godricgal

I'm beta testing both Windows Live Messanger (messanger 8) and Windows Mail Live (hotmail). I have to say that so far I am not overly impressed with the difference. I'm sure there must be many great features but frankly I thought that it was going to hit me right in the face and it just hasn't. The UI is Longhornish...more grey...less blue and you can change the hue of it (my messanger is currently a delicate shade of pink!). The changes in Hotmail are slightly more pronounced but still not all that exciting. I guess the main thing about Messanger is that MS are bigging up the whole VOIP thing but I'm not about to stop using SKYPE for that in the near future they just don't compete. And they can't hope to without re-branding, 'Messanger' just doesn't scream VOIP at me and I can't see it ever doing so. Anyway i will continue to explore these new product but I fear disappointment is inevitable. I don't know really what I was expecting, but XP changed many things and I guess I thought Longhorn would do that again. Oh well, I shall live in hope that when I finally get to run in on a network rather than an independent machine that at least they will have sorted out Windows networking. Although since they have completely changed the way they do it rather than improve on the current system, it is set up to be a lottery for the user.