when technology is a part of the whole!

Microsoft is today launching Windows Phone in India. These phones are,infact, the second generation of phones launched earlier outside India. Codenamed “Mango” the Windows Phones bring a lot of productivity benefits to consumers. Windows Phones are built with focus on people rather than getting tasks done or putting applications in charge. This focus on people infests itself with native integration of the phone with social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo Mail, Live Mail, GMail. Once you associate your IDs at these services, the phone automatically, integrates recent information from these sites into the phone. Let’s see where this could be useful: Let’s say I have a friend whom I have not been in touch with for a few months. He/ She moves locations and updates their phone no. in facebook. With Windows Phone, this updated number would automagically find its ways to the address book and I can call the friend on the new number. Now, if I was interested in knowin...

Microsoft has released its latest development tool, Visual Studio LightSwitch . LightSwitch is aimed at application developers who want to build applications rapidly. I personally think this is a good application for freelance developers who are looking to develop applications in record times. This super fast development ability of Lightswitch is provided by including a variety of prebuilt templates and tools to build business applications that target Windows Client or Windows Azure. LightSwitch simplifies attaching to data with data source wizards or creating data tables with table designers.It also includes screen templates for common tasks so you can create clean interfaces for your applications without being a designer. In addition, LightSwitch users can build forms from existing templates and populate them with data from data sources including SQL Server, SQL Azure, SharePoint and others. There also is integrated support for working with Microsoft Office for tasks such as ex...

“Native” developers – well this isn’t a reference to any ethnic developers . In the .NET world, native developers are the ones whose choice of programming language is the C++. C++ is used in many computing scenarios. When the might of Microsoft is behind .NET, these developers sometimes feel left out of all the buzz going around. And now they don’t have to. GoingNative is a monthly show on Channel 9 focused on native development with an emphasis on C++. It’s brought to you by Charles Torre (C9), Diego Dagum (C++) and Tony Goodhew (VS). The goal is to provide entertainment, education, conversations with native developers across the company and beyond. From newcomers to seasoned C/C++ vets, the goal is to provide content and code that matters to them with the primary goal of expanding minds. This show will focus on a variety of scenarios where going native makes the most the sense when maximum power and performance are key ingredients in your computational recipe. In episode 0 , ho...

Today Microsoft reported its annual earnings. And the no. is USD 70 bn (a growth of 12%). In an environment of slowdowns across the world this double digit growth for such a large company is encouraging for the software industry. The real winner in the last year seems to be the XBOX 360 which has been breaking all records of device sales and earning revenue handsomely for MS. The STB division is lurking close to the Windows division in terms of revenue and may overtake them in an year or two. Read on for some more details. These days large corporations tend to mint money not only from their core businesses but also from their treasury operations – hence I prefer to look at their operating income. In this area, MS again outshines with growth of 13% to USD 27.16 bn. This also reflects a healthy margin of 39% on the business (Whew!!) So where did the growth come from? MBD:   This division earns the max. revenues (22 bn) for the company and is home to Office, Exchange and Dy...

MSDN forums has been the go to place for .NET developer queries forever. Every .NET developer has used the extensive documentation available on MSDN and posted queries the forums to receive community support. Taking the support to the new age, Microsoft has now enabled developers with a gadget that makes access to MSDN forums easier from their desktop. Christened as “MSDN Forum Assistant”, the feature allows users to access MSDN Forums and receive updates directly to their desktops. The Forum Assistant is delivered as a desktop gadget that resides on your desktop. You start by defining your favourite forums via the settings of the gadget. The features of the gadget include: Ask a Question: The gadget bookmarks the links to your favourite forums so that you can reach them quickly. Clicking on the forum link takes you to the forum page, where you can post your query. Forum Search: You can search using keywords right from the gadget and the results open up in a new Window. T...

While learning Windows Phone 7 I realized that Windows Phone Development documentation and content are currently spread across multiple Microsoft web properties. There was no single place for developers to turn for the entire picture. Now, Microsoft has created 22 topic/scenario-focused web pages on App Hub , the Windows Phone developer website, that provide a comprehensive view of all the resources available for Windows Phone development. Each page provides deep topics links, high-level links to tools and key resources for Windows Phone development, and links off to the other content pages. Here’s the full list: Page Title Bit.ly link Windows Phone developer resources (main landing page) http://bit.ly/h6B0MN Silverlight for Windows Phone http://bit.ly/hZHv3e ...

MS CRM is one of the best performing and fastest growing products from the Dynamics suite. Microsoft has just announced CRM 2011 BETA (formerly CRM ‘5’). Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 delivers users the “Power of Productivity” through familiar, connected and intelligent experiences for users inside and outside an organization in the following ways: Familiar experiences through a next-generation native Outlook client, Microsoft Office contextual CRM Ribbon, role-tailored design, and user personalization. Intelligent experiences through guided process dialogs, inline data visualizations, performance and goal management and real-time dashboards. Connected experiences through cloud development, Windows Azure integration, contextual Sharepoint document repositories, teamwork and collaboration and the Dynamics Marketplace. CRM 2011 has been built on .NET 4 and with out of box Azure, SharePoint, Office & Silverlight integration. Scenarios for Azure integration include: ...

