Since Microsoft released the first beta version of Windows 7, I installed it to find out what’s new. Before that, I was using Windows Vista and BitDefender as Anti-Virus software. I even blogged about it because it really satisfied me!

Unfortunately, BitDefender 2009 doesn’t work on Windows 7 and because of that I had to use Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 that had 3 month of free license for Windows 7 users. After 3 months, Microsoft released the RTM version of Windows 7 so I upgraded it and that Kaspersky Anti-Virus’ lifetime also finished.

Since I’m using Windows 7 RTM, I haven’t installed any Anti-Virus until Microsoft released the first official version of Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) which is a real-time protection and anti spyware software. In this post I want to take a look at MSE.

“Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.”

The first thing which is interesting is that it’s only 4Mb! So you can quickly download it. Besides, the installation is very fast. The only important thing is that MSE is only available for Genuine Windows Users. So if you haven’t activated your Windows yet, you’ll unable to install it.

After the installation the following Window will appear:

The installation file doesn’t contain any Virus or Spyware definitions; so the first step to get started is to update it.

Note that you check the update tap to see if it’s update or not. If it is, it will show you a “Green” text that shows MSE is updated. Otherwise, it’s out of date and you need to update it. By the way, you CANNOT scan your PC without updating MSE for the first time.

After the update, the notification icon will be something like this:

It has bunch of cool features such as “File type exclusion and File process exclusion” which are groovy!

One other thing, you may want to participate, is the SpyNet to help Microsoft improve the software.

So if you don’t have Anti-Virus software and you’re looking for one, it better to download and install it. It at least better than nothing ;-)

In order to download and get more information about MSE, please visit its website at: http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

I hope it’s interesting,

After ages, finally I’ve bought a new Microsoft VX-1000 webcam and as I’m checking it out, think it’s out of this world!
As a matter of fact, it’s not the latest release of Microsoft webcams but I think this is what I was looking for!

Here’s some of its features I can see in its user-manual:

Photo Swap

Share and swap photos in real time with your friends and family using Windows Live Messenger—right in the video call window!

Windows Live™ Call Button

It's simple to start video calls. One touch of the Windows Live Call Button lets you see who's online, and you're on your way to making a video call.

LifeCam Dashboard

Add special effects and control your webcam—all from the Windows Live Messenger window.

One-Touch Blogging

Upload photos to your blog on Windows Live™ Spaces with any of your photos at the simple click of your mouse.

Superior Video and Photo Quality

See the smiles clearly with 640 × 480 pixels video and photo resolution.

Optimized for Windows Live Messenger

Seamlessly integrated with Windows Live Messenger for easy setup and use.

Universal Attachment Base

It’s a snap to attach the LifeCam to any monitor.

Built-In Microphone

The built-in microphone automatically picks up your voice with remarkable clarity.

Video Effects

Discover a fun way to express yourself with these entertaining video effects built into the LifeCam dashboard.

Few months ago, Microsoft released a beta version of Windows 7 and encouraged everyone especially developers to install it. “This version is out of this world!” said Microsoft. So I downloaded and installed it and I was decided to migrate from Windows Vista SP1 to 7.

Everything was fine and Windows installed successfully; so I saw the Windows 7’s new look and said “WOW! What a look!” Then checked out some new features such as its calculator, the new Windows Gadget Box, Multi-Photo background and more I thought that Windows 7 will be a good Windows.

The problems started when want to install my drivers. I started to install my Creative Sound Blaster and suddenly the Windows crashed and showed me the blue screen! I restarted my computer and saw that Windows was trying to send some information about my issue to Microsoft. I selected OK. My cell phone rang and I started to talk to one of my friends for about 15mins. I came back and saw that Windows still send anonymous information about my issue to Microsoft! So I checked my network traffic and realized that the information was about 100Mb (WHAT THE HELL!!!).

I canceled the operation and continued to install some applications such as Antivirus but I couldn’t because it doesn’t support my Antivirus software (Trend Micro PC-Cillin 2008). I tried to install Windows Live OneCare because I thought that Microsoft may have done something for this issue at least on its own Antivirus but when I started to install it, said that “Windows Live OneCare doesn’t support your operating system”. “OH MY GOD, WHAT SHOULD I DO NOW?” I said.

I continued without any Antivirus software and I decided to synchronize my music to my device using the new Windows Media Player 12. I’m converting my music to WMA 64Kb/s whenever want to synchronize to my device because of its capacity (Only 4 GB). I’m using Windows Media Player for Windows Vista in order to do so but that time when I wanted to so such a thing in Windows 7, it showed me an error!

Those were some of problems I had when tried Windows 7. No sound card, No Antivirus, etc. In my opinion, Windows 7 is not reliable at least at this point (Beta version) and because of that, I removed it and moved back to Windows Vista SP1.

About 2 days ago, Microsoft released Windows 7 beta 1 and it’s now available on MSDN.

I think it’s necessary for Microsoft to release a new version of Windows because in my opinion, current Windows Vista SP1 is good-for-nothing. I’m using Windows Vista SP1 while developing applications and think it’s not good even for development purposes.

I haven’t tried Windows 7 because of some internet problems we have in the country and my internet bandwidth limitations, but I recommend it because Microsoft said, “Over the past few years, you've asked us to make some changes to Windows. We listened closely. Now it's time to share an early look at how we've used your feedback.”

People aren’t satisfied of Windows Vista because of errors it has so Microsoft released Windows Mojave™. You can check out its website to see how people hate Windows Vista.

Microsoft is trying to release a better version of Windows which you can call it Windows because they lost a lot of things on Windows Vista. In my opinion, Windows Vista Project has been lost.

By the way, Windows 7 has some great features that you can checkout at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/whats-new.aspx

  I know it’s a little old but in this post I want to talk about Oxite.

Oxite is a new open source blogging system based on ASP.NET MVC which built by Erik Porter, Nathan Heskew, Mike Sampson and Duncan Mackenzie.

This is a simple blog engine written using ASP.NET MVC, and is designed with two main goals:

· To provide a sample of 'core blog functionality' in a reusable fashion. Blogs are simple and well understood by many developers, but the set of basic functions that a blog needs to implement (trackbacks, RSS, comments, etc.) are fairly complex. Hopefully this code helps.

· To provide a real-world sample written using ASP.NET MVC.

As they said, this blog engine built not only for developers and as sample and this has been used in MIX Online too.

Here is some other information from http://visitmix.com/lab/oxite:

Oxite was developed carefully and painstakingly to be a great blogging platform, or a starting point for your own web site project with CMS needs. Its line-up of sexy attributes includes: provider-based architecture allowing you to swap out database and search providers (SQL Server DB, local and Live search providers included), built for testability and hence most likely to be voted "hottest in class" by TDD fans (repositories, everything has an interface, etc.), database file and string resource storage so that files get stored in database and strings stored for localization, built to take full advantage of ASP.NET MVC but broken into assemblies so that even ASP.NET WebForm developers can use the data backend and utility code, supports use of Visual Studio Team Suite (DB Pro, Test, etc.), and Background Services Architecture (sending trackbacks, emails, etc. all done as a background process to prevent delays on the web site itself).

Download it now and get some other information by click here