OK, everyone hates junk e-mail and wants to do something about it. Since we're in the newsletter publishing business, we deal with this on a daily basis and are noticing a disturbing trend.

Basically, anti-sp am efforts are choking the life out of e-mail.

Here's what's happening. Sp am is a continual nuisance and ISPs are pressured to keep it out of your inbox. In addition, a lot of companies think that "solving" the s pa m problem is the financial opportunity of a lifetime. Combine these two facts, and you have everyone trying to install mediocre s pa m filters as fast as they can be developed. Those filters are why those little extra spaces are inserted in the "s word" throughout this article. Some of these filters will block email just for mentioning the problem!

The problem is that there's no real good way to keep the junk out and the good stuff in. One person's s pa m is another's digital gem, and the filters are not even close to getting it right.

Look at it this way. Imagine if the post office had a filter set to only deliver the "good" stuff and destroy any junk mail. Should they throw out everything but bills and handwritten letters? What about magazines? Coupons? Requested information from a certain company? What if they mistake your tax return for a piece of junk mail?

That's a ludicrous idea, isn't it? There's no way anyone could sort your mail for you. They simply would not know what you wanted to keep and what you wanted to pitch. It just wouldn't work, and the same is true with all these s pa m filters.

It seems that ISPs are so obsessed about nothing unwanted landing in our inboxes that they don't care if any of the stuff we want gets there either. Unfortunately, a recent poll discovered that 88% of end users (that's us) don't care if legitimate e-mail gets blocked, as long as they don't get as much s pa m! I don't know about you, but I'm in that 12% that wants to get all of my e-mail.

To those who agree with the 88% who don't care if they lose legitimate e-mail, think about this. What if you placed an order with a company that was getting blocked by your ISP? What if you had a problem with your order and sent them an e-mail to get it straightened out? They get your e-mail and - being a good company - reply immediately. However, since they are blocked by your ISP (and probably don't know it) their reply to you never gets to your inbox. If you're one of the many Hotmail users who were affected last week, you could also ask why you suddenly stopped getting your Worldstart newsletter!

Back to our example. You get all upset because an internet company you ordered something from never replied to your complaint. They did, but your ISP prevented you from receiving the reply. See the problem?

It's out of control, and I see three possible outcomes:

1. They come up with a s pa m filter that works. (Not likely, remember the post office analogy?)

2. E-mail filtering gets completely out of control and e-mail is no longer a reliable means of communication (the road we're currently on). This possible future prompted us to create the Newsletter Reader.

3. End users (that's us) complain to our ISPs that we are not getting our e-mail correctly. In my opinion, we should NEVER EVER have even a single piece of e-mail filtered that we wanted in our inbox, period. That's the standard we should set, and the way I think it will be.

What good is e-mail going to be if you can no longer rely on it?

So, before you jump onto a s pa m filtering system or complain to your ISP, be sure to keep this little sermon in mind. You may get more e s pa m without the filter, but at least you'll also get all your regular e-mail. 

The initiation of more widespread interim beta releases represents a change for typical Windows development over the last 10 years.  The last time we had this sort of widespread release of Windows code was during Windows 95's development.  Microsoft is attempting to compress the time needed to deliver Windows Vista by the end of next year.  By releasing interim betas, it will get more bug reports earlier in the process, thereby giving itself a longer time to process and diagnose bugs.  This will also bring the company feedback about new features earlier in the process, while it still has time enough to tweak them.

I thought it was a mistake when, after the Windows 95 development effort, Microsoft curtailed broadly distributed interim releases to the development community and the press over the last 10 years -- relying on a smaller corps of beta testers.  I hope this new process, which the company calls "CTP" (for Community Technical Preview) will become the new standard for all major Microsoft development efforts, including Windows and Office.  If you're serious about improving software quality, you have to focus on giving the dev team more time to squash bugs after a widespread beta, instead of lumping those bug reports into one big crazy effort after beta 2.  In that scenario, inevitably, you'll be forced to ignore things that take longer to diagnose and fix.

It should also help Microsoft to be a bit more customer focused.  Over the last decade, Microsoft has become increasingly insular to end-user concerns.  The CTP releases are no panacea, but they're a step in the right direction.  I see no sign so far, though, that Microsoft is applying this to other development efforts.

Performance and Reliability 
So enough of Microsoft's development process.  The first thing anyone will notice about this build of Vista is performance.  The CTP 5219 build is noticeably faster than previous Vista pre-releases.  It also feels faster than my cluttered up Windows XP installations.  The real proof of performance improvement comes after 20 or so applications have been installed and hardware added, and so forth.  But at least Microsoft is trying to live up to its performance goals.  Very often we don't begin to see that sort of difference until Release Candidates, which are probably almost a year away.  Of course, there are a lot of features left to add.  It's way too early to assess performance.

Microsoft is claiming that Windows Vista will turn on and off in two to three seconds "as quickly and reliably as a TV set." Part of this is will be based on Microsoft's new hybrid Sleep mode, but surprisingly, even in this early pre-release build (on a freshly installed machine), the system shuts down in about six seconds.  Start up takes a good deal longer.

