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I’m not one to usually brag about what betas I’ve gotten invited to (okay, maybe I brag a little), but today I opened my Inbox and was faced with this:

Here’s the text (edited out anything that would get me in trouble):

CONFIDENTIAL – PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD THIS EMAIL OR DISCLOSE ANY INFORMATION INCLUDED

Dear Microsoft Beta Tester,

The Windows Product Team recommended you as an ideal candidate for an exciting new Beta program, based on your participation as a Windows Code-Name “Longhorn” Beta tester. We value the feedback you have provided us in the past as trusted partners, and thank you for helping us make Microsoft Windows better for you and other customers. Now, you have the opportunity to continue to provide important feedback about the next generation of Microsoft products!

We are pleased to offer you an early preview of Windows Code-Name “Livephase,” by extending this invitation to join the Livephase beta program. Your participation is completely voluntary. Livephase Beta Program participants will preview software for the next generation of Windows as well as Internet Explorer 8 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. If you choose to participate you will have the opportunity to provide Microsoft with feedback as we continue work on these exciting new releases.

What is Windows Code-Name “Livephase”?

The next version of Windows, Code-Name “Livephase,” promises to be the most secure and intuitive Windows release to date. It delivers on the promise of allowing people to use their computers more effectively and confidently to achieve their goals and pursue their passions. It offers new tools to help protect the integrity of your system and your information, easier ways to find, visualize and organize your information, and provides better integration across applications, devices and systems. Most of all Windows Code-Name “Livephase” will focus on mobility and the common issues that arise when accessing multiple computers.

Livephase will provide advancements in the following key areas:

· A strong focus on the fundamentals of the operating system, including advancements in performance, mobility, and ease of use.
· Major improvements to help PC users to work smarter and provide exciting new experiences for mobile users.
· The next-generation developer platform to make it easier for developers to create breakthrough applications.

What you can expect if you choose to participate:

You will be notified by email when the software becomes available to test. The beta software will be available via download. If you elect to receive mailed releases, only major milestone releases (Beta 1, Beta 2, etc) will be sent to you. Participants can expect access to Windows, the Windows Driver Kit the Platform Software Development Kit as well as Internet Explorer 8 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. We may make other software available as well, and it’s important to note that some of the above software may not be available immediately after the program gets underway.

We are offering you this exclusive, early sneak preview of “Livephase” as part of an elite group of trusted Beta testers, because we believe that you will provide us valuable feedback, and will also respect the confidentiality of “Livephase” by not disclosing any details about this product.

If you would like to participate, please go to this URL to apply: http://connect.microsoft.com/InvitationUse.aspx?ProgramID=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. (If this link does not work for you, copy the full link and paste it into the Web browser address bar.) You will need to register on Microsoft Connect if you have not already done so, and we will ask you to agree to a Non Disclosure Agreement before we share more details about “Livephase.”

After you complete the Non Disclosure Agreement, we will contact you with more details about “Livephase” and the Beta. Please note that the Beta is open only to those who receive this official invitation from us – please do not forward or share this invitation with anyone else.

If you choose to participate, we ask that you install the software once it is received. At a minimum we ask that you provide us feedback about your experience by reporting bugs that you encounter. We have other activities planned such as private discussion groups, online chats and chances for you to help the Windows development team test some of the new Livephase features. More details on these will follow if you choose to join the beta.

Thank-you for your participation, and we look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely,
The Windows Product Team

You’ve received this email because you participated in the Windows Code-Name Longhorn beta program. If you would like to be removed from the “Livephase” beta please send an email to XXXXXXXXXX@microsoft.com with the words Opt-Out in the Subject line. We value your privacy. Please read the Privacy Statement for complete information.

Do you think this could be the codename of the Windows 7 Beta?! I mean, it talks about “mobility” and we know that Bill Gates is interested in that! It also made mention to my work as a Longhorn Beta Tester! This is so exciting!! I filled out the NDA and the only thing I get is a “Thank You” page saying that more information will be coming shortly and a picture of the logo:

It’s pretty much the same as the Vista logo, but exciting nevertheless!! I wonder how many other people got this invite! Awesome awesome news!!

