when technology is a part of the whole!

So I finally installed the Infopath SP1 from the Office 2003 SP1. Here are the steps i followed: 1. Downloaded the Office 2003 Service Pack 1from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/results.aspx?productID=3A4E9862-CDCE-4BDC-8664-91038E3EB1E9&freetext=sp1&DisplayLang=en 2. Ran the Office 2003 SP1. 3. Ran into the following error message: “The expected version of the product was not found on your system”. So i dug around a little and here is how it is correctly done: 1. Uninstall InfoPath SP1 Preview 2. Run gacutil.exe /cdl (Iinstalled with the .NET Framework SDK) 3. Run Office 2003 SP1 4. Reinstall InfoPath 2003 (by running the Microsoft Office 2003 Professional Setup program from Add/Remove Programs), and then reselecting the InfoPath check box And this worked for me!! The Infopath SP1 forms for MVP Nomination and others are working fine with the this release as well. The released version of InfoPath SP1 is 6357.6360. If you have any other version than this you don't have...

I have been trying to do some googling for some time and it is returning 503 -Server error over and over again... looks like others across the globe are having the same problem.. what is it? a DoS attack? another speculation of MyDoom virus at: http://slashdot.org/articles/04/07/26/1649245.shtml?tid=217&tid=1 but wasn't this supposed to target Microsoft sites rather than Google?

MVP nominations will be open from mid-night tonight i.e. July 26 2004 till August 12, 2004. If you think you are ready to become an MVP (Microsoft Valuable Professional), nominate yourself at: http://www.microsoft.com/india/mvp/nomination.aspx More information on MVP Program is available at: http://www.microsoft.com/india/mvp http://mvp.support.microsoft.com (International) So who should nominate themselves for the MVP award: 1. If you have been contributing to the technical community (posting on newsgroups,running user groups, article writing, doing web chats/web casts etc) for the past year 2. If you intend to continue your contibution to the community 3. If you get excited with the idea of working with microsoft products There is a very stringent review process for the MVP nominations. Nominations do not gurantee the AWARD of MVP status... So are you up for it?

TechEd India 2004 is THE gigantic Developer event from Microsoft that spans more than 4 cities and hard core developer sessions for whole 3 days... TechEd provides indepth sessions for developers, networking professionals and Office users (and developers). Community has come to be the latest fabric of everything that Microsoft does... newsgroups, usergroups, "Community Technical Previews", community feedback channels, beta place etc.. It is implied that Community does come to TechEd India 2004 as well.. and we will be there at TechEd talking to anyone who is a community player. We propose to do the following at the community stall 1. Distribute URLs of the local user group at the community stall 2. Provide information on community activities at community stall e.g. on newsgroups, other community sites 3. Provide several technical eval CDs at the community stall 4. Solicit nominations for the MVP and Community Star program 5. Showcase Tablet PC where people can come and work o...

This was my first time attending a mixer of the Bangalore Business Networking (BBN) from www.ryze.com or any other social network.. for the mixer we paid Rs 200 for covering the expenses.. i was expecting a very informal way of gathering money.. was pleasantly surprised with the smooth management of the finances by the volunteers who daftly collected the money and created the badges... next i met Tarun.. now he is the main guy behind BBN. i had been confusing him with the other guy in the photograph he has on this ryze page.. the round of introductions that started went on till 9:00 PM ( we had started at 6:30).. and from the stash of 11 visiting cards that i have from the mixer, it is well understood the eagerness of people handing out their business cards.. the mixer this time (as i am told) was a much quieter affair.. there were people from IT (duh! this is bangalore), medicine, event management, HR, home business and garment industry... pretty varied, eh? a very good exposure to w...

Some good news... Lookout that was an add-in to Outlook and let you search PSTs with balzing speed has been bought over by MSN. My take on this ... PST will have a new format based on Lookout's architecture.. the MSN search that was greatly improved recently, will be becoming much more relevant and much more intelligent... my concern, since it has been bought by MSN, how long would it take to get incorporated into the Microsoft Outlook? hope Outlook team moves really fast on this.... For the official comment: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/jul04/07-16LookoutPR.asp Mike Belshe and Eric Hahn Letter (founders of Lookoutsoft) to users: http://www.lookoutsoft.com/Forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=194

