I've got a machine that seems to randomly crash more often that I'm expecting. Usually when I'm in the middle of doing something (of course).

I've gone through the usual suspects - cables, HDD error check and defrag, Windows Update, Anti-virus etc and nothing obvious but still the crashes.

That left memory. Notoriously difficult to test.

Luckily as part of the Online Crash Analysis tools Windows offers a Memory Diagnostic tool that's simple to use and helpful in tracking down the problem.

If you're having a problem that doesn't seem to make sense check out the Memory Test utility and see if that can shed any light.

For my machine... one stick of RAM was bad and has now been retired with a shiny substitute coming out to replace it and (fingers crossed) everything seems fine...

When you hear the words web2.0, mashup, plays well with others, pragmatic* and agnostic you don't often think of Microsoft.

Well perhaps you should.

ReadySteadyMashup is going to challenge peoples perceptions in a very hands on and interactive way. And you can be a part of it.

Come up with an interesting challenge to mashup at least one Microsoft technology with an existing Web2.0 service or bleeding edge technology (Apollo, Google Maps, Flickr - you name it)... or better yet dive in with your coding hat on and make an idea work... each challenge will last 30 days and Scott is hoping to have some cool prizes for cool results...

Now I'm going to have to either get creative, or amp up my h@x0r skillz if I want a chance (though I'm probably not eligible for prizes I might try to round up some more folks to play)

*Pragmatic: See Michael Coates.

As a sometimes OSX user I have to admit there are some little things in that OS that I like and miss when I'm using a PC. Expose used to be one (though the new Vista task switcher is cool, and you get some good functionality if you install IntelliMouse drivers), and the Dock was another.

One great add-on for Vista that I've discovered recently is RocketDock - a very capable facsimile of the OSX dock with some specific Vista goodness (my two favorites are being able to see previews of running applications, and set dock icons to open the active application rather than a new one)

There are a number of docklets available to add extra functionality for the dock but the ones I've had a quick play with so far fall foul of the Vista security model so I might have to wait a while until I can move the start bar into the dock.

Ah, I still remember being able to do these things in OS/2 Warp!

Another good Vista task switcher worth having a look as is called Switcher which performs a number of layout and short-cut functions very well, and isn't written from the perspective of trying to emulate the OSX implementations.

So, you already know that we're giving copies of Vista Ultimate to MIX07 attendees, and of course you'll get a chance to hear from both Microsoft folks and people from the real world about how the UX game is hotting up and delivering real benefits to developers, users and everyone else in the ecosystem.

What you might not be aware of is the other half of the equation.... while we support developers with WPF/E, Ajax.asp.net and (of course) Visual Studio we also have tools aimed at designers

Expression Studio includes Expression Web, Expression Blend™, Expression Design and Expression Media. Whether you are designing standards-based web sites, creating rich user experiences on the desktop, or managing digital assets and content, the professional design tools and innovative technologies in Expression give you the flexibility and freedom to bring your vision to reality.

To reflect Microsoft's belief that Design is an essential part of the development process, all MIX07 attendees will receive a Commemorative Edition of Expression Studio, complete with the first version of Expression Studio and one-of-a-kind artwork (in addition to a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate!).

Check out  www.visitmix.com for more details right now... tickets are going fast.

I hope to see you there....

After reading a bit about the iPhone in the press recently I decided to give one a try. I made a couple of calls  and on Friday night hopped in the car to go and pick one up.

As I'm not into geek box porn I was more interested in getting my hands on the toy, getting it charged (yup, it doesn't ship with a charged battery so 14 hours of toe tapping while you wait for it to juice up) and making my first call.

Saturday morning I grabbed my trusty Windows Mobile K-Jam tapped out the digits and.... success, the iPhone was ringing.

Initially I wasn't that impressed with call quality - there seemed to be a bit of a delay and voice was clipped but after a few seconds it seemed to settle on the network and, while not perfect, wasn't too much of a problem.

