Windows XP users, download and enjoy beta 2 of Windows Media Player 11, just released by Microsoft.

Microsoft opened up its Windows Live OneCare Family Safety beta this week. Parents can sign up to test the service designed give them more control over what their children see and do on the Internet.

The obligatory notice about the Firefox 2 Beta 2 browser being a developer preview release made available for testing purposes only has been duly noted.

Folks testing Microsoft Windows Vista have been emailing me today complaining that in Vista the startup sound that goes off everytime the OS starts up will be forced.

The migration of users from the old version of Google’s Blogger service to the new beta will happen at an “incremental” pace.

A slate of updates to the Blogger platform run by Google provides some new features for bloggers and their readers.

SugarCRM released the beta version of its customer relationship management (CRM) software Sugar 4.5. The release adds functionalities like personalized views, internationalization and support for Microsoft Windows Server products.

Following beta testing over the past few months, version 2.1 of blog manager and editor ecto for Windows was released earlier this week.

The newest beta candidate of the Firefox 2.0 web browser has been online for only a day, but Yahoo has already made one of its technologies available to it.

The Mozilla Firefox web browser has begun moving upward again in global market share, and those users can now try out version 2.0 Beta 1 of the browser.

I meant to write this up last night but got home a bit too late for that. If you’ve been a suffering with Yahoo! Messenger on your Mac for the last few years, download the new beta and rejoice.

The next beta release of Internet Explorer 7 adds a few new updates and tweaks based on the feedback collected from users of the new browser.

Ever seen an iceberg? They are magnificent ice mountains, frozen floating islands bobbing around the most northern and southern oceans.

On Monday, the Google Press Center released word of (yet another) new direction for the company.

Testing the blogging functionality in Word 2007 beta 2.

Former Microsoft employee Marcelo Calbucci wants you to have a website. And he’d like it very much if you use his new product, called Sampa, to build it. Although it denies simple classification, Calbucci speaks of Sampa as a “blog on steroids.” It’s for home or business use.

Google continues an active week of product releases and updates by making its AdWords Editor available to anyone who wants to download a copy.

An item of interest in my mailbox this AM via way of the html image mapper people…

After delaying the release several times, Microsoft now assures the world that Vista will meet its slated launch date of January 2007. Vista represents the first major overhaul in five years for the venerable Windows operating system. Windows is used on about 90 percent of the world’s computers, and its sales account for about one-third of Microsoft’s total revenue.

Microsoft has announced the base minimum system requirements to run Windows Vista.

Are you a student? Want to get your hands on Windows Vista, Office 2007, and other Microsoft betas?