Silverlight Enterprise Deployment Guide

Check out this "Silverlight Enterprise Deployment Guide" - A very useful guide for those who wants to deploy Silverlight.
Author : David Tesar

This guide helps you to plan and carry out a corporate deployment of Silverlight. The guide describes the system requirements and deployment methods, as well as the techniques to maintain and support Silverlight after deployment.

It'll answer lots of questions such as:

1. What files and registry keys does Silverlight install?
2. Will Silverlight break any existing applications?
3. What are the command-line switches to configure installation?
4. How do I deploy Silverlight through SMS or System Center?
5. How is Silverlight serviced and updated?
6. How do you configure Silverlight settings via Group Policy?

And many more.........

A must read guide. Download it here.

(Source:Tim Sneath, Musings of a Client Platform Technical Evangelist)

Microsoft Office Mobile 6.1- Supports Office 2007 File formats

Office Mobile 6.1* is an upgrade to Office Mobile applications on Windows Mobile. The new upgrade supports the Office 2007 file formats.
To allow Windows Mobile users to work with Office documents created in the Open XML formats, Microsoft has developed an upgrade for Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, and PowerPoint Mobile applications. This upgrade to the Office Mobile applications allows viewing and editing of Word documents and Excel workbooks and viewing of PowerPoint slideshows created by using Microsoft Office 2007.

Other improvements include:

• Enhanced viewing experience for charts in Excel Mobile.
• Ability to view SmartArt in PowerPoint Mobile.
• Ability to view and extract files from compressed (.zip) folders.

*UPDATE: It seems, at present the download link has been taken off by Microsoft.

New Live Search launched

Microsoft Corp. released an update to Live Search (http://www.live.com) centered on improvements to core search technology and deeper advancements in the vertical search areas of entertainment, shopping, local and health.

Updated Search Features

•	Live Search Video, powered by a new in-house video search technology, allows users to search for and browse online video content, and watch high-quality videos from the Web. With a new smart motion preview feature, consumers can now preview video within the search results by rolling over the thumbnail of the video.
•	Live Search Local allows consumers to search local business listings, helping them make more informed decisions with rich business details and reviews, all within Live Search.
•	Live Search Image has increased the image index and changed its user interface. With this increase, consumers are now able to search across millions of images and receive precise results with smart scroll, thumbnail image-sizing customization, filmstrip view and the ability to see the full image without leaving the results page.
•	Live Search Products helps consumers easily find and discover products, reviews, guides, prices and other relevant information — all within the Live Search interface, giving them confidence in their buying decisions. User reviews at a glance, powered by our new Opinion Index technology, summarizes the sentiment of the Web about a product, which can save consumers both the time and hassle of combing through multiple Web sites for this information.
•	Live Search Health helps consumers refine health searches quickly using related medical concepts to get relevant health information from a broad spectrum of perspectives, and helps them navigate complex topics with inline article results from experts like the Mayo Clinic — all on a single page.
•	Live Search Entertainment helps consumers stay informed of the latest entertainment news with inline celebrity answers accompanied by images, video, facts and buzz. In addition, Live Search’s new xRank feature allows consumers to find out how their favorite celebrities rank in regard to total Web searches via a daily updated ranking.
•	Live Search Instant Answers provides answers to questions at the top of the algorithmic results, so consumers spend less time searching for the information they need. Several new and updated Instant Answer features include Live Search traffic, weather, maps, entertainment, news, product, stocks and health.
•	Live Search Maps updates in the coming months will include a new user interface, better ways to map local business listings, and quicker, more accurate directions with better printing features.

Additional Search Features

•	Live Search Scopes allow people to see search results from Web pages, local maps and directions, images, videos, and more without the need to re-enter the same query each time or to leave the page.
•	Live Search Toolbar provides access to the Live Search platform from any Web page.
•	Live Search Academic allows consumers to search through academic information and journals, including computer science, engineering and physics journals.
•	Live Search Books is advancing the way people search online by digitizing and indexing information from printed material from around the world, representing another step forward in Microsoft’s efforts to precisely answer people’s questions with trusted content from the best possible sources.
•	Live Search QnA brings a community of real people into the search experience that can help answer a consumer’s toughest questions. Live Search QnA enables consumers to ask and answer questions to further the social networking experience at Live.com.
•	Live Search Macros is a powerful tool that allows consumers to create their own custom search engines or use customizations created by others who share their interests to make their searches more relevant.

