I was updating my websites, but then I decided I might as well save some future effort to recode yet again for IE8, so I downloaded the beta. Most of the reviews seemed very good, as were my impressions.

Right off the bat, IE8 managed to irritate me, as it booted Firefox as my default browser, and planted itself in my Quick Launch and my Start Menu , but aside from that, it worked quite well. The user interface is mostly the same with the addition of a few extra buttons for Web Slices and a Favorites bar. On the first run, my hard drive began making noises like none other, which wasn't particularly confidence inspiring. The beta seems a bit glitchy still, with some menus not lining up, the compatibility button not appearing at times, and other random problems. Despite the problems with the UI, IE has been surprisingly stable and there have been no hangs or crashes typical of IE7.

Site rendering was an odd experience at best. The Window Live navigation bar suddenly acquired a strange habit of turning various fluorescent colors - lime green, and blue every so often. Formatting rendering is finally up to standards, which means web designers can finally stop creating extra stylesheets for IE. Unfortunately, there's still some problems with transparency (hover over the logo on this site). But it passes the Acid test, so all is good, which unfortunately means there's a problem with my website .

The biggest selling point of IE8 are the new features, and they make browsing much more efficient. IE is finally up to par with Firefox (and possibly even better?). It's got an integrated in page search bar which no longer pops out and asks whether you want to search up or down . There is also a dedicated Safety menu option which is quite useful considering all the online threats these days. This option also includes the InPrivate browsing so you can... uh... hide your "birthday gift browsing". View source has received the wonderful addition of line numbers and formatting, and everything is much easier to read.

But the greatest feature has got to be the accelerators, and they're a fantastic time saver. They work like the Microsoft Office highlighting popups, but without the fading effects. Plus it is a great way to introduce more users to the Windows Live services. Another new feature Suggested Sites, could probably use some work. The suggested sites for gmail.com included "MSDN Forums - login.live.com doesnt work" "Hotmail" some random bank website and then another random result I don't remember.

While this is a beta, there are a few things that definitely need to be fixed if I ever switch back.

1. Removing the strange gray frame around windows.

2. MS Office style magnification slider (just because).

3. Making the purpose of each box on the status bar a little more obvious.

4. Eliminating the redundant search options dropdown on the right since it already appears at the bottom.

Wow I've got no more complaints. Very impressive for a beta, and I probably will be switching back to IE. It seems a little competition is always good! Now time to wait for Wave 3!

Original Article

Sure they probably copied Firefox's "Awesome Bar," but they seriously took it to a new level with visual search. Hard to say, but it appears the search bar is retrieving results actively from inside webpages as you type which is just a fantastic UI idea. In a way, you really don't have to use the search engine webpage since more detail is provided in the search bar itself. Hopefully the search algorithm is as effective as Firefox's, because fancy pictures aren't any good if the results are bad. Of course, there's also the much needed crash recovery improvements as well. I'm also looking forward to the much needed stability improvements, since IE7 crashes just about every other time I use it.

But web designers around the world should be heaving a sigh of relief soon, because IE8 will finally support web standards! Which will definitely be cutting down the amount of time people are typing <!--[if lt IE 8]>.

Plus it's got all of those cool user oriented features like Accelerators that I will definitely be implementing in all of my future web designs. Overall, things are looking good and I just might (if it doesn't crash too much) switching back to IE! Even if it uses a ton of memory or CPU cycles, I'm really not going to care since I've got a Vista PC which means I don't care about resource intensive apps anymore.

And has anyone seen today's Live.com? The photo is great and the hotspots are finally back!

Not even three days... unbelievably tired. History was surprisingly interesting...

Comic from VirusComix.com, a new favorite of mine in addition to xkcd.com.

Liveside.net recently posted an article suggesting that Windows Live Favorites, one of my favorite (haha) Live services might be retired.  Unfortunately, this is yet another service Microsoft invested time on, and now they're shuttering it. The new Live Favorites has been integrated into Skydrive as a separate Favorites folder. I'll grudgingly admit that the new favorites service works a whole lot faster and more smoothly than Live Favorites, which didn't work on Firefox and loaded about half the time on IE.

It's great that they're continuing the service... but hopefully they'll make a tool to port the favorites to the new service. I have about 89 favorites, and I sure don't feel like typing those manually.

Well as usual I was checking my ranking on the SERPs, and I've noticed lately that Google has taken a liking to my web design site. The last time I checked, I wasn't anywhere near the first page with a Google search, and just a few minutes ago I checked, and "!!!" I'm was on the first page! . Sure I'm the last result on the first page, but this is unbelievable! I had hardly done any off-page search engine optimization at all! Only few few sprinkles of my key phrase. I can't believe I'm ranked... Sure the excitement will die down in a while, and this probably won't last since Google is always fiddling with their crazy algorithm, but this is the first time I aimed to be ranked for a term and it actually happened, so it's pretty exciting.

