I mentioned about this feature being missed out when WLM came out of beta in a previous blog entry, and well, it’s now available. I’ve been messaging with a friend who’s on Yahoo! Messenger and it has been working rather flawlessly. Offline messaging between the 2 networks seem to work fine as well.

Those using YM will have to be using the latest beta version for this to work though. Do also note that M$ still terms this functionality as a beta, so you would have to accept an agreement before you are able to start using this feature.

Info for WLM here.

How do I start sending messages to friends who use Yahoo! Messenger with Voice?

Once you sign up, you can add Yahoo! Messenger contacts to your contact list in the usual way. Under “Contacts,” click “Add a contact” and enter your friend’s Yahoo! e-mail address. That’s it!

Does this work with all my Yahoo! contacts?

Yes. As long as your friends have the beta version of Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, you’re set. When you add them to your contact list, they’ll get all the information they need to gear up and connect with you.

For YM users, here.

Sorry if there were people expecting updates here. :P Have been away to Canberra for 4 days last week for the recent MASCA NCG 2006 and just when I was about to get going with stuff last night, my ISP decides to have an outage. It was a nice break though, being disconnected (although the amount of things that have piled up due to that is pretty scary).

Updates should resume shortly, hopefully..

Here’s MSFN‘s brief description of nLite:

Have you ever wanted to remove Windows components like Media Player, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, MSN Explorer, Messenger…How about not even to install them with Windows ?

nLite is a tool for permanent Windows components removal and pre-installation Windows setup. After removal there is an option to make bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines. With nLite you will be able to have Windows installation which on install doesn’t include, or even contain on cd, unwanted components.

With the release of version 1.0 final, it should be relatively ‘stable’. ;) Haven’t had the chance to try it out yet, but I’ll give it a shot sometime soon. It would’ve been a great time saver if it had been released earlier judging by the amount of formatting and setting up of PCs I’ve done over these years. :(

via MSFN

This free public beta has been out for quite sometime now, but I just got my hands on installing and trying it out yesterday. ;)

A pretty radical interface has been introduced to replace the standard menus/buttons/toolbars that have been ubiquitous in all previous generations of M$ Office. Initially I found the toolbar buttons layout to be a little confusing, but after a while, you do notice that the developers have carefully placed the mostly used features right in the main interface allowing you quick access unlike previously where browsing through multiple stages of menus were necessary to get some simple things done.

I’ll probably need more time to give a more solid assessment of it, but I don’t seem to dislike it so far. Will post up updates on it as I use it more often or if I find anything worthy of mentioning.

I’ve been told by some friends that Outlook 2007 Beta is very buggy, so you might want to stay away from it if you have been relying on Outlook 2003 or previous versions as your main email client (I use Gmail’s web interface for email, so I currently don’t use any standalone email client ;)).

Here’s a screenshot of M$ Word 2007 Beta:

You can download and install Office 2007 Beta here, or if you would like to just try it out without having to go through the hassle of downloading and installing, you can try it here. More screenshots can be found here.

Kinda creepy don’t you think..

..but funny at the same time. Oh well..

via Engadget