Windows 8 Weather App tidbits

One of the app provided in Windows 8 Developer Preview is the Weather App. Many users are talking about this app in appreciation or when facing some difficulty in changing location or its display units.

Let us check some tidbits about this Weather app.

By default the weather tile shows the weather of Anaheim, CA where the BUILD conference was held and where this Windows 8 DP was unveiled. This weather Tile is alive and updates the weather realtime when you are connected to net.

When you maximize it by clicking you get a full screen display of this app. in detail. Also note the nice animation you get according the weather conditions. Now right clicking on this full view gives further options -

From here you can add the city you want. And Pin city to show this as the current tile on the Start screen. You can also get the Summary view of the cities in the list.

Now how to change the Temperature units from Fahrenheit to Celsius -

In the Maximised Weather App bring the mouse to bottom left of the screen to show the related Charms Menu (Or press Win Key +C or on Touch enabled screen requires a extreme right screen swipe to left)

Click on Settings Charm to show the Weather settings pan in the right side of screen

Click on Weather preferences –to get the option to change the units. Click on Celsius

Now the weather will be shown in Celsius.

Also you can share the screenshot of the weather using the ‘Share’ Charm which when clicked will open up Socialite App through which one can share.

Also right clicking the Weather Tile on Start Screen brings some more options – Use the smaller option to get a compact Weather tile

Also do you want to see what all background weather animations available? They are all present at -

%ProgramFiles%\Applications\microsoft.weather_1.0.0.26_neutral_neutral_8wekyb3d8bbwe\video folder

Here you’ll see 10 videos for different weather. You may require permission change to reach this folder and also have to check the show hidden files,folders to see the hidden ‘Application’ folder

So these are some tidbits about the Weather App. Please let me know more if you come across.

[Tip]: Change Library Icon in Windows 8

A small tip - You can change Library icons in Windows 8 using Library Properties.

Let us see this-

Create a new Library

Right click on this newly created Library to check its properties

And you get the Change library icon… button

This was not there in Windows 7.

HT to @brandonleblanc

The Best Amul Ad on Cricket (Shoaib Akhtar)

This is one of the Best Ad from Amul, its related to recent outburst from Former Pakistani fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar's against Sachin Tendulkar in his autobiography . Its in Hindi .

(Picture Courtesy :Amul)

Boeing Marketing with Microsoft Technologies

The Boeing 737 is the best-selling airplane in aviation history. With new 737 models continually being developed for the product line, Boeing wanted to create exciting new ways of marketing the aircraft to prospective customers. It turned to Microsoft and Wire Stone, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, to create a tool that it calls "Boeing 737 Explained."

Based on thousands of high-resolution photographs that are stitched together to create a seamless, immersive presentation, Boeing 737 Explained provides a rich, compelling way for customers to view and understand the plane without needing to actually stand next to one. The tool runs on Windows 7 and is hosted on the Windows Azure cloud platform, using Microsoft Silverlight and Windows Touch technologies, providing users with a dynamic experience, whether viewing it with Microsoft Kinect on a cinema-size screen or Windows Phone.

“Boeing 737 Explained” Windows Azure & Silverlight Demo

Boeing Takes to the Cloud with a Solution to Market its Best-Selling Airplane

“Boeing 737 Explained” Kinect Demo

Learn more by accessing the project case study: Boeing Takes to the Cloud with a Solution to Market its Best-Selling Airplane

IE team delivers Congratulatory Cupcake to Firefox

As it has become customary for the IE Team to congratulate the Firefox team on its new release of its browser, this time also the IE Team delivered Congratulatory Cupcake to Firefox on its ver 7 release this morning.

This was the Cake sent -

And the IE Team tweeted about it also. Very Sweet !!

Download Official Windows Phone – Put people first Logo

Microsoft has begun the rollout of the Mango update to phones around the world. With it the online world is abuzz with this news. There were some reports of some sites using wrong logos of the Windows Phone also. Recently Microsoft has applied for patenting its ‘Put people first’ phrase that goes along with the new Windows Phone Logo.

Here’s the official Logo for the Windows Phone to be put along with your blog posts etc -

Windows Phone logo- vertical orientation

Download: Web | Print

Windows Phone Logo – Horizontal

Download: Web | Print

How to Enter Safe Mode in Windows8 Developer Preview?

