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Windows 7 Beta goes public
But this time, you don't have to head over to your favorite torrent tracker to get it. Microsoft just began its Windows 7 Beta Customer Preview Program, which means you can head on over to your favorite internet, download the ISO, burn a DVD and start living the ultra-fantastic lifestyle of a Windows 7 user. The Beta expires August 1, 2009, and Microsoft is of course piling on the caveats in case this destroys your computer with fire -- and limiting this first run of downloads to 2.5 million users. We're hearing reports of sluggish downloads at the moment, but we're sure with a bit of patience you can be rocking this OS -- or, you know... find it on the torrents.Update: Oops. Microsoft's Windows 7 download servers have crashed under the strain as has the Microsoft blog reporting the crash. We'll let you know when the servers (and Windows 7 beta) return.%Gallery-41385%
Twiterrific 2.0 public beta announced
Well that didn't take long - Glen Wolsey caught a private beta sneak peek at Twitterrific 2.0 just two days ago, and now The Iconfactory has announced a public beta, not surprisingly, via their Twiterrific Twitter account. This new version includes a veritable landslide of new features, and in addition to the ones we've already mentioned, here are some highlights of the new goodies (though we highly recommend reading the What's New readme included in the download): Twitterrific can now update your iChat/Adium/Skype status using your last tweet. Select the "Update chat status" preference in the configuration panel and the status in all running chat applications will be updated (though note that AIM/iChat apparently only allow a total of 44 characters, including spaces, for available statuses. Away messages don't seem to have this limit though) The main window snaps to the edge of the screen Tweets can be marked as a favorite by clicking on the tweet's heart icon Added Cmd-2 to send a response to the author of the selected tweet Added Cmd-D to send a direct message to the author of the selected tweet The text of the tweet is no longer truncated. The size of the tweet view adapts to the length of the tweet and much, much more! The Iconfactory hasn't updated their official Twitter product page yet, so be sure to pick up the new download from this tweet. A few of us have been using the beta since we heard about it Friday night (thanks again Glenn!), and I can personally say this is a stellar update to what is now quite possibly the best darn Twitter client out there.
Spanning Sync public beta re-opened
Fellow Mac users looking to sync iCal and Google Calendar - rejoice! For the Spanning Sync crew have re-opened their public beta to one and all. After their servers buckled under their first attempt at opening up the beta, they had to shut down temporarily. Fortunately, Spanning Sync's own vendor stepped up to the plate and offered some serious upgrades in infrastructure horsepower, and new users can officially begin signing up to use the beta once again. If you head over and sign up, however, be sure to back up your calendars - after all, beta means beta. Doing something as simple as browsing to your ~/Library/Application Support/ folder and pressing Cmd + D on your /iCal/ folder to duplicate it will do just fine. To grab your own copy of the beta, head over to their re-opening announcement post for the latest version. Simply log in with your Google Account (or go create a free one) to get swept off to a land of desktop + web service synchronization.