"The release is rolling out worldwide" that's what The Live Search team said.

Richer and Deeper Results:

• Over fourfold increase in index size.
• Substantial improvements in understanding queryintent
• Significant enhancements to core algorithms
• Increased focus on query refinement
• New Web data extraction model
• Expansion of Rich Answers

Source:
Microsoft Releases Updated Live Search Engine
Introducing...the new Live Search
Live Search Fact Sheet

CoolHotmail - Get crazy,funky,cool Windows LiveHotmail IDs

Want some crazy, funky, cool mail IDs? Want some IDs based on your favorite stars or e-mail ID that describes your personality or based on what you like- Sport, food, drink or the one which describes you or want to have an email ID which gives your proof of residence, with city names ?
Even if you don't find one of your liking then you can tell Microsoft to make it for you.

For getting all these kind of mail IDs, check up COOLHOTMAIL, where you get all such mail IDs and these are powered by Windows Live Hotmail. So you get all the goodness offered by Windows Live Hotmail.
Presently available in five categories as:
Where I live
Who I like
Who I Am
What I Like
I don't fit
At present, I think these are offered in Indian Flavors only, may be extended to other places, later.
So it has been made easier to get such mail IDs.
(news source: The WinVistaClub)
There's already a service Windows Live Custom Domains.

Windows Live FolderShare Beta

Windows Live FolderShare is a great, easy way to keep your files synced between multiple devices. With FolderShare, you create a private peer-to-peer network that syncs your files and lets you share them with colleges and friends. You no longer need to worry whether your files, photos, or videos are on your home PC, your laptop, or your work computer. FolderShare keeps them all in sync, letting you access them from any computer set up with FolderShare or any web browser - even the browser on your mobile device! Files can be up to 2 GB in size, there are no limits on the quantity or size of files transferred, and all file formats are supported.

The software's sharing feature is an easy way to send others large files - no more trying to zip files to get them through email, burning to CD/DVD, or uploading to a website. To use FolderShare, you must download and install the FolderShare Satellite - the software that is installed on the device(s) you want to sync or share files with. This software runs in the background and automatically updates your files on the other connected devices. The software, part of Windows Live Services, works on Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or OSX and it's completely free! FolderShare can be downloaded here.
(source:Sync Your Files with Windows Live FolderShare)


How it works :
FolderShare is a service that allows you to securely keep files synchronized between your devices, share files with friends or colleagues, and remotely download your files from any web browser. FolderShare consists of two components - My FolderShare and the FolderShare Satellite.

My FolderShare: Configure and manage your account from here.

• Go to www.foldershare.com from any web browser and login to access your "My FolderShare" page.
• From here you can do any of the following:

1. Setup devices to sync or share with
2. Invite others (via email address) to share your files
3. Manage your account - upgrade your subscription, change your email address or password
4. Get help
5. Download the latest software

FolderShare Satellite: The software you need to install on the device(s) you want to sync or share files with.

• The FolderShare Satellite will run in the background when you are online.
• As you update shared or synced files, it will automatically update them on the other devices connected.

Though its an service acquired by Microsoft long time back, but now it is under Windows Live Services. Let us see how its promoted for its better use.
So let us see how Windows Live SkyDrive and this service do.
UPDATE: I came to know that, as said, Microsoft had acquired this service long time back and also under Live service since long time.

Windows Vista SP1 Beta released

Windows Vista SP1 Beta has been released to private group of Beta testers via connect.
At present, I am downloading it , will install and talk about it afterwards.
Check out the Windows Vista Blog for more details.
Also refer to to the White paper about which I had posted here on Blog yesterday: Ready for Windows Vista SP1 Beta?

India -Twenty20 World Cup Cricket Champions !

