when technology is a part of the whole!

We launched the Community Star Portal on schedule yesterday. We sent out an invite to all the registered community stars on the details of how to log on to the website and updating their information. this is the first step. as expected a lot of email addresses were defunct and the mails bounced back on the same. maybe the mailboxes are full for some of the community stars.. if you are a community star and haven't received the email detailing the procedure to login to the portal please write to: commstarATmicrosoft.com requesting access details. for the mails that bounced back we have marked them as "Not Active" status in the contact list that we have created. We also need some administrators who could help manage the site. There is good response to the request for volunteering for administrators. Since we can't have many we will shortlist the candidates and send individual invitations to all. we will be shipping the VS.NET 2005 Beta 1 CDs to registered mem

there is a pilot program being run for a few weeks at the Download Center of Microsoft.com for a few specific downloads.. for some users the site will provide a download that checks whether the Windows OS running on their PCs are genuine or not. this is not meant to be a spooky affair.. rather one that provides the genuine users more benefits by unlimited download access.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Starting in October 2004, Windows XP Starter Edition will ship on new, low-cost desktop PCs available through PC original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and Microsoft OEM distributors in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. IMHO, this marks the entry of Microsoft into affordable computing.. the achilles heel of a lot of developing companies.. i say affordable and not cheap as cost of acquisition of the PC and software is just the beginning... in long run, this outweighs other peripherals and software we purchase.. windows is the ubiquitous choice that provides for unlimited software available off the shelf.. how many times do you go looking for Children's CD on Alphabets that runs on Linux??? For India, let's wait and watch.. and hope our country has stricter IP laws.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

In my continuing discussion with Community Stars across the country, I had a discussion today with Sadashiv. Though he works out of chennai and was here for a short trip, he found time today to discuss the opportunities for Community Star program to improve on. Some of thoughts we generated out of the discussion are as follows: 1. Community Stars are disengaged 'cause of lack of communication with them from MS. Better communication channels need to be developed. 2. Award experience and delivery of the Community Star benefits leave a lot to be desired. 3. Community Stars feel that MS is not laying enough importance on Community Stars and do not value their contributions much. More information needs to flow to CSs. From our end, we are doing the following: 1. Launch an extranet portal exclusively for Community Stars. We will host issue submission on this site. Also, we will share opportunities via this site e.g. beta opportunities 2. Re-launch the Community Star distributi

There has been a lot of noise around the new URL alias feature of the MSDN site.. i read 3 different MS blogs and was simply amazed at the stuff that is changing at the MSDN site.. In short, you can reach the documentation for a class or namespace by suffixing the fully qualified name of the class after: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/ Some of the blogs talking about the same: http://blogs.msdn.com/junfeng/archive/2004/09/13.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/saraw/archive/2004/09/15.aspx http://pluralsight.com/blogs/craig/archive/2004/09/15/2274.aspx ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

My latest tech gadget is a blutooth wireless handsfree headset.. it is a Sony Ericsson HBH-600. Bought it from the famous Heera Panna market in Mumbai.. started to buy from one shop there but realised that it was probably a used piece (the user manual was missing).. so switched shops and bought from another shop where i thought it was new... price: INR 3300.00 Have paired it with O2 XDA II and it works seamlessly... i get a range of around 5 meters in office that is stuffed with electronic paraphanelia and wireless transmissions creating interference... the headset is light on ear but wearing it for extended periods of time irritates the ear very much.. the sound from the earpiece is very clear and the mic provides the same level of clarity to the person on the other end as the XDA itself... my only reason to whimper - battery life is only for 2-3 hrs which means i have to charge the earpiece every day. overall, a very useful piece of technology that has definitely increased my pr