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Giant inflatable pig used in recording studios' Washington war with broadcasters

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The danger with waging a populist political war is in potentially boiling down one's message to such a degree that it ends up insulting and patronizing the very people the message is targeting. The case in point could not be made clearer this afternoon in Washington, DC, as The Hill's Kim Hart first discovered: A handful of otherwise unnoticeable protestors outside the headquarters of the National Association of Broadcasters erected an 18-foot inflatable pig, bearing the message, "Fair Pay for Musicians."

The pig has become the mascot of the MusicFirst Coalition, the performers' rights agency that collects and distributes royalties. For the last few years, MusicFirst has campaigned extensively against the decades-old exemption of terrestrial radio broadcasters (as opposed to Internet radio) from paying performers' royalties. Stations continue to pay royalties to rights holders, which in the end, include many of the recording industry institutions also represented by MusicFirst.

Dueling bills stalled on Capitol Hill would continue this exemption indefinitely, or compel radio stations for the first time to pay performers' royalties on a scale comparable to what Internet streamers such as Pandora and Last.fm reluctantly agreed to last year. In an effort to gather momentum to move pro-royalties legislation forward, associations that support MusicFirst have formed the Radio Accountability Project; launched a Web site, PiggyRadio.com; and produced a new 30-second television spot, all of which heavily feature the poor pig.

The tactic appears to be to visually link radio broadcasters with two unpopular groups of citizens: the United States Government, and the executives of banks that accepted federal bailout money in 2008 and 2009 to remain solvent. Whether any substantive link between bankers and broadcasters actually exists is open for debate. Nonetheless, PiggyRadio.com clearly shows the corporate broadcasting pig feeding from an orange barrel marked "Bailout Funds." The theory is that, by not paying royalties, continuing to accept the exemption is virtually almost exactly similar to accepting a government bailout.

However, one tactical error may have emerged today: In its invitation to the pig-out this afternoon (PDF available here), the RAP group estimated the amount of the "bailout" -- by association, the amount of royalties MusicFirst would receive from broadcasters -- as "billions." "These giant radio companies made more than $15 billion in revenues last year without paying musicians a single penny through a performance royalty," the RAP invitation read. "Worse, they have been using the public's airwaves to lobby and intimidate Congress on the issue. Specifically, here is what the broadcast corporations want: A bailout from the federal government in the form of billions for broadcast spectrum that they got for free and don't even use."

Thus the National Association of Broadcasters -- its office windows covered in pink -- found itself today doing two things it never expected to do: explaining that its members actually have never requested federal bailout money, and buying sausage pizza for the handful of protesters (by one estimate, five) who accompanied the giant pig.

NAB Executive Vice President Dennis Wharton issued this statement this afternoon: "It's no surprise that [the Recording Industry Association of America] is now employing silly frat-boy stunts, given its well-documented practice of suing college kids to rescue a bankrupt business model. It also seems appropriate for RIAA to use an inflatable pig as its mascot, since its foreign-owned members would be the biggest beneficiaries of performance tax pork. RIAA is losing this issue on Capitol Hill and in the court of public opinion, and today's demonstration represents a new low in a campaign of utter desperation."

Wharton then went on to suggest that the recording industry at least buy a sausage pizza for "the scores of exploited musicians who have had to sue their record label to recoup allegedly unpaid album royalties."

Source: Betanews | 11 Mar 2010 | 12:33 am

Mark your calendar: Live blog - Microsoft MIX 2010 keynotes

Source: Neowin.net | 11 Mar 2010 | 12:26 am

Android growing; other platforms, not so much

Source: Neowin.net | 10 Mar 2010 | 11:25 pm

Active Directory Explorer v1.3

Active Directory Explorer (AD Explorer) is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor. You can use AD Explorer to easily navigate an AD database, define favorite locations, view object properties and attributes without having to open dialog boxes, edit permissions, view an object's schema, and execute sophisticated searches that you can save and re-execute.

AD Explorer also includes the ability to save snapshots of an AD database for off-line viewing and comparisons. When you load a saved snapshot, you can navigate and explorer it as you would a live database. If you have two snapshots of an AD database you can use AD Explorer's comparison functionality to see what objects, attributes and security permissions changed between them.

