Office 2007 SP1 was released on Tuesday, correcting most of the bugs & performance issues and fixed security loops, but with no significant add-on.

Excel 2007
Several stability, general usability, and compatibility improvements have been incorporated into Microsoft Office Excel® 2007.
- Office Excel 2007 no longer stops responding in some instances when opening a workbook containing calculations.
- Office Excel 2007 workbooks that are saved in Page Break Preview mode and opened in Microsoft Office Excel 2003 no longer produce an error when switched to Normal view.
- When inputting calculations that should result in numbers 65,534 through 65,536, Office Excel 2007 no longer returns the display error of 100,001.
- Office Excel 2007 now retains custom colours on shapes in Excel 2003 worksheets.
- Office Excel 2007 no longer misplaces or wraps labels in charts when the workbook is reopened.

Outlook 2007
Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 benefits from a number of fixes and enhancements that make the popular messaging client more stable and easier to use.
- Office Outlook 2007 no longer closes unexpectedly when the junk e-mail rule is set to null.
- Body content in HTML-formatted e-mail messages now appears properly in the preview pane or when the message is opened.
- Items moved from an offline folder file (.ost) to a personal folder file (.pst) now display properly in the preview pane.
- In search folders, Office Outlook 2007 now shows the accurate count for unread items that are hidden.
- When scheduling a resource such as a meeting room in meeting requests, the public free/busy information for the resource is now complete and visible in Office Outlook 2007.
- When users forward plain-text e-mail messages with attachments, the body text is now retained.
- If the Mailbox Cleanup wizard starts while the user is dragging a message into a folder, Office Outlook 2007 no longer closes unexpectedly.

PowerPoint 2007
Fixes in Microsoft Office PowerPoint® 2007 make the presentation application even more reliable, especially when used in conjunction with Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, Web sites that use forms authentication, or event macros.
- Users who have started an event macro in Office PowerPoint 2007 can now advance slides by right-clicking and then choosing Next or Previous.
- When users try to open a presentation in Office PowerPoint 2007 from a Web site using forms authentication, the presentation will now appear properly.
- Users can now open presentations in Office PowerPoint 2007 from e-mail attachments in Office Outlook Web Access.
- Office PowerPoint 2007 no longer crashes when the user programmatically accesses the parent property of the Hyperlinks Collection Object in the Office PowerPoint 2007 object model. - Text formatting now behaves similarly to previous versions of PowerPoint, where new text retains the formatting of the deleted text instead of using the formatting of the character to the left.

Visio 2007
Microsoft Office Visio® 2007 now properly redraws shapes when users apply a dynamic connector that is part of a group of shapes in Office Visio 2007.

Word 2007
By taking care of several small stability and usability details, Microsoft Office Word 2007 is a more useful and reliable tool for everyday document creation tasks.
- With Office Word 2007, users can now open and edit embedded objects that contain other embedded objects.
- When using smart documents in Office Word 2007, the Document Actions task pane no longer disappears when moving the pointer into the Reviewing pane. Additionally, task panes opened earlier no longer appear unexpectedly.
- Office Word 2007 properly creates and updates a table of contents in unprotected sections of documents that also contain sections protected for forms.
- Office Word 2007 no longer prints an extra page when users choose a printer with the duplex option enabled.

Download Office 2007 SP1 (218.3 MB)

Download Vision 2007 SP1 (102.3 MB)


Windows XP SP3
Microsoft have made public a Release Candidate (RC) test build of Windows XP SP3. The final version is expected to be released in the first half of 2008.

XP SP3 is primarily a collection of fixes and updates that Microsoft has released over the past few years since it rolled out XP SP2 in 2004. XP SP3 also does include a few brand-new features, like black-hole router detection; support for Network Access Protection (NAP) security-quarantining; enhanced security for administrator and service policy entries; inclusion of the Microsoft Kernel Mode Cryptographic Module; and Windows Product Activation modifications.

& we can’t forget the overhyped 10% performance increase promised with Windows XP SP3…

[via blogs.zdnet.com]

Windows Vista SP1
The RC build of Windows Vista SP1 is expected to be released during this week and it seems that both XP SP3 and Vista SP1 will be released at the same time next year.