This is a bit off topic, I would say sort of but not totally.
Just few hours back India defeated Pakistan in a thriller of Twenty20 Cricket World Cup Finals by 5 runs.
The match went right down to the wire, with lots of ups and downs. It was a match to remember!
Well done India !

Now, why I said its not totally off topic because, few days back I had read a news item about "Microsoft Cricket Teams Attract Indian Engineers"
Cricket is being promoted by Microsoft now. So here you can see the Microsoft connection to Cricket. Who knows, we can see Microsoft Cricket in the form of Game also in future.

Halo 3 Goodies from Windows Live

Gear up with these exclusive offers from Windows Live.
And be ready for the launch of Halo 3.


Get Halo 3 Messenger Theme pack.
Get Halo 3 Windows Live Hotmail Signature.
Get Halo 3 Windows Live Space Themes.
Click on the above link or here to get these for FREE!

Ready for Windows Vista SP1 Beta?

With Windows Vista SP1 beta set to be released any time now, here are some points taken from Windows Vista SP1 Beta Whitepaper: Overview of Windows Vista Service Pack1 beta released some days back. So what does Windows Vista SP1 beta contains? What are things to be noted about this release? Check out these so that one can be ready, when Windows Vista SP1 Beta is released, I am putting some of the points here:

One of the main thing to note, “Organizations do not need to wait for SP1 to deploy Windows Vista; they are encouraged to begin their Windows Vista evaluation and deployment now”.

Organizations waiting for Windows Vista SP1 should start their compatibility testing on the gold release of Windows Vista now, and then begin their evaluation and pilot programs on the release candidate of Windows Vista SP1 when it is released. Windows Vista includes architectural changes relative to Windows XP that improve security and reliability. These changes can cause some applications which work on Windows XP not to work on Windows Vista. However, these architectural changes are also part of Windows Vista SP1. For this reason, testing applications on Windows Vista today will be a very good proxy for compatibility with Windows Vista SP1.

In addition to regular Windows Vista updates, application compatibility improvements, and device driver improvements, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) is another way Microsoft will deliver improvements to the Windows Vista customer experience.

So one must have already installed the performance and reliability updates 938194 and 938979 that were released recently.

The goal of Windows Vista SP1 is to address key feedback Microsoft Service has received from its customers without regressing application compatibility.

The updates in Windows Vista SP1 fall into three categories:

• Quality improvements, including all previously released updates, which address reliability, security, and performance.
• Improvements to the administration experience, including BitLocker Drive Encryption (BDE).
  
• Support for emerging hardware and standards, such as an Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) and an Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT).

Although Windows Vista SP1 does compare favorably to earlier service packs, specific benefits have certain costs:
Deploying Windows Vista Service Pack 1

Windows Vista SP1 will support a number of deployment scenarios and methods, which the upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Deployment Guide will describe in detail.

Windows Vista SP1 will support the following delivery methods:

• Express: Requires an Internet connection but minimizes the size of the download by sending only the changes needed for a specific computer (approximately 50 MB for x86-based operating systems).
• Stand-alone: Recommended for computers with limited Internet connectivity and for applying the service pack to multiple computers. The download size is larger than the express package, but customers can apply a single package to any Windows Vista version and language combination (within a platform). Distribution tools like System Center Configuration Manager 2007 use stand-alone packages to deploy Windows Vista SP1.
• Slipstream: The slipstream version of Windows Vista SP1 is media that already contains the service pack, which companies can use to deploy the operating system to new computers or to upgrade existing computers. Availability will be limited. Microsoft will update Windows Vista retail media with Windows Vista SP1 slipstream media in the future. Slipstream media will also be available to Volume Licensing customers.
  

So these are some of the points to be noted for being ready, when Vista SP1 beta is released.

For complete details , please check the Windows Vista SP1 Beta Whitepaper: Overview of Windows Vista Service Pack1 beta

Password Checker-Test the strength of your passwords

You create passwords for using it with your online accounts, personal files etc. But do you know how strong or how weak is your password? Want to check the strength of your password, then go to this Microsoft Security site, Password checker



Goto the above given link, enter a password in the text box provided on the site there to have Password Checker help determine its strength as you type, it changes color according to your
password strength to show you whether your password is weak or strong.