Then again, I'm not quite sure how this happened at all. The only times I've linked my key phrase to the site is on this Live Space, and if that had anything to do with it, Live Spaces has some serious PR clout! But part of the reason of success is probably because of the low keyword density of my site. So far, I've only targeted the one phrase, whereas the other web design companies basically cover every area in the region. So I probably shouldn't be too excited until I'm #1. But then again, Live Search is giving me even more SERP love. How did that happen? No idea. Last I checked, the site wasn't even listed when the name was Live searched.

But here's also a little background and tips on SEO if you want to optimize your site externally. Basically, Google calculates relevancy by the anchor text, or the text you use to link to the site. If a bunch of people link to a site with the term "Windows Live Office Is Awesome," a Google of the phrase should bring up the site.

Alright... so I haven't exactly been making loads of money online. But here's the plan. This month, all I need to do is balance out my PayPal account so that at least I'll be out of the red from all the hosting fees and such. Next month, serious link building time and MMO with affiliate marketing, outsourcing, website, flipping and whatever I can get my hands on.

So there's this interesting new site. Linkbee.com. Basically it's your standard URL shortening site but with a twist - you get paid for views. The site gives income by giving users the options to attach either a banner ad or an irritating interstitial ad on the linked URL. Naturally, as ad irritation increases, earnings increase at a similar rate. Now obviously, this type of site is the holy grail of online money making of sorts. Basically, you've got other people advertising for you (a web franchise of sorts as well), so you don't need to do any work. With any luck, it will start spreading like a virus. Once one person creates a link, say 100 people see it. If even 5% sees it and likes it, from then from then on the site will spread at 5^x power. Aka viral marketing is done for you. Even though the payout is obviously rubbish, people (including me) will think it's great at first, and that is why this site is going to be hugely successful. I doubt the owners will keep it for any long term period though, and I'm almost certain it's going to be bought in the coming months. Nevertheless, it's a great idea.

Plus along the way I found a fantastic new blog - KillerStartups.com. No need to describe it in detail - it's a blog of killer startups. It's definitely a great place to get inspiration and such. It is a bit fishy that a blog with 10k readers has less than 5 comments for most posts.

So I'll keep posted on the MMO (make money online) status. Oh, and I've created another URL shortening site (woot for the .com domain!). The first one was sold for $50, so not a bad return. Unfortunately, I spent way too much time on it. I will be keeping this new site though.

So I woke up early yesterday morning and switched to NBC expecting to be greeted by the exuberant sounds of the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony. Instead, I got some rebroadcasted junk from NBC that made it seem like the opening ceremony hadn't even started yet, despite the fact that it was happening at that very moment. Needless to say, NBC seriously dropped the ball. Every other person in the world could probably watch the ceremony live, and here in the U.S. NBC probably decided that early in the morning wasn't a good time to show it. Instead, I had to wait until later in the night to watch it. More insultingly, NBC obviously went to great lengths to create the illusion that everything was live, despite the fact that it was all 11 hours late. Even worse, the ceremony was interrupted with countless commercial breaks. Obviously primetime was a "better" time for the opening ceremony because it could rake in more advertising dollars. NBC = fail.

But enough about NBC's greed induced epic failure. The opening ceremony was simply unbelievable. Unlike any I had ever seen before. The stadium was just an ocean of cheering people. The ceremony was incredible, and it all consisted of thousands of performers moving in synchronization. Considering how difficult it is to get even a few people moving on cue together, I can't even imagine how long it took to perfect yesterday's performance. The show was powerful but delivered with a very dramatic flair, and was often Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragonesque (for lack of a better term to describe flying people) considering it was directed by Zhang Yimou. The entire show was innovative and dramatic, down to the unbelievable torch lighting.

My conclusion? Awesome!

I didn't make it to the first Live Clubhouse meeting, so I attended the one today. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed, because it was basically a workshop type meeting, where the users ask questions on Live Space features. I find it hard to believe that somebody who can successfully get to the Live Spaces Events link, and get it all working properly (I couldn't even figure out how to get the sound working for 5 minutes) asks about how to add and remove modules. The Clubhouse team is awfully secretive too, refusing to answer a question because of copyright issues or something.

Ugh, I also broke my other rule- not to write any boring rehash posts, but I felt obligated to post for some reason, and the result was a lame review of the new Facebook theme.

I had been blathering on about making money online for a while now, so a quick update on the progress. I made a measly $14 or so in a week off of ZIP submits, which give a $1 bounty on every zip code submitted. ZIP submits are basically those "Win a free X" ads that are everywhere. But it's just pocket change, and I need to find some new techniques... article marketing? This is hard work. I'll definitely post more when I can earn a good $100 a day. There's no point in sharing something that only makes $14 a week of course.