Windows 7 has finally launched! At last, everyone will get to see what I’ve been raving about in past blogs here.

I’ve opted in to a Microsoft promotion for a house party this evening, and am looking forward to that! Here are some of the highlights for that, below :

The full gallery of photos of the party pack contents are above. I will try to get some pix of the party itself here shortly.

I can highly recommend Windows 7, based on my experience as well as many of my colleagues who’ve also been running the MSDN / Technet release code for several months now.

To order a copy shipped to you, as appropriate, please click here. For a comparison of the various version, please see this article. (note : Enterprise is only available via agreement with Microsoft, and Starter and Home Basic are generally not available within the U.S. – the common retail versions for the U.S.A. are Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate).

Thanks for reading!

	Windows® 7 is full of ideas from Windows Live users like you—ideas that help make everyday tasks a little bit easier. Like simplifying the way you use your PC and making it easier to connect to the people, places, and things in your life. Find out more about all the ways Windows 7 helps simplify your PC. Take a look »
	Get the most out of Windows 7 with e-mail, IM, photos, and movies. Windows Live Mail Windows Live Messenger Windows Live Photo Gallery Windows Live Movie Maker

	Microsoft respects your privacy. Please read our online Privacy Statement. If you would prefer to no longer receive promotional offers or research emails from MSN, Windows Live or Bing, please click here, or reply to this mail with “UNSUBSCRIBE” in the subject line. If you prefer to set your communication preferences for messages regarding Windows, please log on to the Microsoft.com Profile Center and edit your preferences. To set your contact preferences for other Microsoft communications, see the communications preferences section of the Microsoft Privacy Statement. Microsoft Corporation One Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052

Twitter-Microsoft Bing Deal Confirmed, but so Is Facebook-Bing (Guess Who Else Is Coming to Dinner?)

(via http://kara.allthingsd.com/20091021/exclusive-guess-who-else-is-coming-to-dinner-twitter-microsoft-bing-deal-confirmed-but-so-is-facebook-bing/ )

by Kara Swisher – Posted on October 21, 2009 at 8:41 AM PT

In a stunning one-two punch, Microsoft will announce separate nonexclusive deals today with both Facebook and Twitter to integrate their real-time feeds of status updates into the Bing search service.

According to sources, Microsoft (MSFT) digital head Qi Lu will announce the deal onstage in a few hours at the Web 2.0 Summit.

BoomTown reported earlier today that the Microsoft data-mining deal with Twitter was poised to be announced.

But the addition of Facebook raises the stakes considerably because it has the largest pool of status updates, despite all the hype around Twitter. Facebook has previously stated that it has 40 million updates a day, on average, from its 300 million-plus audience.

Twitter has been talking to Google (GOOG) about a similar arrangement, and, according to sources, so has Facebook.

But the deal is a definite blow to the dominant search engine, since–for the first time–data will be available on Bing that are not available on Google.

Neither of the services is expected to be up and running for weeks, if not months. But there is the possibility of a demo today by Qi Lu of what it will look like.

What’s interesting about the deals, which have been in the works for several weeks, is that they will be very different.

Much of what is posted on Twitter is public by design, while Facebook users prefer the closed nature of the service to disperse a wide variety of personal information only to their friends, and they want to control it.

Thus, sources said, not all Facebook updates will be included in the real-time feed to be searched by Bing, but only those its users choose to make available to the wider public. Facebook will apparently provide users with a number of new tools to do so.

BoomTown first reported several weeks ago that Twitter was in advanced talks with both the search rivals about such a real-time search arrangement.

When asked about the talks onstage at Web 2.0 yesterday, Twitter CEO Evan Williams turned coy, according to numerous reports, joking “Whose deals?”