Download AdExplorer
(227 KB)

Run AdExplorer now from Live.Sysinternals.com

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Source: Bink.nu | 10 Mar 2010 | 11:25 pm

Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager 2010 RTMs

Forefront Identity Manager 2010 (FIM 2010), the next generation release of Identity Lifecycle Manager, delivers an integrated identity management solution with powerful self-service capabilities for Office end-users, rich administrative tools and enhanced automation for IT professionals and .NET and WS-* based extensibility for developers. FIM 2010 provides organizations with unique workflow driven solutions to manage user accounts, passwords, groups and distribution lists as well as certificate-based credentials such as smart cards, using identity-based policies that can span across Windows and heterogeneous environments.

Download the latest evaluation software and you're automatically registered to access valuable resources assembled in one convenient location.

After registering you will receive technical resources to help you evaluate FIM:

• Forums
• Blogs
• How-to Videos

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Source: Bink.nu | 10 Mar 2010 | 11:10 pm

Windows Home Server, HP MediaSmart & TiVo!

There has been a lot of excitement over Windows Home Server, Windows Media Center and Zune all working together with Power Pack 3.  But what if you do not currently have a Windows Media Center but instead you have a Tivo? 

We were thrilled to learn the other day that HP and TiVo are now working together and have created a new add-in for your Windows Home Server to allow recorded TV content to be stored on your Windows Home Server and shared to all your digital connected devices, MAC, PC or even your TV.

All current HP MediaSmart users (EX series only) should be able to add this add-in through the “add software tab” within the Windows Home Server administrative console.   If you would like to learn more, please head over to the HP website

JB

Source: The Windows Blog | 10 Mar 2010 | 10:41 pm

Apple's business database for Windows and Mac (you read right) moves forward

By Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews

FileMaker Pro 11 left beta testing for general release last Tuesday, adding a host of new capabilities for better productivity in database use, faster database creation, and easy production of eye-catching charts.

Now updated for Microsoft's Windows 7 and Apple's Macintosh native Mac OS X "Cocoa" platform, FileMaker Pro is the only software in its category that runs on both Windows and Mac, noted Ryan Rosenberg, vice president, marketing and services for FileMaker, Inc., in a briefing for Betanews.

"We're number one on Mac, and number two after Microsoft Access on Windows," according to Rosenberg.

With so few rivals for FileMaker Pro on either platform, why is the Apple division adding so many new features this time around? "We want everyone to become a database user," the VP responded.

In contrast to FileMaker's Bento personal database program, a Mac-only product targeted at consumers and very small businesses, the division's flagship FileMaker product is designed mainly for "knowledge workers" at mid- to large-sized businesses.

Rosenberg said that FileMaker, Inc. now eyes expanding the adoption of FileMaker Pro among both advanced database users and novices, who might have been performing tasks such as invoicing using spreadsheets instead.

Like Bento, FileMaker Pro requires no familiarity with programming languages. In recent releases, the product has gained external links to Oracle, MySQL, and Microsoft SQL Server databases.

Rosenberg also contended, though, that FileMaker Pro has long contained a number of features -- such as Web publishing, for example -- still unavailable in the Windows-only Microsoft Access. He then argued that, on the whole, FileMaker's interface is smoother and easier to use.

Key enhancements in FileMaker Pro 11 include:

• FileMaker Charts for quick production of colorful bar, line and pie charts.
• Quick Find, an intuitive, iTunes-like search engine for database information.
• A Quick Start screen for making new databases, managing files, and finding help resources.
• Quick Reports for setting up data in a similar way to the popular pivot charts in spreadsheets.
• Snapshot Links for easy sharing of the most up-to-date database query results with co-workers and business partners.
• Layout Folders allowing advanced users to capture and reapply their favorite layouts across multiple types of reports.
• Inspector, a "master tool palette" for controlling layout objects and properties.
• A new Invoices Starter Solution, one of 31 template-based built-in solutions for performing specific tasks.

Rosenberg also acknowledged a certain amount of "cross-fertilization" between FileMaker and Bento, even though the two database programs are geared to different audiences.

