IE team sends Congratulatory cake to Mozilla !

Keeping its tradition, the IE team sent a Congratulatory Cake to the Mozilla on shipping Firefox 5 . Damon Sicore- VP of Engineering at Mozilla tweeted about the same.

 

SkyDrive changelog

Yesterday Microsoft released a new version of SkyDrive (New Windows Live SkyDrive : Features and Review ) built using HTML5 for the modern web.

For those who are interested in the nitty gritty, here’s the changelog as provided by the SkyDrive team -

SkyDrive ver 16.0 (Build 1648.0617)

Site -

• New layout, look and feel and site architecture
• SSL enabled on all authenticated pages
• Clean URLs (Removed most of the junk from the URLs)
• SkyDrive can now be pinned to your Windows 7 taskbar with jumplists (IE9)
• Header now says SkyDrive
• What’s new feed for docs and photos removed
• Upload file size limit now 100 MB
• Moved to edge-to-edge layout to take advantage of larger screens
• Reduced size of Header to give more room to your content
• New mobile views for all Photos / Docs experiences

Photos -

• Brand new Photos experience
• HTML 5 Videos playback
• Thumbnails generated for H.264 video
• CSS3 Transitions for albums and 1-up view
• Photo album thumbnails now “pulse”
• Thumbnails generated for all photo sizes (previously limited to 5000px)
• Support for aspect ratio thumbnails (including panorama)

Docs -

• Icons for PDFs filetypes
• Recent document includes more items
• Open in Office Client from SkyDrive now gives you the option to install Office 2010 trial using Click-to-Run technology
• Performance improvements to the Office Web Apps in IE9
• Details view now supports touch

Groups -

• SkyDrive Groups now appear in the left nav giving you one click access to Group Content

Microsoft Download Manager

With Internet Explorer 9 , Microsoft introduced its built-in Download Manager . There’s also a separate Download Manager from Microsoft.

The Microsoft Download Manager enables you to download files simply and easily. It also makes downloading large files such as application and multimedia files quick and reliable. It was specifically designed to help users manage file downloads from supporting Microsoft Web sites. Once started, the Microsoft Download Manager’s easy-to-use interface displays the status of downloads and enables you to suspend active downloads or resume downloads that have failed.

 

For downloading Microsoft Download Manager and for more details please check here.

Download Kinect for Windows SDK Beta

As expected in my previous blogpost Kinect SDK to be made available today ?, Kinect for Windows SDK beta is now available for download.

The SDK is available for free from Microsoft Research. The SDK includes not only drivers but also APIs, device interfaces, installer documents and resource materials. It’s another exciting milestone for a technology that has captured the imagination of millions, and has become the fastest selling computer electronics device of all time.

Download the SDK beta and all other details from http://research.microsoft.com/kinectsdk

Some more interesting links -

• Programming Guide: Getting Started with the Kinect for Windows SDK Beta
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit
• Kinect for Windows Quickstarts

 

Kinect for Windows SDK Quickstarts will get you up, running and coding away from install to working with the major Kinect features !

TheQuickstarts videos includes at present -

• Installing and Using the Kinect Sensor
• Setting up your Development Environment
• Camera Fundamentals
• Working with Depth Data
• Skeletal Tracking Fundamentals
• Audio Fundamentals

Kinect SDK to be made available today ?

It has been sometime when Kinect for Windows SDK beta was announced to be coming later this spring. Now Channel9 has made an announcement to join for a Special Channel 9 Live Kinect Event.

The Channel 9 team will be broadcasting live from the Channel 9 studios for a special Kinect focused event on June 16th 2011 from 9:30AM PST.

Just head to http://channel9.msdn.com/live for a live and interactive broadcast .

As you watch live, submit your questions via Twitter with the #Ch9Live hashtag and it’ll be answered in real time.

So will there be the announcement of availability of SDK today or any time soon, so check out the LIVE broadcast.

(Source: Channel9 )

the Kinect for Windows SDK is a programming toolkit that will enable researchers and enthusiasts easy access to the capabilities offered by the Microsoft Kinect device connected to computers running Windows 7.

For more info on Kinect for Windows SDK beta please check here.

Google introduces Voice search, Search by Image and Instant Pages

Voice search on mobile devices has been available since long , now Google introduces Voice Search now on desktop.