There might be a need arise when you want to enter into Safe Mode in Windows. And you generally do it using pressing F8 during booting but this is not possible in the Windows 8 Developer Preview.

You have to press and hold SHIFT + F8 to enter into Safe Mode in Windows 8.

This is one of the easier and default method , though you might have to try it 2-3 times before you succeed.

Another method is using msconfig from within Windows-

Press Win Key+R to open Run Window , type and run msconfig.exe

It will open the System Configuration Window. Click on the Boot tab. Select “Safe Mode’ and select type of Safe Mode- Minimal for regular Safe Mode, Alternate shell for Safe Mode with Command prompt, Network for Safe Mode with Networking. Click on OK, Restart to enter into Safe Mode.

Please note that you have to undo this to get into Normal boot.

These are the 2 most easy ways to enter into Safe Mode.

How to fully or partially block telemarketing calls / SMS

To curb the growing menace and effectively regulate unsolicited commercial calls and messages, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)  has notified "The Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations, 2010". The regulations comes into effect from  27^th Sep. 2011.

Customers (landline and mobile) who do not want to receive commercial communications can dial or SMS to 1909 (toll free) and register in either of the two categories:

Fully Blocked Category- stoppage of all commercial Calls/SMS
Partially Blocked Category- stoppage of all commercial Calls/SMS except SMS from one of the opted preferences

For registering option using SMS, for 'fully blocked category', write "START 0" and send it to 1909.

For 'partially blocked category', send SMS 'START' with one or multiple options from the list of seven categories.

There are at present 7 preferences to choose from-

Banking/Insurance/Financial Products/Credit Cards-1,

Real Estate-2,

Education-3,

Health-4,

Consumer goods and automobiles-5,

Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT-6,

Tourism-7.

Examples - To receive messages relating to only Health products, then send SMS "START 4" to 1909. Similarly, for receiving messages relating to Real Estate and Education, send SMS "START 2,3" to 1909.

On successful registration, customer will receive an SMS confirming exercised options and a Unique Registration Number within 24 hrs. The registration will be effective within 7 days of placing the request with the service provider. Subscriber can check the status of their registration in NDNC Registry by clicking on "DND Registration Check"

Customers can also de-register their request for NDNC registry by dialing 1909 or SMS to 1909 STOP

If customer receives Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC) even after 7 days of registration, he can register a complaint with his service provider within 3 days of receipt of such UCC by dialing or sending SMS to 1909. Customers will have to provide the telephone number or header of the message from where the call or message has been received along with the date and time.

For complaint through SMS, customer has to send SMS COMP TEL NO XXXXXXXXXX, dd/mm/yy, Time hh:mm to 1909. Where XXXXXXXXXX - is the telephone number or header of the SMS, from which the UCC has originated.

Service Provider will take action on complaint and inform the complainant within 7 days of lodging of complaint. Customers may check registration status of his complaint through the link "UCC Complaint Registration Status".

Customers not registered with NCPR can also identify the commercial calls because they will all come from numbers starting with '140'. This is a series specially earmarked for telemarketers.

Also, in order to control the possibility of SMS packages (those allow a very large number of SMS per day) to be used by the telemarketers for sending large number of SMSs from a normal telephone number, a limit of 100 SMS per day per SIM has been laid down under these regulations except on blackout days.

Further, all commercial calls or SMS except the transactional SMSs will be sent to the customers only between 9 AM and 9 PM.

For more details please check Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Portal of the TRAI

Project Waterloo – Facebook game from Microsoft Research

Project Waterloo is the first game project from Microsoft Research played on Facebook.

“The game is played by two players; each has 100 troops at their disposal and needs to allocate those troops among five battle fields. Once both players have allocated their troops, the winner is determined by finding which of the two players has won more battles. A battle is won by having allocated more troops to it than the opponent.

The game is complex from a game-theoretic perspective, involves randomized strategies, and can be approached by reasoning about the opponent's reasoning. We have also found it to be fun, engaging, and slightly addictive. It is thus a great test case for studying actual strategic behavior of people on Facebook.”

The client side of the game is CSS and JavaScript and the server is running an ASP.NET MVC 3 application (hosted on Azure) with a SQL Azure database back end.

