In the latest Microsoft press release, Microsoft has announced wider public participating in the Windows Vista beta testing program for Release Candidate 1 scheduled to be released this week. They also state Vista is on track for volume license release on November 2006 and general public release on January 2007.

But what is more exciting is that Microsoft has officially announced the retail price estimates for Windows Vista only a few days after the leak by Amazon.

The software assurance logo program for Windows Vista has also been announced. Partners are encouraged to to enroll in the program to take advantage of Microsoft’s marketing opportunity for Vista-ready applications. This should greatly improve the quantity and quality of applications that will be optimized for Windows Vista when launched.

I think this is cooler by itself than it is in Windows Vista. As Jenny Lam of Microsoft Design described,

It’s not so much a new theme as a new brand element for Windows. We were feeling a little creatively trapped when it came to the Windows identity especially with branding the user experience (in UI). We know we didn’t want to slap the Windows flag logo everywhere (disparaging to the flag!), so we created this new little sweet, light gesture animation in the UI. I have to admit, there’s still some little treatment-like work I’d like to do to it.

One of the key selling points of Windows Vista and the likely cause of the next economic depression is the freshly updated bundled games. Apart from the new cinematic-quality card appearances and WETA-rendered table backgrounds, the most exciting addition to the Windows gaming experience is the end-game animation. Just playing the games out of curiosity was totally worth it. Imagine how rewarding it would be if you were a professional player.

I made three screencasts of the two most popular Windows games: Solitaire, Spider Solitaire as well as everyone’s upcoming favorite, Purple Place. The speed of the video during my intense play session has been sped up to maintain your sanity and hide my n00bish gaming skills.

Solitaire

Click image to play video (H.264, 1:33min)

Spider Solitaire

Click image to play video (H.264, 1:53min)

Purble Place

Click image to play video (H.264, 2:38min)

And here is your complimentary Purble Place wallpaper. Please, only take only one copy per person. I know everyone is just dying to get it, but please queue in an orderly fashion. Offenders will be banned from downloading this once-in-a-lifetime wallpaper. (1600px*992px)

It’s been four weeks since I announced the Camtasia Studio giveaway exactly 28 days ago. During those four weeks I’ve experienced happiness, sadness, surprise, flying, presenting, chatting, volunteering, assignments catchup, laughter and suspense. That enough talking about me, since I’m not even eligible to win.

The official number of entries stood at 228 at the time of entry drawing. The unofficial number of entires stood at 230, because I was testing the system, honest. But it’s closed now. So to the 5 of you seconds away from submitting your entry, bad luck. Life’s tough, live with it. On a happier note, I’m now giving away 5, five (three more than two) licenses due to the unforeseen response.

Before I announce the list of winners. I have a sudden urge to give the guys at TechSmith one last complimentary plug. The following people have won a copy of Camtasia Studio, the award-winning screen recording / screencasting software that’s so easy to use, even I can use it!

So without further bullcrap, here is the list of people who you can suck up to to get your own copy of Camtasia Studio:

• Mark I. Clemons
• Nathanial Woolls
• Debra Lucas
• Shawn Christopher
• Marco Arciglio

To all the winners: you will be contacted by email in the next 24 hours to confirm your name. This is to prevent people with multiple personalities from winning. You must respond within 72-hours to confirm your entry.

To everyone else: stop crying. Hopefully there will be more giveaways on my blog in the near future.

I thought I’d try out my directing talent to produce a promotional video for Microsoft to help launch Windows Vista, since they don’t seem to be having much luck themselves. I think the results are pretty good. I make some compelling selling points. Check it out for yourself.

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4562. Four thousand five hundred and sixty two. 4562 is the amount of system icons (found in the systems32 folder) in Windows Vista. However due to duplicates, this is number is not totally accurate. But I don’t see you counting, so stop complaining.

I took the liberty of extracting all the icons and making a huge (4412x14856px) panoramic image just to visualize the sheer quantity of 4562 icons. So please take a look, otherwise I would have wasted all morning of my Sunday for nothing.

Flash panorama powered by Zoomify

So the problem everyone complains about is, “Microsoft needs to replace all the legacy Windows 3.1 and 95-era icons for Vista”. How easy does that sound? From an advanced user and IT pro perspective, as of Windows Vista Beta RC1, most user interface elements does not exhibit any traces of the legacy icons. But if you dig a little deeper, you will definitely come across them. Microsoft’s unofficial statement is that they will try as hard as possible to redefine all legacy icons, but won’t make any promises.

The situation is Microsoft has less than months to continue working on Windows Vista before the final build has to be dispatched to the manufacturer. And because of that, I don’t think by RTM, all the icons will be updated. There are still so much designing to do for Vista besides icons, and simply because no one has unlimited resources, not everything can have the highest priority. The sad fact is I don’t think anyone else who uses Windows would care enough about icons to complain, except designers and enthusiasts.

But Microsoft isn’t the only people to blame. Quite a significant amount of legacy icons actually come from third parties who bundle their default drivers with Windows. Companies like HP, Canon and Epson embed quite a shameful amount of disgusting 95-era icons in their bundled drivers and applications. And the chances of them proactively redesigning those icons is less than 0.

In conclusion, it is simply not possible at this point to make sure every Windows icon is redesigned to the ‘Aero standard’ of photo-realistic high-resolution illustrations. The people to blame are Microsoft, for building such a monolithic and pro-legacy operating system, and also most third party hardware vendors, for not having the slightest clue about designing modern interfaces. We’re just going to have to live with it.

P.S. Ironically, 4562 is also the IRS form number to record depreciation and amortization. I found that funny.