Please note that the Password Checker is for personal reference only. Password Checker does not guarantee the security of the password itself.

Password Checker does not collect, store, or transmit information beyond the computer that you use to access Password Checker. The image works on your computer desktop until you navigate away from the page.


The security of the passwords entered into Password Checker is similar to the security of the password you enter when you log into Windows. The password is checked and validated on your computer, but is not sent over the Internet.A strong password should appear to be a random string of characters to an attacker. It should be 14 characters or longer, (eight characters or longer at a minimum). It should include a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols.

For tips on how to create passwords and pass phrases that are easy for you to remember but difficult for others to guess. a strong password checklist, and more, read Strong passwords: How to create and use them.

Search view Settings in Windows Live Expo

Windows Live Expo is a dynamic social listing service where you can buy and sell merchandise, discover local events, find a new career, and meet local people - all for free! Although Windows Live Expo is available only for US, UK and China, I was just trying out to have a look at it.
I came across a very nice feature in Windows Live Expo, sliders are provided to set the search view. This is really very convenient and very nice feature provided in Expo.

You can set the search radius (distance) and the listing community to be included in your search result. You just have to adjust the sliders provided to set the search view. Click on the 'Change' to Set the search view.

Like, selecting a US city, then the search radius, the distance can be set, it can be the complete United States or the distance from the selected city, say, Seattle is selected, So you want the search should include results within, Seattle+25 miles (that is the minimum) or increasing, Seattle+50 miles and increasing in steps to Seattle+500miles and last is the whole of United States.
And in the resulting search , it also shows the distance from your selected city.Similarly the Listing Community can also be adjusted according to our needs. It starts from Listing Community to be 'Everyone', then you can reduce it to be 'Contacts and Communities' then 'Communities only' and still reducing it to 'messenger contacts only' . So you can limit who views your posted listings and your search results.Really, this is a very nice feature of setting the search view.
Apart from this cool feature, it has lot of other features also. And soon it will be open to rest of the world also.

POP Access for Hotmail Plus users

This is what Omar Shahine (Lead Program Manager, Hotmail) posted at its Team site of Windows Live Hotmail.

"....we have realized that even though we provide rich synchronization of your email and folders with Outlook (via Outlook Connector) and Windows Live Mail lots of people still want and demand POP.

Well, it's been a dirty little secret that Hotmail has always maintained a POP service for a small segment of customers. It's always been very limited, and we didn't want to encourage or offer it to more customers because we've always had ambitions for providing for a scalable and cost effective protocol (which POP is not in the world of huge inboxes). Well we now have this protocol, it's called DeltaSync, and it's something that Outlook and Windows Live Mail use. What we didn't want to do is offer POP access and then have Outlook and Windows Live Mail customers use POP over DeltaSync. Now that we have free offline mail access we have focused our energies on offering users who use clients like Eudora, Thunderbird, and Apple Mail the ability to get their Hotmail in those clients. Additionally, most all mobile devices today support POP (including the Apple iPhone) and to date we haven't been able to offer folks with a data plan a rich way to get their email unless they are using Windows Mobile (and even that is limited depending on carrier).

A few months ago some folks on the team hatched a plan to finally offer POP and starting this week Hotmail Plus users ($19.95 a year) will be able to use POP access from any device. In the interest of transparency though I want to be clear that we have plans to offer POP to all users (all premium and free) but we aren't ready to do that yet. I can't comment on a timeframe for when free users will get POP, but we hope to do so within the next 12 months.

Our POP service requires that you use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) with the POP and SMTP connection and use SMTP authentication. This is to ensure that your email address and password are not subject to tampering. The settings are the following:
POP: pop3.live.com (port 995)
SMTP: smtp.live.com (port 25)
Note: make sure you check the box that indicates that your outgoing server requires authentication (in most mail clients this is not checked by default)....."

Yes indeed a welcome addition.

Halo3 Game Guide Powered by Silverlight

An online game guide of Halo3 is published now and is available here.
And its powered by Microsoft Silverlight.
It provides all the information related to Halo3, The Story so far, game controls, Characters, weapons/equipment, vehicles and lot more.



