Opera, Firefox, Internet Explorer—everybody may and must decide which program to use for surfing. Professionals are glad, for newbies this can be messy. What now, which program to pick? Let’s talk about the backgrounds—and get some tips.

According to an agreement with the European Commission, Microsoft will give all Windows users in Europe the possibility to choose their favorite browser. From 17 March onwards, an update is delivered showing a ballott screen listing a number of browsers. On an exclusively created website, Microsoft presents all browsers installable for European Windows users. Even exotic browsers have managed to get on the list.

According to a Press release, the EU Commission approved Microsoft’s proposal to facilitate downloading alternative browsers in a Ballot Screen. Today, the Brussels Commission affirmed the Software Giant’s pledges to be mandatory and thus reconciled a cartel proceeding.

A contract to choose a default browser for Windows might be probable—revealed the financial news agency, Bloomberg in a report. “We’ve concluded our discussions with Microsoft,” Phillip Lowe, director general of the commission’s competition department, said in an interview at Brussels yesterday.

Windows 7 is generally available since yesterday. Never have the expectations for a new operating system been as high as this time, as we as end users have never been integrated into finding ideas for a new Windows, like we have this time. On top of that, Windows Vista has moved to the storage siding and is called a big flop by some people. Surely expectations climb up then – can Windows 7 embrace them?

Summer is over—but my interview series “Windows Live and You” is not. Today I talked with Marcus Schmidt, who is working for Microsoft and keeping in touch with people like you, to find out what users truly think about Windows and Windows Live. Marcus is a great and helpful person, so let’s [...]

After investigating 53 people in the United Status and 47 more people worldwide for 2 years, the FBI has charged them in a large phishing case in the U.S. and Egypt.  According to the FBI, the U.S.-Egypt phishing operation collected personal information from thousands of victims and used that information to defraud U.S. banks.  [...]

I thought it was about time to let you know what I am currently working on. While you can find the complete list at the Projects page, here is a summary of the most interesting bits.
MPLCode
A Messenger Plus! script for sending/receiving programming codes formatted instead of plain-text.
WLMStatus
Allows to display your current Messenger status on [...]

“QFE” is short for Quick Fix Engineering—and that is exactly what the latest Windows Live Essentials updates are for. In this post, I will highlight the Release Notes for Essentials 2009 QFE2. So, what is new or changed?

Windows Live Messenger conversation window: Chinese/Japanese/Korean IME (Input Method Editor) reset to English in the Messenger [...]