Microsoft Security Essentials (Virus Scan)

While I am happy that Microsoft is making Microsoft Security Essentials virus scanning available freely, so that we can imagine that such security is a standard part of the operating system...  While I am happy to see this, I must admit that I wonder whether Microsoft will be as conscientious scanning for errors in non Microsoft software such as FireFox or Adobe as it is in scanning Microsoft software.  This could become a powerful force for lock-in: Microsoft software is scanned for security flaws better than other software.  Plus, of course, in Windows 7 non Microsoft virus scanners are deprecated.

Speech recognition and gmail

Can you hear me now?:

I have long been annoyed that have not been able to process my Google mail using voice recognition, in either FireFox nor Internet Explorer.

I am quite happy to report that voice recognition (windows vista) works pretty well with the thunderbird IMAP interface to google mail.

This has allowed me to process my backlog of 300 personal google mail messages fairly painlessly, without aggravating my RSI.  Mainly saying "delete".

As you can see, it also works not so badly for blogging.