rich_gibbons

May 27, 2009January 21, 2010

Microsoft Windows 7 Touch Pack

To mark the “anniversary” of Windows 7 Multi-Touch, (AKA Windows Touch) being discussed at the D: All Things D conference in 2008, Microsoft have released the Windows 7 Touch Pack. This is a set of 6 multi-touch enabled apps that will be available with Windows 7; it is comprised of 3 games and 3 MS Surface applications.

Microsoft Surface Globe: This is based on the Virtual Earth 3D engine and, using multi-touch, allows users to navigate different area of the globe as well as getting local info and “pinning” top locations. A demo video can be found here.

Microsoft Surface Collage: Users can arrange photos with their fingertips to create personalised desktop backgrounds.

Microsoft Surface Lagoon: A screensaver that supports multi-touch interaction. “Ripple” the water with your fingers or watch fish gather around as you press down.

Microsoft Blackboard: A game which may also educate! In this physics based teaser, users must arrange various gears, fans and levers to move objects towards the finish.

Microsoft Rebound: A touch based, electrified version of air hockey that can be played online.

Microsoft Garden Pond: A modern version of a Zen garden, this app allows you to guide your Origami creations around the peaceful ponds and pools with your fingers.

It will be up to the OEM’s whether they include some, all or none of these applications however, following general availability of Windows 7, Microsoft will look to expand this.

Some may see these a great features, some may see them as nothing but filler but if nothing else, they do a great job of showing how clean, easy and fresh multi-touch application can be on Windows 7.

You can see even more over at the Windows Team Blog.

May 20, 2009

MS MyPhone open to all

That’s right folks, the beta of Microsoft’s MyPhone is open to everyone-go and sign up here.

I’ve been using it for a couple of months and it’s pretty much excellent It’s a great way to keep a backup of Office files and photo’s- as well as text messages. I also find it useful for getting items from my phone to my pc when I can’t find my USB cable, which seems to be most of the time 🙂 It will really come in to it’s own when you get a new phone and you have a nice easy way to quickly import your texts etc.

It’s biggest drawback in my eyes is it’s 200MB storage limit, that makes it no real use for music and transferring MP3’s and WMA’s is where I’d love to use it most. This could easily be overcome by using the Hotmail SkyDrive as a storage pool-giving us all 25GB 🙂 As it was originally called “SkyBox”-that link could still be a possibility…

May 18, 2009May 18, 2009

Star Trek Movie Quick Recognition Chart

I just saw this on Digg and it is awesome-a handy flow chart style guide to the Star Trek films.

*Click image to make it bigger.

Having re-watched Insurrection at the weekend, I definitely agree that this chart works!

Props to www.lukemckinney.org for this 🙂

May 13, 2009

New Apple Ad targets Laptop Hunters

Apple have finally got aruond to attacking Microsoft’s very successful “Laptop Hunters” campaign, in the new Mac vs PC advert.

As usual, it’s based on half truth’s and hyperbole (at best) but we all know what to expect from these ads by now 🙂 My questions is-do these ads really work…in the true sense that they convert people from buying PC’s to Macs, as I don’t think they do!

I can’t find a version I can embed so here’s the link to Engadget’s site:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/13/video-apple-responds-to-microsofts-laptop-hunters/

May 12, 2009May 12, 2009

A few Sharepoint 2010 tidbits

A few more bits of info about Sharpeoint 2010 have come out of TechEd through blogs and tweets.

The 2 big ones are:

Groove is to be renamed “Sharepoint Workspace Manager”. I think this will help drive an increase in people using this technology as currently, most people don’t know that Groove & Sharepoint can be used together.

Sharepoint 2010 is going to be 64bit only-and will require a wholly 64bit environment I.e. “64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 to run. It also will require 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005”.

Another point is that it won’t support Internet Explorer 6 but will be “targeting standards based browsers (XHTML 1.0 compliant) including Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.x. running on Windows Operating Systems. In addition we’re planning on an increased level of compatibility with Firefox 3.x and Safari 3.x on non-Windows Operating Systems”.

All info via Mary Jo Foley

May 12, 2009

Office 2010 Movie on Twitter

This morning man people, Engadget & Gizmodo included, saw tweets from @officethemovie claiming that:

First of today's Zune tweets

and this got people all across the internet excited, but not everyone was convinced. Gizmodo expressed their distrust here and it turns out they were right-the account is actually run by a Mac fanboy who is, in some bizarre way, trying to highlight iphone piracy…ah well…I think we all knew those tweets weren’t real…deep down!

One thing that does confuse me a little is that Gizmodo say that the offical http://www.office2010themovie.com/ page was linking to the afore mentioned twitter account, but I don’t see how that could be the case. MS do link to the official @office2010movie account…is it just people confusing the 2 similar account names…or were MS somehow fooled too?!

May 11, 2009

Windows 7 in 2009

At today’s TechEd, Microsoft revealed that Windows 7 will be available “by the holiday period” (so by Xmas); this was their first public announcement that Windows 7 will be with us in 2009, rather than early 2010.

May 11, 2009

Office 2010 Technical Preview Program

Microsoft TechEd 2009 today saw the official launch of the Office 2010 Technical Preview program; it’s invitation only but you can add yourself to the waiting list here. I did earlier so hopefully I’ll get the chance to have an early look at the new version of some of my favourite apps 🙂

To get more of a feel for what’s coming, check out:

http://www.office2010themovie.com/

and the official blog here.

Cheers to Steve Clayton for the waiting list link too!

May 6, 2009

Microsoft BPOS to support Office 2003

Yesterday I was part of a technical roundtable regarding MS Online Services/BPOS and there was a lot of great information revealed, unfortunately I can’t say much as it’s all under NDA…suffice to say it’s a great product that is going to keep on getting better.

There is however, one piece of info I CAN share and that is that BPOS will-from June (next month)-start to fully support Office 2003.

This is brilliant news as the Office 2007 only requirement was preventing a lot of people from being able to seriously consider MS Online Services which was a shame! BPOS is positioned as a great way to reduce the impact on budgets and to help keep costs down but then having to upgrade to the latest version of Office didn’t tend to go down too well…I think a lot of people saw it as “giveth with one hand, taketh with the other”. It is often the smaller companies, who would most benefit from MS Online, that are still on Office 2003 so now a whole new arena is opened up…good skills Microsoft 🙂

May 1, 2009

Microsoft Cloud Database Testing

Project Huron, one of Microsoft’s group of cloud-based teams, are asking customers to get involved with testing a first release of their online database synchronization effort; which will be done via the Azure platform & SQL Data Services.

The Huron team said “We are looking for are any customers that are looking to share SQL Server or SQL Compact databases via the cloud and have an existing project that would warrant this functionality…”

The team’s blog says “The goal is to remove the typical complexities (configuration, scalability, security, etc) involved with sharing database information between local databases such as SQL Server and SQL Compact and provide simple UI tools for configuration and sync components developers can embed in existing applications.”

Screen mockups: