This afternoon my powerbrick exploded.

Well, not quite. But it suddenly started smoking, crackling, fizzing, flaring and popping, before emitting a five inch burst of flame from the place where the cord to the laptop joins the transformer.

Unsettling.

Fifteen minutes later I had a new one thanks to the guys in the IT Department, where they have a few “just laying around”.

This is just a short post to thank IT people in general and the guys at Trinity College within the University of Melbourne in particular. They don’t just slouch around in the office, endlessly tweaking their mutt installations, swapping torrents and playing Half Life. No sir!

So thanks to Herman the Magnificent who fixed my IP phone this week, to Nice Guy Nick who coughed up the power adaptor and to IT Gruppenführer Tim who is toying with Zimbra to replace Squirrelmail and who let me in on the pre-production, testing fun. Youse guys — you’re great!IT guys, powerbrick, apple, Zimbra, not just a life of torrent-swapping and network shoot-’em-ups

Zimbra , “a rich, full-featured, AJAX-based Web client that brings e-mail and calendar items to life through Web mash-ups on the front end” (kewl!), has announced a beta test of its Apple iSync utility.

This will allow Mac users to sync their calendar and contact data with Zimbra’s web-based interface. It seems to offer a solution for those who fear too great a gulf in Web 2.0 services between server-side data-storage and users’ computers.

The screenshots featured in the announcement show that the beta is already well-developed and offers significant user control over the synchronisation:

The beta test is only open to Zimbra Network Edition or Network trial users. The Open Source Edition is not supported.

Users who qualify can contact their Zimbra sales rep to register their interest.

[Thanks, sjk]Zimbra, ical, address book, mail.app, apple mail, web 2.0, synchronization, beta, email

User reports on the beta version of Microsoft‘s Hotmail replacement, Windows Live Mail, are beginning to filter out. It is part of a wider online revamp by Microsoft called Windows Live.

You can see some pictures of the interface on Vinny Carpenter’s blog and at Tipmonkies.

Reviews range from “awesome” to “pretty good” to cautiously welcoming and mixed to damning (There must be one. I just can’t find it).

Two Mad Geeks compare it to Yahoo! Mail and Zimbra.