beta

You are currently browsing the archive for the beta category.

CONTEST – Call of Duty: World at War Beta Code

October 26, 2008 in Call of Duty, CoD, CoD4, CoD5, Contest, Download, Games, Microsoft, Videogames, WaW, World at War, XBL, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, beta, code, software | 17 comments

OK here goes,

I have a Call of Duty: WaW beta code that I don’t need.

I’m going to do a random draw from the first 25 responses, then give it away!

So far, the beta is awesome. This isn’t CoD4, but pretty darn good just the same.

Call of Duty: World at War Beta

Just so you guys know I’m not pulling your legs, here’s a pic of the email I got, as well as the text from the email:

Xbox 360 Multiplayer Code!

Thank you for registering on CallofDuty.com and welcome to the Call of Duty: World at War Xbox 360™ Multiplayer Beta*!

Here is your unique Xbox 360 multiplayer code:
XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

In order to participate in the Xbox 360 Demo:

   1. Receive your Xbox Live® Marketplace Token (above) and write it down.
      You will not be able to download the Beta without it
   2. Log into Xbox Live with your gamer profile
   3. Access Xbox Live Marketplace through the Xbox 360™ Dashboard
   4. Click Redeem Code
   5. Enter your Xbox Live Marketplace Token when prompted
   6. Start the download
   7. Join the fight!

Download the instruction manual (432 kb PDF).

And remember, we want to hear from you! Please come back to CallofDuty.com and give us your feedback, what you like and what you’d change to make Call of Duty: World at War the best experience possible!

* The PC Beta is coming up next! Stay close to CallofDuty.com and check your email for details soon to come!

Songbird Beta Released (finally)!

August 20, 2008 in MP3, Media Player, Songbird, beta, mozilla, software | No comments

We’re excited to announce that Songbird is now in public Beta! This update to Songbird includes a new default look and feel, several new features, performance gains, improvements to stability and additional playback capabilities.
New Features
A New Look
We’ve completely redesigned Songbird to make it simpler and more intuitive. We’ve improved drag-and-drop throughout the application and worked to optimize music management vs. web browsing experiences.
Smart Playlists
Create dynamic playlists that automatically update based on criteria you set.
Concert Tickets
Discover upcoming shows in your area based on the artists in your library. Event listings powered by Songkick.
Last.fm Scrobbling
Integrated Last.fm support allows you to scrobble, love, and ban your tracks.
Album Artwork
Display the currently playing track’s album art and write new artwork back to the file.
Note: If you are upgrading from an older version of Songbird, be sure to get the Concerts and Last.fm add-ons so you can enjoy all the new features we’re talking about!
Performance Enhancements
A lot of users have asked us to devote cycles to focusing on performance and stability improvements. We made substantial investments in this release and will continue to dedicate much of our next release to focusing on this area. In this release we:

 

  • Started our migration towards adopting GStreamer as our media core on all platforms. Starting with this release, GStreamer handles playback of FLAC files. In our next release, GStreamer will become our default media core and handle all codec playback and enable additional functionality, such as gapless playback.
  • Improved startup performance. Launching Songbird is now significantly faster than before, in some cases by several orders of magnitude.
  • Reduced memory usage on Windows and Linux by enabling jemalloc as Songbird’s memory allocator.
  • Reduced the time it takes to import media and scan metadata. On all platforms reading metadata is now twice as fast.
  • Improved search results and sort order by ignoring diacritics (like á, ö etc).

For Developers

Early Feedback on 0.7
“A marked improvement over the last release” – Jason Kincaid – TechCrunch
“Songbird’s new UI is also a major improvement” – Sarah Perez – ReadWriteWeb
What’s Next
As we march towards a 1.0 release, our goal is to improve existing features while continuing to focus on performance gains and stability issues. Stay tuned to the blog to keep up to date, or if you like to live dangerously check out one of our nightly builds and see the progress for yourself!

IE8 Beta Download

March 6, 2008 in IE8, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Standards, beta, software, windows | No comments

A nice offshoot of MIX 08 is the public availability of Internet Explorer (IE) 8 Beta 1 as of yesterday. While the new browser has many features, the standards support is what has me tickled pink, and you’ll be happy to hear blandname still renders properly in the new version.

So head on over to the IE8 page Microsoft has put up, and grab the first beta of the new next thing.

Some general info from the release notes, including some help on using certificates from within Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, as well as a quick heads-up that the help is merely copied from IE7:

General information

Help content

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 contains help content from Internet Explorer 7. Some topics will be broken or irrelevant. The help content will be updated in a later release of Internet Explorer 8.