Halo3 and Silverlight seems to be going together. Yesterday I had posted about Halo3 themed Tafiti- a Silverlight based search Front end. Also recently high definition trailer videos of Halo3 were made available using Silverlight.So as the launch of Halo3 is approaching, Halo3 and Silverlight gaining more popularity.

Tafiti - Halo themed

Check out the new Halo themed version of tafiti.
I had already posted about Tafiti, on its release. (Microsoft Tafiti - Silverlight based search front end)
Tafiti, uses Silverlight and Live Search and gives a richer experience in search.

And now a special themed version of tafiti is released to celebrate release of Halo3.
There's also an option to use Original tafiti by clicking the option provided on top right "Click here for Original tafiti"

Also there's a specialized search with Halo icon along with image, web, news and feeds search which gives sites related to this game.

Check out this, even if you are not a Halo fan. Its cool !

What's new in Windows Live Mail Beta2

Many of you must have already tried the Windows Live Suite released earlier this month, of which Windows Live Mail Beta2 was a part of it. With this Beta release, you can now choose from a list of Windows Live applications and install them all at once or you can choose whichever you want to install using Unified Installer about which I had posted earlier here.

Taking into consideration many of the suggestions given by beta testers, a new build has been released. I being one of the beta tester, and as part of beta tester community, feel very happy that many of our suggestions are considered and put into this build.

If you look at the build, its Windows Live Mail Beta Version 2008 (Build 12.0.1365)

After installing, the first thing I did was, went to the Outbox and cleared the stuck messages. Many were facing the issue of stuck messages in the earlier beta. Since I am one of Windows Live Mail beta tester, I knew this issue was fixed in this build. And the stuck messages were cleared easily. So this is one of the bug fixed and one will not come across this problem in future.

Toolbar Customisation:

Now there’s an option to Customise Toolbar, you can decide which buttons you want on the toolbar. Click on ‘Show Menu’ and there you have ‘Customize toolbar…’ option. Or if you have ‘Show All Menus’ ticked, then from View > Customize toolbar…. And it’ll open up a window, where you can choose which buttons you want to add or remove on toolbar.

or from

You'll get this window to choose the buttons

Updates to Contacts:

More options provided for importing and exporting contacts.

Same options can also be obtained from clicking on ‘Show menu’ dropdown.

Continuing with the Contacts, now a List view has been added to Contacts, making it more convenient to view long lists. This list view behaves in a similar way like all other list views of Windows, you can click on the column name to sort by that item. You can also right click on the column name to add and remove columns. And there’s a preview pane also to view details of each contact without having to open a separate window.

You can get these options from ‘View’ dropdown.

Quick Views:

Quick Views allows you to view mail from all your different accounts in one location. Options like ‘All Drafts’ and ‘All Junk E-mail’ have been added. So the Quick Views can be used as aggregate of all your mail accounts.

Layout Option:

Now you can choose how your Windows Live Mail Layout should look. You can arrange according to various options provided.

The blue highlighted area is the section which will be modified.

Changes to Photo e-mail:

There have been some more features added to Photo email, options when you want to send photos with mails.

More Border options, which will add borders to photos, with color palette to change the color of Borders.

And here also a ‘Layout’ option is provided, which will give you different ways the images will appear with messages.

And when you receive email with images, there’s an option where you have option to save all images in single click and there’s an option to view image as slide show.

Change in sign-account:

Change in sign-in ID can be done by the given option.

Other changes:

-> Also the way newsgroups show up in your Folder pane is changed. The newsgroup name is shown at end now, making it convenient to adjust the pane to get more space.

->Added local folders to the Newsgroup view, to manage these accounts easily.

->Now you can hear Sound, when the new mail arrives.

->As said earlier message stuck in Outbox bug has been fixed along with few other bugs.

So these are the changes done in the Window Live Mail Beta 2. So if you haven’t yet started using it, give it a try. You’ll surely like it. Remember its still in beta , and if you find anything to be added or improve upon , you can send the feedback.