Windows Vista SP1 promised to be the “real” Vista everyone expected but it has also removed the Windows Genuine Activation – that sends a non-activated copy of Vista into reduced functionality mode (the infamous kill-switch) and replaced it with only the irritating notifications.

The new SP1-era WGA code is designed to detect two of the most common Vista cracks: one tries to fool Vista into thinking that it’s an OEM copy with a matching OEM BIOS; the other rolls the mandatory activation checks ahead to 2099 or some other ridiculously distant date. Both the OEM BIOS and Clock Timer hacks are detected when SP1 is installed; the goal, says Microsoft, is to alert innocent or naive consumers who’ve been ripped off by crooked system makers or who purchased hacked Vista copies from shady online vendors. But even those known fakes will run indefinitely if you choose to ignore the messages.

& for users who have installed a pirated copy of Vista, they get discounts from Microsoft for their efforts! (They can make their Vista legal by purchasing original keys from Microsoft!)
Windows Vista Home Basic, $89
Windows Vista Home Premium, $119
Windows Vista Business, $145
Windows Vista Ultimate, $199

[via blogs.zdnet.com]

Here's my result of a similarminds test: (Thanks to Neelesh for sharing it!)
& as Inf said, i think it's quite accurate...(that why i posted it! LOL)

INTJ
loner, more interested in intellectual pursuits than relationships or family, not very altruistic, not very complimentary, would rather be friendless than jobless, observer, values solitude, perfectionist, detached, private, not much fun, hidden, skeptical, does not tend to like most people, socially uncomfortable, not physically affectionate, unhappy, does not talk about feelings, hard to impress, analytical, likes esoteric things, tends to be pessimistic, not spontaneous, prone to discontentment, guarded, does not think they are weird but others do, responsible, can be insensitive or ambivalent to the misfortunes of others, orderly, clean, organized, familiar with darkside, tends not to value organized religion, suspicious of others, can be lonely, rarely shows anger, punctual, finisher, prepared

If you thought Microsoft is a sort of corporate midlife-crisis-hit giant that thinks that UI is something entirely related to Apple [Designs], then you may be wrong. As already shown with Vista, Microsoft has more than a few tricks up its sleeve… with the Zune!

The first thing that catches the eye is the Zune website…

To find out more about the Zune, we head over to ZuneJourney.net

& here it’s absolutely AWESOME EYE CANDY!! (even for Adobe Flash & it would make nice wallpapers) Yet who would have thought Microsoft to have had so much artistic talent!

Next on the list is Microsoft’s unique partnership with professional artists to make the Zune a piece of artwork via… zuneoriginals.net (Access denied for user outside the US). Everyone who buys a Zune direct from Microsoft, get a whole new level of customization of the Zune’s backside!

The Zune ads…
If Microsoft don’t watch it, instead of stealing the crown of the iPod, the Zune may end up in the Louvres!

Yesterday, I was infected with the above virus, but I didn’t know I was infected until Windows Live Messenger tried to send a file to one of my contacts.

Yesterday Nokia announced Nokia Comes with Music…a revolutionary program that enables people to buy a Nokia device with a year of unlimited access to millions of tracks from a range of great artists - past, present and future. Once the year is complete, customers can keep all their music without having to worry about it disappearing when their subscription is over.

So basically if you are buying a new Nokia device (i.e. an Nseries “supercomputer”), you’ll get over 2 million tracks to download for “free” from Universal Music for a whole year. During those 12 months, your subscription can be transferred to up to 3 different devices.
But as usual always there’s a catch – all those music files are DRM-protected by PlaysForSure(which unfortunately doesn’t PlayAtAll on iPods & Zunes but only on Zens & Yepps…) So if you want to burn those tracks on cd you need to purchase an upgrade for each track!
& Nokia is offering all those tracks by paying Universal a monthly fee of around $5 for each device sold – which is then added on the price of the device.
[via Engadget & AllAboutSymbian]


Nokia have just announced the new 3110 Evolve which has average specs (S40, 1.3 MP Camera, FM, Triband GSM), but is otherwise highly eco-friendly! Bio-covers made with over 50 percent renewable materials and comes in a box made of 60 percent recycled stuff. On the technical side, the Evolve's charger is Nokia's most efficient ever, delivering juice at a full 94 percent below Energy Star specifications.
So Nokia has taken the first step towards making “green” phones… now, how about the bio-electronics?
[via Engadget]


