Category: Microsoft

This category is for anything Microsoft related-so you’ll probably find that msot posts end up in here!

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After the Microsoft Keynote @ CES


I have to say that the CES Keynote delivered by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was a bit of a let down in my opinion. I was expecting some major announcements about Windows Mobile, Zune and perhaps Xbox as well as the obvious Windows 7 beta release info…but other that Win 7 we got none of that šŸ˜¦

The Windows 7 private beta was downloadable from today (from the MSDN/Technet sites if you have access)Ā and the public beta will be available from Friday 09/01/09, just as expected. The public beta will be found hereĀ and will be a 2.7GB ISO file šŸ™‚ This is a big announcement as it was such an open secret, it doesn’t really have any surprise/shock value…more just a sense of “finally”!…

Other than that, they announced Songsmith, a project that has come through from Microsoft Research which “generates musical accompaniment to match a singerā€™s voice. Just choose a musical style, sing into your PCā€™s microphone, and Songsmith will create backing music for you; and some Xbox/Netflix related news.

Other things were confirmed such as the deals with Dell & Verizon around Live Search, but nothing particularly earth shattering…or was there?!

However, one thing that does looks very interesting and could, if developed and marketed right, become quite a big part of peoples lives is Microsoft Tag. This is Redmond’s foray into the world of social 2d tagging to “tranform physical media (print advertising, billboards,product packages, information signs, in-store merchandising, or even video images)ā€”into live links for accessing information and entertainment online.”

You download a small app for your mobile device and then you can start accessing these tags by photographing them with the camera on your device. There are some great examples of when this would be used on the Tag site such as allowing tracking analytics of ads in print media or using the tags on film posters to create a viral buzz as well as cinemas offering showing times etc.

The technology these tags is brand new, built from the ground up by the ever more famous MS Research Labs to best utilise the oftem limited camera tech on phones. The High Capacity Color Barcodes (HCCBs) as they are known “employs different symbol shapes in geometric patterns and multiple colors to provide more information in less space”. An example:

tag1

The Microsoft Tag mobile tagging system offers many advances and advantages:

  • Designed from the beginning to work with the limited capabilities of a typical camera phone.
  • Much smaller than other formats. Typical packaging application starts at 5/8 x 5/8ā€.
  • Optimized for both print and video display.
  • Enhanced Reed-Solomon error correction means Tags can still be read even if partially damaged.
  • On many phones can decode using a direct real-time camera video stream, you donā€™t even have to ā€œclickā€ to read the code.
  • Handles long URLs and allows for content to be dynamically changed.
  • Tags are saved for later viewing and can be forwarded to someone else (no need to scan it again).

I’ve just downloaded the mobile app as a .CAB file from the Tag site here, and it works really well. There’s a tag on the screen that you can “snap” and it takes you straight through to another MS site relating to Tag; I will say that you need to put your phone quite close to the screen for it to work-just so you know šŸ™‚

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Microsoft BPOS-A first hand look


Today I was finally able to set up our test account for Microsoft BPOS and it was definitely worth the wait. I’ve not been playing around with it for long but already I’m highly impressed with the amount of features and how easy it is to use. All the most common options you will need, such as create site, add user, increase storageĀ are contained in easy access menus and are pretty much exactly where you’d expect them to be šŸ™‚

Within 5 minutes I’d addedĀ users toĀ the system,Ā created a new Sharepoint Site Collection and thenĀ added saidĀ users to the Sharepoint site…and I’m no Sharepoint Administrator! I then proceeded to add multiple documents to the Sharepoint site which was easy and very quick-just as quick as an on-premise solution as far as I can tell.

There are some things missing such as Excel Services, forms etc as well as the ability to run custom code, so it won’t fit everyone-but on the whole it covers what people need very well.

Moving on to Exchange, I’ve just signed in to OWA and without having to do any configuration either as a user or admin (other than setting the size of the mailbox), I’m up and running and firing emails off all over the show šŸ™‚Ā 

For business that want to run BPOS alongside their existing on-premise installations, it is very simple synchronize your Active Directory (AD) and/or Exchange Global Address Lists as well as migrating existing mailboxes across to Microsoft Exchange Online. These are all done via wizards and having seem them demonstrated at TVP, they’reĀ pretty simple to use.