A new utility called Windows SuperFetch is enabled in build 5219.  It loads all or part of a user's most frequently used programs and files into unallocated system memory *before* they are called for.  The idea is to improve application performance by reducing the need to load data from the hard disk when starting or using applications.  SuperFetch continually adjusts the set of data it pre-fetches based on user directed activities with apps and files.

I've also seen fewer reliability issues in this build so far.  Networking is faster, and so far more reliable.  The problems with Windows Explorer found in earlier builds have not yet made an appearance.  One hiccup I've seen occurs after the screensaver bumps you back to the login screen (the default setting in XP and Vista).  Upon re-entry, there's about 10 seconds of errant pause accompanied by some graphical disturbance.  The problem rights itself without any further issue.  Even more serious, there's a bug in Display Properties, Settings area.  When you change screen resolution twice, the second time you try to do this, Vista may spontaneously reboot.  This sort of thing is very common in early betas, and may be specific to my video hardware (ATI Radeon 9800 Pro).  So it doesn't mean anything.  The point is, I'm seeing less dysfunctional, ah, functionality overall.

What's New in Vista Build 5219 
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a video worth?  I'm going to try something a little different.  There are two highly visual new features in Windows Vista's CTP build that I'm going to show you instead of just telling you about them.

Note: Several things might go wrong with this experiment.  My guess is this could pull down my website if too many people demand to see these screencam "movies" simultaneously.  Also, it requires Shockwave Flash to be installed in your browser.  Bottom line: I can't guarantee this experience.  It may be great, or it may not be so.  And a lot of that variance will be dictated by your Internet connection and how bombed my Web server is when you hit it.

The first is a Microsoft feature called Live Thumbnails.  The feature gives you a large, dynamic thumbnail preview of applications minimized to the Vista Taskbar.  Just pause the mouse button for a second over the taskbar button for any program, and the image will open.  If the program is in motion -- say, for example, a video running on a Web page -- you'll see that video running in the thumbnail.  Those of you who appreciate the use of quality graphics to enhance the user interface experience will appreciate Live Thumbnails.  The rest of you will probably think it's eye candy.  But I believe most users of the final Vista product will find this feature useful, even invaluable.  Especially those of you -- and you know who you are -- who tend to work with 20 or 30 windows open pretty much at all times.

Live Thumbnails (2.2MB Shockwave Flash Movie, broadband required):
http://www.scotsnewsletter.com/art/screencam/livethum.htm Microsoft has also finally decided to embrace Task Switcher, also known as Alt-Tab.  This tool is used by many more experienced Windows users to rapidly switch among multiple running applications.  For Vista, there's a new 2D version that shows the Live Thumbnails and lets you switch among them by holding down the Alt key and repeatedly pressing Tab to advance among your running apps.  Microsoft has given this the working name "Flip."

There's also a new 3D version of Task Switcher, which, you guessed it, has the code name "Flip 3D." 
You really have to see this to get it.  To launch Flip 3D in build 5219, you hold down the Windows key and press the spacebar.  When you do this, all the program windows running on your system magically stack themselves left to right and turn to show their edges in a 3D presentation.  You can see the program windows at a roughly 45-degree angle, but they're, well ...  program windows in space.  As you scroll your mouse wheel or click the cursor keys, the programs cycle through, the one on top jumping to the back and the one just behind it coming to the fore.  Just click any program window with the mouse to revert your windows to their normal open positions.  The one you clicked will be on the top.

Flip 3D (11.8MB Shockwave Flash Movie, broadband required):
http://www.scotsnewsletter.com/art/screencam/flip3D.htm (You may have to let this screencam run through twice before it will run smooth enough to see the screencam properly.)

In the March 2005 issue of the newsletter I reviewed the Mac Mini.  In talking about OS X toward the end of the review, I was very positive about a feature called Expose, which is designed to manage Window clutter.  Flip 3D appears to me to be Microsoft's return volley on Expose.  Although it doesn't offer as many options as Expose (in build 
5219), Flip 3D does solve the same basic problem: "I have a zillion windows open, how do I find the one I need fast?"

One Windows Vista feature I haven't written about to date is something Microsoft has recently dubbed "Windows SideShow." Previously it was called Auxiliary Displays.  The auxiliary display idea is for mobile computers.  You'll have to buy new hardware that supports it, and that new hardware will have a small second display visible when machine is closed.  So, while your computer is in a sleep state, it's just awake enough to send data to the auxiliary display, like how many new emails you have, how many instant messages, network alerts, the date and time, a snapshot of your calendar, and so on.  SideShow can be used with notebook computers, but Microsoft suggests that it will also be built into remote controls, keyboard, and smart phones.  Vista build 5219 adds new control features for SideShow not available in Vista Beta 1.