Nokia Internet Radio app has been brought from alpha development & released as a beta to N95, N91 & N82 testers. Nice app to try if you are bored of the local FM stations & you have some bandwidth to spare.
[via AllAboutSymbian]

& finally a recently submitted Nokia patent reveals what may be the next Nseries “cameraphone!”
This dual-slider is packed with a massive rotating 8MP camera (with optical zoom) & a sliding flash mechanism. I hope that in addition to the sliding keypad, they’ll also add a touchscreen! It would be the perfect successor to the N93i.
[via Gizmodo]

Since quite some time I had been thinking of discarding my old Kaspersky Internet Security 6 for a new antivirus & firewall suite…

& so I decided to search the Internet for comparatives of the different antiviruses…

http://www.pcmag.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=215703,00.asp
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140027/article.html
http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/
http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/ergebnisse_2007_11.php

What to choose?
Symantec Norton Internet Security 2008
My experience with Norton (2003 & 2005) has taught me enough for me to decide to stay away from Norton for at least a decade… Maybe Norton 360 & Norton 2008 has loads of new features but as always, it makes you download 50Mb+ of updates when you first install it. & to uninstall Norton, you need to install the uninstaller first!

McAfee Internet Security Suite
McAfee has been adding so many (useful & useless) extras to their security suites that they’ve neglected the antivirus part - that’s why it’s performed averagely in the reviews.

Eset Smart Security 3.0 (NOD32)
NOD32 has already proved itself as highly reliable antivirus, attaining worldwide acclaim in such a short span. So will the Eset’s Smart Security be the same? The answer is no - the Eset Smart Security is still a noob a debutant in the all-in-one security suites. Although it has great eye-candy the firewall is too basic & lacks many standard features. Let’s wait a few years before trying it again…

BitDefender Total Security 2008
By far this is the BEST security suite you’ll find on planet Earth! So secure that it’s a bit hard to….crack...er… install! Almost on every review, BitDefender has been highly rated but it lacks a good user interface & settings are way too far for the common people to customize. & as I mentioned it’s a bit hard to install & it’s not funny when you have to change keys every few days to be able to update your definitions…

Kaspersky Internet Security 7
Unlike what its name suggests, this is only the 2nd edition of KIS. In terms of protection KIS 7 is at par with BitDefender, but in terms of usability, ease of use & configuration, it just destroys the competition.(& it has a key that doesn’t get blacklisted easily!!) You don’t change a winning horse, don’t you? So I decided to stay with KIS & install the new Kaspersky Internet Security 7.

The Review
Installing KIS 7 is a very quick process. The installer being only 22.6 MB in size, there isn’t much to install. All settings from KIS 6 were kept & while the installation was being done, a self-defence mode was activated while KIS was being deactivated.

After the restart, it’s now time for the update. Total files downloaded was only 6.3 MB in size!!!! KIS 7 came with 28/6/2007 databases and it took only 6.3 MB to download 5 months worth of updates! WOW! (Weekly definitions are around 200 to 500 kb)

Activation was easy! Now KIS 7 will now last for at least a year!

For the features, there’s a File Antivirus that scans files as they are accessed, a Web Antivirus that does the same thing but on the web & a Mail Antivirus.

There’s also the Firewall & the Anti-spam(not activated - Gmail already does that). In addition, there’s a Privacy Control to keep all your personal info & online transactions secure.

The Proactive Defense is the heuristics scanner for KIS 7 which analyses application behaviour to root out any new viruses. I strongly recommend turning this off since it’s a huge resource hog!

In all, KIS 7 is faster than KIS 6, uses fewer resources and doesn’t make my hard disk whine that often! KIS 7 is the best security solution out there! Don’t hesitate to try it!

The myth of the Yeti has been revived by the recent discovery of humanoid-like footprints found in the Himalayas by US TV presenter Josh Gates…

News article from BBC World:

'Yeti prints' found near Everest

A US TV presenter says he and his team have found a series of footprints in the Everest region of Nepal resembling descriptions of the mysterious Yeti.

