Microsoft are to equip Longhorn with RSS functionality. That is a very good idea, with no end of incredibly useful applications:

For example, if you go to a conference, your calendar schedule could be continuously updated by a web feed, or you could have a regularly updated list of the top 20 downloads from a music site. Grandparents could have a screensaver auto-updated with pictures of their grandchildren as the parents post them to a photo-sharing site, or a “live” version of their kids’ Amazon wish-lists.

It’s important, though, that Microsoft do this well. If they try and restrict use, or don’t use enough imagination to enable ideas like those above to be implemented, then the value is lost.

Microsoft aren’t too good at this kind of thing. They don’t like relinquishing control. But I can hope that the leopard has changed its spots, and that Longhorn will bring a very innovative operating system from the behemoth.

And I don’t think I’ve mentioned to date (despite my best intentions) the news that the first IE7 beta is due relatively soon. Which I happen to think is also good news.

So that makes two reasons to be cheerful… at least for now