It requires Google Chrome 11 or higher and a built-in or attached microphone. Just click the mic in the search bar and start talking.

It will take several days for Voice Search to be available to everyone as it start rolling out over the next week Please note Voice Search is available for US English only.

The Voice Search will be useful in many scenarios, such as -

Hard-to-spell searches
Makes searching words you're not sure how to spell quicker and easier.

Longer searches
Search long queries, even really, really long queries, just by talking.

Searches that are just more fun to search out loud
Now you can ask your computer anything.

Searching without typing
Use it in the kitchen, in the garage or anytime your hands might be full.

 

Voice Search

 

 

Another feature being made available is Search by Image on desktop

Search by image on your phone was available since 2009 with Google Goggles. Now it’ll be made available on Desktops too. To search using an image, go to images.google.com and just put your picture in the search box. There are many ways to do this. You can click the camera icon in the search box and upload a photo from your computer or paste the URL of an image from the web. You can also drag and drop pictures from webpages or your computer into the search box. To search images on the web even faster with just one click, you can download the Chrome or Firefox extensions.

Search by Image

Search by Image is rolling out and will be available in most countries over the next couple of days. The Chrome and Firefox extensions are available for download now, but until Search by Image is rolled out to you, you won’t see the extension active in your browser.

Instant Pages

For searches when it can be predicted with reasonable confidence that you’ll click on the first result, Instant Pages technology will begin loading that webpage early so that by the time you click on the result, the entire webpage appears fully loaded instantly.

 

Instant Page

Whether you’re typing, speaking, or using an image, entering your search is only part of the process. You’re not really done searching until you have the answer you’re looking for. But waiting for webpages to load adds time to this process - the average webpage takes about five seconds to load.

With Instant Pages in Chrome, you can skip the extra seconds waiting for a page to load and get to the answers you’re looking for faster with webpages that load instantly.

(For more info please check the source Search by text, voice, or image )

Its nice to see such features being introduced as Bing emerges as Google’s strong competitor.

New Windows 7 Themes – Transformers 3, Castles of Europe, Paramount Pictures movies Dynamic Themes

Microsoft has again come up with some more Windows 7  themes -

Transformers 3 theme -

Celebrate the release of Michael Bay's new Paramount Pictures release Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon in 3D—starring Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky—with this free theme for Windows 7.

 

You can download Transformers3 themepack from here.

 

Castles of Europe theme -

From medieval ruins to Gothic Revival castles, this free theme for Windows 7 brings to your desktop some of Europe’s most beautiful châteaus, fortresses, and castillos. Includes architecture from Scandinavia, France, Spain, and the UK.

Download the Castles of Europe theme from here.

Paramount Pictures Movies dynamic theme -

Automatically receive new wallpapers from the latest Paramount Pictures movies, including Thor, True Grit, Kung Fu Panda 2, Super 8, and Transformers 3. This free Windows 7 theme updates automatically through an RSS feed.  (More info on dynamic themes.)

 

Download this dynamic theme from here.

For more themes released earlier, please check http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/personalize/themes

MVP Crystal Wedge Award Milestone Add-in ! :)

Just couple of days back I received a mail from Microsoft and my MVP Lead @AbhishekKant

Congratulations! In recognition of your longstanding community contributions as a Microsoft MVP, Microsoft is honoring your achievement with a custom award disk to add to your MVP Crystal Wedge Award. Your disk is on its way and should arrive soon. The Microsoft MVP Award provides us the unique opportunity to celebrate and honor your significant contributions. On behalf of all of us at Microsoft, please allow me to congratulate you again on achieving this impressive milestone as an MVP Award recipient………………

This Milestone disk was provided for being a MVP for 5 years. That’s a great moment for me and I thank Microsoft, my community lead and the Community with which I have been involved so passionately. Thanks to the community for the support and asking for the help whenever required to solve their technical  queries. I’ll continue my commitment and contributions to technical communities.

This 5 years Milestone disk can be added to the Beautiful Crystal Wedge Award which an MVP gets. So just to add a bit of technical touch, I gave the name ‘Add-in’ to the 5 years Milestone disk.  

