• Windows Live Mail Desktop - replaces Outlook Express for Hotmail use

    I've been running the "dogfood" version of Windows Live Mail Desktop (WLMD) for a while now, and found it to be really stable and usable. It's basically a superset of the built-in Windows Mail application from Windows Vista, which supercedes Outlook Express...
  • ZDNet sings praises of Office Communications Server beta

    Like probably millions of other people, I get the daily ZDNet Tech Update Today (since long before RSS brought news feeds to the masses...) and was floored a little by David Berlind's column today. I think David's a good commentator - normally sails between...
  • Hosting of applications - the inevitable future?

    I've been musing over some medium term IT trends lately and one idea that keeps coming back into frame is the seemingly inevitable trend towards hosting of applications. Take Exchange, as just one example... Hosted Exchange * has been available for years...
  • Batch-convert Office files to 2007's Open XML format

    A customer asked me the other day if Microsoft was ever going to build batch-conversion facilities to take old format files that live on a network fileshare, and convert them to the newer XML-based formats - his reasoning was the sometimes considerable...
  • Is that a Zune in your pocket...?

    (or are you just pleased to see me) OK, after talking about media players just over a month ago , I couldn't stop myself from buying a Zune when I was in the US last month (no willpower). At $249 + tax, with the exchange rate currently so favourable,...