Check out this Facebook game app at http://apps.facebook.com/msrwaterloo

Bing introduces video HomePage

 

We had seen the demo but now here it is. Bing introduces the first ever video HomePage.If you have a browser like IE9 supporting HTML5 then - “you now get all the beauty and intrigue of the Bing homepage with a little breath of life added” . Yes the Bing HomePage has life , its alive and it breaths.

The Bing Blog says - While this first video is US-only, we’ll begin rolling the video homepage out to international markets in the next few months – so stay tuned.

So if your location is not set to US , please set it to enjoy this beautiful Homepage. or click here -http://www.bing.com/?scope=web&setmkt=en-US

If you’re interested in learning more about the evolution of the homepage and how the team chooses content, check out the following video.

(Source: Something New on the Homepage! )

Windows 8 Product Key required during reinstallation

Many people while trying to Reinstall Windows 8 Developer Preview are being asked to enter Product Key and are not able to proceed without skipping this step. This might also happen when using the Reset functionality. As I could install in my first try so the case didn’t arise for the Product key and as such Product keys

For this the Microsoft Support has provided these Product keys -

6RH4V-HNTWC-JQKG8-RFR3R-36498

If you are running a Server version of Windows DP then you can use this key -

4Y8N3-H7MMW-C76VJ-YD3XV-MBDKV

Also you can find the Product keys in a PID file when you go to the Sources folder of the ISO burned disc.

For many these Product keys didn’t work, So please note that the first time install might have failed due to mismatch in SHA1 so please verify this and also error during ISO burning so burn the ISO at lower speed and check the ‘verify after burning’ option if you are using the Windows 7 inbuilt burning. This has worked for many .

Gears of War–Windows 7 Theme collection

Here are some Windows 7 Gears of War themes from Microsoft –old and new :

Gears of War 3 Launch theme

Celebrate the launch of the latest installment in the Gears of War series for Xbox 360 with this free Windows 7 theme, featuring glorious images from the savage, fantastical world of the all-new Gears of War 3.

Download Gears of War 3 Launch theme

Gears of War 3 Delta Squad theme

These characters are as tough as they come. Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago, and the other heroes of Delta Squad come to life on your Windows 7 desktop with this free theme for Gears of War 3.

Download Gears of War 3 Delta Squad theme

Gears of War 3 theme

Prepare your desktop for battle with this free Windows 7 theme containing portraits of Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago and Anya Stroud from Gears of War 3.

Download Gears of War 3 theme

Here are some Gears of War themes released earlier -

Gears of War 2 theme

Put Marcus Fenix and Delta Squad right on your Windows 7 desktop with these free blazing stills from the Xbox blockbuster.

Download Gears of War 2 theme

Gears of War theme

Your desktop becomes a post-apocalyptic doomscape where the Delta Squad, armed with chainsaw bayonet-mounted assault rifles, battles the subterranean Locust Horde. This free theme for Windows 7 includes detailed shots of Ben Carmine, Dominic Santiago, and other Squad members from the hit Xbox and PC game, plus conceptual artwork and stills from the "Mad World" television commercials.

Download Gears of War theme

For more such cool Windows 7 themes please check http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/personalize/themes

Google Wallet rolled out to Sprint users

 

The first version of Google Wallet app was rolled out to Sprint Nexus S 4G phones. Here’s a demo of Google Wallet in action:

“Google Wallet enables you to pay with your Citi MasterCard credit card and the Google Prepaid Card, which can be funded with any of your existing plastic credit cards. As a thanks to early adopters, we’re adding a $10 free bonus to the Google Prepaid Card if you set it up in Google Wallet before the end of the year.”

Google also added Visa, Discover and American Express to Google Wallet. Citi and MasterCard were already their launch partners

Also check out First Google Wallet customer video . (On a sidenote, The style of this video seems to be influenced by Microsoft Office casual Videos.)

You can learn more about Google Wallet at google.com/wallet.

Windows 8 Tip : Hidden Restart button in Task Manager

Windows 8 has provided lots of small cool features which are very useful and practical. People are discovering as they use along.  Here’s one of them. We already know that in Windows 8 the Windows Task Manager is vastly improved and has totally new look with lots of new features. But this cool feature is small but very useful.

