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June 05 Windows 7 Awesome news!!!If you haven’t heard, it’s official! Windows 7 will be available beginning October 22nd. It will be available in multiple flavors in most markets- Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. A "Windows 7 Basic" will also be sold in emerging markets. Engineering I think this is an OS that people is going to make more people happy! If you don’t have the Release Candidate and would like to peek inside and understand the Engineering behind it, make sure you check the team blog at Engineering Windows 7. RTM: The RTM(Release To Manufacture) code for Windows 7 will be available to partners sometime in the 2nd half of July. Upgrades? Customers will be able to take advantage of the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program. This program enables participating retailers and OEMs to offer a special deal to upgrade to Windows 7 for customers purchasing a qualifying PC. May 22 Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit - May Preview
Get it here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?DisplayLang=en&FamilyID=752cb725-969b-4732-a383-ed5740f02e93
Here’s a complete list of the content in the training kit:Overview
Common Language Runtime
Managed Languages
ASP.NET 4
Windows Presentation Foundation
Windows Workflow
Windows Communication Foundation
Silverlight
Data Access
Parallel Computing
Extensibility
Team System
May 19 TechEd India 2009, Summary of Community activities
Organizations like INETA APAC, Culminis, PASS and Microsoft India, jointly engaged in bringing all user group leaders together, promoting the respective user groups and enabling great networking opportunities between the leaders and attendees of TechEd India.
A plan was made to engage the community along the ideas stated in the left column below:
May 13 TechEd India 2009 – Opening KeynoteI think the success of a session/event is how much the audience enjoys and smiles at the comments and the openness of the speaker, especially when the speaker is none other than CEO of Microsoft Steve Balmer. Over the years of the various TechEd’s I’ve seen, I think the Indian people were quite enthusiastic about the his keynote. The beauty I believe was in it’s simplicity, and direct approach in talking to people. Here’s a picture of the opening keynote.
UnConference@TechEd India 2009 Sessions Announced!TechED India is starting Tomorrow.. the UnConference is already popular place to be at... For more details visit: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=62844697987 May 04 Step-by-Step: Windows 7 Upgrade and Migration for BetaIf you’re contemplating about installing the RC of Windows 7 or wondering how to upgrade in the future, this article(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd446674.aspx) is a must read. It covers the following scenarios:
Another blog which you should follow, is “Engineering Windows 7” I’d say this blog is a must read for all those interested in Windows 7, it covers so much about Windows 7 internals, it’s plain wonderful. April 27 Windows 7 Release Candidate Date is set!RC is on track for April 30th for download by MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Broader, public availability will begin on May 5th. I’m waiting to get my hands on it, I especially am looking forward to test it on my Kohjinsha tablet pc(not that my Tablet has multi-touch even then I’m excited ;-). Will update with results once I get it in my hands :-) In case you haven’t seen the demo on the latest Tablet PC’s check this http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:8700c7ff-546f-4e1d-85f7-65659dd1f14f&showPlaylist=true&from=shared and this
See official announcement out here.(http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/04/24/windows-7-release-candidate-update.aspx). April 22 TechED 2009 IndiaAre you attending TechED India 2009 and are involved with a user group? If you are please do get in touch at the Community Zone in TechEd 2009. INETA, Culminis, PASS and Microsoft User Group Support Services will all be present.
March 26 24 Hours of Windows Mobile Application DevelopmentIf you're into WM development, this is a set of webcasts which you should go thru ...(Slightly old but still very relevant)
24 Hours of Windows Mobile Application DevelopmentOver the past few months Windows Mobile Community PM Constanze Roman and MVP Maarten Struys have been hosting a series of 24 webcasts dedicated to Windows Mobile application development. The latest was last Wednesday and focused on the subject of testing Windows Mobile applications. For those of you that missed the webcast, you can still watch it on demand. Listen to Constanze, Maarten, and I discuss how to debug applications using Visual Studio 2008, how to make use of logging and tracing data inside your Windows Mobile application, and how to use Hopper to stress test your applications. You can also view the previous webcasts in the series on demand at the following URLs:
March 25 Mix09 VideosYou can browse sessions on the MIX09 videos page, however, a simple list of all keynotes and sessions by code and title is available here. (Note: due to length limitation of Spaces.live.com I'm unable to post the entire list here :-( )
Clicking the keynote or session title will take you directly to the corresponding page on the MIX09 site where you can stream and download each video. To open PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) files with older versions of Office, install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats (and Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack Service Pack 1).
