Well this is it, the 9th of April 2013 (8th April, 2013 US Time). It's time to begin farewelling Windows Live "MSN" Messenger. So I thought I'd write a small piece to say goodbye for the final time to Messenger and share some of my thoughts about the service, how it make an impact in my life and why I'll miss it, even though it has a replacement in the form of Skype.

So I've finally gotten around to finishing this article about Windows 8 and Windows RT and it’s only about 3 months later than I expected to finish it. It’s been about 90 days since Windows 8 and Windows RT were finally released in stores (and it’s been over a year since I installed the first version of Windows 8 released to the general public for testing: the Developer Preview, back in September 2011). I did plan to write this article much earlier than January 2013, but other things have delayed it and I'm actually glad they did, because I've been able to gain some additional insight and experience that would have been missing if I had of written this in November last year as planned.

This article isn't a formal review as such, nor is it a detailed explanation of how each individual feature of Windows 8/RT works. This article is more about explaining some of the things that I've felt have been miscommunicated in a lot of what has been written about Windows 8/RT and then using those explanations as a factual base to discuss what I think makes Windows 8/RT great as well as what isn't complete yet and still needs work. Finally I wrap up this article by firstly discussing some of the reactions I’ve witnessed from a few non-technical people who’ve purchased Windows 8 PCs recently and then secondly discussing what I think will happen next (because one thing is for certain, Windows 8/RT ship isn't going to be staying still in 2013). This is a LONG article (I know, it took me weeks just to write it) and even though long form articles aren’t popular on the internet these days, I’m hoping that at least a few people stick through to the end. J So here we go, these are most of my thoughts about Windows 8/RT!

Java is a programming language that is very popular because it creates applications that can be run on many many different devices. Part of what allows Java to do this is a Runtime Engine that is available for most operating systems. Unfortunately, installing this runtime engine means that you're adding a plug-in to your internet browser which allows web pages to ask Java to run small programs called applets, normally without asking your permission first, which is a very common way for malware creators to automatically run viruses on your computer these days (by taking advantages of holes in Java).

Thankfully Krebs On Security, has written an article with instructions on how to disable Java in most of the popular web browsers, while leaving it intact on your computer for programs that need it such as Minecraft. Unfortunately, the instructions they have given for Internet Explorer are overly complicated and involve going to the registry, which isn't somewhere you should be going unless you know exactly what you're doing. The good news is that for OVER 3 YEARS now, Microsoft has included a dialog in Internet Explorer that allows you to easily disable Java from running in Internet Explorer. This short article will show you how to disable Java from Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10 (all the currently supported versions) in 5 easy steps.

Back when I wrote the first version of this article I had not started university yet, Leo Laporte was still broadcasting from a cottage, Mary Jo Foley hadn't yet joined Paul Thurrott on Windows Weekly, Windows 8 hadn't been revealed to the public yet and Microsoft had just relaunched their mobile operating system in the form of Windows Phone 7.

So much has changed since January 2011 and Microsoft has come a LONG WAY in expanding their services to an international audience. This article is an updated version of the 'Windows Phone 7 Feature Availability Matrix' article from January 2011 (and subsequently May 2011 for Windows Phone 7.5). I've retitled the article though because since last year, Microsoft has launched Windows 8 and that operating system now integrates many of the services that Windows Phone first integrated back in 2010. So the new updated name for this article is the "Microsoft Feature & Service Availability Matrix" and includes information about Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 and the Xbox. These matrices have been weeks worth of work compared to the first version I wrote (which took about 6 hours), because Microsoft has expanded from availability in 18 countries (with 5 languages) in October 2010, to availability in around 200 countries and territories (with 50 languages for WP8 and 109 languages for Win8) as of October 2012 (which they should be commended for). Therefore I've had to completely rewrite these matrices, but because I've taken advantage of the new Office Web Apps to host and display them here, they are now a LOT easier to update in the future. I would appreciate it though if other bloggers don't just copy & paste or embed these matrices directly into their own blogs. I don't make any money off this website, I just would appreciate the attribution and would also like to keep the matrices in context with the rest of the article I've written (including explanations etc).

Back in February, Microsoft wrote a blog post explaining how Windows 8 & Windows RT will support various languages. Several paragraphs in that post deal with the English language, here's the main one.

"We are proud to announce the addition of English for the United Kingdom to the list of Windows display languages. We admit that this is something we should have done a long time ago. Windows users in the UK have gotten by with the US English version of Windows, and while we Americans knew this was not their favourite, that is clearly no defence. We believe that this version of Windows will also be widely used in India, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland and many other places.

Well, Microsoft has finally made these language packs available, so if you live in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, Singapore or Hong Kong and you want Windows to use the word "Colour" instead of "Color" on system dialogs and built in applications, then this is just a quick article which will explain how to install and activate this language pack.