"Features such as Quick Reports have been heavily influenced by Bento. But it really goes both ways, because Bento was originally based on the FileMaker product, anyway," he observed.

The new FileMaker series actually comes in four flavors: FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Pro Advanced, FileMaker Server, and FileMaker Server Advanced. Rosenberg said that FileMaker Server Advanced has been enhanced to remove limits on the numbers of supported users, while adding the ability to set different permission rights for various groups of users.

Source: Betanews | 10 Mar 2010 | 9:54 pm

More 3D TVs launch, this time from Panasonic...but it's still kid's stuff

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Yesterday, Samsung launched its 2010 line of 3D TVs, which includes LED, LCD, and plasma screens between 46" and 65", with prices that start at $1,999 and go up to $6,999. Today, Panasonic added its products into the mix at a launch event in New York City with partners Best Buy, 20th Century Fox, and DirecTV.

The event marked the debut of a 3D home theater package that will sell exclusively at Best Buy that includes a 50" Panasonic Viera 3D plasma TV (VT20- $2,499), a Panasonic 3D Blu-ray player (BDT-300 - $399) and one pair of active shutter glasses for 3D viewing. It's comparable to the package Samsung announced yesterday, except that it comes with one fewer pair of 3D glasses. The whole package will go for $2,899, starting today.

Panasonic said it will also launch 54", 58", and 65" models later this year.

Unfortunately, there is still no new content available for the 3D systems, and therefore no really compelling reason to rush out and upgrade your HDTV to 3D right now, especially if you're not particularly fond of Pixar-style "family fun" films.

Early adopters will only be able to enjoy the 3D experience on a couple of features, such as Dreamworks' Monsters vs. Aliens which was announced at Samsung's CES press conference this year, and Sony's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs which was announced at about the same time.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Executive Vice President of Marketing Mary Daily also appeared at the event today, to announce that the studio's first 3D Blu-ray title will be Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, another animated children's movie.

Panasonic's partner DirecTV appeared at the event today, and it is expected to launch at least three stations in 3D which will include sports and music video content, but those won't be until June at the earliest.

DirecTV says it is working with AEG/AEG Digital Media, CBS, Fox Sports/FSN, Golden Boy Promotions, HDNet, MTV, NBC Universal, and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. to develop 3D programming that will debut in 2010-2011. All of DirecTV's 3D channels will also carry the Panasonic brand for a year.

More electronics manufacturers will be showing off their 3D TVs in the coming months, but content is still lagging behind, and there has yet to be a mostly live-action 3D movie that takes advantage of the new 3D Blu-ray spec, or even one that is made for adults with a taste for movies a little less lighthearted.

Source: Betanews | 10 Mar 2010 | 9:50 pm

Android picks up more US subscribers as Windows Mobile share plunges

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Windows Mobile phones continue to bleed US subscribers, with Android devices picking up most of the lost subscriber share. Can you say free falling? Today, ComScore released standard handset and smartphone data for the three-month period of November 2009 to January 2010. ComScore designates the platforms by vendor. Microsoft smartphone subscriber share fell to 15.7 percent from 19.7 percent three months earlier. Meanwhile, Google rose to 7.1 percent from 2.8 percent during the same time period.

What about iPhone, for which American bloggers and journalists are seemingly obsessed? If Apple is gaining smartphone subscribers, it's not substantially showing in the data. Subscriber share rose from 24.8 percent to 25.1 percent, which is statistically negligible. Meanwhile, Research in Motion slightly climbed -- to 43 percent from 41.3 percent.

There were 234 million mobile subscribers ages 13 or older between November and January, according to ComScore. Nearly 43 million Americans owned smartphones. The number of smartphone owners increased by 18 percent compared to the previous three months.

The data is obviously bad news for Microsoft, which is making a major mobile platform switch to Windows Phone 7 Series. First devices aren't expected until late third quarter at the earliest. Next week, T-Mobile is planning a launch event for the HTC HD2. Unfortunately, the Windows Mobile-powered device, considered one of the hottest smartphones on the market, isn't eligible for Windows Phone 7 Series. Can Microsoft gain lost share despite the HD2's non-upgradability? Future ComScore data will tell.