If you'd like to rename your downloaded files, check the utility by Mike Swanson out here .....(MIX09 Renamer batch file (4.17KB) that will do it for you. Extract the MIX09Renamer.bat file to the folder that contains your downloaded files, and from a command prompt, type MIX09Renamer WMV to rename all of the .WMV files to the full session title. By changing the parameter, you can also rename your PPTX and MP4 files. For example: B01M.wmv is renamed to B01M - Scaling a Rich Client to Half a Billion Users.wmv). You could also download all, for offline viewing using Free Download Manager. Just select all the text in the post, right click and select “Download Selected with Free Download Manager”. Enjoy... http://blogs.msdn.com/mswanson/pages/MIX09Sessions.aspx Enjoy!!! June 19 All MESHed UpIf you use multiple computers, and you haven't checked out MESH yet, GO NOW to https://www.mesh.com/Welcome/LearnMore.aspx
It's just beautiful, it enables you to share data across computers like a breeze, if you've seen my earlier post about FolderShare, MESH takes it couple of steps forward.
Not only in the Tech Preivew does it give you 5Gigs of storage, it also allows you to access programs on your meshed computers from a web browser. Scenario you've forgotten to load a program, like lets say Photoshop, on your laptop, you need to do some quick stuff, if the Desktop at home is meshed you can access it and do your work out there and access the file over the webs. So it's Remote Desktop + foldershare, all meshed up ;-) Awesome! May 06 My new Kohjinsha UMPC and Folder ShareAfter a long time I must say I've been PHENOMENOALY IMPRESSED by Hardware and Software.
Kojhinsha UMPC: I just received my Kohjinsha UMPC yesterday and IT ROCKS beyond imagination. I don't think I've seen a sexier and fast device in a long time now. It's a touchscreen enabled, sleek sweet UMPC which I'm unable to just let go off :-)
If you're looking for a good UMPC, trust me this is the way to go, the Japanese are leading from the front.
Ok so once I got my UMPC next steps were to obviously get the necessary software on to it, which is an ok, however, time consuming job, no innovation here at all. However, the big deal for me was to synch and use my files from either of my PC's + stuff like OneNote, Outlook etc. such that I can use it on my Desktop(Laptop) and my UMPC. FolderShare comes to the resuce here!!! You can read about how you can use OneNote using FolderShare out here(http://mike.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!FBABF8E542F5D5DB!9081.entry) YOU REALLY NEED TO EXPERIENCE THIS, TO UNDERSTAND JUST HOW POWERFUL AND SEAMLESS IT IS. Sorry about the caps, but I really haven't been so excited with a piece of software in a very very long time.
Grab and start using both! You certainly won't be disappointed.
August 11 10 minute mailOne of the most interesting and useful concepts I came across recently is the concept of a free service offering temporary email id's.
In the words of the site itself "Why would you use this? Maybe you want to sign up for a site which requires that you provide an e-mail address to send a validation e-mail to. And maybe you don't want to give up your real e-mail address and end up on a bunch of spam lists. This is nice and disposable. And it's free. Enjoy! "
Now why didn't I think of this before ;-)
May 18 Live.Com Betas
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March 07 Interesting sitesSurfing around on the Internet, via other RSS feeds etc. I came across two interesting sites.
This site gives away free software, not shareware not crippleware, Totall Free stuff, I just downloaded ConceptDraw's MindMap from them and it really cool. The site basically ensures maximum publicity for the vendor whose software they give away by providing it free legally. Its quite an interesting new concept. Love it.
2. Scribd
If you're hooked on to YouTube you might love http://www.scribd.com/ here the concept is docs of various kinds, whether they are pdfs, word docs anything literally and they have a neat interface. You can contribute and download content even if you're not a member. Seems exteremely interesting.
