Alex Kipman, the group manager for Windows Vista Ultimate has posted a short video of an upcoming DreamScene wallpaper featuring an animated version of the back-lit glowing Windows orb wallpaper released weeks ago.

The back-lit Vista orb was one of two Vista Ultimate branded wallpaper released for public download on March 8. A lot of people agreed that these were awesome wallpapers and the download numbers up to the nearly hundred thousands reflect this enthusiasm.

It looks pretty cool, non-intrusive and unbranded. The way wallpapers should be. Hats off to them. Also, it should be noted the increasing transparency from the Ultimate team about their future plans and strategies is a welcoming change after years of national secrecy ever since the beta program.

However, I do hope the future of Ultimate Extras is not going to be years of DreamScene content packs. Cross my fingers.

Even though Windows Vista didn’t ship with a new “Add New Fonts” dialog that would have shaken the computing industry to its knees, it did however ship with some amazing new ClearType fonts. In 2004, Microsoft unveiled the “ClearType Font Collection” – a mix of serif and san-serif fonts to replace the aging set of Windows fonts that we’ve been stuck with for decades.

The collection included now-familiar names such as Constantia, Corbel, Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Meiryo and Segoe. These are beautiful fonts that are rightful replacements for Arial, Times New Roman and the like who has served as the default fonts ever since Windows 3.1. But one other font has served a legacy a few years too long. It should have retired, it was announced to be retired, but it’s still kicking. Why?

Of course I’m talking about Wingdings – our favorite dingbats font with a history of NYC controversy. It has been interpreted as anti-Semitic and then linked with the September 11 terrorist attacks. I think Microsoft felt a sigh of a relief when it announced the Vista-replacement for Windings, Cariadings. But Cariadings never came.

Microsoft Design describes Cariadings as,

a new decorative symbol font that will be included in Longhorn. “Cariadings” (Cariad means love or affection in Welsh) was designed by Microsoft’s own Geraldine Wade, one of the project leaders of the ClearType Font Collection.

The US Trademarks Office has approved Microsoft’s application for Cariadings ever since 2004. Even Microsoft’s own list of trademarks describes Cariadings as a font.

After doing some heavy earthmoving at the Patent Office (which is like right next door to the Trademarks Office), I uncovered Geraldine’s patent for the font type with a sample of what Cariadings looked like. Whilst I’m no Wingdings enthusiast, these are obviously more 21st-century-friendly.

So my question is, where the bloody hell is Cariadings? If anyone knows why it wasn’t included in Windows Vista, or even have a copy of it, please post it in the comments. 🙂

I think I found my Wow, however it’s not as grand as the space shuttle launch or the Berlin wall coming down. I was looking around to find out what was the deal with Daylight Savings Time, so I clicked on the clock and there it was, in plain English. And they didn’t even have to use the “lose/gain an hour sleep” analogy.

It’s all these little things in Windows Vista that adds up to an experience you can’t ever emulate with no matter how many visual style + icon + wallpaper transformation packs you apply. Per-application volume control is another great example.

You won’t find this on the back side of the product box, you won’t find this in Tom’s Hardware review and the NY Times will never write about it, but it doesn’t mean little things like this don’t exist.

Don’t spend 5 minutes at a local computer shop playing with Flip 3D to decide on why you think Windows Vista is mankind’s biggest failure. Be realistic. Use it, then judge it.

Update: Oh I forgot to mention, the new date and time widget is just amazing to begin with! The clock imagery has been updated for the first time in 10 years (since Windows 95), and you can now scroll through the calendar without having to change settings. Probably makes up for 0.0001% new lines of code in Vista, but 100% satisfaction. 🙂

This is why Microsoft forces MVPs to sign strict non-disclosure agreements before entering the summit.

Photos credit: Ho Yin Au

God help us.

Photo credit: Wade Rockett

Microsoft’s cleaning service could not be reached for comment.

Today, Microsoft shipped a Beta 2 build of the new graphics design tool, Expression Design on Microsoft Downloads. It appears that none of the official websites has been updated to reflect this yet. Just as I was writing this post, the official Expression website was updated to reflect the availability of this new beta.

This new beta does not seem to contain any major enhancements compared to Beta 1 which was a significant leap. Apart from the described support for the Release Candidate version of Expression Blend and enhanced XAML export capabilities to support .NET Framework 3.0, there are no visible user interface changes or changes in key capabilities. Even the accompanying readme file still reads “Beta 1”.

One of the features still lacking is Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file support, which should go hand-in-hand with vector designs. Hopefully that will come before RTM.

Expression Design is a new endeavor for Microsoft who’s never produced a graphics-creation application by any standards in the past, that is if you don’t count Paint. One of the key features it offers is the hybrid availability of both vector and bitmap tools in the same workspace, whereas Photoshop and Illustrator complimented each other separately (although each contained a bit of the other). Whether that is of any significant use to designers is yet to be properly explored.

But probably the biggest and most sounding benefit of using a Microsoft-built design tool is the integration of XAML technologies. It makes sense to join the dots between a Microsoft-developed technology (XAML/WPF) with a Microsoft-developed tool, in theory at least. If there’s any success to come out of Expression Design, it will be from building beautifully-designed applications using XAML.

As a self-proclaimed designer, I still use and prefer to use Photoshop for day-to-day design tasks. It’s a combination of habit, familiarity and third-party support (tutorials, plugins). I can picture myself using Expression Design one day to design XAML illustrations for use in WPF-powered software, but that won’t be mainstream for a while.