The Blue Talkz...

A few hours ago xo directed me to this forum thread on Channel 9. Honestly, at the first glance this seemed to me like some sort of an elaborate joke, but as it turned out, it very much isn’t! As you can read here, apparently yesterday at D7 Steve Balmer announced the new MS search engine called…. well yes, it’s actually called “Bing” =)) And here is the new Bing webpage, not a joke! Now of course there’s no talk of other Live services being rebranded as of yet, but I can see how the starter of that C9 thread could have came to this conclusion. If one of the very main features of “Live” is going to be rebranded, what are the chances that the rest of them will be too? Specially since they’ve already announce “Bing Maps” too, which is the new name for MS’s Virtual Earth.

And now try to imagine the verbal disaster that this would entail. For instance, if WLM is going to be called Bing Messenger, would you really feel like telling someone to “Bing” you? =)) And even if it is just the search engine…. “let me Bing that for you”!! =D Can somebody tell me, how in the universe MS managed to come up with a name as ridiculous as this?? It almost looks like a very desperate attempt at being hip! Plus, I read on another C9 thread that Bing actually means “disease” in Chinese Mandarine!! Way to choose a proper name Microsoft!

Well at least now the ludicrous name matches the ludicrous policies. =P

Labels: Funny, Grotesque, Microsoft, Technology, Web, Weird, Windows Live

My current mood:

Windows Live Messenger never fails to surprise with all sorts of new and improved bugs and glitches. But as of this morning, I’ve ran into a problem that’s much worse than anything I had ever experienced before. In the morning I noticed that somehow some of the people who I usually see online during those hours, appeared offline. Then near noon when I logged on again, a friend who was looking offline to me, started a group conversation with me that included another friend who was also appearing offline! Well this was obviously quite odd, since offline people don’t even get listed in the group conversations on WLM, but they were both listed, with an “offline” sign in front of their names. And one of them, was talking to me!

Then I started testing around and found out that a good number of people who appear offline to me, are in fact quite online. And as for trying to communicate with them, it works quite randomly. As in, they may or may not receive my messages, and I may or may not receive theirs. Of course I did try logging out and back in a few times, with no change. Then I got on my Palm Pilot and logged onto my mobile WLM account, and guess what, the same people look offline over there too! Also shortly after, I started noticing that people’s nicknames don’t show up correctly, and I see their email addresses instead. And to make things worse, I know 1 contact which has disappeared off of my mobile account so far.

So, since the same issue is repeating on different clients on different systems with different accounts, well, this is obviously not a local issue. I have to mention that the 2 accounts are linked, but…. well I don’t know if that’s even relevant. Honestly, this makes absolutely no sense to me. It’s the oddest thing I’ve ever encountered on WLM. For now, I’ve told everyone that I’ll be available on Skype… but I have no idea what to do if this problem doesn’t somehow resolve itself. Any ideas anyone?

Update: Boy do I hate Microsoft and do I feel like completely boycotting Windows Live altogether right now. While looking for news on the issue [which apparently is not just mine], look what I found:

“Microsoft has shut off the Windows Live Messenger IM for users in the countries embargoed by the US, hence Microsoft no longer offers Windows Live Service in those countries.”

That of course includes Iran. Enough said I believe.

Labels: Grotesque, Horrible, Messengers, Microsoft, Web, Windows Live