I’m very impressed with the user interface and the general “flow” of the entire BPOS suite site, from the perspective of both an admin and a user. My gallery of screenshots can be found here.

cloud2_2

I want to thank Hugh Mcleod and Steve Clayton for this great S+S diagram!

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SalesForce.com outage


Over at The Register, they have tell of a Salesforce.com outage that struck today and left over 900,000 people unable to access their apps and data for about an hour today, starting 12:00 pm PST (so about 20:00 GMT).

While it perhaps hasn’t affected many UK companies, having that many business users, particularly in the States offline, “paralyzes a small fraction of the world’s economy” to quote El Reg. In these tough economic times to have almost 1 million man hourswasted in a day (and that’s just the directly affected number, the knock on could well increase that number significantly) isn’t a particularlyĀ great advert for SAAS.

It does however help strengthen Microsoft’s strategy of Software PLUS Services (S+S), rather that Software AS a Service (SAAS). Microsoft’s S+S is based on users having some software installed on-premise and then complementing that with online services so if a Salesforce.com style outage was to hit Microsoft-customers would have a much betterĀ chance to stay productive. Perhaps they wouldn’t have access to ALL the features but some are definitely better than none!

See my first impressions of using Microsoft’s S+S BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite) here.

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More Windows 7 Beta Availability News


Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNetsays that Steve Ballmer is expected to announce the official availability of the closed Windows 7 beta during his CES KEynote speech on WednesdayĀ January 7th, along with Windows Server 2008 R2.

However, she also states that her sources are indicating that the Public beta will be announced at the same time, with the Server beta being available on 08/01/09 and Windows 7 public beta downloadable from 09/01/09!

This is excellent news-I really can’t wait to get my hands on the official, non-torrented Win7 beta and get my test on-whoo hoo!!!

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Free Vista to Windows 7 Upgrades


Tech ARP are reporting that Microsoft plan to offer free upgrades to Windows 7 to customers purchasing new Vista machines as 1st of July 2009, a great indicator of the timescale until release.

They appear to have obtained a copy of the draft proposal that was sent to OEM’s in December, outlining Microsoft’s proposal for this scheme. It includes info such as:

The only Windows VistaĀ® versions eligible for the program are :

  1. Windows VistaĀ® Home Premium
  2. Windows VistaĀ® Business
  3. Windows VistaĀ® Ultimate

* Microsoft Windows VistaĀ® Home Basic, Windows VistaĀ® Starter Edition, and WindowsĀ® XP (all editions) are not qualifying products under the program.
Ā 

and

“The Program does not support multiple upgrades for medium, large, or enterprise customers. Customers that want to upgrade multiple PCs should use the appropriate Microsoft Volume Licensing program.”

so this is clearlyĀ aimed at consumers and small businesses.

Thanks to Mary Jo Foley for posting this first…

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President Bob Muglia


Bob Muglia is, as of yesterday (05/01/09), Microsoft’s President of Server & Tools. A great accolade after 21 years at the company, well done Bob!

See Steve Ballmer’s email over at Mary Jo Foley’s All About Microsoft.

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Windows 7-better than XP?


It’s something few people have ever said about Vista, but it looks like it could become a widespread phrase soon:

“Windows 7 is better than XP”

There will of course be a certain group of people who will refuse to admit that is even possibleĀ however I and many others have been saying it for a while now-and now Engadget have reports of something approaching proof!

Adrian Kingley-Hughes from ZDNet compared XP, Vista and Windows 7 at performing everyday tasks such as “boot up, shut down, file maneuvers, installations and other common tasks” and “On both test systems, an AMD Phenom 9700 setup and an Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2200 number (with ATI and NVIDIA graphics, respectively), the Windows 7 install soundly bested XP and Vista task by task, with few exceptions.”.

While this isn’t an exact science, it’s certainly very indicative of how things will be once Win 7 is released-and it’s looking good šŸ™‚ Especially considering that this is the Beta of Windows 7 that’s being tested so one would assume that it’s final RTM (Release to Manufacturing) version will be even slicker.

