This is a very quick post, I have been out of the country for most of last week. (Cyberterrorist on the loose! :P)

Anyway, with Opera’s new debut in the 100% freeware market, no ads, no catches, its on everyone’s minds. I have said it time and time again, that no matter how good of a browser Opera is, so long as it packages with ads, or sells at a fee, it will never be number one.

1) Their motto: “The Fastest Browser on Earth”
I have to ask: is the browser fast, or does it load pages fast? Either way, they need to recheck their game plan.

a) Most competent browsers are now equally fast (AOL and MSN Explorer not included obviously), since they load pages almost as fast as your PC can receive. Also, with 60+% of America on broadband, a nano-second load-time is as negligible as the weight of an electron in chemistry :).

b) The browser (as a program) is fast, but certain parts of it are murder. I’m talking about the message boxes. Do you want to save this password? or Would you like to subscribe to this web feed? They load fast enough, that’s not the problem. The problem is that it takes 3+ seconds for the box to unfreeze. Whilst its frozen, its useless. Obviously.

2) Its very pretty. Believe it or not, this is the slickest-looking browser on the web. Firefox with themes does not count, I mean, what kind of company cannot make a decent theme for its browser to ship with??? But Opera? Its beautiful. I enjoy looking at it.

3) Very incompatible. Of the three leading browsers (no need to list them, esp. since this bulletin includes Opera as one of the three), Opera fails the Acid test the worst. But forget Acid, no crazy webmaster writes pages like that. If they do, they should be banned from writing pages. Hell, ban them from using a PC! But, Opera is not compatible with any BB-code shortcuts, AT ALL. I’m typing this from Opera 8.5, just to be fair, and I have to manually hit the B button for bold and the i button for italics. No ctrl+b and ctrl+i for me…. Also it has issues displaying many CSS-Positioned tables.

This may not have been as brief as I intended it to be, but it’ll do ;) I hope this clears up what Opera needs to do to get some more ground. Its a nice browser, but not yet ready for the masses I’m afraid.

This can be looked on as a continuation of the Vista Beta 2 post that I put up less than an hour ago. In short, this is simply a list of new applications (note, NOT enhancements to Windows, but rather bundled apps) that we have seen.

Microsoft does not offer a list of these features, and some of them are quite extensively hidden beneath the surface but trust us, they are there. Not all of these are new to Beta 2, some of them are in previous versions of Vista, but all are programs that you poor XP-bound people will find interesting…

1) ActiveSync
ActiveSync is no longer that program that some losers use to connect their Windows CE PDA to their Desktop PC. In Vista ActiveSync promises to be the life of the party. Thus far it seems that it will support streaming video to other media consumer electronics, synchronizing MP3 Players, PDAs, Phones, and more. It is VERY different even from ActiveSync 4.0 Beta that we are testing, which, though it is loaded with new features, is still something entirely different.

2) Peer-to-Peer
Nope, you read right. It seems that Beta 2 comes with a P2P Application! We’re still looking into it though. We have managed to get the server up and running, but the client interface is somewhat of a mystery…. We don’t know yet, but we will keep you posted.

3) Windows Media Center
We mentioned this in the last post briefly. In short its a place where everything digital and everything entertaining comes together. You can do almost anything you want here, and it comes with more codecs than Windows ever did before. It also seems to be a sign that Microsoft has stopped its bloated ‘MCE’ line, which was too slow, but had some promising features.

4) Parental Control
I haven’t really looked into this, don’t want to lock myself out of *certain* things, do I? :) But really, its a nice addition. Content locking in Internet Explorer just didn’t cut it, since most webmasters never rated the content of their site. Let’s face it, they do want to corrupt us, right?

5) iSCSI
Just a platform management thing. Not of much interest this far… But we’ll let you know once we have something more definitive.

6) Speech Recognition
Yep. Speech recognition. I cannot wait to see the EU’s action to this blatant violation of antitrust, but I’m with MS on this one… It seems to just be a placeholder: ‘No plugins detected,’ is not really the way to go… But it looks promising.

7) Tablet PC
Part of the ActiveSync program is another app that adds Tablet PC functionality to your Vista, which makes us suspect that Tablet PCs will run the same Windows as everyone else, no preferential treatment :P.

8) MSN Desktop Search
What is now called ‘Indexing and Search’ seems to be MSN search on steroids. Very smooth and minimalistic, giving results without exhausting your PC or making it look unprofessional with all those colors.

9) Solutions to Problems
This is, I guess, more of an enhancement than a program, but its not truly a part of Windows, so here goes. Its a nifty app that sits in your Control Panel and… Well, remember the Windows Error Reporting service that always asks if you want to be informed when a solution is found to your problem? One thing, they never ask for your email, and MS doesn’t collect personal information, so, yes, you guessed it, you never find out what happens. Solutions to Problems (what is up with the name????) keeps track of your error reports, lets you attach bug reports to them, and tells you when a fix or hint is available.

