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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, the world’s largest software maker, may cut the monthly fee it charges for streaming music on its Zune portable player, senior product manager Terry Farrell said in an interview.
Zune Pass, which features unlimited music streaming and 10 song downloads a month, now costs $14.99. Farrell didn’t say by how much Microsoft may cut the service’s price.
“It’s definitely a challenging business,” Farrell said, referring to competition in online music.
Microsoft is contending with rivals that offer music at little or no charge, while striving to erode Apple’s lead in the market for digital music players and downloadable songs. RealNetworks Inc.’s Rhapsody service in April slashed the monthly price of a premium music service to $10 from $14.99.
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Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with tiny Global Equities Research, contends that 7 minutes of the June 7 keynote by Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been blocked off for a presentation by Microsoft (MSFT) to talk about Visual Studio 2010, the company’s suite of development tools.
Chowdhry says the new version of VS will allow developers to write native applications for the iPhone, iPad and Mac OS. And here’s the kicker: he thinks Microsoft’s presentation could be given by none other than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. (Or if not, at least Bob Muglia, who runs Microsoft’s server and tools business.)
Looks like this was a rumor after all. Here is Microsoft's response on Twitter. "Steve Ballmer not speaking at Apple Dev Conf. Nor appearing on Dancing with the Stars. Nor riding in the Belmont. Just FYI."
That’s according to a trusted source, who told us that the motion sensing camera will also be bundled with the Xbox 360 Arcade console for $299.
We were informed that prices outside of the US would be determined based on a number of factors, including exchange rates. Based on current rates, the standalone unit would retail for £103 / €121, and the console and Natal bundle for £207 / €243.
The figure for the standalone unit is significantly higher than a previous sub-£50 estimate, but less than pricing recently suggested by European retailers. It’s also more expensive than Sony’s Natal rival Move, which will be available later this year with a game for less than $100.
Our source said that the device has been pencilled in for an October 26 worldwide launch, although we were advised that the date could yet shift by a few weeks either way.
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Project Emporia filters updates from the Twitter public feed and automatically develops lenses on topics based on the likes/dislike preference of readers, providing suggested insight into what’s happening in Twitter around that topic seen through people’s eyes. There is no login required to browse by topic and filter down by relevance. This allows people who have never used Twitter to search for useful information about topics they are interested in. For example, by choosing the ‘technology’ lens with four stars of relevance, you would see results of what people are talking about from the public Twitter feed and, as a result, what’s happening now in the technology industry. If you chose to broaden the search, you could go to only two stars for additional results around related technology topics to appear. Or you can also simply search by topic removing the relevance filter.
Project Emporia provides a new, crowd-sourced form of web search by aggregating the relevant tweets with web links around a topic and viewing them as support votes for the links. Type ‘Microsoft’ and filter down by one star relevance in the ‘technology’ lens to get a list of web links about the latest technologies from Microsoft rated highly relevant by the Twitter community. Or change to the ‘business’ lens to get highly rated web links about Microsoft’s businesses.
It has been 18 months since we launched Microsoft Tag, Microsoft’s mobile barcode technology. In that time, more than one billion Tags have been printed by people and businesses all over the world. In the month of April alone, more than 20 million magazines with Tags were in the hands of U.S. consumers.
Today, I am thrilled to announce Tag is coming out of beta and that basic use of Tags will be free of charge. This specifically means you will be able to generate and use Tags that link to our standard scenarios and use the reader application at no cost. By simply going to Tag.Microsoft.com, you can create Tags and deliver rich interactive experiences on mobile phones, track your Tags and read about how companies like Conde Nast and others are using Tag.
Based on feedback we’ve heard from businesses using Tag, we also plan to offer the ability to create richer, more powerful, and more effective solutions and experiences through a variety of value-added services, such as advanced reporting and analytics and real-time location services. We will add these and other value-added features over time.
What does this transition mean for Tag? Let me step back for a moment to explain how we got here. Since launching Tag, users have told us that they love how it opens doors for them to access rich digital experiences that enhance their lives. Businesses have told us that with Tag, they can reach a deeper level of engagement with their customers. Time and time again, we’ve gotten the message that people around the world are ready for the broad deployment of this technology.