But the numbers aren't good for Apple, either. Huge growth marked iPhone's first three releases. Questions to ask now about iPhone's stalled subscriber growth:

• Has Verizon Wireless "There's a map for that" counter-AT&T advertising hurt iPhone sales?
• Is Verizon's other marketing campaign -- for Droid -- slowing network churn to AT&T for iPhone?
• Are AT&T's well-publicized network problems (dropped calls and failed connections) hurting iPhone sales?
• Is Android benefitting from the increasing number of handsets, which are available through all US major carriers while iPhone is tethered to AT&T?
• Do smartphone buyers perhaps care about multitasking, which Apple hobbled on iPhone but is available on all other major competing platforms?

My answer is "Yes" to all five questions. Carrier subscriber data is revealing. During fourth quarter, AT&T gained 2.7 million subscribers for a total of 85.1 million. Verizon wireless subscribers grew by only 2.2 million, to 91.2 million, but beat Wall Street consensus of 1.5 million. Three months earlier, Verizon gained 1.2 million subscribers; 1.1 million in second quarter 2009. For third quarter 2009, AT&T gained 2 million subscribers; 1.4 million in second quarter 2009. Late-year AT&T gains are to be expected following release of iPhone 3GS in June last year. But Verizon's fourth-quarter surge is revealing and follows two major marketing campaigns and introduction of several Android-based handsets.

Marketing is a factor often overlooked by iPhone-obsessed bloggers and journalists. Apple spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year marketing iPhone. Verizon is spending $100 million on its Droid marketing campaign, which has helped raise Android smartphones' profile. Meanwhile, Verizon continues to club AT&T with aggressive advertising about network reliability. Verizon's marketing answer to Apple and AT&T is more bite than bark.

Oh and what about Microsoft? When did you last see Windows Mobile smartphone advertising from Microsoft? The company plans to spend big on Windows Phone 7 Series, but that's months away.

In early 2010, Apple changed tactics with iPhone marketing, and it will be interesting to see the affect on consumer perceptions.  Presumably to combat competitor counter-marketing about there being no real multitasking, newer TV commercials insinuate that iPhone users can do many things at once.

Two of three newest iPhone commercials focus on families and feature female narration. That says heaps about where Apple sees the next big market segment for iPhone. Typically, gadget geeks (many of them male) are the first adopters of products like smartphones. Later, manufacturers tailor the products and their marketing for women and, more importantly, families. Timing is right if, as Sylvia Ann Hewlett asserts, "Women are the biggest emerging market."

As for Windows Phone 7 Series marketing, it's too soon to guess Microsoft's approach or its effectiveness. As for Android, its future looks bright.

Source: Betanews | 10 Mar 2010 | 8:16 pm

Feeling the effects of Mapathy? Infinity Ward has the cure

Source: Neowin.net | 10 Mar 2010 | 8:05 pm

Chip Shot: Intel Powers up Developer Programs at GDC

Source: Intel Press Room | 10 Mar 2010 | 7:12 pm

Strongest condemnation yet of anti-counterfeiting, 'three strikes' from EU

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The European Parliament today overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution compelling participants in multi-national negotiations over the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) to report on the status and substance of those negotiations, first to Parliament and eventually to the general public. This after a groundswell of public concern arose in the wake of documents purporting to be official ACTA material, the latest leaked by Wired last November (PDF available here from Wired), spoke of US negotiators' requests to include terms in the final Agreement that would force Internet service providers to police the content trafficked over their pipelines, or else face penalties.

A statement issued from Parliament this afternoon records the final vote as 633-13-16 in favor of the resolution, the motion for which (DOC available here) was drafted just yesterday on behalf of six of the continent's political parties and alliances, including Greens/EFA. That motion referred to the leaked documents by name, effectively confirming their legitimacy.

The motion warned that those documents referred to the institution of measures among ACTA members, including the EU, of criminal penalties for those accused of violating, or assisting in the violation of, intellectual property rights. The leaked Wired document, dated August 30, 2009, entitled simply "ACTA negotiations," indicated that US negotiators were not in a position to discuss even among other trade negotiators the substance of consultations with "a number of private stakeholders (bound to strict confidentiality clauses)" -- a group which presumably includes publishing and recording associations.