Its interesting to note that all these new things live and thrive in the Control Panel, which has been given new Life. It has a shortcut on the desktop, has a new look, and has millions of new features that make it worthy of the seat on your homepage..

Though Microsoft’s latest Operating System is not out in the final Beta 2 stage, your reps here at NeoSmart Technology are currently testing out a 52XX build, which, unlike the 51XX build series, is a precursor to Beta 2.

NeoSmart Technologies is a proud Microsoft Beta Tester, accepted into more than 25 different programs simultaneously. While we do our best testing and breaking them from Microsoft, we rarely talk about it much, since what we test normally has little immediate impact. But for the last week or so we have been testing Vista 5219, and we have to admit, it is something to behold.

In short, Vista 5219 is the closest Microsoft has ever come to a true out-of-box experience. When you mention out-of-box, most Computer Geeks think Linux, where you literally can install the DVD, and never install a thing again. With Vista, its *almost* the same thing. Especially since if MS packages anymore software, the EU and Supreme Court will never let them here the end of it…… But that’s another story for another time.

First is the Media Center. In a move that most likely eliminates Windows Media Center Edition (no promises however), MS has shipped this test build with Microsoft Media Center, which is the all-in-one portal for a complete entertainment experience. You can play DVDs, listen to MP3s, watch TV and Movies, tune in to the radio, and more; all from one easy to use program, without the jetsam and flotsam of Windows Media Center Edition (MCE).

Wireless Support. Believe it or not, in our test centers of 8-inch concrete walls, Vista has reach. Its weird, because under Microsoft Windows XP, the connection was nil, but in Vista somehow there is software-reinforcement or something like it- a dark secret Microsoft is waiting to unleash on its foes. At any rate, it works, and it works well. Plus Vista ships with more wireless drivers than Windows ever did before.

Of the few ‘drawbacks’, the biggest issue is the complete rewrite of the sound and video system. We personally see no reason why people are getting all worked up about it. Sure, the old drivers don’t work, but don’t you think that in the day and age of digital audio and video, HDTV, and HD-DVDs, we deserve something newer than the same technology used in Microsoft Windows 95??? Soon enough ATi and nVidia will have drivers that take advantage of the new architecture, and we can experience better gaming and video surreal effects, with the same crappy hardware. Microsoft taking a bold step, but they cannot be blamed. If you do not like it, switch to ALSA and pure OpenGL w/out DirectX on Linux.

For Microsoft’s latest endeavor, we have to say, they have outdone themselves, its about time, and we cannot wait for another build to come out.

Fanboys…. They are what makes companies last through ups and downs and through thick and thin.

Its a very interesting topic to post about. Basically, fanboys are just a group of people who admire a company to such an extent that they believe it can do no wrong, and are oblivious to everything else.

The best and most widely alluded to example is Apple. Most Mac users are Mac fanboys. They believe that, no matter what, Macintosh is better than Windows and Linux, that the PPC Big Endian architecture rocks Little Endian, and that, no matter how high of prices Apple charges and how slow of a PC they get in exchange, Apple is God.

I’m not going to say that I *cough, cough* disagree with them or think they are a bunch of single-minded lunatics, but what started out as a Mac-only phenomena has compounded to cover almost all the other popular companies out there.. All but one.

As of now, fanboys can be most clearly seen in the followers of Google, Firefox, Apple, and Linux. Linux fans tend to be more objective, realizing that Linux is not (at the moment at any rate) anywhere near as easy to use or adopt as Windows, but they live for Linux, and will never badmouth it. At the same time though, you have many Linux users who respect Linux, but are far from worshiping it. A decent mix.

Google!!!! Now, that is something else. The newest kid on the block, it has gained ground and worshipers like no other. No matter what they make, what they invest in, who they hire, what technologies they champion and scoff, to these Googlians, Google is King. This takes on a double meaning, since it is now eternally clear the Microsoft and Google are the two Gladiators in the playground, domineering over the rest. In essence, to be a Google fanboy is to hate on Microsoft forever.

Firefox is a more mysterious affair. You have people that swear by Firefox, and would never leave it for Microsoft, yet they are aware of its shortcomings..But, get this, they are proud of them! Ask any Firefox fan about the UI, and they will admit it doesn’t ship pretty, but they are proud owners of a browser that cares more about works than looks.

At last, is Microsoft. Fan-less I’m afraid. Over the years, though Microsoft has proved its worth over and over again, I’m afraid that to the followers, it has hurt too many companies, broken too many laws, and is unworthy of their trust. That doesn’t (of course!) mean that no one uses it, after all, it is still the first name in computers and technology. But it doesn’t have a group of followers who will go with it to the ends of the earth, fending off attacks left and right.

Where does that leave Microsoft??? Well, Microsoft has thus far proved its worth, earned its name, and secured its rank. A couple of years ago, no one would have guessed that it would ever teeter above its self-dug grave. Yet today, it has surely witnessed the power of fans, followers, freeware, and open-source. Today. Microsoft could do with followers, but so long as it keeps going straight and steady, it will always have a chance.