The handset feels quite flimsy compared to the K-Jam or the RAZR but very similar to the usual DECT home phones - we'll have to see how well it survives it's first drop!

My only other grip is dialing out requires me to enter the country code and area code, so even when calling locally I have to prefix it with +1 425 which is a bit annoying, and the Skype contacts are not immediately visible unless you copy them to the local contacts list. I know it's only one extra click but seeing as most of the time this is going to be used with Skype it would make sense to make it easier.

Yes, use it with Skype. You look confused. This is the iPhone I'm talking about. No, not the over hyped offering from Apple but the Linksys VoIP iPhone :)

While I'm keen to see the new marvel from Cupertino at home we're trying a pure VoIP solution to see if it's practical and usable, and so far it seems to be. With SkypeIn we have numbers both in the 425 area code and one for folks back in Australia. With SkypeOut we can call anywhere in the world for 2.1c/min and Skype Unlimited gives us unlimited outgoing calls here in the US.

So far it has been fairly trouble free. There are some options you should look at to involve quality of service (QoS) on your network (if possible increase the QoS for the Skype port - randomly assigned when you installed Skype, and set port forwarding to direct Skype TCP and UDP traffic on that port to the specific machine where Skype is installed).

Our Skype PC is connected via WiFi and the DECT handset allows roaming so the experience is pretty good. Of course (just like the cable VoIP offering that costs significantly more) we won't have 9-1-1 coverage but with mobiles I think we're reasonably secure.

I'd like to see the Skype integration become more seamless, and the need to dial the +1 for local calls go away but so far the process has proved to be fairly reliable and painless.

The only major improvement I'd like to see would be one handset that can connect to both Skype and Windows Live Messenger and let me use my preferred VoIP service or talk to users on either service seamlessly

I'm not a fan of comment spam, and I hate splogs even more as they waste time when I'm searching for things so I was amused to see that through a lack of housekeeping Google are actually responsible for a lot of their own problems with cruft in search results.

A recent report details how researchers discovered splogs to be prevalent on Googles own Blogger service!

Luckily tools and techniques are slowly evolving to help fight the problem by tracking the spam back to the sites and advertisers who are benefiting and producing evidence to act against the perpetrators. Microsoft's Strider Search Ranger project has published some guidelines on what to do if you're a webhost or a blogger or just a concerned user to help fight the tide.

I've been trying to get my head around the three most interesting players on the Rich Internet Application front, and in a conversation today a really good analogy surfaced. Compare them to game consoles.

So, who are the players:

First comes XulRunner from the Mozilla foundation. This often overlooked environment is ticking along quite quietly but gaining quite a following out there. Unlike it's two main competitors it's actually got some real world applications built with it (even though, like the other two it won't be at a production release until the end of the year). Open and fairly approachable it's got a lot going for it.

Next if Apollo from Adobe. This all singing, all dancing behemoth builds on the underpinnings and learnings of Flash, ColdFusion, Flex and Photoshop. Sadly it's legacy may make it rather hard (and expensive) to develop with.

Third contender in the ring is WPF/E (Codename) from Microsoft. Surprisingly given it's parents track record this is probably the easiest of the three to get started with. Cross browser and platform support, an open object model that's addressable from Javascript in the browser (it's as easy to work with as the basic browser DOM) and an XML based vector markup language (XAML) that shares a lot of heritage and maturity from it's Windows only cousin WPF.

Just discovered a fourth entrant worth having a look at. Dekoh is a Java ased platform supporting everything from JSP to ASP.NET to Flash on Windows, OSX and Linux. It's free and Open Source.

So ... what consoles do these guys match up to, and why (and I expect the fanbois to abuse me over some of these) .

XulRunner has to be a Wii - it's lightweight but surprisingly powerful and a real underground hit because of its no-nonsense all-round solid performance.

Apollo is, IMO, the PS3 of the space. It will probably look great but it's expensive and some would say over-engineered. The barriers to entry (from a developer perspective) are high and the legacy of some of its components (Flex for instance) raise some questions about how much fun it's going to be.