3. Trinity Resuce Kit - CPR for your computer.
Every been locked out of your computer and you've forgotten your password etc. Then this might be your survival kit to get out of the mess. Quote from the website "Trinity Rescue Kit or TRK is a free live Linux distribution that aims specifically at recovery and repair operations on Windows machines, but is equally usable for Linux recovery issues."
March 06 My personal Award for the month of March 07 to the most useless UI :-)If there is one thing which is lacking in terms of ease of use on the internet it is the amazing User Interface designed by most web based solution providers.
Take the case of ICICI Direct supposedly one of the premier online trading service providers in India.
I recently thought of opening an account with them. First step I realized one needs to fill in an online form which basically meant that someone from the company would call. Now this form was really stupid in terms of its interface here goes...
After entering your first name and last name you enter the basic parts of your address and you choose a city from a drop down, guess what the drop down lists names from cities across India, and includes countries such as Muscat, and cities in the US such as New York (ha ha this is so funny). Which dumbo designed this or rather populated this list of cities
 The better part is still to come, read on...
Then there is a part on the form called:
"
Here you fill in details of timings when they could call you, what if I as a customer told you to drop in any time of the day... you give me the customer no choice in that, again a case of dumb design... Now here's the best part :-) You're asked to provide a user id and password... and you realise shortly that you can enter only 8 characters, so I promptly filled in a smaller userid and guess what I get a messagebox saying please fill in between 6 to 8 characters only ................. now what the hell were they thinking ... I'm convinced this particular page was designed by a person who decided that he's going to frustrate end users. Hence my personal award to this site for the most useless UI :-) Congratualtions ICICI Direct for frustrating me even before I became a client of yours. For the enjoyment of all my readers please find attached a screen shot of the offensive dialog box asking me to enter a user id between 6 to 8 characters only. My serious advice to this company would be to read the classic book on UI and interface design called "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (2nd Edition)" It's available on Amazon for approximately 10 bucks, I would willing gift a few copies to this company for free. Microsoft Announces "Beginner Developer Learning Center"Microsoft Announces "Beginner Developer Learning Center"Beginner Developer Learning Center is specifically targeted to beginning programmers (No experience or programming knowledge required).
There's even a special Kid's Corner section for parents, teachers and (of course) kids!
All of the above sounded nice and good, and I felt I should check out what they have out there, so I downloaded and installed the express edition. First blooper SQL 2005 doesn't work exactly well with Vista, ok so they're nice enough to tell you to download SP2 next blooper when you install SP2 hehe the install program tells you that an instance of SQLExpress is running. Now how is a beginner supposed to know how to shut this process down
 .He He they won't :-) I wonder if any of them will figure out how to stop the process. Well lets say they realise that one of the ways to do it is go down to the command prompt and type "net stop mssql$SQLEXPRESS". Oops that won't work unless you're an admin on the machine
The other option is to start SQL Server Configuration Manager and shut it from there... but would they know :-)
I think someone needs to write an FAQ item about this for the sake of the newbies... such things only drive them nuts and away. I'm a big fan of teaching newbies and I hope someone is listening at Microsoft and fixes this issue. March 05 When the Vista File explorer doesn't workHad those moments where you feel like throwing your computer away.
I've recently had one of those moments(actually a number of times) with the Vista File Explorer not working. Actually it worked but only partially which is even more frustrating.
See the screenshot I've attached to this post.
Argggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
The best solution to the problem I've found is logging off and logging on or alternatively a reboot.
Since there is no error message, one really can't even search for an error code. Windows Vista User GuideBrowsing on the net for a good Vista guide I came across this site, which might prove helpful for most Vista users who're confused about the new interface and tools.
Defragmentation oversimplificationOversimplification is the only word to describe the user interfacace of the new Vista Defragmenter.
There are no details provided, see attached image. This is strange as I liked the earlier interface in XP which gave me some idea of what was happening. I was hoping to see more information this time around in terms of the time that is left for completion etc.
For more details or control you need to jump down to the Command Prompt and run the defrag command. Which is kind of silly... Is this a case of oversimplification of the UI, I certainly think so. |
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a lots of goodies(Stress balls, T-shirts, Caps) were given to attendees. The queue at the dart game counter was just amazing. (The Xbox guys helped by providing part of their booth to enable this.)
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