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Windows 7 for XP ProfessionalsUpdating Support Skills from XP to Windows 7by Bink.nu's Raymond Comvalius
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Microsoft Corp. today provided the first look at the next version of its developer tools and platform, which will be named Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0. Microsoft described the next release through the following five focus areas: riding the next-generation platform wave, inspiring developer delight, powering breakthrough departmental applications, enabling emerging trends such as cloud computing, and democratizing application life-cycle management (ALM).Today’s announcement included an in-depth look at how Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) 2010 (code-named “Rosario”) will help democratize ALM with a unique solution that brings all the members of a development organization into the application development life cycle, and removes many of the existing barriers to integration. Additional details on the other focus areas will be disclosed over the product development cycle.“With Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0, we are focused on the core pillars of developer experience, support for the latest platforms spanning client, server, services and devices, targeted experiences for specific application types, and core architecture improvements,” said S. “Soma” Somasegar, senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. “These pillars are designed specifically to meet the needs of developers, the teams that drive the application life cycle from idea to delivery, and the customers that demand the highest quality applications across multiple platforms. You can expect to hear a lot more about Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0 in the coming months.”.....................Continue At Source
Also check : Announcing Visual Studio Team System 2010
During the 1960s and 1970s Fania Records produced the best in salsa and Latin jazz and has been credited with starting the New York salsa movement. Fania and its roster of stars have introduced Latin music to the world, and Zune will now make this music available digitally for a new generation to discover.
“It’s exciting to partner with Zune to offer our collection digitally and for new content from such classic artists. Our hope is to have a new generation of music lovers discover these masters of music from such a significant musical era,” said Leda Ceccarelli, director of New Media, Fania Records.
The Zune Marketplace Latin content producer worked with the label’s digital distributor, the Orchard, to select the content released through the custom-built Zune boutique page. The addition of Fania to Zune Marketplace demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to integrating Latin music across the platform and enabling music lovers of all genres to discover these artists. Most recently, the Zune Marketplace team also produced a special event with Tijuana-based artists to highlight Mexican culture, featuring graphic and visual artists Acamonchi and VJ PR4, DJ sets from Loud Noises and Tremolo Audio, and live performance by Nortec Collective Presents: Bostich + Fussible.
“We wanted to bring a sense of retro music to Zune Marketplace, and to do that, there’s no other label to work with than Fania,” said Mariel Cruz, Zune Marketplace Latin content producer. “Fania’s renowned roster of musicians made it easy to select iconic artists, and we’re happy to bring this collection to our subscribers.”
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Microsoft is nearing the finish line with the 2.0 releases of both the Windows and Mac OS X versions of its Silverlight competitor to Adobe Flash.
Late last week, Microsoft released the first public Release Candidate (RC) test builds of Silverlight 2.0 for Windows and Mac OS X. The new RC 0 build is not designed for end users; it is aimed specifically at developers. As explained on the official Silverlight site:
“Silverlight 2 Release Candidate 0 (Silverlight 2 RC0) is now available to developers for testing purposes and to help prepare your Silverlight 2 Beta 2 applications for the release of Silverlight 2.”
I’m hearing that Microsoft is shooting to release to the Web the final Windows and Mac versions of Silverlight 2.0 around the first week or so of October. Microsoft had been shooting to deliver the final Silverlight 2.0 release this past summer, according to a Microsoft blogger who published the internal Silverlight timetable to his blog.
The Zune team just send out an email stating the Zune store will be down for up to 48 hours:
The Zune service will be down for scheduled maintenance on Monday, September 29, 2008 from 12:01am Pacific Time, for up to 48 hours. During the downtime, Zune Social, the forums on Zune.net, and all of Zune Marketplace will be offline. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you. Please check back soon. We look forward to sharing our picks, plays, and recommendations with you in the Zune Social and in Zune Marketplace shortly! Sincerely, Your Friends at Zune
The Zune service will be down for scheduled maintenance on Monday, September 29, 2008 from 12:01am Pacific Time, for up to 48 hours. During the downtime, Zune Social, the forums on Zune.net, and all of Zune Marketplace will be offline.
We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you.
Please check back soon. We look forward to sharing our picks, plays, and recommendations with you in the Zune Social and in Zune Marketplace shortly!
Sincerely,
Your Friends at Zune
Surely Micrsoft doesn't need to take down the systems for up to 48 hours for normal maintenance.. This could lead to believe that Microsoft is finally expanding the Zune business outside of North America and into the world / Europe. If not, the 48 hour window of downtime is an extremely long one which is uncommon for a large company such as Microsoft. Compare it with Xbox Live maintenance which is ofter shorten than 24 hour.