EDIT (April 2nd) – Gotcha!  April Fools!!

First off, I know this is a bit old, but amazingly I missed the boat the first time this was displayed. Microsoft Seadragon is one of the coolest new technologies that some of you have never heard of. First, this is what Microsoft’s Official Seadragon page has to say about it:

Seadragon is an incubation project resulting from the acquisition of Seadragon Software in February. Its aim is nothing less than to change the way we use screens, from wall-sized displays to mobile devices, so that visual information can be smoothly browsed regardless of the amount of data involved or the bandwidth of the network.

They follow that up by telling you that it is pretty vague, but they ask you to “consider the following four ‘promises’ of Seadragon:”

1. Speed of navigation is independent of the size or number of objects.
2. Performance depends only on the ratio of bandwidth to pixels on the screen.
3. Transitions are smooth as butter.
4. Scaling is near perfect and rapid for screens of any resolution.

The Seadragon team is currently tuning its DirectX implementation, making the most of the new Windows Media Photo format, and cranking on the Photosynth Technology Preview.

Now, I’ll be the first to tell you that Photosynth impresses the hell out of me (click here to see a video of it in action), but what Seadragon is capable of excites me a bit more. So, what in the world is Microsoft Seadragon? Well, why don’t you take a look at this video. In a nutshell, Seadragon will allow you to view data and pictures in such a way that you’re only limited to the size of the display… you really need to see the video to get a grasp of what it can do!

Speaking of amazing things you can do with images… have any of you heard of Content-Aware Image Resizing? Once perfected it’ll be a great tool that you can use to resize pictures without having to crop or majorly distort them. From onOne Software’s press release:

Liquid Resize, a “content aware” image resizing application, was originally developed by the Vienna, Austria based husband-wife team of Ramin Sabet and Irmgard Sabet-Wasinger and is based on the work of Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir that made its first appearance in a video released at Siggraph 2007.

Liquid Resize will allow users to resize an image without the traditional geometric limitations while minimizing any distortion that would typically result from changing the original aspect ratio of an image.

This is another “see it to beleive it” things, so please watch the video demo here. That is something that, as a photographer, I’d really love to see made public! They claim to have a Beta out soon, but it’s already 2 months overdue so I won’t be holding my breath.  If any more news breaks about any of these incredible new applications, expect to read about it right here!

For all you testers out there, WordPress RC2 has been released! I shall be upgrading to it in about 5 minutes and expect everything should go as well as always. The good news in this release?

Finally with regards to theme and plugin compatibility, we’ve had no reports of any broken themes in this upgrade, which makes sense because we didn’t really change anything core about themes, just added new optional capabilities like Gravatars. Plugins that work with the admin may require updating to take advantage of the new, cleaner UI in WordPress 2.5.

Awesome! Anywho, the download can be found here: Screencast & WordPress 2.5 RC2. I’ll update this post once I upgrade! See you on the other side!

EDIT - We’re back and I see no issues so far! My “Insert Link” and “Insert Picture” boxes are back working once again (hooray!) and I like the “Toggle Kitchen Sink” feature:

All my plugins seem to be working fine with the exception of some of the features in HeadSpace (but he’ll just have to update, methinks). All in all, I’m lovin’ v2.5 a lot right now… go try it out if you haven’t yet!!

I’ve backed up my old WordPress database and decided to get a jump on testing out WordPress 2.5. While the front-end of the site looks pretty much the same, the back-end will take much more getting used to. Check out the details and screenshots here (also for those brave enough, download your own copy!):

WordPress 2.5 Sneak Peak

There are only a few things I’ve noticed that aren’t working. When making a URL, the link box is blank:

Also you might notice the “Visit Site” overlapping the “Write” button. This blank box also happens when trying to add an image. There’s a chance this is because of my browser, but I’m using FireFox 2.0.0.12 and that’s been pretty good to me. The only other issues come from plugins that haven’t been upgraded to work with 2.5, but there’s nothing to be done about that at the moment. Hopefully these issues will fix themselves by the final version, but beside that I’m impressed with all the good I see here!