In one of the startup groups, there was a question on the commercials of doing a startup with Microsoft Technologies. Specifically, the question was: “ I would like to know the commercial implications on developing a solution on dotnet. Is there a license one needs to purchase from Microsoft for developing a software on dotnet platform? When the software is sold then does each commercial license of  software requires dotnet license to be purchased from Microsoft ?” While many folks would already know about the above, I am reproducing my answer in order to help any startup out there looking for information on using Microsoft technologies. So here it goes: Upfront, one thing should be clear as water - .NET framework is completely FREE of cost to install. The tools to develop on .NET is a IDE called Visual Studio may be needed to be bought. However, MS has come out with various programs that give out .NET Development tools for free. These options includes FREE Vis...

You’ve heard the buzz about Social Networking and how the “youngsters” are spending/ wasting time there. Mostly, you use Social Networking for keeping in touch with friends and family (read facebook or Orkut) by sharing pictures. You may have created a professional profile online at LinkedIn as well. However, all this makes no sense when you are in Office. With all the meetings, replying to emails and meeting deadlines the social networking seems a real waste of time. And you may be right! Now, Microsoft is attempting to make social networking relevant for businesses. Here’s how social networking can aid business: When you receive an email from someone, you get to see their picture with the email. This will help you remember that person who you met at the last conference and who’s written to you now! While you are reading about that person you get to see his latest updates from LinkedIn and Facebook. This gives you a sense of the person’s personality. In my opinion, bot...

For years, you have relied on ratings of various FREE anti-virus software to choose the one you want for your home PC. the choice has been mostly between AVG or Avira. If you were me, you would believe that one should pay for minimum 2 softwares on your PC: Your Operating System i.e. Windows Your Anti-Virus i.e. Norton/ McAfee Now, Microsoft wants you to keep your computer safe for you. After including a world class firewall since Windows XP, Microsoft has now made available a FREE antivirus for your PC. This antivirus is called Microsoft Security Essentials . The antivirus is available as a FREE download from the link above. It is 4.28 MB of download for Win Vista/ Win 7. Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for home PC and counters viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. The software runs in the background and silently monitors the files for all the malware. It schedules scans when the PC is most likely idle and interrupts the user only ...

Cloud based services have been in focus for a few years now. From FREE online email services (e.g. hotmail, gmail) to paid online services (e.g. Google Apps, Office Online, Yahoo Premium emails), the adoption of these services has been steadily rising. The safety of these applications have been questioned (as exposed by recent Twitter docs leak).. While Microsoft had launched its service in US way back, it has now launched these services in India. These services follow the initial launch of Hosted Exchange and Hosted Dynamics. These pay as you go/ subscription based services are meant for companies who want to avoid internally maintaining these basic IT services. The service is being launched as Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite . This suite includes Microsoft Exchange Online , Microsoft SharePoint Online , Microsoft Office Live Meeting and Microsoft Office Communications Online . Exchange Online provides email, calendaring and contact management. Sharepoint...

Today, everyone has a blog. Everyone knows how to design a website (atleast with the right tools). To support this new era, Microsoft is making available its web design tool FREE for everyone. This free tool (called Sharepoint Designer 2007 or SPD) has been made available at http://www.microsoft.com/spd to download. Sharepoint Designer is successor of the FrontPage tools that many of the people  are already aware of. In addition, this tool has excellent support for customizing the FREE SharePoint Services app that comes with Windows Server. One might think that by releasing this software for free, Microsoft may be abandoning Sharepoint Designer. However, that’s not true. Sharepoint Designer will continue its development and next version will be released in the future. While SPD is free, Microsoft also has a professional suite of web design tools available – Expression Web. Lately Microsoft has been making available many of its tools available for FREE e.g. SQL Server Expre...

Today Microsoft has released a new version of Windows Live client for Windows Mobile devices. If you are using any of the Live services – Live search, Messenger or hotmail, you want this locally installed on your Windows Phone as well. the download can be accessed from: http://wl.windowsmobile.com .  The version currently available is v10.6.0046.0800. the exciting addition to this suite has been inclusion of Live Messenger that was earlier taken out of the Live Mobile suite. so, now u can be on IM even when you are on the move. Live Messenger works well over GPRS networks and let’s u have text conversations with your Live Messenger contacts. If you don’t want the client on your mobile, you can access Live services with web browser at: http://mobile.live.com Technorati Tags: live , mobile , windows

  Today the twitterverse is occupied with news of skype releasing apps for iphone. Well, that is old news for Windows Phone users: http://skype.com/download/skype/windowsmobile/ But today, Microsoft Phones are getting a lot of bling.. Here’s some of the bling it is getting: MySpace now enables use of Silverlight on their site With its rich media capability is going to be a big help to all the musicians and actors on myspace :).. Tomorrow, the SDK to develop this application will be released on the CodePlex Open Source site. In addition, Windows Phone will also be getting an app for Myspace users soon. In fact, plan is to enable Windows Phone users to experience other  social networks right from their Windows phone, including Facebook and Windows Live. Windows Marketplace for Mobile Windows Marketplace had been announced earlier (to be available later in the year) and today they talked about few additional things. Marketplace will be available as an W...

