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| SeniorPCs From Microsoft. |
| May 01st, 2008. Microsoft has taken the guesswork out of computer work with its new suite of SeniorPCs. Now, getting up-and-running on your own PC is practically as easy as plugging it in and turning it on. |
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| SeniorPCs are computers that come equipped with user-friendly software specifically geared to senior living. Think of it as a simplified way to do it all: e-mailing, word processing, plus managing prescriptions, finances, travel planning and photos. There are even word games and number games for keeping the puzzle skills sharp. Each SeniorPC also comes with a color printer. More at Microsoft. |
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| Microsoft's Pro Photo Tools v 1 for Windows. |
| May 01st, 2008. Microsoft has released Pro Photo Tools v 1 today. The Pro Photo Tools allow you to add, change, and delete common metadata properties for digital photographs. You can place photos on the Live Earth map and then drag them to the right location. |
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| The GPS information will be stored back into the photos. If you have a GPS device, can load track route files from the most popular formats (NMEA, GPX, and KML) and see them on the map. Then you can place your photos on the track route. Again, the GPS info will be stored into your file. When you have the right GPS location for your photos, you can automatically generate location info like country, state, city and even street names. Or if you know the location where a picture was taken, you can type it in and get the GPS location information automatically. |
| Microsoft's COFEE. |
| April 30th, 2008. Microsoft has developed a small plug-in device that investigators can use to quickly extract forensic data from computers that may have been used in crimes. |
| The COFEE, which stands for Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, is a USB "thumb drive" that was quietly distributed to a handful of law-enforcement agencies last June. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith described its use to the 350 law-enforcement experts attending a company conference Monday. More at SeattleTimes. |
| Microsoft is software industry's leading innovator. |
| April 29th, 2008. Microsoft was ranked No. 1 in terms of the overall quality, and more importantly, scientific value of its patent portfolio, according to an IEEE Survey. |
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| The question, of course, is how to turn raw innovation into saleable products. In this area Microsoft may be too dependent on last decade's products to truly focus on the next decade. Yes, Microsoft has churned out the Zune, Xbox, and other new products. But I suspect its dominance in operating systems and office productivity suites keeps it from truly pushing the envelope with new products, because everything has to fit within yesterday's conception of how computing should work. More on CNet. |
| i’m Initiative donates $1.3M in its first year. |
| April 29th, 2008. The i'm Initiative, where every time someone who has chosen to participate in the i’m Initiative has a conversation using Messenger, Microsoft shares a portion of our advertising revenue with the organization selected by the customer, is happy to report that thanks to the support of many great Windows Live Messenger customers, Microsoft has donated $1.3 million to ten of the world’s most effective social cause organizations. Source: MessengerSays. |
The organizations currently involved in the i’m Initiative are:
American Red Cross
Boys & Girls Clubs of America
The Humane Society of the United States
National AIDS Fund
National MS Society
ninemillion.org
Sierra Club
StopGlobalWarming.org
Susan G. Komen for the Cure
UNICEF |
| Live News Search – now with RSS ! |
| April 29th, 2008. The Live News Search Team has incorporated RSS feeds into the browse and search results experience. Subscribe and stay up to date with stories from all categories or for specific searches that you perform. Try it out at Live News. |
| Microsoft Paper: Improving Search Results By Mining Web Surfing Activity. |
| April 29th, 2008. A new research paper from Microsoft looks at how surfing behavior, as logged by a search toolbar, can be used to improve search results. The study used data from the Windows Live Toolbar. The paper also has a nice section that summarizes off-the-page ranking factors that search engines can and have considered. More at SearchEngineLand. |
| Messenger Group : Enjoy Group Chats on your WLM. |
| April 29th, 2008. Messenger Group Chat, developed with Windows Live Messenger platform, is a service geared towards a group of WLM users wanting to chat together in real time. Maybe you think that WLM already supports multi-conversations. But this multi-conversation is temporary, and will be dismissed on completion of the conversation. |
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Compared with multi-conversation, Messenger Group is an existing group. Members can talk together at any time without creating a temporary multi-conversation. You can create a group for a team, a department or a company to chat online together.
