I'm intrigued with the lack of support for Windows Vista's Aero effects within Windows Live Messenger 8.5. It was released almost a year after Windows Vista and there was certainly time before that to play with pre-release builds of Vista. Version 9 of "messenger" is being prepared for release, but there doesn't seem like any sign of Aero support at this stage. I'm hoping there is a good reason why it wasn't included, but the more I read about the development of messenger, the more I feel the development team just isn't pulling their weight enough. When I read that 2 of the 5 currently known new features of messenger are being able to use animated gif's for your display picture and being able to click links in personal personal messages, I can't help wonder why it will take almost a year to implement those "features".

It hurts even more when we have to put up with things like white boxes appearing on conversation windows and youtube links being blocked.

I like messenger and I use it a lot, however there doesn't seem to be much advancement going on at the moment. 8.5 is pretty much the same as 7, just with a new skin. Why is it that Yahoo's new messenger looks so much cooler on Vista than Microsoft's own product?

My rant is over for now. Bed time.

Just watched it this evening, and whilst I was a little drunk, I enjoyed it.

Silly, but fun.

Unfortunately I don't have any shots that are particularly good, but here are a couple more of our baby boy:

Well I finally got around to installing Windows Vista (64bit Home Premium).

I'm still pretty much of the same mind, I don't hate it, but I don't particularly love it either.

The new interface is inconsistent and somewhat confusing, and whilst I like the new effects Aero provides that alone doesn't overcome the overall amateurish feel of the whole system.

However, the thing that has caught my eye is Vista Media Center. The programs interface, from my limited use so far, is very slick. I'll have a play with it a bit more but if I can get it to do what I want, I may use it instead of Media Portal.