We’ve already seen a lot of enthusiasm for Tag among marketers, developers and consumers as well as a diverse range of creative scenarios using Tag—in industries as varied as publishing, advertising, retail, real estate, transit, automotive, consumer packaged goods, tourism and entertainment. Whether it’s Golf Digest demonstrating the perfect swing, Fearless Records connecting fans to new music and info about their favorite bands, Avatar showcasing its movie trailer, or a Tag on your morning box of Wheaties, Tag is increasingly making the world around us clickable.
Just this week, Amsterdam became the second city with a Tag-led tour, with Tags on monuments, museums, restaurants, bars, and other landmarks. The Mall of America, in Minnesota, just announced plans to use Tag to help enhance customer engagement and give retailers an interactive tool to promote their products. These are just a few examples, and by staying connected through our blog and Tag communities on Facebook and Twitter, you can discover many more ways to use Tag to increase the effectiveness of your marketing and create a powerful experience for your customers.
Coming out of beta we’ve updated our website, the Tag Campaign Manager and improved our Tag Reader clients and also introduced some cool new features that will enhance customers’ ability to create, execute and track creative Tag campaigns:
Exchange 2007 enables SSL within IIS by default. Using PowerShell commands, certificate creation and management is quite confusing and often results with incorrect results due to the nature of the syntax. U-BTech Solutions is providing Certificate Manager for Exchange Server 2007 freely, to ease the process with a simple, easy to use GUI which enables you to:
1) Manage your current server certificates. 2) Enable certificates for Exchange 2007 Services (POP, IMAP, SMTP, IIS, UM). 3) Generate an Exchange 2007 Certificate Signing Request and process the Certificate Authority answer. 4) Generate an Exchange 2007 Self-Signed certificate (not for production use). 5) Easily include additional subject names in a single certificate. 6) Import & Export ability for existing certificates. To read more about Certificate Use in Exchange 2007 at Microsoft TechNet follow the link:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb851505.aspx Certificate Manager for Exchange Server 2007 is currently offered by U-BTech Solutions free of charge
Certificate Manager for Exchange Server 2007 Flash Demonstration
Download - Certificate Manager for Exchange 2007
Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 Service Pack 2 (App-V 4.5 SP2) updates App-V 4.5 with the latest security and stability enhancements to help keep computers running App-V up-to-date, reliable, and more secure. The goal of this service pack is to increase the overall quality of the existing product features while maintaining a high level of compatibility with previous releases. Feature Summary:
Download details Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 Service Pack 2
System Center Configuration Manager enables a powerful user-centric approach to client management. This approach addresses the growing reality – that people want to move fluidly between multiple devices and networks – by making it easier for IT to support users with configurations tied to their identity instead of to individual systems or devices. As a result, IT can help people work the way they want, practically wherever they want—with a familiar experience across different devices and contexts.
Configuration Manager provides IT a lean, unified infrastructure to deliver these new capabilities and workloads for client management, virtualization, and security. The solution puts IT in control of costs and compliance, providing an evolutionary path to new capabilities that leverage existing people, processes, and technologies.
Configuration Manager reduces the cost and complexity of IT compliance by delivering increased visibility and discovery, and enhanced, IT-definable remediation capabilities. It’s all designed to help IT simplify delivery of a user-centric approach to client management. And because it is built by Microsoft engineers who have exceptional knowledge of Windows, Configuration Manager delivers tight interoperability with Windows, for more effective and efficient management.
Please note this is a Beta release. If you would like to provide feedback and participate in newsgroup forums please join the Open Beta on Microsoft Connect. (In order to participate and gain access customers will need to sign in with a Windows Live ID and Register with Connect).
This year marks the 14th annual Microsoft CEO Summit, a world-class forum where business leaders gather to share insights about pressing business challenges. More than 125 CEOs and other leaders from companies and organizations representing 27 countries and 11 million employees are expected to attend this year’s summit event at Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond, Wash.