Rather than provide colleagues with written documents, the August 30 document stated, US representatives were free to give an oral summary of their requested proposal, which would be an abbreviated version of the existing US-Korea Free Trade Agreement. Clauses of the ACTA as US representatives proposed would narrow the legal definition of "safe harbor" as it pertains to ISPs, which today are protected from liability for IP violations under laws recognized as high up the chain as the Supreme Court. The ACTA, as discussed at the time, would only provide safe harbor to ISPs that instituted policies and installed technologies to deter IP violations, including the illicit trading of unauthorized files.

Later clauses would clearly classify the stripping of rights management provisions from any software as an IP violation, punishable with both civil and criminal penalties. And in a telling bit of legalese whose economy of phraseology speaks volumes as to its intent, the leaked August 30 document included this provision: "'Fair use' will not be circumscribed."

Last year, in an effort to diffuse growing public criticism (before legislators caught wind of it), the Office of the US Trade Representative issued a brief (PDF available here) discussing what it said could be discussed in public about ACTA negotiations. As to the matter of publicly revealing little things about, say, overriding the Supreme Court, the Office diplomatically gave credence to objections, while at the same time attempting to place them in a little box over to the side somewhere.

"A variety of groups have shown their interest in getting more information on the substance of the negotiations and have requested that the draft text be disclosed," the USTR document reads, referring indirectly to groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge. "However, it is accepted practice during trade negotiations among sovereign states to not share negotiating texts with the public at large, particularly at earlier stages of the negotiation. This allows delegations to exchange views in confidence facilitating the negotiation and compromise that are necessary in order to reach agreement on complex issues. At this point in time, ACTA delegations are still discussing various proposals for the different elements that may ultimately be included in the agreement. A comprehensive set of proposals for the text of the agreement does not yet exist."

The USTR paper went on to mention the need to empower judges to impose stricter penalties for IP violations, though by its authors' own admission, it leaves a gaping hole with respect to the broadening of the definition of what an IP violation is. Trade negotiations throughout history have been, by definition, confidential, and their secrecy has been mutually observed for centuries. However, the EP took issue today with the whole notion not only that certain elements of the negotiation should be kept secret from lawmakers, but that negotiators should continue -- as the leaked August 30 document and the USTR brief indicate -- to keep certain elements secret from themselves.

According to this morning's EP statement, the resolution as adopted takes a strong stand specifically against the adoption of "three strikes" rules against IP violators, such as those being tested now in France; and also against the enablement, perhaps through deliberate imprecision (see "circumscribed"), of restrictions on access to media. Parliament now says the final ACTA "should not affect global access to legitimate, affordable and safe medicinal products, including innovative and generic products," according to the resolution.

The USTR brief also refers to negotiations for a clause that would empower customs agents patrolling borders to seize any material believed to infringe upon intellectual property. Without being specific, "any material" could include a hard disk drive...or the computer or MP3 player containing a hard disk drive.

The EP resolution took a stand against that as well, calling upon trade negotiators to provide "full clarification of any clauses that would allow for warrantless searches and confiscation of information storage devices such as laptops, cell phones, and MP3 players by border and customs authorities."

The problem with today's resolution is that it may not be legally binding. While it takes a very public stand, trade negotiators may very well continue to argue that it's their duty to continue to safeguard the intellectual property of the private stakeholders who developed that IP...to protect the IP of the private stakeholders. While the resolution reminds European representatives of their duty to uphold the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, which include keeping Parliament abreast of negotiations, that treaty was only fully enforced last December 1. Since the ACTA negotiations began earlier, participants could argue that they've been "grandfathered in," for reasons which, to borrow a phrase, may not be circumscribed.

