Beta test AIM 6

This week AOL started new series of beta test for AIM 6.
Some examples of features slated to be added are proxy settings, several cool skins, and a one-click method to send an SMS text message to your buddy. This is just a subset of upcoming features and you will be the first to use and submit your comments against them.

The new version of the AIM 6 beta software is 6.2.14.2. You may determine this by going to Help and then selecting About AIM. This release incorporates the following new features:

• The Buddy Notes feature, also known as Buddy Notes in AIM 5.9. The Edit/New Buddy window now offers a Notes field. The Notes entered against a buddy are surfaced in the Quickview tooltip for that buddy.
• A new theme, black chrome, has been added to the color changer, accessible from the small circular button next to Help on your Buddy List.

The new build also offers some functionality changes:

• A self-extracting installer will be used to deliver the build to your machine. This means that there should be fewer problems with downloading installers for this and future versions of the software.
• The Notifications window has been redesigned to look much smaller and use Arial font text as opposed to the Times New Roman font that was used in previous versions of the software.
• The Settings window is now accessible from the Sign On screen. To get to it, simply select or enter an already-saved user name in the Screen Name field and then either click the Settings link below the Sign On button or go to Edit then select Settings.

They look forward to your active participation in another round of beta testing.

"We encourage you to use the resources provided in this site such as Known and Fixed issues, Message Boards , and the Feedback or Bug Report forms." [via Beta AOL]

So download beta AIM 6, and get started.

Help Test Democracy Player

If aren't familier with Democarcy Player here something from their About:

"There's an opportunity to build a new, open mass medium of online television. We're developing the Democracy internet TV platform so that watching internet video channels will be as easy as watching TV and broadcasting a channel will be open to everyone. Unlike traditional TV, everyone will have a voice." [via About Democracy]


The new Democracy Player 0.9.6 release candidate includes some nice new features:

• ability to watch any folder on your computer for new videos
• resume playback functionality
• more keyboard shortcuts
• better Windows Vista compatibility.

You can download it here: Democracy Player 0.9.6 RC

You can report bugs here: file a bug report.

Keep in mind that this is pre-release software and may contain serious bugs.

Beta test Office On Demand from Box.net

Box.net has released a feature for the Office addicts - Office On Demand (tentative name). It will allow you to save Microsoft Office documents to you Box and currently available for Windows XP and Vista for Word, Powerpoint, Excel, and Access both in 2007 and 2003.



"A small “Save to Box.net” button will appear as a button in your toolbar section of the Office app - upon clicking, you’ll be able to login and upload your file to Box. Extremely useful if you’re jumping between computers or devices. We’ll be adding Box Network sharing functionality soon as well." [via Box.net Blog]

Download and let them know what do you think.

Something off topic. Blogger added a new feature that automatically saves drafts. they should call it a beta feature, since it didn't work, and I had to write this post again.

Opera Mini Beta - new Dimension

Opera is getting ready new beta for their Opera Mini, and you can be notified by email or on your IM when it is ready.

"Be the first to look at the next generation of Opera Mini, code-named Dimension! Sign up to receive an alert when the beta is ready for the world. You can leave your email address or one of your usernames for an instant messaging client.

People like you are actively shaping the Web and that's why it's so important for us to collect and act on your feedback." [via Opera Mini]

CA Protection Suite Beta Program

CA invites you to participate in the Protection Suite r3.1 Beta Program.

From the product data sheet:

"Designed to meet the unique needs of small and medium sized businesses, CA rotection Suites provide cost-effective, easy-to-manage solutions that help ensure your IT assets are secure and available, enabling you to focus on running and growing your business. CA Protection Suites provide comprehensive data protection for your ritical IT assets, combining security, backup and desktop migration capabilities into egrated solutions that help minimize risks, prevent downtime, and reduce IT management costs."

To participate you will have to register and provide basic personal information.

Online forms are used to submit issues and send your feedback.

VMware Player 2 Beta Program

VMware has released the VMware Player 2 Beta.

"Welcome to VMware Player 2 Beta Program! We invite you to download the beta to try out several new and exciting features, such as:

• Experimental Support for 2-way Virtual SMP - Assign more than a single CPU to a virtual machine to experience better performance
• Share data seamlessly between the virtual machine and host computer - Leverage Shared Folders or simply drag and drop files between the virtual and physical machines to share data efficiently
• Support for Windows Vista - Use Windows Vista as host and guest operating system
• Support for USB 2.0 devices - Use peripherals that require high-speed performance in your VMs, such as MP3 Players and fast storage devices
• Appliance view - Start a virtual appliance in the appliance view to review brief description and other relevant information provided by the appliance author
• New Home Page - Leverage an intuitive home page interface that lets you open existing virtual machines or browse the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace to download any of the 425 virtual appliances. Virtual appliances are pre-built, pre-configured and ready-to-run enterprise software applications packaged along with an operating system within virtual machines
• Broad host and guest operating system support - Run any of the over 60 supported 32- and 64-bit guest operating systems including Vista, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, Ubuntu 6.10 and many more"

[via VMware Betas]

There is a dedicated forum to discuss this beta for registered users.
Only self-help and web-based support is offered for Beta users during the term of the Beta period is . No support will be provided by phone.

They also have other ongoing betas that can be discovered here.

Being a tester for Microsoft Live Hotmail

I just received a letter from Microsoft thanking me for participating in the Hotmail beta.
The letter also contains offer for mail signature indicating I was Beta Tester and also a Windows Vista offer.

The Vista Offer includes:

• Save $100 on a high-performance Gateway FX530 Series PC with Windows Vista Ultimate.
• Get 4 FREE hardware accessories from Epson, Kingston, D-Link and Artec with a custom-built system running Windows Vista Ultimate from a local PC builder.

I'm not sure if I'll use the offer, but it is nice to know that your help is appreciated.

Pidgin, formerly Gaim, version 2 beta

Pidgin, formerly known as Gaim, has released the last beta of version 2.


"While previous betas in the 2.0.0 series have been extremely stable, and we recommended their use, this release is actually of beta quality. This is our first release to reflect the name change from Gaim to Pidgin, and so there are a lot of fairly significant changes here, which we'd like to see have broader testing before declaring it ready for release...

I strongly recommend that you backup your ~/.gaim directory before running Pidgin for the first time. Windows users should see where their version of Windows stores their configuration files at our Win32 FAQ. Things you should be on the lookout for include problems with preferences being lost or forgotten, buddy icons not working as you expect, plugins or other external files not properly being found. If you find an issue that severely prohibits you from using 2.0.0beta7, please report it at http://developer.pidgin.im/. There are a bunch of less fundamental, more cosmetic changes in this release that are sure to jump out at you" [via Pidgin News]

If you would like to help with testing, grab a copy from Sourceforge.net