.NET From India

Office 2010 Enters Beta

Office 2010 has been in technical preview available for invited testers till now. It has now moved into Beta.

It is now available for download for MSDN and Technet subscribers. When I checked it looked like it was uploaded on the 16th, but I am yet to get an official mail from the Connect site on the beta being available. So looks like MS wants to keep the hype low so as to not crash their servers.

Anyway, no information on public availability of the beta as of now.

The more exciting news is that SharePoint 2010 has also gone into beta. I see that the SharePoint 2010 Foundation download is now available in MSDN.

Update: It is official now and you can download the beta from http://office.microsoft.com/beta. As of now this seems to still lead to the MSDN or TechNet sites, but I assume this will be available to everybody soon.

Apps for BlackBerry Storm 2

Recently my office shifted cell providers and so I got a chance to pick a new blackberry. I choose to go with the new blackberry Storm 2. Most people used to a BB have a problem shifting from the old keyboard based interface to a touch interface. I too had some teething problems, but having used a WinMo (Anyone remember the HTC Wizard or 8125 as it was known in the US) for a number of years before I got my first BB did help.

I find the device quite responsive and the clickable screen does help to get the feedback when typing feel. But I do think if you are someone who spends a lot of your time writing emails on the phone, you will be more comfortable with the keyboard based device than this one.

Anyway, coming to the crux of this post, the first thing I usually do when I get a new device is to play around with the themes and new apps.

So I installed the Blackberry App store and started browsing around. I found a number of interesting apps. (Do note, that since the Storm 2 is so new, a number of apps are not yet compatible with it yet)

Here is a list of apps I currently use:

 

1. DriveSafe.ly – I would say this is one of the must have apps. They have a free version and an paid version, so you can start using this without spending a dime. When you enable it, it would read out incoming emails and SMS so that you don't have to check your phone every time to see if you got a new email, when driving. If you are a long standing BB user, you know about the urge to check for mails :). Do note, this will always use the phone’s speaker (even if you have a headset) to read out the mail and so if you are travelling with others, be careful before you enable it. (Actually this is available for multiple mobile OSes/phones)

2.BeBuzz – This app allows you to change the color of the LED based on different events. They too have a free and pro version. So you can set the color to be green if there is a new email and a red when you are getting a call etc. The pro version allows you to set up more events.

3. WeatherBug – The free weather app that allows you to see the current temprature and weather information. The other nice thing about this app is that it allows you to have an icon in the home screen and so you can read off the current temperature without having to launch the app.

One of the other apps I want to have is called QuickPull. But it is currently not available for the Storm2 (or rather for OS 5, which is what the Storm runs) without a number of hacks. Looks like a newer version is in the works.

Expect to see more apps surface as I dig around more. Do leave comments on your favorite BlackBerry apps (preferably free ones :))

Adding the Quick Launch Toolbar to Windows 7

I like the new dock UI though it takes some time to get used to it, but I really miss the quick launch toolbar. I especially miss the single click launch functionality that quick launch provides.

It is very easy to enable this in Win 7 and there are a number of posts online, but there are some gotchas that I found while enabling it on my machine (since most of these posts are based on the beta).

The first step is to create a new toolbar. So right-click the somewhere on the taskbar and choose the Toolbars and add a New toolbar. This will open a dialog to choose a directory that will be displayed as the toolbar.

Goto %appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\.

This directory should map out to something like C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer.

Now create a directory called Quick Launch under this folder and use that as the directory for the new toolbar and click OK.

You will find the new toolbar has been created but at the right corner of the taskbar right next to the system tray. It is quite easy and tricky to move this. Click the dotted vertical bars and pull it to the left edge right next to the start button. (You may have to unlock the toolbar to move it).

Once you have positioned the toolbar to the right position, you now need to change its look. By default the toolbar shows only the text, we need it to show the icons to resemble the original quick launch.

Right-click the new toolbar and de-select the Show Text and Show Title options.

And you have your Quick Launch back…

What is this??

Take a look at this photos

 

What do you think this is? A manufacturing facility, a water treatment plant (what with all of those tubes??)

 

Well it is to do with computers and this belongs to Microsoft. These are pictures of the new Microsoft Data Center in Chicago. The new Azure Services run out of this data center.

Photo 2 & 3 - What you're seeing is a tiny section of the 7.5 miles of cooling pipes inside Microsoft's new 700,000-foot Chicago data center, which is one of the—if not the—largest in the world.