On-demand Webcast
The Great Place to Work Institute today announced that Microsoft Corp. has won the Best Large Workplace in Europe 2010 award for the third year in a row. Announced at a gala ceremony at the Great Place to Work European Conference 2010 in Madrid, the awards are the culmination of its annual survey and report on the 100 Best Workplaces in Europe.
The institute honours companies that make significant investments in people to provide exceptional working environments, practices, benefits and recognition. The Best Workplaces lists are the world’s largest annual study of workplaces. More than 1,300 companies in 17 European countries participated in this year’s evaluation process.
"We are pleased to have been awarded the Best Workplace in Europe award from the Great Place to Work Institute for the third year running. Investing in people and creating a work environment that utilises the latest technology has enabled staff to transform the way they work and interact with colleagues, delivering a strong work-life balance and a highly motivated and empowered team,” said Jean-Philippe Courtois, president, Microsoft International, senior vice president. “This past year has been challenging for businesses and employees in all industries, and Microsoft is no different. That said, we continue to be optimistic especially as our industry transitions toward what we believe is the next big era in technology – cloud computing."
BizTalk Server 2010 offers significant enhancements to help integrate heterogeneous Line-of-business systems with Windows .NET and SharePoint based applications to optimize user productivity, gain business efficiency and increase agility .
BizTalk Server 2010 allows .Net developers to take advantage of BizTalk services right out of the box to rapidly build solutions that need to integrate transactions and data from applications like SAP, Mainframes, MS Dynamics and Oracle. Similarly SharePoint developers can seamlessly use BizTalk services directly through the new Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint 2010. BizTalk Server 2010 includes new data mapping & transformation tool to dramatically reduce the development time to mediate data exchange between disparate systems. It also provide a new single dashboard to manage performance parameters and streamline deployments from development to test to production.
BizTalk 2010 includes new, scalable Trading Partner Management (TPM) model with a graphical interface for flexible management of business partner relationships and efficient on-boarding process. BizTalk Server 2010 also provides extended connectivity to IBM systems with Host Integration Server.
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Microsoft's reputation among customers plunged after it released the widely criticized Windows Vista, but Windows 7 helped Microsoft achieve an increase of nearly 9% in its customer satisfaction score between 2009 and 2010.
When Vista was released in 2007, "customer satisfaction plunged 4% to an ACSI score of 70, well below the industry average, where it remained for the next three years," University of Michigan business professor Claes Fornell writes in analysis of the new ACSI numbers.
But when Windows 7 was introduced in October 2009, the software reached 4% market share within just three weeks, whereas it took Vista seven months to reach that milestone.
As a result, Microsoft's customer satisfaction score rose from 70 to 76 in 2010, an 8.6% increase.
In a speech to fellow CEOs at Microsoft’s 14th annual CEO Summit, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer said something that gives us an insight into what went wrong with Vista.
Taking about the operating system, he said:
“We tried too big a task and in the process wound up losing thousands of man hours of innovation.”
The problem with Microsoft (specifically in the pre Windows 7 days) is that the company had a huge track record of vaporware announcements. During the development of Longhorn (the project that led to Vista), there was an almost daily flow of announcements and new features from Microsoft. Longhorn was going to be everything to everybody.
Then there were external pressures. Not only was Longhorn having to keep up with what Microsoft wanted from it, it also had to keep up with the tech industry and the changes and developments there. Feature creep built on top of feature creep, and eventually the project collapsed under its own weight and Microsoft threw out the existing code, took the Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 codebase and added to this the features that would transform it into Vista.
Overall, Vista cost Microsoft around $6 billion to develop.
Have you ever wondered exactly how Windows is assigning physical memory, how much file data is cached in RAM, or how much RAM is used by the kernel and device drivers? RAMMap makes answering those questions easy. RAMMap is an advanced physical memory usage analysis utility for Windows Vista and higher. It presents usage information in different ways on its several different tabs:
Use RAMMap to gain understanding of the way Windows manages memory, to analyze application memory usage, or to answer specific questions about how RAM is being allocated. RAMMap’s refresh feature enables you to update the display and it includes support for saving and loading memory snapshots.....................Download At Source
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