Wictor Wilen

Numerous times my Windows Vista has been missing icons in the Notification Area (when did Microsoft stop calling it System Tray?). The icons that has been missing is normally Network, Volume and Power. In Windows Vista you can easily enable these three notification icons, as well as the Clock, in the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog, accessible by right-clicking the Start icon and selecting properties. But the problem is that I can’t enable these icons when they disappear after starting Vista - they are disabled.

Just a few days ago Microsoft Epression Blend RC was released and now Expression Design beta 2 is available for download. The first beta of Design was a real disappointment for me, since all pixel editing and all Live Effects was removed. Beta 2 is still only vector editing but the Live Effects are there. The focus seems to be the Design/Blend/XAML/WPF integration to start with, which is fine but the technical previews of Design (then called Interactive Designer) really had it wen you could combine vector and pixel layers.

The really nice visual web search engine Quintura has been updated with a better and improved interface. Quintura allows you to enter a search word and then using a visual user interface in which you can navigate a cloud of related search terms and the include or exclude them from your search to refine you result. Quintura allows you to get an overview of which search terms are releated to your search term and it’s fun to use and browse into new areas.

Windows Update now contains the Windows DreamScene Content Pack for Windows Vista Ultimate users. Windows DreamScene is still only released as a preview version, but the big interest for the Vista Ultimate extension made the Ultimate Extras Team to release the content pack ahead of schedule.

DELL, one of the largest PC computer-hardware companies , has really understood how important it is to communicate and interact with customers. First of all I am a very satisfied DELL user, except for some problems with my Inspiron 9100, and I think that the DELL support has been great. But having good stuff to sell an providing satisfactory support is not everything. To be able to stay on top you have to evolve and get with the trends and listen to your customers/community.

About a week ago the released Windows Vista Ultimate Extras was updated and re-released on Windows Update with no information on the updates. The reason for the updates of BitLocker tools and Texas Hold’em game was bug fixes, localization issues and parental control issues. The information is now available in the Microsoft Knowledge Base, in these articles Windows Vista Secure Online Key Backup release information (932926) The Hold ‘Em game for Windows Vista Ultimate is available from Windows Update (932925)

Visual Studio 2005 has now been updated with full support for Windows Vista. It’s an update to Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 and fixes a number of issues when running VS 2005 on Vista. If you have the beta of the update (KB929470) then uninstall it before installing the final update.

I have recieved a few invitations to the Joost beta program. Contact me with your e-mail, first and last name if you are interested.

NVIDIA is continuing thier path to a great driver for Windows Vista. A week ago they released ForceWare 100.65 which is a WHQL certified driver, it does not contain anything revolutionary but is stable (that’s pretty good enough right now). Yesterday NVIDIA took another step forward with a beta of ForceWare 101.41 which is the driver we all have been waiting for since the launch of Vista, four months ago! Performance is better, flat panel scaling is fixed, reduced flickering when using Aero and lots of more stuff. In a few weeks we should expect a non-beta.