This is one of the largest data centers in the world and MS will use this to learn and fine tune its data center strategy as this is just the first in a series of data centers that MS will build

Even the inside of the building doesn't look like that much. The ground floor looks like a large indoor parking lot filled with a few parked trailers.

It's what's inside those trailers, though, that is the key to Microsoft's cloud-computing efforts. Each of the shipping containers in the Chicago data center houses anywhere from 1,800 to 2,500 servers, each of which can be serving up e-mail, managing instant messages, or running applications for Microsoft's soon-to-be-launched cloud-based operating system--Windows Azure.

Read complete article at Inside one of the world's largest data centers

 

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Data Centers,Photos

Location Aware Printing in Windows 7

I like to call this Network Aware Printing as that is what it is.

Basically what this allows you to do is to have different default printer settings based on the network you are connected to. This is a real boon for people like me who carry laptops between home and office. So now that I upgraded to Win 7 I can setup my computer to switch the default printer based on whether I am in Office or Home and it really makes life easy (take it from me).

The way to set this up is to go to the Printers and Devices screen and select one of the available printers. You will find a “Manage Default Printer” Option appear at the top bar. Clicking that brings up a second screen that allows you to do this magic.

In this screen, first choose the option to have different default printers (This is the option chosen by default). Then start doing your mapping between the network and the printer. You need to have connected to the network at least once for it to appear here and the printer needs to be installed. Once you map, click Add and the magic happens.

So now when you change networks you will see that the default printer switches. The small green tick mark () that appears next to the default printer in the previous window actually moves too. If you want to have fun, try changing between the single default printer and location aware setting and see the default printer change on the fly.. :)

Do note that this is mapping a network to a default printer. So if like me you travel to different Offices which share the same basic network, then you still may end up having the wrong default printer. I am still trying to find if I can some how get this to work based on a subnet, but have not found a way to do it yet.

Also to note this is supposedly available only on the premium versions (Professional and Ultimate) of Win 7 and only on Laptop or other mobile devices.

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Printing,Location Aware,Network Aware

Upgrade to Windows 7

I have mostly installed Win 7 on a clean machine till now (many number of times counting the Beta and the RCs). I have usually found the clean install very fast and straight forward. I am yet to come across a scenario where I had to download and install drivers with Win 7. Almost always it was able to find the drivers from the MS and get the system up and running in no time.

This weekend I decided to get my laptop onto Win 7. I have been putting this task away for quite sometime as my laptop has a multitude of software installed and I hated having to spend the time to reinstall everything.

So this weekend I decided to go the upgrade route. So I upgraded my Vista install to Win 7. Initially the setup came up with a list of software already installed that would not work with Win 7. Surprisingly this included SQL Server 2008. I did some “binging” and found a number of references of SQL 2008 needed SP1 to work with Win 7(SQL Server on Windows 7). So I un-installed all the mentioned software and then went ahead with the upgrade.

Well it went on for a couple of hours and I just let it run overnight. Next morning I had a running Win 7 with most of my programs working fine (At least the ones I have used till now). There were a couple of clinks. My gadgets settings did not migrate correctly. I actually had to remove and re-add the weather gadget to get it working and my clocks had been reset. But these were very minor problems, easily rectifiable.

So if you are upgrading to Win 7 then be ready for the upgrade to take a lot longer than a clean install.

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Upgrade,Vista

PPTPlex – A Tool for Non-Sequential Presentations

PowerPoint is a very powerful tool and when used well can really have a great impact during a presentation. But the biggest problem when using Powerpoint is the sequential flow of thoughts.

When you had a presentation where you are not sure about the flow or do not fully control the flow of the presentation (say a discussion around a number of topics), then it becomes quite difficult to design a PPT for that. Also if you have a scenario where you are not sure how in-depth you will be diving into a topic, you need slides if you dive deep, but what if you do not. Currently most of us, try and use link and buttons to create a kind of non-sequential flow. But the problem here is that, we are really only creating different paths, but what if the conversation flows in a path that we had not foreseen.

That is where an PowerPoint Add-in from OfficeLabs (This a site by MS Research focused on Office Related Innovations), called PPTPlex really comes in. This Add-in that works with PowerPoint 2007 (and to an extent 2010. I have had a few crashes and some things like adding a canvas do not work with PP 2010), allow you to create something like categories into which you can put slides. Then you can jump from slide to slide or category to category. You can also follow the sequential flow if required.

Do note, you will not be able to use a lot of animations that come with PowerPoint as PPTPlex does not seem to support too many of those yet.