Source: Betanews | 10 Mar 2010 | 6:51 pm

Google adds biking directions to Maps

Source: Neowin.net | 10 Mar 2010 | 6:46 pm

Chip Shot: Small Business Study Says Refresh PCs

Source: Intel Press Room | 10 Mar 2010 | 6:12 pm

Chip Shot: Intel Builds Manycore Computer Lab for Professors

Source: Intel Press Room | 10 Mar 2010 | 6:11 pm

AMD Foundation to Sponsor Video Game Design Category for The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

Source: AMD Press Releases | 10 Mar 2010 | 5:46 pm

Windows Phone Series 7 gaming shown off (screenshots)

Source: Neowin.net | 10 Mar 2010 | 5:38 pm

Intel Spotlights New Extreme Edition Processor, Software Developer Resources at Game Conference

Source: Intel Press Room | 10 Mar 2010 | 5:08 pm

Google Maps now generates bike routes

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Different modes of travel often require different routes to be taken. If you're walking somewhere, for example, you're not likely to take a highway to get there, and you have the distinct advantage of being able to go through certain structures that cars cannot. The same goes for biking. When someone is planning to get somewhere by bike, they're going to demand different routes. This is why the Google Maps team today announced that it has added bicycling directions to Google Maps.

Shannon Guymon, product manager for Google Maps said, "We wanted to include as much bike trail data as possible, provide efficient routes, allow riders to customize their trip, make use of bike lanes, calculate rider-friendly routes that avoid big hills and customize the look of the map for cycling to encourage folks to hop on their bikes. So that's exactly what we've done."

Google has taken more than 12,000 miles of bike trail data from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy's TrailLink.com database. The Washington, DC nonprofit has been collecting trail data since 2000, and has maps, pictures, descriptions, and listings for more than 30,000 miles of bike trails.

"The demand for trail maps and information has never been higher, especially as more people recognize biking as a viable, inexpensive and healthy alternative to driving," said Rails-to-Trails President Keith Laughlin today.

But simply having the data on hand is completely a different matter from the whole business of machine-suggested routes. Google had to incorporate trail data into its routing algorithm, include metropolitan areas with designated bike lanes, and include roads that have been recommended by other cyclists, all the while taking into consideration the business about certain roads. All that is just to determine the most biker-accommodating paths according to safety. There's also the whole issue of hills.

"Our biking directions are based on a physical model of the amount of power your body has to exert given the slope of the road you're biking on," said Google software engineer John Leen. "Assuming typical values for mass and for wind resistance, we compute the effort you'll require and the speed you'll achieve while going uphill. We take this speed into account when determining the time estimate for your journey, and we also try hard to avoid routes that will require an unreasonable degree of exertion." Likewise, the algorithm avoids routes that have too much downhill travel as well so the ride is balanced.

Today's launch of Google Maps for bikes is sort of the opposite of a development from last year, an Android app called My Tracks which targeted runners, hikers, and cyclists. Instead of suggesting routes, My Tracks collected live GPS statistics from the user's smartphone and mapped out total/moving time, (average) speed, distance, and elevation profile on Google Maps as the trips were being made.

Google Maps for bicycles is live right now.

Source: Betanews | 10 Mar 2010 | 4:50 pm

Kodu Game Lab - Technical Preview

Source: ActiveWin.com Headlines | 10 Mar 2010 | 4:48 pm

Use Windows Live Writer from a flash drive

Source: Neowin.net | 10 Mar 2010 | 4:36 pm

Microsoft warns of new zero-day exploit for Internet Explorer

Source: Neowin.net | 10 Mar 2010 | 3:36 pm

Electronic Arts signs publishing deal with "38 Studios"

Source: Neowin.net | 10 Mar 2010 | 1:43 pm

Microsoft will do what is needed to make profit

Source: ActiveWin.com Headlines | 10 Mar 2010 | 7:48 am

Microsoft warns against using 64-bit Office 2010

Microsoft is advising its customers to install the 32-bit, rather than the 64-bit, version of Office 2010.

The advice is tucked away in an FAQ about the Office 2010 Tech Guarantee programme, which will ensure that buyers of Office 2007 will get a free upgrade to the new Office suite when its launched.

Source: ActiveWin.com Headlines | 10 Mar 2010 | 7:37 am

Microsoft adds XNA Game Studio 4.0 to its Windows Phone 7 arsenal

This week, at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Microsoft is slated to begin explaining part of its Windows Phone 7 tooling story — specifically how it plans to get more games developed for its new mobile platform.

