digging around, I’ve got something.

Microsoft Research has a lot to play in Live OS and the people involved have extensive backgrounds in online web services, networking and server storage. I propose that Live OS will be the front-end management system for Windows Live Drive, the online  storage service being introduced later this year by Microsoft. 

Many questions arise from Live OS and not rather my fantastic idea, such as how, why, when and where. Using our knowledge from people we know and from our sources, as well as from Live Search, we have come up with what we believe to be the answers. Please note: this is not necessarily factual nor does represent the ideas from Microsoft and these answers are from our own research which we believe is honest, fair and as accurate as possible.

When will Live Drive appear?
Windows Live Drive should be rolling out between Q2 and Q3 we estimate.

When will Live OS appear?
We estimate this year, perhaps with the release of Live Drive but we cant confirm.

What will Live OS look like?
It can either be in a web AJAX interface where it is coded in HTML and other server side scripting. It could be in form of a Flash application which runs in most web browsers and is simpler to use and more compatible; or could be an actual operating system in form of a virtual machine. If it is a virtual machine, it would be in form of Windows Server 2003 which can have many users logon simultaneously and can have cast storage solutions whilst saving licenses. Any server/networking techy will most likely understand the reasoning behind this

Will Live Drive/Live OS be free?
Both of us here were at a Windows Live conference last year which stated that all the Live services would be free, but proved themselves wrong with the release of OneCare. We believe that both products will be free but Live Premium accounts (previously MSN Premium) will have extra features and will have extra storage - but this is not confirmed by a long shot.

How much space will be offered?
From internal sources, beta testers of Live Drive get between 5GB and 20GB of storage but this will most likely change in the course of the program.

Will there be a beta testing process for the public?
We expect so - the beta program is midway between Beta 1 and Beta 2 with an expected technical refresh within the month. Live OS is probably behind in the development stages of the entire service.

Will there be advertisements?
If it is a free service, expect advertisements as these are what keeps most of the Live services running.

How long has Live Drive been in development?
Windows Live Drive is essentially the first Windows Live service. It has been in planning and development stages since late 2004 before even MSN Messenger was switched over to Live. It has taken this long to build huge datacenters packed with servers, and they have only recently been developing the software solution - it’s taken that long.

Where is this datacenter, and where will my files and folders be?
Somewhere north-east of Redmond near Seattle in the United States.

How will I access my files?
Using your Windows Live ID of course

Want a list of useful and interesting web companies and startups? Yes, it is arranged in an alphabetical order.

Guess where?

The TechCrunch Companies and Product list that lists all the Companies and Products featured on TC. Very useful when you want to quickly search for a company/product or randomly click on any link if you are bored!

Is email too boring and blogging too tedious?

Bring in Zimoz. A start-up that is based in San Carlos, CA. USA and Mumbai, India that lets you share rich content with your friends on the fly!

Wait isn’t that what blogs are supposed to be for?

Yes, blogs do allow you to share content with your friends and so does email, but not everyone has the time to maintain blogs and emails are not rich enough. Zimoz is going for a niche market where users who want to share rich content with their friends with minimal time and effort needed to create it.

Why Zimoz?

Apparently they were not happy with a previous name that they had picked so they decided that their pet frogs name Zimoz will do just fine. Interesting name that…

Okay, now to the website and the service itself:

The website is easy on the eyes and is nicely designed. The sign up process is relatively straight forward and is simple to go through, yet the activation email takes ages to get sent through and thus hinders your setup experience. I guess this is to prevent bot accounts, But everything from this point is brilliant – the graphics, the website layout, the fresh and clean interface. Moving on…The whole website seems to run in AJAX, a smooth asynchronies website which loads things quickly and without hassle. Everything loads effortlessly, everything seems to work seamlessly with everything else – it’s a pleasure to navigate through. There are little things you have to keep your eye out for such as the little bits of humour and bits which really add to the experience. Creating the actual postcard itself is easy to use, swish, and has a whole load of tools with drag and drop funtionality work brilliantly. You can add a variety of media such as pictures, text, a banner or clip art, even video to your postcard; my friends are away in Quebec at the moment and they’ve sent me a beautiful video of them around the city, and this really adds to the experience of postcards.

You can do pretty much anything in your postcard – it’s so dynamic and easy to use, even the most novice of users could use it with little or no problem. It’s fair to say this website hasn’t been completely polished off – with a few links here and there which look a bit out of place, and a mixture of rich-text and HTML style text, but that’s only a small amount of the whole experience. You can save, share, delete and publish your postcards, and being careful of kids as well, you can also view and report abuse on other people’s postcards if they are not of a fitting nature to people.

There is a social networking element added. Profile creation is easy on the Zimoz home page, latest public and feaured postcards are displayed. Popular and new members are shown too. The postcards are tagged so you can browse them via tags as well. You can explore new postcards and also comment on them, Comments are in the form of spots. You can leave spots anywhere on the postcard with emotional icons. They can be hidden. You can also reply to postcards with a ‘Add to Trail’ function.

So that is Zimoz for you, a new way of creating you own content on the fly and sending it to your friends easily or sharing it with friends made though Zimoz, oh wait are they called Zimozians?

Zimoz opened in beta around Mid-Feb and currently have 50 - 70K+ views/ month.

Check out our postcard!!

Zimoz - Blogging in Postcards