This is from a recent trip that I took and met few people who were Firefox users. Most of them were using FireFox at home and IE at work.. and most of them felt that FireFox was “faster” –meaning it would load websites faster and FF itself would load faster.. So, I devised this test and called it the “ Naked Browser ” challenge. Are you upto taking this? Here is what were are trying to do – kill most of the add-ons in IE and then test it against FF. Here are some step by step instructions - Make sure you are running the IE8 Release Candidate 1. To make sure that you are on this version, just go to IE Help menu and click on “About Internet Explorer”. you should see Release Candidate 1 mentioned as follows: Go to Tools –> Manage Add-Ons. In the Manage Add-Ons window, click on each Application and disable the add-on. You can can disable the add-on by clicking on the “Disable” button located at bottom right, once you have selected the application in the upper window. Next, change the ...

Reports of a new worm Conficker, Kido or Downadup are doing the rounds. Win32/Conficker.B exploits a vulnerability in the Windows Server service (SVCHOST.EXE) for Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, and Windows 2008. Attacked systems may lock out users, disable our update services and block access to security-related Web sites. Microsoft addressed this issue in October with Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067 , and Forefront antivirus and OneCare (as well as other vendor’s anit-virus products) helped protect against infections, many systems that have not been patched manually through Server Update Services and Microsoft/Windows Update or through Automatic Updates have recently come under attack by this worm. The systems which have already applied the out-of-band released MS08-067 in October 2008 are protected, unpatched system user have experienced system lockout and other problems. However, given the present spread, Microsoft has taken the following a...

The one thing i keep hearing everyday is cost cutting that is going on everywhere. Layoffs are more drastic of these cost cutting measures. Our company has also done its own bit of cost cutting (without firing anyone yet!).. Microsoft India has launched a website - http://www.controlcosts.com/ that can help enterprises cut costs. The site showcases prominent Indian business leaders at the site. To start, you just choose the scenario that you think is creating cost bloat in your organisation and the site will recommend tools and technologies that will help you streamline that process. At the site you can also pre—order the CFO toolkit that contains 10 ways to control costs. In addition, the site features a bunch of case studies from customers who have experienced cost savings. If one wanted to setup a discussion on cutting cost with an expert within Microsoft, they can do the same at the site. In the current times, this is an excellent move by Microsoft to help the customers...

Consumers worldwide now have another way of seeking help from peers. Microsoft has today launched Microsoft Answers BETA: http://answers.microsoft.com/windows for providing community support for Windows Vista. If you have an issue or want to learn a few things about Windows Vista, this may be your destination. Microsoft Answers Website is: · A rich, interactive community self-help experience moderated by Windows Vista support engineers. · One place for consumers to quickly and easily find Windows Vista support content from Microsoft and the community. · A site built with consumers in mind—from content to tone to aesthetic. Till The landscape for Windows community support has been dominated by 3rd party communities e.g. neowin, winsupersite. If you are in India, there is an option that you may want to explore. The community at www.merawindows.com has been active for more than 2 years and has an impressive base of over 6000 users. The forums are extremely active there and...

One of the biggest grouse that I had heard from community was that MS development tools were very expensive for people in India. Specifically, students mentioned that it was impossible for them to get the products due to them being expensive. In the first step, Microsoft made available Express edition of the development tools freely available for everyone. And now, hold ur breadth, it is making the development tools (full editions) available for FREE for students. The products now being made available for FREE are: Operating System: Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition Development IDE: Visual Studio 2005/2008 Professional Edition XNA Game Studio 2.0 and 12-month trial academic subscription to the XNA Creators Club Designer Tools: Expression Studio 2 (includes Web, Blend, Media and Design), Database: SQL Server 2005 Express, SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition, What is great is that Microsoft is making available the entire stack from Operating System to devel...

  Bill Gates, the prodigious Founder & Chairman of Microsoft is in India. Tomorrow he is going to be talking about the innovation opportunities in India and how Microsoft is going to be supporting the same.. the talk is scheduled to be in IIT Delhi from 2:00 PM… I am going to be attending the event. I have clicked a photo of my exclusive pass here :).. BTW, if u were a member of Delhi Bloggers you could have had an opportunity to attend this as well… If you are not attending the event live, you needn’t miss out on the fun. The event will be broadcast live. You can watch with me as he speaks (over webcast). Simply click on my pass image to register and watch starting 2:00 PM tomorrow…. When Bill Gates talks, he talks BIG… I am sure that I would have a lot to share after the event. So keep watching this space. Technorati Tags: bill gates , india