For those who want to know more about MVP , please check http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

Integrate Windows Phone 7 with your WHS 2011 Server with Phone Connector Add-in

The Release Candidate of the Windows Server Solutions Phone Connector for Windows Home Server 2011 has been announced. The purpose of this Add-in is to enable Remote Server Management tasks and relay Media Streams for WHS 2011 including:

Alerts :

This is the first panorama item that the application launches after you complete the authentication steps with the server .This feature brings the Alert Viewer that you know from the server, to the phone

 

 

 

 

 

 

Users:

The user-panorama item performs basic user management tasks, including:
Viewing user account details
Enable or disable a user account
Change a user account password

 

 

 

 

Devices:

Devices panorama item lets you:
View server-joined computer and Mac details.
View the backup status that every device last reported to the server.
Start or stop a backup for any computer or the server (from the contextual menu).

 

 

 

 

Media – Music , pictures and Video Panoramas

 

The Media panorama lets you discover and view streams of media elements that you stored on your server in the appropriate shared folders (such as Music, Video and Picture shares).

Music

MP3 non-Digital Rights Management-protected songs will be streamed directly from the server to your phone. Album art is also transported. Your library is searchable and can be organized in different views to help find what you want fast.

Pictures

With Pictures Panorama you can  :

Discover all .png and .jpg images that are stored in the Pictures shared folder on the server. Subfolders are recognized.
Open a picture full-screen to view it on the phone.
Save a copy of the picture to the phone, using its original dimensions and resolution  (to be viewed later in the built-in Pictures hub of any Windows Phone 7).
Take a picture with the phone’s camera and upload it to the server.
Upload any picture that is stored in the Pictures hub of the phone to the server.

Videos

The “Videos” feature allows you to discover and view videos that are stored on your server in the Videos shared folder.

 

Also there’s Live Tile Support

If you pin the application to the home screen of your Windows Phone 7, you will be able to see a variety of at-a-glance information without launching into the application. An opt-in using the settings menu is required.

The Windows Phone 7 application requires both a server sided add-in to be installed on the WHS 2011 Server, as well as Windows 7 Phone application downloadable via marketplace.

For further information, and access to the downloads to start testing today, please visit http://connect.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver. Please note this is a release candidate and as such is for testing purposes only.

(Source)

Query Twitter directly in Excel 2010 with Microsoft Analytics for Twitter

Microsoft Analytics for Twitter allows users to search Twitter and get dashboard views on Tweet statistics inside Microsoft® Office Excel 2010.

With this FREE add-in, you can:

• Perform up to 5 parallel Twitter Searches (limited to 1500 results per query per day).
• Drive ad-hoc analysis of tweets by day, by hour, by tweeters, by #hashtags and @mentions.
• Customize your views (using slicers, DAX formulas or reference tables).

Microsoft Analytics for Twitter allows users to query Twitter directly in Microsoft® Office Excel 2010. Utilizing the free PowerPivot Excel Add-in users can perform their own analysis such as who are the top Tweeters, what #hashtags are they using and do they have a positive or negative tweet tone. Sample code, used to create this application, is included as a sample and how-to.

Works only with the latest versions of Microsoft Excel 2010 and requires Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel 2010.

 

Download Microsoft Analytics for Twitter

Free E-book - Windows Phone 7 Guide for Android Application Developers

If you have been developing Android applications and are interested in building your applications for Windows Phone 7, this guide is for you. This guide will help Android developers to easily learn Windows Phone and port their app to Microsoft’s phone platform.

 

This guide includes chapters -

• Chapter 1: Introducing Windows Phone 7 Platform to Android Application Developers
• Chapter 2: User Interface Guidelines
• Chapter 3: The Developer and Designer Tools
• Chapter 4: C# programming
• Chapter 5: A Comparison of Application Life Cycles in Windows Phone 7 and Android
• Chapter 6: Storing Data and Preferences
• Chapter 7: XML Parsing in Windows Phone 7 and Android

 

Download Chapters 1-7 (~4Mb):  DOCX -  PDF

In addition, use the  Android to Windows Phone API mapping tool to find your way around when you discover the Windows Phone platform.

Source

Also check -Leveraging your Android development expertise to build Windows Phone applications

If you are an iPhone App developer - Earlier I had also posted Windows Phone 7 Guide for iPhone Apps Developers

New Windows 7 Themes - Echoes of the Past, Classic Manga, Beautiful Birds

Microsoft has added some more Theme packs for Windows 7 collection as it has been doing , releasing nice themes from time to time.

