We’re excited to release IE8 Beta 2 today for public download. You can find it at http://www.microsoft.com/ie8. Please try it out!

You’ll find versions for 32- and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008. In addition to English, IE8 Beta 2 is available in Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), and German. Additional languages will be available soon.

While Beta 1 was for developers, we think that anyone who browses or works on the web will enjoy IE8 Beta 2. Before the team blogs about our Beta 2 in detail, here’s an overview of what you’ll find in IE8.

We focused our work around three themes: everyday browsing (the things that real people do all the time), safety (the term most people use for what we’ve called ‘trustworthy’ in previous posts), and the platform (the focus of Beta 1, how developers around the world will build the next billion web pages and the next waves of great services).

Go ahead and download it here!

Jason & Jessica on the “Featuring Who?” Podcast

Some of the things that we discussed:

1. How Jess and I found Neowin (a forum we belong to) and how we became staff.
2. Our computer setups.
3. Discussion about Virtual Machines (Sun xVM VirtualBox 1.6.4, specifically).
4. Microsoft’s Mohave Experiment backfiring
5. Travelers’ Laptops May be Detained At the Border

It’s a fun little listen… I feel like a huge nerd, but what else is new?  Enjoy!

What if a major corporation designed the stop sign?

As hilarious as it sounds, coming from the standpoint of someone who has done designs for companies, this is spot on.  If that wasn’t enough for ya… here are a couple more:

What if Microsoft designed the iPod packaging?

Truth in Advertising

Just great stuff, folks.

The “Mojave Experiment”

It’s fast, it’s sleek, it’s cool, it’s hip, it’s… really Windows Vista?

This is the best marketing idea Microsoft has come up with in a long time.  Dealing, as I do, with many novice computer users, getting them to switch to Vista has been an uphill fight.  Most of them haven’t tried the OS or even seen it.  They’re getting all their info from word of mouth and aren’t sitting down to try it.  In this “experiment,” Microsoft has taken many different users and after listening to them bash Windows Vista, ask them to try the newest OS, Windows Mojave.  Upon trying it, everyone is loving it and wanting it, and then comes the reveal… it’s actually Windows Vista.

It’s a great watch… I love the responses some of the people give (for real hilarity, click the link that says “You can’t please everyone.”) and how honest they are.

Seriously people, give Vista a try.  Yes, it had issues… but so did XP… and 2000… and ME… and 98… and 95… ad infinitum.  It’s not like Microsoft is the only company to have issues with new products (let us not forget the MobileMe mess) and if you never try anything new, you’ll be left behind.

Some information about the experiment via the Windows Vista Blog:

• The focus group took place over three days in San Francisco and was conducted earlier this month.
• All participants were either Mac, Linux, or users of versions of Windows that came before Windows Vista. Respondents were chosen from the focus group organizer’s database, called at random, but then selected based on having a low perception of Vista (<5 rating on a scale of 1-10).
• The participants were given a demo by a trained retail salesperson – geared towards the experiences they seemed most interested in following a series of interviews. While the retail salesperson drove the demo, it was geared by the interests and direction of the participant.
• We did not use some geeked out or custom built PC. We used an HP Pavilion DV2500. It had 2GB of RAM and was running an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz. The OS was a 32 bit version of Windows Vista Ultimate.
• Of the 120 respondents polled, on a scale of 1:10 where 10 was the highest rating, the average pre-rating for Windows Vista was 4.4. After they saw the demo, respondents rated Mojave an average of 8.5.

There you have it.  If you’re using an older version of Windows… go give Vista a chance!

Apple this morning sent an e-mail apologizing to customers of its MobileMe service who experienced a tough few days. And to soothe ruffled feelings, Apple said it would extend their MobileMe subscription by a month.

Which seems normal, except for the fact that the accompanying picture was this:

According to the caption:

Photo: Pope Benedict XVI apologized for a speech about Islam. Credit: Pier Paolo Cito / Associated Press

Which, you know, makes total sense.  Islam, MobileMe… that’s pretty much the same thing, right?  And hey, as long as it’s a picture of someone apologizing, it fits the article, right?  Schmucks.

So you can see the article before it eventually gets changed, check it out:

That there is some Grade A Choice 100% Pure fail.

That’s about it for now… oh!  Go play with Twitter.  It’s quite fun!

Check it out here: WordPress 2.6 Beta 1

Release Info:

Post Revisioning
A “Press This” bookmarklet for tumblelog style quick posting
Caching of static files with Gears for faster Admin page loads
A new and improved image editing dialog that offers lots of control over the images in your posts
Theme previewing as seen on WordPress.com
Built-in word counting in the post editor
The ability to disable remote publishing for the security conscious
XML-RPC API for changing blog options
Better SSL support for the Admin
Hierarchy-aware paging in the Manage Pages and Manage Categories admin pages.
The ability to relocate your content directory
The ability to move wp-config.php out of your web root
Drag-and-drop sortable galleries
Customizable default avatars
Bulk delete, activate, and deactivate for plugins
Check box range selection with shift-click
TinyMCE 3.1.0.1 with lots of bug fixes
jQuery 1.2.6 with some nice performance improvements
jQuery UI 1.5
Lots of bug fixes and performance improvements

Enjoy!

Howard Kurtz, a Washington Post Staff Writer recently wrote a column about Hillary leaving the race for President… the issue?  The title of the article:

Hey, Ho, Please Don’t Go

Here’s a screenshot incase they “fix” it:

For those not “hip” on the lingo… from Bartelby:

Hmmm… yeah, that’s not a good thing.  Let this be a lesson to you writers out there… pay attention to what you’re saying before you let it out into the world.

UPDATE – Looks like they caught it:

Nice catch, guys!  Took a bit of time, though… 5 and a half hours, tsk tsk.

Windows XP SP3 is finally here for those that use Windows Update, and here is a direct link to the stand-alone version of SP3 for x86 XP systems (32 bit). Thanks Bink! Neowin reader WindowsNT says: “There won’t be a 64bit version until Windows Server 2003 hits SP3 since they share the same code base.”

Here is an interesting article regarding SP3 performance, ignoring the fact that Vista SP1 is still faster than XP SP2/SP3 users will enjoy a performance boost over SP2. When will people learn that Vista ain’t all bad!

Windows® XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system. This update also includes a small number of new functionalities, which do not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system.

Links:

Download Direct: Stand-alone installer for Windows XP SP3 English, 32 Bit (316 MB)

Download Direct: Windows XP SP3 for Chinese Traditional, 32 Bit Systems

Download Direct: Windows XP SP3 for Spanish, 32 Bit Systems (308 MB)

Download Direct: Windows XP SP3 for German, 32 Bit Systems (313 MB)

Download Direct: Windows XP SP3 for Polish, 32 Bit Systems

Download Direct: Windows XP SP3 for French, 32 Bit Systems

Or just use Microsoft Update: Service Pack 3 for Windows XP via Windows Update (Size varies)

Again, from Neowin:

Known issues:
On some hardware configurations, you may encounter the Windows XP SP3 BSoD Endless Reboot Loop with Stop c0000139 on GDI32.dll Error, follow this guide to repair your XP installation. Thanks daPhoenix for the tip!

Also, if you need the Uxtheme.dll, you can use my patch (it’s English Only):

Download Direct: Windows XP SP3 Modified Uxtheme.dll for English Systems

Have fun updating, everyone!