WPF/E is, almost by default, the Xbox360. Popular, great capabilities, fairly approachable (eg with the arrival of XNA the Xbox became the most open of the consoles. In a similar manner the open XAML based model of WPF/E makes development easy).

Dekoh is harder to pick a platform to compare it to but I think given the portability and wide range of options but I think it's closest match is to the DS Lite. Fairly frill and pretension free but ballsy enough to do well in the game..

Oh okay, so maybe there's a fifth but Java, like the Atari 2600, while ground breaking at the time is no longer state of the art or fun to develop for.

Wonder what RIA platforms would be if they were cars....

Over the years I've tried a number of IE extensions that are supposed to make life better, but with IE7 and Vista most of those either became redundant or stopped working.

I got a ping recently about a new release of Quero that worked with IE7 and Vista and added some cool usability touches to IE7. It downloaded and installed with no problem - unlike a number of IE add-ons they've got the install right with some nice little touches... my favorite is not forcing me to close IE and the tabs I've got open to activate it... it leaves my current session alone and just started a new IE instance with the menus embedded and I could move over when I was ready.

So, what's cool about Quero? There's nothing show stopping or ground breaking about it (like for instance when Tabbed Browsing first appeared) - where it's shining is in incremental improvement

• Type in keywords on the address bar and it uses your selected search engine to hunt for things. You can also highlight any phrase on the page and query it using your favorite search engine
• Replaces the default address bar so you don't need to give up screen real estate - anything you could do in the standard address bar is duplicated
• Ad blocker - no need for a separate ad blocker... popups, flash, IntelliTXT, divs... you have the final say on what gets shown on what sites. And it seems to do a pretty good job too - some sites that had problems loading with other ad blockers I've tried loaded clean with Quero. Of course, consider why and where you use ad blockers - a lot of smaller news and blog sites are supported by the ad impressions so blocking them everywhere might be a bad thing in the long run
• Highlighting - Quero remembers your last search and you can highlight keywords on any page at any time
• Zoom and resize - Want to see how the page looks like on an 800x600 monitor, or zoomed to 200%.. there's just one click away
• IDN and phishing protections that extend the underlying capabilities with the added visual hint of highlighting the core domain name that's currently being viewed

So far Quero has managed to rack up the weekend on my machine - which for a simple add-on is a good score (I don't like running anything but vanilla unless I get a real benefit - just in case there are stability or compatibility issues) - we'll see how the week goes ;)

Quero also comes with a cool application launcher. I've not had time to try it yet but it allows you to launch multiple apps at pre-defined positions on your desktop in one hit. It even allows you to select multiple web pages to display in specific tabs in IE7 or open the same webpage in IE, Firefox and Opera for cross browser testing. That I'd add to my list of handy developer/debugging tools for IE.

Speaking at the recent SxSW conference Bruce Sterling predicted the end of blogging within 10 years.

While I'll be glad to be able to get back to a life where I don't spend half my waking hours trawling through the internet feeling I must try and keep up with this never ending river of information I wonder if the death of blogs will be a good thing or bad.

For a start I think the increasing power of citizen reportage has to be a good thing. The mainstream press is so comfortable these days that it doesn't like to be seen as too critical of the establishment (political or big business) which leaves a lot of the oversight to the masses - and blogging and wikis and forums are easy accessible ways to facilitate that.

But there's a lot of dross and spam and idle chatter out there (and I include this blog in the latter)

Where I think Bruce is right though is that there will be an evolution and we've no way to predict what technology will make possible and popular. Today blogging is supplemented by twitter(ing) ... who knows what the next advances in personal portable communication technology (and bandwidth delivery) will make possible and practical.

At least I've got 10 years to find a new outlet for my idle pondering ;)

With today's announcement of the acquisition of TellMe Networks I wondered how many companies Microsoft had added to the ranks over the years. Turns out there was over 60 in the last decade with investments in over 140 - and there's no sign of a slow down.

I'm still getting used to the size of the address book here at Redmond, let alone the world wide picture!