They have recently released :

Echoes of the Past theme -

Time-travel back to the Age of Steam with a treasure-trove of antique images bathed in a golden Victorian light.

Download link

 

Classic Manga Action theme -

Get moving with colorful action-filled Manga illustrations by Ghy Kurabayashi and Steve Sampson .

Download Link.

 

 

Beautiful Birds theme - 

Let the grace and gorgeous plumage of swans, flamingoes, peacocks, and other exotic birds brighten your day with this free theme for Windows 7.

Download Link.

For more themes Please check http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/personalize/themes

Microsoft demoes more Windows 8 details

After demoing a bit of ‘Windows 8’ at D9 , Microsoft gave a longer detailed demo of Windows 8 at Computex for its Hardware partners.

Microsoft Corporate Vice President Mike Angiulo demonstrates “Windows 8” at partner preview event in Taipei, Taiwan, for COMPUTEX 2011.

Its more than half an hour video (32:16 min) and shows much more details, particularly about the platform showing running of Windows 8 on various platform including ARM

 

Here are some screenshots of the same event-

Twitter introduces its photo and video sharing service and a new version of search

Soon you’ll be easily uploading and sharing your photos on Twitter . Twitter will be releasing a feature to upload a photo and attach it to your Tweet right from Twitter.com. Also we can soon be able to easily do this from all of twitter’s official mobile apps. Twitter has partnered with Photobucket for hosting these photos behind the scenes.

Apart from that twitter is starting to roll out a completely new version of Twitter search which will not only deliver more relevant Tweets when you search for something or click on a trending topic, but it will also show you related photos and videos, right there on the results page

Check out the official video demoing the same-

Twitter search + Photo, video upload feature

 

(Source:twitter blog)

Bootable Free malware cleaner from Microsoft - Standalone System Sweeper Beta1

Microsoft has released a beta version of Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper Beta, a recovery tool that can help you start an infected PC and perform an offline scan to help identify and remove rootkits and other advanced malware.

This tool will help you create Standalone System Sweeper on a bootable device (on a CD, DVD, or USB drive) that will provide a safe environment from which you can start your computer and attempt to remove threats. It can be used if you cannot install or start an antivirus solution on your PC, or if the installed solution can’t detect or remove malware on your PC.

“Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper Beta is not a replacement for a full antivirus solution providing ongoing protection; it is meant to be used in situations where you cannot start your PC due to a virus or other malware infection. For no-cost, real-time protection that helps guard your home or small business PCs against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software, download Microsoft Security Essentials*. (* Your PC must run genuine Windows to install Microsoft Security Essentials.)”

To get started, please make sure that you have a blank CD, DVD, or USB drive with at least 250 MB of space. Next, download and run the tool – the tool will help you to create the bootable media required to run the software on your PC.

Get it from https://connect.microsoft.com/systemsweeper

(Thanks for the HT: ZDNet )

 

EDIT : Few screenshots  -

Download & creating ISO file screenshots -

 

Running Bootable CD screenshots -

So after creating a Bootable CD from ISO, when booted from this CD we get -

A first official look at the new "Windows 8" user interface

At the D9 Conference, Microsoft demonstrated the next generation of Windows, internally code-named “Windows 8,” for the first time. Windows 8 is a reimagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface. A Windows 8-based PC is really a new kind of device, one that scales from touch-only small screens through to large screens, with or without a keyboard and mouse.

Jensen Harris from the Windows User Experience team walks us through a quick look at "Windows 8" user interface.

Windows 8

The demo showed some of the ways Microsoft has reimagined the interface for a new generation of touch-centric hardware. Fast, fluid and dynamic, the experience has been transformed while keeping the power, flexibility and connectivity of Windows intact.

Here are a few aspects of the new interface:

•    Fast launching of apps from a tile-based Start screen, which replaces the Windows Start menu with a customizable, scalable full-screen view of apps.
•    Live tiles with notifications, showing always up-to-date information from your apps.
•    Fluid, natural switching between running apps.
•    Convenient ability to snap and resize an app to the side of the screen, so you can really multitask using the capabilities of Windows.
•    Web-connected and Web-powered apps built using HTML5 and JavaScript that have access to the full power of the PC.
•    Fully touch-optimized browsing, with all the power of hardware-accelerated Internet Explorer 10.

For more details , please check -

Previewing ‘Windows 8’

Windows 8 Previewed at D9