AOK Link-bait: Industry Reading for fun and profit

My colleague Carl has done it again, and has collected some great links to some industry reading.

Here are a sub-set of the best links for your perusal. 

Windows 8 Milestone 3 is available on Microsoft Connect and its users are leaking info:

• Its explorer is going to have a ribbon with sync capability ‘similar to Windows Live Mesh to synchronize folders across computers. On top of that, “Web sharing” might enable SkyDrive-like functionality to make their files and folders accessible through a web URL, for easy sharing’
• It has History Vault like Apple’s time machine
• System Reset feature wipes and reinstalls windows
•  Pretty wallpaper
• Windows Home Server 2011 operating system is available
• 29 years of Microsoft.  Nice vid
• Usual new Windows 7 themes link, seaside this month.

Browser News

• IE9 is available on windows update and offline.
• A history of IE 1.0 to 9 including compatibility stories.
• IE9 Compatibility Cookbook here lays out all the important changes.
• It now has 3.6% of the market.
• IE9 vs. Firefox4 vs. Chrome9
• Hotmail has special IE9 Win7 support
• Firefox 4 has shipped. Microsoft send a cake (again)

Office

Office 15 first leaks and screenshots

Cloud

• A new player in the storage area, Amazon Cloud lets anyone store 5Gb online.  If you store music there you can stream it to your phone, after the legal issues are resolved.
• Windows Intune update
• Cloud-based meetings

Mobile

• The iPad2 has been released.  I liked this review most.
• Android is now top US smartphone. Visualisation of its growth here.  Windows mobile is the biggest loser of share
• Nokia’s deal with Microsoft is worth $1Billion

Packaging

• Article on MSI logs
• Compatibility mode without shims
• Why is there the message '!Do not use this registry key'  in the registry?
• Flexera take 39 months to fix a simple defect
• InstallAware’s April fool
• Bob Arnson has left Microsoft
• Using InstallShield to bootstrap WiX
• Altiris Notification Server is now called Symantec Management Platform and Altiris 7.1 is out
• Install WiX with a minimal version of Visual Studio
• Mark Sysinternals have updates to ProcessExplorer and his 1st novel

Virtualization

• App-V 4.6 is in WSUS
• App-V 4.6 SP1 and MED-V 2.0 are available as part of MDOP 2011.
• A special version of Windows 7 called Windows Thin PC has been launched by Microsoft for VDI use.  In addition to Windows 7 functionality, “Windows Thin PC has incorporated a number of embedded specific enhancements to help lock down public facing devices, including Write Filters for creating stateless or semi-stateless environments, suppression of unwanted dialog message boxes, and a keyboard filter for suppressing unwanted keystrokes […] “.  That sounds like they’ve built in some virtualisation into the OS.  This is Carl’s top tip for something interesting watch out for.

Fun stuff that you stick at the end

The Indian Rupee has its own currency symbol. Update windows to be able to use it.

Hellish facial recognition

Twitter is 5 years old, everything is boring except computers (warning: links contain swearing and puerile humour)

Of course, the IE9 application compatibility cook book will be a favorite for readers of this blog.