It seems that Microsoft are really onto a good thing here…I can’t wait!

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Windows 7 to come with DivX


According to apcmag.com, Windows 7 will include DivX out of the box.

“So what?” you might ask…this will go along way to putting an end to hours spend trawling the web to find the correct/latest codecs to play that (legally) downloaded/ripped for backup purposes movie; thus making media watching in Windows an even more enjoyable experience šŸ™‚

Codec packs are often from unverified publishers and run the risk of infecting your PC with malware and/or you ending up with various conflicting codecs that slow your machine down. Windows 7 shows a real attempt by MS to give users what they need and want and to help make the user experience as smooth, safe and stable as possible-good on you boys!

It doesn’t stop there though…Windows 7 will also play theĀ H.264 video and AAC audio formats, as used byĀ  iTunes, via Windows Media Player. However, don’t get too excited as Good Ol’ Apple refuse to licenceĀ  their FairPlay DRM so tracks purchased via the iTunes store are still off limits to WMP…Boo Hiss I say-that would make things SO much easier for me and stop me having to double up on tracks in both AAC and WMA/MP3 formats. Still, the AAC inclusion should mean that WMP can search & index all the (non-purchased) iTunes media, so simplifying the listening experience.

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Microsoft @ CES 2009


The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2009 is only 5 days away (01/01/09) and is the first big show of it’s kind this year.

**Update: See what came out of the CES KEynote here**

This time it’s going to be Steve Ballmer delivering the Keynote now that Mr Gates is no longer the day to day head of MS but he’s not going to be alone. Robbie Bach, PresidentĀ of the Entertainment & Devices division @ Redmond will be there too…a new Xbox perhaps? Oddly I’m not a fan of the Xbox so I’d be happier to see him announcing the availability of the Zune in the UK šŸ™‚

You know what, I’ve got a feeling that the next version of WinMo (so 6.5) is going to be mentioned at CES today too…and maybe a home version of Surface, haha šŸ™‚

You can see Steve’s streamed webcast on January 7th 2009 @ 02:30 am GMT (18:30 PST)Ā in 100K, 300K or 750K .

Hopefully Mr Ballmer will give us another Youtube moment!

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Fix for Zune 30GB


Even though, or perhaps because,Ā I still can’t buy a Zune here in the UK, I like to keep my eye on news relating to these wonderful devices. I saw earlier today a number of reports about the 30GB editions of the Zune locking up and “bricking” for no apparent reason.

**Update** It turns out that this was down to a Toshiba driver in the clock.

Microsoft have now released an official reason for the problem and, more importantly a fix for the issue. It all comes down to these particular devices having some issues with the leap year so MS have said “That being the case, the issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). ”

The full statement from Microsoft (which I saw via Gizmodo) is below. The official Zune Team blog is http://zuneinsider.com/Ā so you can check there for more info on this, and other Zune related topics šŸ™‚

Early this morning we were alerted by our customers that there was a widespread issue affecting our 2006 model Zune 30GB devices (a large number of which are still actively being used). The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year. That being the case, the issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on. If you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device.

Customers can continue to stay informed via the support page on zune.net (zune.net/support).

We know this has been a big inconvenience to our customers and we are sorry for that, and want to thank them for their patience.

Q: Why is this issue isolated to the Zune 30 device?
It is a bug in a driver for a part that is only used in the Zune 30 device.

Q: What fixes or patches are you putting in place to resolve this situation?
This situation should remedy itself over the next 24 hours as the time flips to January 1st.

Q: What’s the timeline on a fix?
The issue Zune 30GB customers are experiencing today will self resolve as time changes to January 1.

Q: Why did this occur at precisely 12:01 a.m. on December 31, 2008?
There is a bug in the internal clock driver causing the 30GB device to improperly handle the last day of a leap year.

Q: What is Zune doing to fix this issue?
The issue should resolve itself.

Q: Are you sure that this won’t happen to all 80, 120 or other flash devices?
This issue is related to a part that is only used in Zune 30 devices.

Q: How many 30GB Zune devices are affected? How many Zune 30GB devices were sold?
All 30GB devices are potentially affected.

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