One could also argue that the Zune team is bringing more features to the service however this is unlikely due to the fact it had just released new software/services couple of weeks ago with the v3 hardware//software.
No official announcements have been made about the expansion of the Zune business outside North America.
Edit: Major Nelson is reporting that the Xbox Live marketplace will also be down but only for a "shorter" 24 hour period.
Microsoft is putting the finishing touches on its suite of Microsoft-hosted services known as the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS).
Microsoft is going to deliver a near-final Release Candidate test build of BPOS on September 26 and is telling users that a final build of the BPOS product should be released within 30 days, according to a September 25 posting to the Microsoft Online Services blog. From the new entry:
“On that date, BPOS will be available for purchase in the United States. Those that are in the BPOS TAP (Technology Adoption Program) program or are current Beta users will continue to enjoy the service free of charge until 30 days after GA (general availability).” Continue At Source
“On that date, BPOS will be available for purchase in the United States. Those that are in the BPOS TAP (Technology Adoption Program) program or are current Beta users will continue to enjoy the service free of charge until 30 days after GA (general availability).”
Microsoft has confirmed again that PDC will be the place to be this year for Windows enthousiasts. Denise Begley wrote the following on the PDC blog:
Be one of the first to get a look at Windows 7. Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, will keynote on Tuesday, October 28. Windows 7 is the next major version of the Windows client operating system. With Windows 7 at PDC2008 you will see advances across the full range of Windows—including the kernel, networking, hardware and devices, and user-interface. Learn more about opportunities to build on the platform’s commitment to OS fundamentals, while also enabling you to enhance your existing applications and create new applications that use the new technologies and APIs in Windows 7. At this year’s PDC, keynote attendees will be among the first to receive the pre-beta build of Windows 7. Additionally, attendees will have the opportunity to attend 21 different sessions that drill down into the details of developing for Windows 7.
Be one of the first to get a look at Windows 7. Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, will keynote on Tuesday, October 28.
Windows 7 is the next major version of the Windows client operating system. With Windows 7 at PDC2008 you will see advances across the full range of Windows—including the kernel, networking, hardware and devices, and user-interface. Learn more about opportunities to build on the platform’s commitment to OS fundamentals, while also enabling you to enhance your existing applications and create new applications that use the new technologies and APIs in Windows 7.
At this year’s PDC, keynote attendees will be among the first to receive the pre-beta build of Windows 7. Additionally, attendees will have the opportunity to attend 21 different sessions that drill down into the details of developing for Windows 7.
This post would indicate that Windows 7 will finally be unveiled to the world in the PDC 2008 Keynote given by Steven Sinofsky. Confirmed is that the attendees will be recieving a "pre-beta" build of the new Windows operating system. Sources say "the goods" will be given on 160GB external HDDs instead of the regular DVDs.
It is expected that the "pre-beta" release is in fact the M3 build of which screenshots leaked last week. Less than 5 weeks remain untill PDC kicks off with it's 21 sessions on Windows 7 (among other of course).
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One of the things I like most about Smartparts is that the company designs its own frames start to finish. No off-the-shelf "we'll-take-that-one" kind of stuff. And its new 8-inch Wi-Fi frame, announced Tuesday, is no different.
While adding Wi-Fi to frames isn't new, the SPX8WF's 802.11 b/g wireless abilities are unique in that it uses a pre-assigned e-mail address that comes with the frame, allowing you or anyone else to send pictures directly to the frame. It's also one of the first Smartparts frames to integrate with Windows Live Photo Gallery. Smartparts claims connecting to a wireless network is a one-button process, too.
Having seen the frame in person, I can attest to the attractiveness of the dark-wood border that surrounds the 24-bit LCD, which has a resolution of 800x600. There are slots that support SD, MS, xD, MMC, and Compact Flash memory cards, as well as a USB port and 512MB of internal memory.
Internet Explorer Administration Kit 8 Beta
IEAK8 Beta is now available publically for everyone to try. To give you some background, the IEAK allows you to deploy customized packages and manage IE settings post deployment within corporations and among Internet Content Providers (ICP) and Internet Service Providers (ISP). For instance, Acme Corp could use IEAK to create a custom IE package for their employees that has Acme favorites, search providers, home pages, Web Slices, Accelerators, and more.