Features:
Free to create Messenger Groups
Each Messenger Group can have 900 members at most
Group manager can change group name and display picture
Group manager can set an administrator to help manage group
Group member can change their nickname in the group |
| At present there are more than three million users and 500,000 Messenger groups have been created. Thanks Neowin. |
| XP SP3 vs. Vista SP1 - Another Benchmark. |
| April 29th, 2008. The data speaks for itself. At the top of the list is Windows Vista 64-bit, while at the bottom is XP SP2. In the middle we have XP RTM, XP SP3, Vista 32-bit RTM and Vista 32-bit SP1 fighting it out. |
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| Source: ZDNet. Thanks Bink. |
| Microsoft: Vista Sales Pass 140 Million Mark |
| April 28th, 2008. Microsoft has said that sales of Windows Vista are chugging steadily onward, and have now passed the 140 million mark. But that wasn't enough to help Microsoft extend its string of lights-out quarterly financial performances. |
| In its fiscal third quarter earnings call Thursday, Microsoft met the Street's expectations but saw quarterly profit drop 11 percent from the year-ago quarter. However, the results were skewed by Microsoft's booking of $1.7 billion in deferred revenue from its Express Upgrade to Windows Vista and Microsoft Office Technology Guarantee programs as well as pre-shipments of Vista and Office 2007. Microsoft's overall profit dipped to $4.39 billion, or 47 cents per share, compared to $4.93 billion, or 50 cents per share, in the same quarter last year. Source: Neowin. |
| Microsoft : No Change in XP Plan Despite Ballmer Comment. |
| April 28th, 2008. The spokeswoman said Microsoft is aware that some customers are pushing for an extension to the deadline; But the company has also done its own research among partners and customers, and feels that "the dates are right," she said, speaking on behalf of Microsoft. |
| We feel we've made the right accommodations for customers in certain segments who may need more time to transition to Windows Vista," she said. "But as Steve noted, we maintain a constant stance of listening to our customers and our partners. That's what is guiding our plan, and will continue to guide us going forward." |
| Retailers and PC vendors can also continue to sell any backlog of Windows XP licenses that they bought before the June 30 deadline. Beyond those exceptions, most new Windows licenses purchased after June 30 will be for Windows Vista. Source: PCWorld. |
| Yahoo Ignores Deadline, So it's Microsoft's Move. |
| April 28th, 2008. Yahoo ignored Microsoft's deadline to respond to its $44.6 billion takeover offer by Saturday, leaving the next move in this chess game to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Microsoft has a number of options, but none of them are particularly appealing and investors are impatient with the lack of progress. |
| Last week, speaking to business executives in Madrid, Ballmer dropped numerous hints that most analysts viewed as posturing. At one point he said that if a deal with Yahoo failed to materialize, "we go forward alone" by trying to compete directly with Google in online advertising. But he also emphasized that Microsoft is not interested in sweetening the pot. In the same speech he called Microsoft's offer "quite generous" and hinted that a hostile takeover was in the works. "By this point if they don't agree, we would have to take our arguments directly to the shareholders," Ballmer said. "We will see what they do, and we will move appropriately at that point." Source: Yahoo. |
| Security Compliance Management Toolkit - Enters Beta. |
| April 28th, 2008. The Security Compliance Management Toolkit is now available for download from the Microsoft Download Center. The toolkit is primarily intended to help midsize and enterprise organizations with domain-based environments that use Group Policy to apply their security baselines. |
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| The Security Compliance Management Toolkit provides best practices from Microsoft about how to plan, set, get and remediate a security baseline, along with tools that you can use to verify the implementation of recommended security baselines from Microsoft for Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, and Windows Server 2003 SP2. |
| Microsoft AdLabs. |
| April 27th, 2008. Microsoft appears to have re-launched and put all of its search marketing tools into the AdCenter Labs; an advertising & data mining tools center. |
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| For example, I was curious to know the demographic predictions of WinVistaClub, and here are the results: |
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| AdLabs looks like a great tool for search marketers, webmasters and anyone looking to gain some insight into how people use search. The data comes from Microsoft's own search engine. Worth a checkout ! |
| Firms Turning to India to Keep Costs Down. |
| April 26th, 2008. There's a lot of pressure on CEO's to keep costs down in a struggling economy. One way they can do that is by outsourcing their IT services to overseas firms, especially to India. “Factors that will give India the edge over other offshore locations are scale and quality of labor." |
| A new report from the Gartner Group says that the current U.S. economic slowdown will lead buyers of IT services to consider increasing the percentage of their labor in offshore, lower-cost locations. In its research, Gartner says that India will remain the dominant location for IT offshore services for North American and European buyers as a result of its scale, quality of resources and strong presence of local and traditional service providers. Source: Daniweb. |
| Twitter+Email+Flickr+Virtual Earth = Twisney.com! |
| April 26th, 2008. What do you get when you combine Disney World, Twitter, Flickr, and Microsoft's Virtual Earth? You get the awesome site Twisney.com ! The site lets you send in email, IMs, text messages, or tweets in order to update the Virtual Earth map with your photos and news. |
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| When you send in your status update to Twisney.com, they match it to a location on the map by looking at the first few words of your message. You can use an abbreviation, a paraphrased name, or the location's full name as found on your map of Disney. Source: on10. |
| Microsoft Security Intelligence Report - H2 2007. |
