Microsoft just announced Windows 7, a successor to Windows Vista. It has been about 2 years of unpopular time for Vista and Microsoft is quickly readying its successor to cleanup its tarnished Image.

Windows XP is touted as most successful operating system ever. It has been in use since October 2001 and continues to dominate as the PC Operating System. Microsoft perhaps was a victim of its own success; yes I am talking about Windows Vista.

As a successor to XP, Vista had huge expectations. While it delivered on Security, Refined Interface, Ease of use and Application Compatibility, many users felt the same to be issues with the system, which made it unpopular:

> Security – Annoying User Account control

> Resource Intensive Aeroglass Interface

> Updated Menus – Confusing at times

Apple thrived on this fact with its “I am a Mac” campaign. Result, Vista disaster. While Microsoft is trying hard to revive the image with “I am a PC” campaign, it has quite some ground to cover.

Enter Windows 7. I have just downloaded the 64 Bit Beta and have installed it on my HP Laptop running AMD Turion. For a Beta version, I am pleasantly surprised with the way it has been performing:

Installation time was 20 minutes and was exactly 6 clicks (Thought it restarted couple of times, it did not require my intervention. As soon as the OS loaded, it prompted me with my wireless connection and I quickly configured.

The moment I logged in, it suggested installing an Anti-Virus solution and took me to a recommended page. I have however installed my favourite, Avast. It ran with no issues at all.

Quickly I added my favourite applications; Windows Live Applications, Google Picasa, Skype, Google Talk, Flock and Firefox. All of them functioning very well with no compatibility issues. It also downloaded drivers for my latest nvidia card and gave me a preview of its slicker interface than Aero of Vista.

For the User account control, Microsoft seems to have now incorporated different levels so that you can customize, unlike Vista, which seemed a very nice move.

Another striking feature is the new taskbar, which replaces miniature icons with giant ones. Even the applications current running would be minimized into icons on this task bar.

I strongly recommend you to give it a try; however as this is in beta, please do take full backups of your systems before you install it. If you have a spare laptop or desktop on which you can try it, even better.

You can download a copy of Windows 7 Beta from here.

For now, it looks like Microsoft seems to be very much in control and would take every step to avoid repetition of Vista debacle, and from what I have seen of Windows 7 so far. It looks like they will succeed.

Popularity: 16%

If you haven’t heard of Twitter yet, it is social networking site, which lets you stay connected and network with people. It only allows short message of about 140 characters. These messages are usually referred to as Tweets.

If you want to know more about Twitter then give a reading about what it is on Wikipedia.

Now talking about Tweets, the standard way to add them is through the website by logging into the website. Tweet.im is a site which makes Twitter more usable and provides a time-saving interface, your Instant Messenger. While there was a direct option from Twitter to do this earlier, it is now disabled (indefinitely)

You can go to Tweet.im and register for the their service either with a Jabber account or a Google Talk account in just three steps. All you need to do is:

1. Provide your Twitter user name and password and the Google Talk or Jabber account you want to link with.
2. As soon as you register, you will be prompted in your Instant Messenger to add a friend names something like <Twitterusername>@Twitter.tweet.im
3. Accept the request and you are all set.

You can directly send a Instant message to this contact and it will be updated on Twitter for you. And should someone in your network post updates, they will directly come to you as a Instant message.

While there are other services like Ping.fm which let you update Twitter through IM, the difference with Tweet.im is that it returns the message posted by members of your network to the Instant Messenger.  Give this one a try, It is fun.

Image Copyright: Tweet.im

Popularity: 12%