I have used this for around six months now and every time I have used it, it has evoked a tremendous response and everyone asked me how I did it and wanted to know where to get the add-in. The best part of course is that this is a free download and I really hope they integrate this into the next version of PowerPoint.

Win XP Mode .vhd and other Virtualization software

When you buy Windows 7, you actually get a license for Windows XP to run the Win XP mode. So you install the Win XP mode and then download and install the VHD (the virtual hard drive file that actually contains the OS etc) itself. If you attempt to open this vhd in other virtualization software you will find that it crashes on boot.

I played around with it a little bit and this is what I found.

1. You need to open it first in the WinXP mode. There seems to be some kind of setup happening with the users etc. This runs only correctly only when opened in Wind XP mode.

2. Even after the setup, VMWare Workstation seems to have a problem importing this vhd and loading it up. I never got it running

3. VirtualBox was able to get this instance up and running fine (after the initial setup is complete). Though you would see a popup once in a while about not having a Genuine version etc, the OS will run fine. You will not be able to use Windows Update as the OS fails the Genuine Windows test.

WinXP mode seems to be doing something special to get around the whole activation and Genuine Windows stuff. What I do, is to run Windows Update etc in the WinXP mode and then load the same vhd up in VirtualBox to run my DirectX games (Check my previous post Why the Windows XP Mode may disappoint you??).

Why this is important? One, it saves me the trouble of having to install Win XP on a new VPC, activate it etc. Second, only one instance to manage from an update, antivirus, utilities perspective.

Why the Windows XP Mode may disappoint you??

Ok, you have read a lot about the Win XP mode in Windows 7 and think that you will able to play that old game that you have that will not run on Vista (Yes, I do have a number of those old games sitting around. Railroad Tycoon anyone??)? Well you are wrong!!

First of all, the Win XP mode is aimed at businesses that run LOB (ie. Line of Business) applications that do not run on Vista. So this feature is available only in the Win 7 Professional and up version. (I think you don't even get it in Home Premium, you will have to go for Ultimate)

Why would the games not run on Win XP Mode? Well the answer is in the graphics card. Most games that came out during the XP days (which are the culprits) use DirectX and need a graphics card that supports DirectX. Microsoft Virtual PC and Win XP mode(which is based on the VPC core) do not emulate a graphics card that supports DirectX. From what I can gather they emulate a low end graphics card with 8  MB of video RAM (an S3 Trio 64 Video card with 8mb of video ram).

So if you want to really play those older games/apps that require DirectX support you have a couple of options:

1. If the app runs with compatibility set, you have a easy way out. This option rarely works with games though.

2. You can dual boot between Vista/Win7 and XP. I hate this option as I need to switch reboot my machine just to play a game for a couple of minutes.

3. Use a virtualization program that can emulate DirectX.

• Currently VMware officially supports this option in their Workstation product. I tested it out with the trial version and the supports seems quite good. Some of my games did work on, and a few crashed the VM. ( I do expect that as games are well know to use OS hacks and unsupported APIs for speed etc.). My only problem is that the product is quite costly at $189. Do I want to spend $189 to play a couple of games, even if I love them?? This is a product aimed at the business user and not the hobbyist and that is why it is so costly. It would be great if VMWare can come out with a hobbyist product.
• The other option I found was a open source/freeware product called VirtualBox from Sun. They currently have beta support for DirectX. The professional version is available for free for personal use and they also have a Open Source version which does not have some features like USB support etc. (You can find the differences here) Since the professional version is free for personal use, I went for that. Though the UI and the website is more open sourceish, the actual implementation of DirectX support seems very Robust. Actually, I think vBox runs the games better in my view.

VirtualBox has been running on my Win 7 Desktop for a couple of weeks with no problem.

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Virtual XP Mode,VMWare,VirtualBox,DirectX,Games

Make my 4GB into a 2GB

I came across this piece of information when searching for something else. Suppose you have 4GB installed but for test purposes you want to have only 2 GB available for the OS, the normal way is to create a VPC/VM and then test your app with that. But looks like there is an easier way without using VPCs.

This magic can be done using msconfig.exe that ships with Vista and later.

start > run > msconfig > boot > advanced options
Check the Maximum Memory box and enter the number of KB you’d like to have in your machine.
Reboot and check the system memory to see if it worked

It also has options to change the number of processors available to the OS etc. Do note you will need to reboot after every change, but then you don't have to setup a VM if one is not handy.

Source: Restrict Your RAM