http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/intrepid/beta
Doing a general internet browse, I have seen on the Ubuntu site that 8.10 is on the way. If you’re a Ubuntu Linux user, you may want to have a look at the beta which (according to their site) has a number of updates.
Take a look and report back on it.
(I am not an avid Linux user so probably wont try this myself, but if you want to try it out, why not leave a comment so other people can read your opinion.)
I’ve tried it myself and have been using it for about a week now, and overall its a big improvement on the first beta. Heres a quick video from the Skype staff on the new features:
So there you have it from the staff. The most useful features I have found is the new compact view which makes it much better for anyone who is used to the older versions of Skype, because it makes Skype much easier to use when you are doing a lot at one time on the computer.
The new alerts system is much better. In beta 1 I had issues that I’d open up Skype and notice I’d missed a message from someone a day back which is a newsense. Now the new notification system will leave plenty of ways to tell me I’ve got a new message.
Overall, much better, and hopefully the next release from Skype will be the final version which I look forward to.
Grab a copy at http://www.skype.com/intl/en/download/skype/windows/beta/ and try it for yourself, but beware there are still a few bugs and a few call drops/program freezes, so if you want to be on the safe side stick with Skype 3.8.
Recently I was told Microsoft has launched a public beta for WLM 9. So I decided to check it out and see what had changed.
And as far as I am aware, Microsoft has generally concentrated on the interface (at long last) and has made some massive improvements.
Here are some of my favourites:
If you haven’t tried it yet, download the beta at http://download.live.com/messenger
As I mentioned in the post Is Internet Explorer 8 worth it?, I love Google Chrome. It’s such a fast browser, only crashes in rare occasions (despite the fact it’s in BETA) and I love the new tab management.
There are things Google could do to improve it, of course. But that’s the same with most software. I rarely find any program that is absolutely perfect for me.
What are your thoughts on it, could it be improved?
Ever since I found out about it, I have always been a big fan of Firefox. And then when I found out about Google Chrome, that took over from Firefox altogether. I love Google Chrome plainly because it has such a fast launch time – even on a slow computer – and it renders most code very well. Admittedly there are quite a few bugs, some of which can be quite annoying. But overall, it’s a very nice browser. The interface is good, and the tab management is very nice!
A couple of months ago Microsoft released the first beta of Internet Explorer 8. In my opinion, a total waste of time. It was slow, terrible at organising page elements, and constantly crashing. Then the second beta came out, and that was a slight improvement but nothing major.
I’ve never found Internet Explorer worth it. I think the only reason people use it is because they haven’t heard of Firefox or Chrome. If everybody knew about Firefox or Chrome, I think IE would have very few users.
Also, many people don’t have the time to worry about the browser they use, so they just leave Automatic Updates to keep updating IE whenever it likes.
Most of the features covered by IE were covered by Firefox ages before Microsoft. It seems truelly pointless to me.
What do you think about Internet Explorer? Is it worth it? Do you have a particular reason why IE is good over other browsers?