Free Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 Pack

For all you developers out there, here's a chance to preview the next-generation Visual Studio. Microsoft is giving free copies of Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 Pack (shipping is also paid by Microsoft, meaning a $0 monetary cost to you). It includes the following:

• Microsoft© Visual Studio© 2005 Team System Beta 2
• Microsoft© Team Foundation Server Beta 2
• WeFly247 training DVD
• Microsoft© SQL Server™ 2005 Standard Edition Community Technology Preview
• The Beta Experience newsletter (6-weekly, terminated with the launch of the final version of Visual Studio 2005)

For those in the Americas, visit https://www.getthebetas.com/profile.aspx
If you live in Europe, the Middle East or Africa, visit here: http://www.microsoft.com/emea/msdn/betaexperience/enxu/order.aspx

Google Personalized

Is this a step towards Mircrosoft's My MSN and Yahoo's personalized front page? With Weather, news, access to the latest messages to your Gmail account and the word of the day, it sure looks a lot like the latter. But how about the more sophisticated former? Though it doesn't have some of My MSN's more advanced features (like importing RSS feeds and creating several pages of personlized contents). It does however beat My MSN in several of these respects: 1) It's way faster than My MSN and 2) its sports the Google hallmark of simplicity. Plus you can access that same page wherever you go (in the same way Google's My Search History works). The only major downside for now is the lack of weather support for non-US cities.
LINK: http://www.google.com/ig


Screenshot of what MY personalized Google page looks like, click on it to enlarge. I didnt enable the Weather Tab and the financial tab since 1) It only supports US cities for now and 2) I frankly dont care about stocks and shares.

Google Web Accelerator

Speed Up the Web for Broadband users

Google Web Accelerator works with your browser to help web pages show up in a snap. Learn more.

Google Web Accelerator is...

•	Designed for Broadband – Web pages load even more quickly on DSL and cable connections
•	Easy to use – Simply install and enjoy faster web browsing in seconds

Free copies of Win XP for whistleblowers

Microsoft will now provide customers in the U.S. that bought counterfeit versions of Windows XP with free genuine Windows copies. There is one catch, however: customers must first file a report on the reseller. How cool is that? Link