New home page in home page set

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 will add a new page to the home page set. This page will be automatically removed from the home page set two weeks after you install Internet Explorer Beta 1. You can remove this additional home page from your home page set at any time. Uninstalling Internet Explorer Beta 1 earlier than its automatic removal will not remove the additional home page. In that case, you can remove the home page manually.

Turning off the in-page WebSlice button

You can turn off the in-page WebSlice button in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 by using the following method:

However, when you turn off the in-page WebSlice button, WebSlice discovery is also turned off in the Feed Discovery button that is located on the frame.

Viewing certificates in Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1

Windows XP

When you click the View certificates icon after you click the Security Status Indicator lock icon in the address bar, you incorrectly receive the following message:

This type of document does not have a security certificate

To view the certificate, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the document, and then click Properties.
2. In the Properties dialog box, click Certificates.
Windows Vista

To view the certificate of an encrypted page, click the View certificates icon after you click the Security Status Indicator lock icon in the address bar.

If you right-click the document, you click Properties, and then you click Certificates, the certificate is not displayed.

Get Windows Vista SP1 RTM on TechNet!

February 21, 2008 in Download, Microsoft, RTM, SP1, TechNet, beta, software, vista, windows | No comments

From Microsoft:

“We know that many of you are anxious to get your hands on the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RTM bits. And to that end, we have some good news. We are pleased to announce that–while broad RTW availability is still scheduled for March–the SP1 Update RTM bits are available now to TechNet subscribers. If you are subscriber, please visit TechNet Plus Subscriptions and sign in to access Top Subscriber Downloads. If you have a prior version of the SP1 beta installed, you must uninstall it prior to installing the final version. Check out Things to know before you download Windows Vista SP1 for more information, and for updated details on all aspects of Windows Vista SP1, stop by the Windows Vista TechCenter. “

VMware Importer Now Supports VirtualPC 2007!

January 13, 2008 in 2007, Converter, G3, Intel, MacWorld, Parallels, Parallels Desktop, PowerBook, PowerMac, PowerPC, VMWare, VMware Fusion, VMware Importer Beta 2, Virtual Machine, Virtual PC, VirtualPC, Virtualisation, Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows XP, beta, g4, iBook, mac, macintosh, software, vm | No comments

The VMware Fusion team recently announced that the new beta version of VMware Converter (beta 2) will allow importing of Virtual PC 2007 based virtual machines, as well as Parallels Desktop 2.5 and Parallels 3.0 based virtual machines.

This means that you can now easily convert old virtual machines that you might have running on G3/G4/G5 PowerPC Macs, as well as convert newer virtual machines on Intel Macs running Parallels to VMware Fusion – the better product in my honest opinion.

The operating systems supported are Windows XP Home and Pro, Windows Sever 2003, Windows 2000 and you also get the added bonus of being able to import Microsoft Windows Vista virtual machines from Parallels.

Take that with a grain of salt though… I do currently work for a VMware partner :) On the other hand, VMware Fusion did just receive the annual MacWorld Editors’ Choice Award – you be the judge.
Here are the release notes from the VMware blog:

“The VMware Fusion team is proud to announce the release of VMware Importer Beta 2, for the importation of third-party Mac-based virtual machines to run using VMware Fusion.We’re especially excited about this release, as users can now import virtual machines created with Virtual PC 7.0 for Mac! Even though we live and breath Intel-based Macs here on Team Fusion, it’s important to remember that Intel-Macs have only been around for a little under two years now.That means there’s a lot of Mac users out there using Virtual PC 7.0 on their trusty PowerBook, iBooks, G4 and G5 Towers, and more. When it comes time to upgrade to a shiny new Intel-Mac, well, we on Team Fusion want those users to have a smooth upgrade process to the most seamless way to run Windows on a Mac.

VMware Importer Beta 2 allows for the importation of Virtual PC 7.0-based virtual machines with the following operating systems:

  • Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
  • Windows XP Service Pack 2
  • Windows Server 2003

VMware Importer Beta 2 also lets users import virtual machines created using Parallels Desktop for Mac 2.5 and 3.0, including:

  • Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
  • Windows XP Service Pack 2
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows Vista

Check out the VMware Importer Beta 2 landing page here, and give it a whirl!

And, as always, users looking to convert a physical PC to run as a virtual machine under VMware Fusion can use VMware Converter Starter Edition to do just that in a snap.

Questions and comments are always welcome at the VMware Fusion community forums, where Fusion users come to talk Mac virtualization.”

« Older entries