I might be a bit late to the scene on this one, since this has been out for nearly a month. Thanks to Steve Clayton for posting this.

When you think of people ‘in-the-know’ about Web 2.0, a few names roll off the top of your head like Michael Arrington, Chad Hurley, Om Malik and many more. But what about Bill Gates? Little did I know how much Bill has to say about the ‘Web 2.0’ movement as I found out during a panel discussion about Web 2.0 at the World Economic Forum titled “The Impact of Web 2.0 and Emerging Social Network Models”.

Here’s my own 7-minute highlight of Gates from the entire 56-minute session. He talks about Engadget, DRM (iTunes), buzzwords, advertising, IPTV and Second Life. Things he also talks about but aren’t included in this highlight includes the internet bubble and net neutrality.

If you like what you see, then I urge you to view the entire session in many formats including a vodcast. The panel includes Caterina from Flickr, Bill from Microsoft, Chad from YouTube, Mark from Nike, Viviane from EU Commission, Dennis from Forbes Magazine and Peter from Global Business Network.

Great speakers with great topics. Not to be missed by every Web 2.0 and technology enthusiast. Bill even makes a breakthrough suggestion that the world is actually in 3D. The man knows everything.

This brand would bring together the emotional connection from many existing and loyal users of Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95 with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Windows 95 PLUS!, Windows 98, Windows 98 PLUS!, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows NT Workstation, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows SP2 with Advanced Security. Our goal is to make sure people feel comfortable knowing some part of their legacy operating system still exists within Windows Vista (as above).

This will be a great way to tackle OS X, which has had the same uncommunicative name in the last 4 major releases. It just baffles me how people know what OS X 10.4 contains. Shouldn’t it be OS X SP4 64-bit edition with Spotlight & iChat AV & Dashboard and Quicktime 7 technologies?

Update: Using highly sophisticated nuclear physics, Stefan Ventura has calculated by 2018, the Microsoft email service will have 59 letters in its name. Now there’s a unique brand we can all identify with.

I have absolutely nothing else to write about, so I’m going to post some pretty pictures of the individual application boxshots from the Office 2007 suite. Apparently they’ve been up for a few weeks, but I haven’t seen anyone mention them yet. I think they look great – simple, bright, stylish, unified yet unique with some amazing abstract images communicating the uses of each product.

Interesting how the ‘pro’ applications have a darker swoosh gradient, and server applications have a (very) thin-footprint casing. Server administrators must have very little shelf-spacing these days.

Head over to the Microsoft PressPass Product Boxshots image gallery to see them in full 320dpi fidelity. (Click through the alphabets at the top)

Last week, the media went schizophrenic over the Windows Vista speech recognition ‘loophole’ which allowed anyone with a microphone to have full access over your computer. Granted, you must also be partially-deaf, turned your speaker volume to full, carefully place your microphone next to the speakers, turn on speech recognition and train your speech profile as if you were someone else. It might sound incredibly challenging to get this exploit working properly, but the media assures this exploit is a “fatal flaw”, so obviously Microsoft is to blame and Vista gets a big red “Fail” on security.

This week, two top Swedish security experts only to be named “Long” and “Zheng”, to hide their identity from Microsoft, exposes many more “fatal” security flaws inside the newborn operating system, Windows Vista. Here are the two most dangerous exploits you should be concerned about.

The first exploit is a bug inside the keyboard and mouse subsystem which enables the targeted system to be hijacked and maliciously delete files, folders, music, torrents and other important sounding stuff without the user’s authorization or control.

Details of how such an exploit works are sketchy, but leaked documents reveal the keyboard and mouse APIs offers unprecedented amount of control over an operating system, allowing anyone and everyone to have full access to your computer with or without your authorization. This exploit allows anyone ranging from younger siblings to gang leaders who could use brute force, such as a punch or tickle, to gain access to your keyboard and mouse cursors and perform malicious activities such as browsing The Inquirer or deleting vital fraudulent financial documents.

A second exploit highlights a serious flaw inside the popular Windows-platform development tool, Visual Studio. An undocumented feature inside this software is said to enable the ability for malicious users to compile and execute unsigned and potentially damaging source code. If users somehow come across malicious source code and decide to copy, paste, compile and execute within Visual Studio, the resulting application could change wallpapers, block access to YouTube, increase the volume and other serious irreversible damages to the computer system.

Nobody knows exactly how or why Microsoft has designed Visual Studio to include such a dangerous and exploitable feature, but several self-proclaimed security experts has voiced their anger to Microsoft for such questions actions. “Putting lives at risk like cars on the road” says one expert, “cheese sandwiches are really good, but this is horrible like a tomato sandwich” insists another – drawing a connection between operating systems and lunch snacks.