We simplified creating, deploying and managing branded IE packages. We optimized the IEAK to help you build your customized IE packages more quickly and to allow you to configure and customize new features in Internet Explorer 8, like Accelerators and Web Slices.
In this post, I will be talking about how the IEAK:
Customize New Features in IE8
The following new features can be now customized via the IEAK8:
Accelerators
You can easily include custom defaults for Accelerators: simply point to an XML file for the desired Accelerator, or import existing Accelerators from a local machine.
On Monday, 9/29/2008 from 12:01 AM PST for up to 24 hours, Xbox Live will be offline for maintenance. As a result, Xbox LIVE and the ‘My Xbox’ section of Xbox.com will be unavailable, and the Xbox forums will be in read only mode (you won’t be able to post.) The remainder of Xbox.com will be available with limited interruptions.
This service maintenance is in preparation for the new Xbox experience which will be available later this fall. Let me reiterate: When the service returns, you will not have any new features and you will not have the new Xbox experience update. That will happen later this Fall.As usual, I’ll make a post and update my Twitter when the service returns.
Back in March, I heard Microsoft was going to replace some of the applications it traditionally has bundled with Windows subsystems with Windows Live services in Windows 7.
No one on the Windows team would confirm my tip. But on September 22, the Windows Live team admitted — not to me, but to News.com’s Ina Fried — that this is, indeed, the plan.
Windows 7’s mail, photo-management and movie-maker subsystems applets are all being replaced by optionally installable Windows Live equivalents. This is good news for users, as services are easier to update more frequently than software. It’s also good news for Microsoft, a company that has come under increasing attack by antitrust regulators for bundling more and more previously discrete features into its operating system.
Microsoft Windows chief Steven Sinofsky recently poured cold water (in a long and complex post to the “Engineering Windows 7″ blog) on the idea that Microsoft was moving to decouple any of the bundled features/functionality from Windows 7. But Windows Live General Manager Brian Hall was more direct and forthcoming. From News.com’s latest report:
Microsoft has informed some of its partners that it has had to delay Windows Mobile 7, a much anticipated update to its cell phone operating system.
Although Microsoft has not publicly said when to expect Windows Mobile 7, partners who had expected to have a final release in their hands by early next year have been told now that it won't be ready until the second half of next year, sources told CNET News.
The delay is a significant blow for the software maker, which has been counting on the next version of Windows Mobile to enable devices that better rival Apple's iPhone. Among the features widely expected to be part of the release is advanced gesture recognition, perhaps along the lines of the iPhone, but possibly also using the camera as a means for reading gestures. Microsoft's Tellme unit, which focuses on speech input, has also been working on Windows Mobile 7 features.
The delay also comes amid stepped-up competition. Google is preparing Tuesday to launch the first phone running its Android operating system, while Apple has its updated iPhone 3G, and new models are also debuting from BlackBerry maker Research In Motion.
Microsoft, for its part, declined to comment on its plans. In an interview, group product manager Scott Rockfeld noted that CEO Steve Ballmer and mobile unit head Andy Lees did meet with 17 of the company's largest cell phone maker and carrier partners.
"They all expressed their excitement of what we are doing in the short term and the long term," Rockfeld said.
Microsoft is not expected to have a major update to its core operating system ahead of Windows Mobile 7. However, other improvements are expected to debut sooner, most notably an improved browser that brings the rendering engine of Internet Explorer 6 onto Windows Mobile. That update, still expected this year, should pave the way for Windows Mobile phones to display rich Web pages, including those that are home to Flash content and Ajax applications.
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Microsoft TinkerInstall this Ultimate Extra to play Microsoft Tinker from the Games Folder. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.
Ultimate Extras Sounds from Microsoft TinkerInstall this Ultimate Extra to hear new sounds for common windows tasks by using Ultimate Extras Sounds from Microsoft Tinker. Users will be able to switch from Windows Default to Microsoft Tinker Game Sounds in Change System Sounds of Control Panel.
Windows DreamScene Content Pack #4Install this Windows Ultimate Extra to obtain a set of high-resolution videos for use with Windows DreamScene.
Tinker: how to play
Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) is an advanced panoramic image stitcher. You shoot a set of overlapping photographs of a scene from a single location, and Image Composite Editor creates a high-resolution panorama incorporating all your images at full resolution. Then save your stitched panorama in a wide variety of formats, from common formats like JPEG and TIFF to multi-resolution tiled formats like HD View and Silverlight Deep Zoom..........Continue At Source
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