I decided to write a post with some screenshots as it changed quite a bit.. and I have to say it’s becoming sexier at every update they make. And it’s becoming VERY social, as you can connect it with Failbook and MySpace in a few clicks (you get prompted to do so).

The Sign In screen:

Get Social:

Welcome screen:

The MySpace login screen (haven’t tried Failbooks):

The new WLM full view, featuring news from your myspace or failbook contacts, photos, statuses etc:

And the compact version (very similar to the old one except I find it cleaner):

The conversation windows (note they are tabbed by default):

New emoticons (the old one were nicer IMO, maybe I’m just used to them):

New sharing in the conversation:

And that’s about it, I think it’s what’s changed. I didn’t see the OneCare options for antivirus checking of received files so maybe that’s been removed (I hope so).

I also can’t seem to find where to change my nick (as you can see it’s nasal Kovac which was my nick + my surname and I’m really not sure where to change this, no option in the options but a button that connects me to the profiles.live.com page… whooot).

So that’s about it, download it and try it out. There’s also the apatch patch ready for it, which I’m trying to install now.

Comments?

Some days ago Microsoft released a new beta version of their widely used web applications like Windows Live Messenger, Mail, Writer etc..

I’m just installing the Messenger and Mail beta, to see what’s been changed and play around a bit, as I like playing with beta toys

If you would like to try them, you can visit the Essentials page and download the installer from there.

Let’s play!

So, after getting a Google Wave dev preview account, I also got a Google Voice invitation, which I quickly used and got myself a nice Google number: +1 (909) 20 NASAL (+1 (909) 206-2725).

Since I’m not American and Voice is only open to US citizen, I had some fun managing to get one, since they are only giving away US numbers for now and to create an account I had to add at least one phone number and it had to be US because the number has to be verified in order to have your account created.

So how did I do it? Let’s see.

1. Get Hotspot Shield: this is a free VPN connection that will give you an US ip address and make Google Think you are an US resident. You could use a proxy but I didn’t manage to find a working one so VPN was my next choice.

2. Get a free US phone number: Sipgate is your solution. In this case I signed up at sipgate.com instead of choosing sipgate.co.uk or any other variant, since you get a local phone number and I needed an american one. So sign up there, it’s free. You get to choose your own phone number. Do it, configure your cellphone and you’re done. If you get Registration failed, try this out.

3. Activate your Google Voice account by adding your new Sipgate phone number and verifying it.

That’s it, you’re done!

I have been accepted into the Google Wave beta testing. I feel so cool OMG

I also got a shiny new 25gb email account, @wavesandbox.com, oh, so cool!

[wave id="YPlHGxn2%A"]