Whilst both exploits are said to affect the entire industry of operating systems, “Long” and “Zheng” insists that only Windows is affected due to its massive user-base and pretty wallpapers. Both security experts warn if users do not switch to another operating system, Apple and the Free Software Foundation will be really upset.

Microsoft officials gave me a weird look and did not wish to comment at the time of writing.

Next week, keep an eye out for the exclusive report on why Solitaire is a fire hazard. How the end-game fireworks might burn down your operating system. Not to be missed by every innocent Solitaire player.

Sometimes millions of people will have to bear the outcomes made by one or a small group of decision makers. Most of the time the decision is favorable to customers, for example the “Ribbon” interface – it solves a very big problem (however also not the ultimate solution). But other times, the decision doesn’t reflect the wants of the customers and the result doesn’t deliver to standards (Zune) or deliver at all.

I think a mistake has been made on “Scout”, the internal Office 2007 add-on that’s been well-received by pro Office users all around, but not going to be released.

I want to insert a border on my page. I check the “Home” tab, looking…looking…looking. Nope, nothing about page borders here. Next most obvious tab, “Insert”. Ooh, cover pages – fancy, not it though. Looking… Nope, nothing about page borders here. Moving on to the next tab, “Page layouts”. Looking… Oh there it is, 9th icon from the left.

You might call me dumb, but that’s what I do. Sometimes I just don’t know where to look for a function that I know exists in the application. But why should I have to look for it when Microsoft is so heavily promoting search in its new wave of product releases?

I can search for applications and documents from the Vista start menu. I can search for photos in Windows Photo Gallery. I can search for music in Windows Media Player. Hell I can even Google Search in Internet Explorer. Why can’t I search for tools in Office?

Oh wait! You can, if you work for Microsoft. But 400 million Office users don’t.

Chris Capossela, a corporate vice president in Microsoft’s Business Division, tells Mary Jo Foley that “Scout as a proof-of-concept app, nothing more”. Well if that’s the case, then I can tell him the concept works.

Chris goes on to add, “adding another search tool on top of it (Ribbon) would be superfluous and potentially confusing”. No matter how intuitive Ribbon might be, it’s not perfect. Sure, I can click through the Vista start menu folder by folder looking for the application I want. It’s worked since Windows 95, it will work another decade.

Search in the start menu might be “superfluous” and “potentially confusing”, but it’s there because it’s easy. I don’t care if I can find “page borders” with 20 different ways in Office, I just want the one that would be easy.

“Scout” could come in the form of a PowerToy with no help file, support or warranty. It has been well received by Microsoft employees who’s used it since September 2006, and even customers who’s never seen more than one screenshot. If there’s one proof-of-concept that’s a sure thing, then it’s “Scout”. Please release it.

Update: Here’s my own test-case scenario to support my argument. I was working with Excel all day yesterday, trying to find a command I know existed in Excel 2003 and can be found quite easily. I was clicking every tab and hovering over all the buttons. I must have gone through the Ribbon at least 5 times.

In the end, the stupid command wasn’t even in the ribbon to begin with. You had to manually add it to the “Quick Access Toolbar”. If I had “Scout”, I could have saved at least the frustration of not being able to find a too that I know is there, not to mention the time and effort wasted.

Microsoft, you’ve built it, you’ve released it internally and the people love it. You wanted to experiment and the experiment is a success. Not to release it publically because it contradicts some stupid marketing gimmick is BS. Are you building quality products or marketing campaigns? Ribbon is intuitive most of the time, but don’t throw away common sense just yet.

Hamad Darwish might not be a household name, but if you use Windows Vista, then his work is on your computer. In fact, it might be even on your desktop right now! Assuming IDC’s predictions are accurate, then before the end of the year, up to 90 million people will have the chance to see Hamad’s work, and all he had to do was upload it to Flickr.

I had the chance to chat with Hamad about his experiences and path to desktop fame.

Q: Who are you?

I’m 24 years old and I was born in Kuwait. In 2001, I moved to the United States as a full-time student to get my bachelor’s degree in Radiologic Science from Oregon Institute of Technology. After obtaining my degree in 2006, I moved back to Kuwait with my family. I am currently an employee in the Ministry of Health, working in a public hospital specialized for chest diseases. I work as a CT (CAT scan) Radiographer and also as a network administrator in the Medical Imaging Department.

Q: How did you get into photography?

You may not believe how new I am to this field. When I was approached by Microsoft, I’ve only been using a camera for about two years. I grew up watching my dad spend all his time and money on cameras. I never actually got into photography growing up, but I was around cameras all my life.

It wasn’t until my third year in college where I thought photography is quite the thing to try. I gave it a try, and now I can’t live without it.

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