During my recent visits to the User Group meetings, we mentioned Route64 seminar in Bangalore. Everyone was quiet. No one knew about the same. I remember getting mails from variuos newsletters about Route64. Why didn't people know? More than doing a post-mortem of why didn't people know, I set out to find how could people know? I have seen something very interesting in seminars world over. People refrain from taking calls while the delegate is presenting but would look at their SMSs and punch in the reply. Very non-intrusive way of communicating with someone breathing down your neck. It hit me that SMSs were the most effective of notification mechanisms. You carry the mobile phone everywhere (even when you are not checking your emails!!).. you can check the SMS whenever you want to.. and the retention of SMSs seems to be more than emails (given the sheer nos of emails that you receive). The solution i think would work is SMS notifications. Currently, MS doesn't have an SMS ...

The Rig Veda, refered to an Aryan people living in the highlands of Pamir in Central Asia. Almost 1000 years later, the Aryans migrated in three different directions. One journeyed towards present-day Iran, another towards Europe, and through Afghanistan. Those Aryans who settled in Punjab became a very happy and prosperous people. They organized themselves around a caste syatem that described four specific functions of the community. The Kshatriyas of that system were the protectors of the land. However, in peace time many of their members framed the land and raised cattle. These people, named Kurmi Kshatriyas, eventually migrated to the fertile land of Ganga and Jamuna, eventually reaching Bihar and Bengal. From 600 BC to 200 BC, the kings of Iran and Greece repeatedly attacked Punjab, forcing most of the Kurmi Kshatriyas (also known as the Kurmis) to flee even further south to Gujarat in Vadnagar and Charator in the Kheda district. Around 1400 AD, the ruler of Gujarat granted the un...

We now have XBOX in Bangalore office installed for MVPs. Obviously only Bangalore MVPs can access the amazing console right now, these will be rotated in various locations across the country. MVPs across the country will be able to experience the magic.. What's unique about this offer? XBOX is not yet released in India!! So this is your chance to preview and write a review on the device of the decade!! In Bangalore, the XBOX is available starting July 2, 6:00 PM. MVPs could come and unwind at the Kasturba Road office with a coffee / coke and play some cool games. I can tell you the force feedback is soooo cool that you can feel your neighbours arms shaking while you are racing with him/her. And the graphics are too good... goes without saying :) I have already spent around 4 hours since morning playing the XBOX.. ahem!! it is that addictive... Currently, we have Gotham City Racing 2 and Crimson Skies games available on the XBOX. And here's a challenge.. Best me ...

The MVP awards for the June cycle have been announced. the new MVPs are: 1. Chandrashekar Chivukula, Hyderabad 2. Pooran Prasad, Bangalore (now Ahmedabad) 3. Atul Gupta, Pune 4. Deepika Aneja, Delhi 5. Vipul Patel, Mumbai 6. Ruwan Dissanayake, Colombo, Sri Lanka 7. Anantha KN, Bangalore There were a lot of excellent nominations that i would also have loved to award apart from the above. There are some people who i very much miss here. Due to limited awards, we could only award the above people. The award process is a very stringent one driven not only by one but selection panel of various groups. Congratulations to the one who made it and best of luck for the next time to the others who couldn't. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Upgraded Hotmail (ad funded) provides: 1. 250MB of free storage 2. 10MB attachments 3. free virus scanning/cleaning (unique to MSN) 4. 500 blocked addresses (5X Yahoo) 5. Calendar and calendar sharing Upgraded Hotmail Extra Storage/Hotmail Plus: This is a paid offer ($19.95/yr) that provides users with 2GB of storage and 20MB attachments. It also eliminates graphical ads, includes client access through Dav (OE, Outlook) and yearly account expiration. This offer essentially matches Yahoo on storage and trumps on attachment size. You know this already? Right... so when are you going to be seeing this implemented? It is planned to be a staggered launch.. 1. All Hotmail users WW will receive free virus cleaning (and not just scanning) by early July (neither Google nor Yahoo offers this service) 2. Upgradation of Premium users of Hotmail and MSN will happen starting July and November respectively. 3. Users in US, UK, Japan, Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Spain will get their accoun...

The list of blogs I read are ever growing and shrinking... Thought would share the blogs I read.. Apart from the great blogs from Indian MVPs, I really like reading the Cnet blog (always first with tech news) and Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo (insider details) I use SharpReader as my aggregator and have exported the blog list using "Export" functionality and the file has been created as an OPML file. Find the OPML file here . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.