As many of you are aware although the backup in Windows Vista was easy to use - it had no control over exactly what you wanted backup. The only controls were things like pictures, documents, recorded TV etc, and of course if you've got lots of php files and things like that in your documents folder you had to select the other files option, which would pretty much backup everything on the system - resulting in extremely large backup files.

Using NT Backup on older systems my backups would work out at about 15GB, with Windows Vista 60 or 70GB wouldn't be uncommon, times that by 3 machines and that soon fills your hard disks. Luckily I didn't have to put up with this for very long, as Windows Home Server came out in the same year which handles backups brilliantly.

In Windows 7 however the team responsible for backup have clearly listened to feedback and added much more control back over backup, without making it too complicated for people to actually use.

Then if you want more control over it you can, by including or excluding locations and specific file types.

So here is Google's search page today, as on many special occasions they have their custom logo on show.

During the summer the Live Search homepage started featuring new images every day, using the entire frame, previously there had been a gradient here instead, on the image were a bunch of hotspots which pointed to related search results.

Is it me or does Google still look a little too 1990s compared to this?

Before you mention performance, on Live Search the image is loaded in the background, so it doesn't slow down the loading of the page itself, once its ready it fades into view, its actually quite a nice looking effect.

The only downside is its not available for the UK version yet, which means I hit the US site everyday just to see what they've got on there. Let's get that sorted please, there's only been a few days where I could say that specific image only really applies to the US market, like when they have images of sporting events for example. But the rest transfers over well.

From a search point of view, I use Live Search for my normal stuff these days, with a good success rate, especially since IE8 now shows suggestions for searching in the search bar at the top as you start typing (like on the actual search pages themselves - well excluding the UK sites again). The quality of the results is pretty much the same now, I find myself only hitting Google when I've got a more technical query that needs a bit more work, like error messages and things like that where Live Search isn't quite there yet.

Have just been throwing my must-have applications onto my Windows 7 system and came across a nice surprise. There's a new build of WorldWide Telescope available. Here's the official blurb for those who haven't already tried it out:

Immerse yourself in a seamless beautiful environment.

WorldWide Telescope (WWT) enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world. Experience narrated guided tours from astronomers and educators featuring interesting places in the sky

I notice the website has had a bit of an overhaul, that there's several new sky surveys available, that it now has a 3D fly-around mode for viewing the Solar System and the Milky Way, similar to Celestia, and according to the little tip of the day box that popped up it now supports Xbox 360 controllers, but as it's gone 4 in the morning I'll have to wait until tomorrow and see if its got better support for 120 DPI systems and see if I can see anything else that's new.

It's nice to see the New York Times continuing to publish nonsense, this time from John Markoff:

Microsoft Introduces Windows 7, Ending Vista Brand

The Vista brand? Here's a tip, Windows is the brand, Vista is the version of Windows.

Alternative headline: Microsoft introduce new version of Windows, and gives it a new name.

Microsoft introduced what it said would be a slimmer and more responsive version of its Windows operating system on Tuesday, while unceremoniously dropping the brand name Vista for the new product. [...] The new version will instead be branded Windows 7.

What did you expect them to call it Windows Vista SE or Windows Vista R2? Damn, they should of called Windows Vista Windows XP R2!

Heck why bother "unceremoniously dropping" any of the version identifiers? Let's call Windows 7 Windows 1.0 2.0 3.0 3.1 3.11 NT for Workgroups 95 95 OSR2 NT 4.0 98 98SE ME 2000 XP Vista 7!

What planet is this guy on? Any excuse, even something as pathetic as this to bash Microsoft.

Couple of screenshots from the PDC build of Windows 7:

New calculator, obviously but check out the Taskbar. Now Quick Launch has been merged with the rest of the Taskbar.

Hovering over these icons will show all windows that are open with that particular application. Best of all, it will also show individual tabs within applications so if you've got 20 websites open in Internet Explorer you can jump to a tab from the Taskbar.

There seems to be a fair amount of confusion out there regarding Windows Azure which was announced today at the PDC. I know vague marketing speak like this doesn't help much:

Build new applications in the cloud - or use interoperable services that run on Microsoft infrastructure to extend and enhance your existing applications. You choose what’s right for you.

And...

The Azure™ Services Platform (Azure) is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together. Azure’s flexible and interoperable platform can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. Its open architecture gives developers the choice to build web applications, applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, or hybrid solutions offering the best of online and on-premises.

Basically, like an operating system running on a single computer it manages all the hardware in it, talks to disks handles networking etc. A developer then writes against the operating system, not having to worry about writing drivers to talk to the network, hard disks or dealing with memory management or outputting video onto the screen - that's all handled by the operating system.

Windows Azure expands this, so the operating system also manages any number of servers and all the hardware in between.

At the moment you write an application, and then have the hassle of trying to balance it all between lots of individual servers if you need any scale.

Windows Azure deals with this, and blasts the application out to more servers if extra capacity is needed and scales it back down when its quiet. All you need to do deploy your existing application and include a manifest stating how Azure should deal with it, how many servers you think the baseline should be etc etc. Essentially this allows IT personnel and developers to concentrate on the application and less dealing with the platform and all the hardware that happens to be actually running the application.

At the moment it is a Microsoft hosted service, and it is currently a Technical Preview (which traditionally comes before a beta), however there is no doubt in my mind that within a few years this will be a platform Microsoft will license for hosting providers.

What does it look like on the ground?

There are two key components, the fabric controller which manages the servers, and deploys applications to the individual servers and the a piece of software called the agent which lives on the individual servers, this checks the health of the server, makes sure the application is running, can restart it if it needs to and reports back to the fabric controller.

Simple, right?

So less nonsense about giant evil databases in the cloud please, or Skynet for that matter.

Update: Channel 9 video here which explains it in more depth.