Microsoft hasn't talked much about the peer-to-peer features that will ship in Windows Vista.  But it's talking about one now, which has the working name of Meeting Space.  Microsoft's description reads: "Meeting Space allows a meeting participant to quickly create or join a meeting and simply and more securely transfer files or broadcast presentations and documents directly to other participants' personal computers on any shared network." In other words, virtual meetings.  Meeting Space, or whatever it will eventually be called, is the first application to harness Microsoft's People Near Me capability, which identifies only people on a nearby subnet.  More on this when I've had a chance to actually try it.  In this CTP version of Vista (unlike Windows Vista Beta 1), the new "Peer-to-Peer" Control Panel has peer functionality turned off by default.

Finally, according to the document Microsoft circulated with this version of the software, a whole bunch of aspects of Vista's desktop searching functionality have been turned on or improved, but the reality is that none of what's talked about is something you can see or try, so I'll leave that for when Windows desktop search gets further along.

Sidebar is back.  Microsoft recently announced the return of the Windows Sidebar, a feature that was in the originally PDC2003 alpha release of Windows Longhorn.  Just like Mac OS X's widgets, Windows Sidebar will run "mini applications" that Microsoft calls Gadgets.  I think Microsoft has a good chance to do something better with this than Apple did.  Apple's implementation in OS X 1.4 is scotch-taped onto the OS X interface in a way that I find pretty useless.  But the idea has promise.  For more about Microsoft's effort, see the Microsoft Gadgets site, which is aimed at developers not you and me.  Still there's useful information on this site for everyone.

Microsoft Gadgets:
http://microsoftgadgets.com/default.aspx

My digital camera has a panoramic feature. Initially I just ignored it, then I got addicted. Creating a panoramic shot once entailed changing to the camera's Panoramic setting and shooting a series of images of some applicable subject matter. From asking around the office, the cameras with this feature still won't build a panorama without using some external application (usually the camera's software) to stitch the disjointed images into one image. Autostitch, today's Download of the Week, should level the playing field, allowing anyone with a digital camera to create panoramic shots regardless of their camera's feature set or skill with imaging software.

This week's download is perfect for all of us who take panoramic shots or who would like to take them. Autostitch is the first program to be able to automatically stitch any photographer's overlapping images (within reason) into one fabulous panoramic shot. It helps to take the shots in order and include just under a quarter-frame's overlap on each side of the frame.

Autostitch requires hardly any user interaction. Simply drop the images into the interface and select Start, let Autostitch do the rest. Here's some of the sample images form Autostitch's website. There's really not a lot to say; it is what it is, and that's all that it is. It's just cool. There are settings you can configure, but you don't need to even touch them to get good results. There's not a ton of help at the site (just a set of FAQ's and no help file), but you don't need it. Just go outside, take a bunch of shots of your house in a row, dump the images into Autostitch, push the magic button and- voila!- you'll be patting yourself on the back, Ansel Adams.
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html

That's a mouthful of a title but it is what this site is all about. Come here and learn about what the crowning engineering achievements of the 20th century are.

You'll notice upon arriving that the list is spelled out right in front of you and numbered one to twenty. But if you click on any of the topics you can learn all about them. Each section will give you an introduction, then at the bottom of the page there is a link to the History of each item and the Timeline for each item.

I chose Lasers and Fiber Optics to use as my example here. I click in on number 18, I learn all about what fields lasers and fiber optics are used in. Then I learn the history of how they came to be then I click on the timeline and I find out that the first steps to make these things began in 1917 when Albert Einstein establishes stimulated emissions.

Each topic is concise and to the point and even I could understand some of the finer points of each section of technology. So it's easy to understand and gives you the history of each one without being longwinded.

This site gets an A+ for educational purposes, and an A++ for usability, ease of navigation and information. I think you will enjoy it as much as I did just from a curiosity stand point of what are the top twenty crowning achievements of the 20th century. What will the 21st century have to add to these marvels is what I wonder.
http://www.greatachievements.org/

It's been a while since I've found such a great, free interactive game site to share with you. There are paid memberships, but you don't need it to play the games. The free registration gives you access to the high score tables.

There are lots of different categories of games: Logic, Word, Typing, Focus, Memory, Mouse, Math, Search, Card, and Other.

In the Typing section, I found Typo to be fun. This game 's basically like a typing test. You try to type the sentence as accurately and as quickly as you can. If you succeed, you get a bonus round where you type a series of words as quickly and as accurately as you can and move onto the next round. It was a lot of fun.

Next I headed into the Search category. I tried Word Zirch, which was a heck of a lot of fun, but I'm a big word search geek. The words float in the middle of the screen, and the word you are looking for appears at the bottom. Click the word when it appears in the middle, and the next word to find will come up at the bottom. I scored a 3000+ at this game and found that I spent a lot of time playing and not writing this article. :)

In the Word Games area, it was hard to decide what to play. Hang Mind, this site's version of Hangman, gets more difficult as the rounds go on. I used up a lot of my guesses in the first round and was sorely missing them in the rounds to follow.

From there I moved onto the Logic area, which had a lot of interesting games. My favorite is Tweak, somewhat like a slide puzzle and somewhat like a Rubik's cube. As you get further in, you get more puzzle pieces and more time. By the fourth one, I was already addicted and frantically scrambling to finish the puzzle. I had a lot of fun!

Why don't you take some time and check out the other games that they offer?
http://www.playwithyourmind.com/main.php