Here we see when an application or process is selected it displays a ‘End Task’ button which we sometimes make use when that process/app hangs we kill it using this button.

Now when we select Windows Explorer, see what happens- now you get a Restart button instead. Very intelligent!

Earlier in Windows when the Explorer used to hang then we use to Kill it, end tasking it , then we had to somehow run a fresh instance of Explorer. Here in Windows 8 , you get a Restart button which kills the hung/unstable instance of Explorer and restarts a new one in a single click.

There are so many well thought of such small cool features in Windows 8. Keep discovering !

Fruit Ninja , Nordic Landscapes - New Windows 7 Themes

Microsoft has been releasing new Windows 7 Themes from time to time. Now it has released some more including the Fruit Ninja Theme and Nordic Landscapes Theme-

Fruit Ninja theme

The curiously addictive fruit-slicing game: You've got it on your phone, you've got it for your Xbox Kinect, now get Fruit Ninja on your desktop with this free theme for Windows 7. And watch out for those bombs.

Download

Nordic Landscapes theme

An icy northern light falls on ocean cliffs, mountain landscapes, alpine lakes, and other scenes of natural Nordic beauty in this free theme for Windows 7.

Download

Get more such themes from here  or  here

Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta released. Supports Kinect extensively ! Download for FREE Now!!

 

The robotics group announced the release of the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta.

Stathis Papaefstathiou, General Manager, Microsoft Robotics announced it today -

“It's inspiring to see the tremendous excitement with Microsoft Kinect within the robotics space signaling the energy and potential opportunities that exist in essentially transforming robots to low-cost mainstream consumer devices. This beta release is one of our early steps towards realizing our long term strategy of accelerating the consumer robotics industry. “

A Look At Robotics Developer Studio 4 Beta

 

This release has extensive support for the Kinect sensor hardware through the Kinect for Windows SDK allowing developers to create Kinect-enabled robots

For the first time we define a Kinect-based hardware reference platform that can help in the delivery of an affordable and capable robot that will be able to support technologies and scenarios for the consumer audience. Most everyone can build a robot using this specification, and we are working with robotic hardware vendors that will make kits and preassembled units available. The first such kit is called EDDIE and it is available from Parallax for pre-order now. EDDIE is intended to be a turnkey solution for using RDS with this platform and our aspiration is that there will be development and sharing of technology for this hardware platform. In addition, we made sure that there is an accurate representation of a robot that is based on the hardware platform in our simulation environment. You can start developing your applications in the simulator before you decide to buy and run them on a physical robot.

The second additional feature in RDS 4 is the availability of Kinect services that support the Kinect for Windows SDK.This unlocks a whole new world around Human Robot Interaction (HRI) with the use of skeleton tracking and speech. But we are also making available the raw sensor stream for your use in building additional capabilities such as navigation algorithms.

In RDS 4 we make available for the first time the CCR programming model in Silverlight.

Please visit  Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio Web site for more details.

Tweak Windows 8 with Metro UI Tweaker

Windows 8 Developer Preview has generated lots of excitement across the globe with its release at BUILD couple of days back.( Windows 8 Developer Preview available for download Now ! ) Within less than a day of its release there were more than 500000 downloads.

Being a Developer Preview , the most exited are the developers and are trying out various things. TheWindowsClub has released a FREE tool called Metro UI Tweaker v 1.0 designed to tweak a few settings that are unavailable to users in Windows 8.

The tweaks being currently offered are:

1. Disable Metro Start Menu: Disables only Metro Start Menu Screen. This function requires editing a System File. It does not remove the file.
2. Disable Metro Ribbon: Disables only the Metro Ribbon UI. This function I discovered myself. It requires Taking Ownership of a System File. It does not remove this file.
3. Disable Metro Start Menu and Ribbon: Disables the Metro Start Menu UI, Ribbon UI, Metro Task Manager UI and the Lock Screen.
4. Enable Metro Start Menu and Ribbon: Re-enables all available Metro UI options.
5. Add Power Options to the Metro Start Menu Screen: Logoff, Switch User, Lock, Sleep, Restart and Shutdown
6. Add any Application/File to the Metro UI Start Menu Screen: Some Applications/Files may not be available to you to add to the Metro Start Menu Screen. This program allows you to add those Applications/Files which would otherwise be unavailable.