The presenter and his colleagues say they are "very excited", although they are not saying they definitely believe it is the mark of the Yeti. Josh Gates and his crew work on a series called Destination Truth, which follows reports of fantastic creatures.
The footprints found on Wednesday have renewed Yeti excitement in Nepal.

Mr Gates said they had been searching by torchlight at night-time because, he said, alleged sightings of the yeti had usually taken place at night. They did not see the so-called abominable snowman himself.

Three prints
But a Nepalese member of the team spotted three footprints and alerted Mr Gates, who told the BBC the first print was a "pristine" right paw mark, 33 cm (13 inches) long, with five toes in a wide spread of 25 cm. There was also a heel print and another fainter one.

An excited Mr Gates described the main footprint as anthropomorphic, meaning it had human characteristics. He said he did not believe the prints were man-made or that they came from a known animal such as a bear. But he also said he was not sure he believed in the Yeti, and did not know what to make of it. The team took castings of the three prints which will be examined by scientists in the US.

Scalp claim
Asked why there were only three prints, Mr Gates said the terrain, in a side valley about 2,800 metres (9,000 feet), was mainly rocky.

Reports of the mythical Yeti go back hundreds of years, and the creature is sometimes attributed with dangerous powers, sometimes protective ones.
One Buddhist monastery near Everest houses what some say is a Yeti skull or scalp; scientists who examined it declared that it was made from antelope skin, but other experts disagreed.
In the 1950s the British explorer Eric Shipton took photos of prints in the snow that some are convinced belong to the Yeti.

Article from msnbc.com:

Everest footprints stir up Yeti legend

KATMANDU, Nepal - Members of a TV production team investigating the existence of the legendary Yeti in Nepal said Friday that they have found footprints intriguing enough to merit further investigation.

The team of nine producers from "Destination Truth," armed with infrared cameras, spent a week in the icy Khumbu region where Mount Everest is located and found the footprints on the bank of the Manju River at an elevation of 9,350 feet (2,850 meters).
One of the three footprints found on Wednesday is about 1 foot (30 centimeters) long, with an appearance similar to those shown in sketches of the purported apelike creature, the team said.
TV host Josh Gates displays a sample showing what appears to be a footprint found in Nepal's Khumbu region, where Mount Everest is located. The tracks will be analyzed as part of an investigation into tales about the legendary mountain Yeti, Gates told reporters in Katmandu on Friday.

"It is very, very similar," Josh Gates, an archaeologist who serves as the host of the weekly travel adventure series, told Reuters in Katmandu after returning from the mountain. "I don't believe it to be a bear. It is something of a mystery for us."

"Destination Truth" appears on the Sci Fi Channel in the United States. (The network is owned by NBC Universal, which is a partner with Microsoft in the msnbc.com joint venture.)

Tales by sherpa porters and guides about the wild and hairy creatures lurking in the Himalayas have seized the imagination of mountain climbers going to Mount Everest since the 1920s. Several teams have searched for it and some have even claimed to have discovered footprints. But no reputable investigator has actually seen the creature, nor has it been scientifically established that the Yeti exists.

Gates said the footprints on lumps of sandy soil, which would be sent to experts in the United States for analysis, were "relatively fresh, left some 24 hours before we found them."
"This print is so pristine, so good, that I am very intrigued by this," said Gates, flanked by his team members.

Even if the traces are found to be authentic footprints, it's not yet clear how they could be attributed to a Yeti rather than, say, a less exotic mountain creature. Nevertheless, the evidence may be enough to fuel a TV show. "Destination Truth" chronicles some of the world's notorious purported cryptozoological creatures and unexplained phenomena.

Some local sherpas believe that the Himalayas are abodes of strange creatures and consider the Yeti (also popularly known as the "abominable snowman") as a protector. Others say it is a destroyer. "There is a kind of mysterious creature that lives in the Himalayas," said Ang Tshering Sherpa, chief of Nepal Mountaineering Association in Katmandu, who hails from the Khumbhu region.

This report was supplemented by msnbc.com.

The Age (Australia) article:

Fresh evidence of mythical Yeti

A GROUP of explorers say they have found fresh evidence of the mythical Yeti in the Nepalese Himalayas, stirring fresh excitement among those who believe the reputed snowman creature really exists.
The explorers, belonging to travel adventure series Destination Truth, said today that they had found footprints of Yeti while on a search for the elusive creature for their television documentary.