| April 23rd, 2008. Microsoft has released its latest July - December 2007 volume of the Security Intelligence Report. Among the findings are: There was a 300% increase in the number of trojan downloaders and droppers. Adware remained the most prevalent category of potentially unwanted software. The top potentially unwanted software family detected in the second half of 2007 was Win32/Hotbar. The most prevalent rogue security software detected in the second half of 2007 was Win32/Winfixer. During 2H07 the MSRT proportionally cleaned malware from 60% less Windows Vista-based computers compared to computers running Windows XP Service Pack 2. |
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| New Windows Vista Ultimate Extras Released. |
| April 23rd, 2008. The Windows Vista Ultimate team is excited to announce the release of additional Windows a Ultimate Extras. |
| The first is the Glass Sound Scheme, which makes the sound seem like they are made with glass instruments. The second is the Pearl Sound Scheme, which further extends the intentionally subtle design of the Vista default sound scheme with a richer, milky palate. Dreamscene Content Pack & Language Packs have also been updated. More at UltimatePC. |
| Microsoft is expected to release quite a few Ultimate Extras this year. This one has come after a long gap ! An Extra a month would probably be better. While to some they may be useless, most actually look forward to it. |
| "All work and no fun makes an MVP a dull guy!" |
| April 22th, 2008. Well, this was proved wrong at this years MVP Summit's Party at the Experience Music / Science Fiction Museum, where MVP's got to showcase their other talents. Several MVP's from various countries put up an excellent performance. The just concluded Microsoft Global MVP Summit 2008, was held in Seattle & Redmond, 14-17 April. Over 2000 MVP's & RD's attended the Summit. The Summit consisted of four days of intense technical lectures & breakout sessions covering various Microsoft Technologies. |
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| Steve Ballmers comments on when he called Vista a 'Work In Progress' or his reactions to the popularity of Yahoo Search, make an interesting read ! Ballmer was all game ! He wore a T-Shirt presented by the Canadian group. Not one to stop there, he also wore a Simpsons Tie presented to him by an America MVP. |
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| The Windows Vista Feature Pack for Wireless. |
April 22th, 2008. The Windows Vista Feature Pack for Wireless software update, has been recently released and includes the following components or features that improve wireless support in Windows Vista:
• Bluetooth version 2.1 support
• Unified Pairing user interface
• Windows Connect Now updates
Some of these features may work with existing hardware. However, you must have new hardware to take advantage of the new functionality. This update is compatible with all versions of Windows Vista. It can be installed only on a computer that is running Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1). More at KB942567. |
| Windows Vista IdeaCENTER. |
| April 11th, 2008. If you haven't checked out the Windows Vista IdeaCENTER, you just might want to do that ! From useful and simple tips on how to discover your roots, to creating a photo book, you can find it all here. |
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| IdeaCenter will help you get the maximum from your Windows Vista. To see what's possible with Windows Vista click IdeaCENTER. |
| Windows 7 Release Date : All Smoke, No Fire ! |
| April 6th, 2008. I hate to spoil the party again, but was Bill Gates really talking about the Windows 7 release date? I have tried to search for the original version where I could have read the full interview, and not just these two statements, quoted out of context ! But I have only come across only the CNet Blog Post & Reuters as the most quoted sources. And if these are all that there is, then no, I don't think it is not what is being made out to be ! |
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| Windows Vista Service Pack 1. |
| April 24th, 2008. Windows Vista users will now receive the SP1 via the Microsoft Automatic Update service, Microsoft has said. |
| "We're excited about the progress we've made with Windows Vista Service Pack 1. On March 18th, Windows Vista SP1 was made available for customers who chose to manually download and install it from the Microsoft Download Center or Windows Update in English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese. Last week, we made the remaining languages available - giving WU users the ability to download and install Windows Vista Service Pack in any of 36 supported languages. Today, we're happy to announce that we are beginning automatic distribution of SP1 in English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese." Source : WindowsVistaBlog. |
| April 8th, 2008. The Microsoft Update Blog contains some important information about updates to the SP1 prerequisite distribution plan. "Starting tomorrow, we are resuming the automatic update and installation of the Servicing Stack Update". |
| Windows Vista Service Pack 1 has been finally released and made available to anxious Vista users. There are 5 possible scenarios which you may facing ! Windows Vista SP1 - The Day After, may interest you ! |
| March 21st, 2008. Microsoft is providing 'No Charge' support for Windows Vista Service Pack 1. This also includes Email, Chat and Phone support. If you are facing any problem while installing SP1, or after its installation, you can seek help at this Microsoft Vista SP1 Help Site. Unlimited installation and compatibility support, on Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (All Languages) is available at no charge until March 18, 2009. Alternatively, you can also always seek help at some good Forums like TechNet or Neowin. UPDATE: Microsoft has also just released it Feature-by-feature Guide to Windows Vista with Service Pack 1. |
| March 18th, 2008. Windows Vista SP1 is now available from Microsoft Download Center, and should be up on Windows Updates too, soon ! To see the pre-install checklist, click here. Update: It is now beginning to appear in Windows Updates too. If you dont see it in your List Of Available Updates, see KB948343: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is not available for installation from Windows Update and is not offered by Automatic Updates. |
| More on Vista SP1 inside. |
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