Featured Posts

Opinions

Veteran: You Fought for Your Country, Now Set Yourself Free

Memorial Day is a time to remember those who have fallen in the service of ...

War

Christian War Veteran Talks NATO Protest, War, Faith and Peace

Jacob George, a Christian war veteran who served three tours of duty in ...

Column

Hypnosis and Yoga Open Hidden Spiritual Doors

Hypnosis and yoga are a couple of mystical practices which have basically gone ...

Pastors

Seven Keys to Preventing Pastoral Burnout

I have the incredible opportunity to interact with pastors regularly. In recent ...

Microsoft is planning to release a consumer preview version of its upcoming operating system Windows 8.

This will allow customers to give the new software a test run before it is officially launched. This information originated on a BING page that was live for several days.

This page was recently removed and replaced with a swimming beta fish that symbolizes the system's development phase and information included resources for users and developers can be found there as well.

Many of the links on the page are down including the one for the "Windows 8 Consumer Preview." Another link featured on the page is the "Windows Store" that will allow consumers to download apps for Windows 8 PCs and tablets in the same way Apple customers do from the iTunes store.

A link to Microsoft's online Dev Center is also available on the page where users can learn how to write Metro-style apps for Windows 8.

Back in Sept. Microsoft launched a Developer preview of its upcoming system that allows programmers to use it to build applications and familiarize themselves with Windows 8. The system is rumored to have undergone the most fundamental change in the OS since the debut of Windows 95.

Like us on Facebook

The new OS will employ many of the same elements found in Windows 7 including Metro themes and Live tiles. However, Microsoft appears to have eliminated the trademark start button, according to recently leaked screen shots. It has reportedly been replaced with a swipeable area users can touch in order to access various menus.

This new swiping control has been added due to the fact that Microsoft's goal is to make Windows 8 the ideal operating system for tablets. The company is attempting to compete with Apple and Google who currently control that market.