"We were doing night investigation near a riverbed about three nights ago when one of our guides first saw the prints and alerted us," Josh Gates, host of the television
show, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur in Kathmandu. "We cast the footprints, and we all feel a little bit unable to explain what we really saw," Gates said showing off his Yeti footprint cast.

One of the casts Gates showed consisted of a whole foot nearly two times as large as that of humans. The creature could have been up to 2.4 metres tall, the explorers said. Gates said the footprints were discovered in a remote area where with no human settlements, a three day trek from Lukla, about 250 km northwest of Nepal's
capital, Kathmandu.

"We are preparing to bring the footprints back to the US to have them further analysed," Gates said.
Many people in the Nepalese Himalayas and Tibet believe that the creature exists, though undisputed proof has been elusive.
Purported evidence such as skull and bone fragments that were said to belong to the creature have been dismissed by experts as coming from other animals.

Gates himself says he remains cautious about the discovery but is open to the beliefs of others. "There are lot of people living in the Himalayas who are having a genuine experience, and I don't know how we can readily explain all eyewitness accounts" Gates said. "Certainly, there is more work to be done to explain this."
For Gates and his television team, the find was unexpected after travelling through a dozen countries in search of similar of the world's most notorious crypto-zoological creatures.

"To talk to the locals about their sighting and find a piece of evidence, even if it is not a conclusive piece of visible evidence, is exciting," Gates said.
The team will make an effort to return to Nepal to carry out more investigations if justified by laboratory results.

For now, the team is headed to Africa and then to Brazil to investigate other creatures of legend.

& here are the photos of the most famous & most credible yeti prints to date:

From anomalyinfo.com:
In 1951, British explorer Eric Shipton took a picture of "yeti" tracks in the Gauri Sankar range in the Himilayas. The prints were 13 inches long and 8 inches wide. Shipton said that the prints were too large to be a bear's and too fresh to have been enlarged or distorted by melting.
Shipton was quoted as saying: "What really made my flesh creep... was that where we had to jump crevasses you could see clearly where the creature had dug its toes in."

In Their Own Words
From August to October 1951, Eric Shipton made his fifth visit to Mount Everest; and it was on this trip that he took his famous photograph. The expedition party consisted of leader Eric Shipton, Mike Ward, Bill Murray, Tom Bourdillon, Ed Hillary, Earle Riddiford, Angtharkay, Pasang Bhotia, Nima, Sen Tensing and six other Sherpas (Ed Hillary was later to be knighted Sir Edmund in 1953 after reaching the top of Mount Everest with Tenzing Norgay, a native guide). Towards the end of the expedition the climbers were making an exploratory travel in the Gauri Sankar groups to the south-west of Everest, when they discovered the prints. I now quote Eric Shipton's account of the matter, from The Six Mountains-Travel Books [Pg. 621]:
"It was on one of the glaciers of the Menlung basin, at a height of about 19,000 feet, that, late one afternoon, we came across those curious footprints in the snow, the report of which has caused a certain amount of public interest in Britain. We did not follow them further than was convenient, a mile or so, for we were carrying heavy loads at the time, and besides we had reached a particularly interesting stage in the exploration of the basin. I have in the past found many sets of these curious footprints and have tried to follow them, but have always lost them on the moraine or rocks at the side of thc glacier. These particular ones seemed to be very fresh, probably not more than 24 hours old. When Murray and Bourdillon followed us a few days later the tracks had been almost obliterated by melting. Sen Tensing, who had no doubt whatever that the creatures (for there had been at least two) that had made the tracks were "Yetis" or wild men, told me that two years before, he and a number of other Sherpas had seen one of them at a distance of about 25 yards at Thyangboche. He described it as half man and half beast, standing about five feet six inches, with a tall pointed head, its body covered with reddish brown hair, but with a hairless face. When we reached Katmandu at the end of November, I had him cross-examined in Nepali (I conversed with him in Hindustani). He left no doubt as to his sincerity. Whatever it was that he had seen, he was convinced that it was neither a bear nor a monkey, with both of which animals he was, of course, very familiar."

Where there’s smoke, there’s bound to be fire…