Metro UI Tweaker v 1.0 for Windows 8, 32-bit and 64-bit, has been developed by Lee Whittington for The Windows Club. It will be updated with more tweaks from time to time.

For more details, instructions and to download this FREE tool, please check- 

Metro UI Tweaker for Windows 8 Released

Google Doodle on Uncle Pai – Amar Chitra Katha creator

Today’s Google Doodle features Anant Pai on his 82nd Birthday.(17 September 1929 – 24 February 2011) Anant Pai popularly known as Uncle Pai was the creator of Popular Indian Comics Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) in the days when internet was in its infancy or was not there. ACK brought the Indian mythology, history in the form of comics.

I like this kind of Local touch that Google gives from time to time. I hope Bing also brings some more of its stunning Homepage images from India from time to time.

[video] Windows 8 running on ARM processor

 

Windows 8 running on a Qualcomm SnapDragon reference device that uses an ARM processor. This is another example of the types of machines that will be running Windows 8.

(Source: channel 9)

Twitter Hindi Edition launched on Hindi Day

As was blogged earlier Twitter in Hindi coming soon , today on 14th Sep being Hindi Day (Hindi Diwas), Twitter has launched its Hindi edition. You can access it at

http://twitter.com/?lang=hi

On signing in you get

(Click on the image to see enlarged ver of image)

As you can see all the captions etc are in Hindi but one cant tweet in Hindi yet.Might be work in progress. May be in future twitter may add this else one can of course tweet in Hindi using this - Tweet, chat, do Presentations in Hindi and other Indian languages with Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool

UPDATE (15/0911) : Now the twitter has added the newly supported languages at the bottom of Homepage including Hindi

“Today, we’re increasing Twitter’s reach by launching in five new languages. Twitter is now available in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Hindi, Tagalog and Malay…. Twitter now fully supports 17 languages..”

Download – Windows 8 Guide and FactSheet

As you know yesterday Windows 8 Developer Preview was released at BUILD and is also available for download.

Windows 8 Guide – Windows Developer Preview

Check out this Free ~40 pages booklet covering a bit of basics in what’s new , something for developers about Windows Runtime and app model. Fundamentals, devices and security and a bit on Windows 8 for business.

Download the book from here -  Download PDF    Download XPS

(Source )

Microsoft Windows 8 Developer Preview Fact Sheet September 2011

Also a factsheet has been released by Microsoft.

Download this Word file (.docx) from here and learn more about Windows 8 .

Download link .

(Source: TheWindowsClub)

Unboxing Samsung Windows 8 Developer Preview PC given at BUILD ! Video, specifications and screenshots

At BUILD yesterday one heard loud cheers from the attendees when during the demo of Windows 8 on Samsung Tablet, it was announced there were 5000 of them in the warehouse to be given to all the BUILD attendees! Mike Angiulo, Corporate Vice President of Hardware & PC Ecosystem gave a detailed first look at unboxing this device

Here’s the Specification of the Samsung Windows Developer Preview PC . Its one of the slides shown at BUILD. As you can see it’s a full fledged PC Spec ready to be used for development. So a Tablet running Visual Studio. Very very impressive Specs -

Check out the unboxing video -

Source : Channel 9

Here are some screenshots of the same-

As it has UEFI booting it boots blazingly fast

It’s a developer PC, It also has a Home button to go back to Start. The Box also has a Pen , its not just Pen but a electromagnetic Digitizer. So its like a Tablet PC, later u can see it being transformed to Desktop

And something at BUILD that was not shown. This Tablet PC can be converted to Full form factor Desktop PC. So the Samsung also provided Bluetooth Keyboard

and a slick dock base integrated with HDMI, USB, ethernet ports.

And a compact powersupply for ease of carrying around

The Sensors in are Accelerometer, gyro, magnetometer and also NFC antenna on back

Since its a setup for Developers it comes preloaded with Visual Studio 11 Express , Expression Blend and many Metro Style apps and of course the 64 bit Windows 8 Developer Preview.

With such features and formfactor who would not like to get their hands on it?