One key to that story is its XNA Game Studio tool suite. This week, the company is sharing more about version 4.0 of that suite and providing attendees of the San Francisco conference with a preview of what’s in it.

Source: ActiveWin.com Headlines | 10 Mar 2010 | 7:33 am

Microsoft researcher wins Turing Award

Source: ActiveWin.com Headlines | 10 Mar 2010 | 7:33 am

Infographic: Are you obsessed with your cell phone?

Source: Neowin.net | 10 Mar 2010 | 4:32 am

Piloting Windows 7: Part 4: Installation Options and Collecting Feedback

This is the fourth and final installment of this series from Jeremy Chapman

After user targeting and planning is complete, you can start your Proof of Concept testing and begin building Windows 7 images. There are many ways to build Windows 7 images or standard builds and depending on the tools you have in place, you may want to test a couple of options. For organizations with System Center Configuration Manager 2007, you can use that to create standard Windows builds with complete automation of OS, applications, drivers, data and profile migration, etc. If you won’t have Configuration Manager available for the pilot, you can download the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) to create standard builds with similar automation capabilities to Configuration Manager. The main difference is that with Configuration Manager, you do not need to initiate the installation at the target PC, with MDT, you do need to initiate it. Both of these solutions use the Windows Automated Installation Kit components at their core to create and service images, migrate user state and activate Windows. They also use Windows Deployment Services in Windows Server 2008 R2 for network-based deployments or they can use media (USB flash and DVD) to install builds at target computers. My simple recommendation is to use Configuration Manager if you have it, if not use MDT.

Is Configuration Manager or MDT Overkill for a Pilot?

You might be thinking that Configuration Manager or MDT is too much to learn compared to a straight thick image (Windows plus all of your applications and drivers) and standing up Windows Deployment Services. I have seen this and heard this before. The problem is that habits start early on and if you invest a lot of time into a thick image and refining the straight Windows Deployment Services, Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE) and any additional scripting work, you’ll probably end up either with multiple images to manage and may not be taking advantage of the improvements in Windows 7 for imaging and deployment made since Windows XP – namely Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) independence, multi-language support, offline image servicing and better in-box driver coverage or you may reinvent the wheel and create your own version of a deployment task sequence engine like the one shared by Configuration Manager and MDT in-box.

There are other advantages to using a task-sequence-based deployment that Configuration Manager or MDT can provide – especially when it comes to things like computer naming, the ability to install applications based on user needs, integration with the user state migration tool processes to migrate user data, domain joining, ability to enable Bitlocker, custom locale and keyboard settings per user, language definition per user and so on. The flexibility that these tools provide can improve the thoroughness of the pilot testing – since you can test more configurations – and any work you do to make your applications install silently via a task sequence and not baked into a thick image can be re-used with ongoing software distribution in the future. I’ve seen many people get MDT up and running in a day or less, so if you fought with Business Desktop Deployment 2.0 and its scripting back with your Windows XP deployment in 2004/2005, I’d encourage you to look at MDT now re-evaluate it – even at the pilot stage.

The last area I want to hit on here is activation. For Windows 7, there are two primary ways to activate Volume License versions of Windows. Multiple Activation Keys (MAK) or Key Management Service (KMS) are used once the client comes up and is either connected to the Internet (MAK) or connected to the domain (KMS). KMS runs on a server in your environment and will automatically activate clients for you. With KMS, you own the activation process and traffic; the PCs do not hit a Microsoft activation service on the Internet. With MAK, it is similar to retail activation and the PC hits a Microsoft server to activate over the Internet. To use KMS, you need 25 clients to hit the service, so typically you start with MAK for the first 25 PCs, then you convert their activation type to use KMS after you cross the 25 threshold (virtual machines can also be used against this threshold now). KMS is the recommended way to activate Volume License clients because you do not need to worry about managing keys in your imaging or unattended build process and your infrastructure manages the activation. You can find more information about Volume Activation on Microsoft TechNet.

Rolling Out Desktops and Collecting Feedback

Once you have your strategy in place for delivering desktops (hopefully it doesn’t involve sneakers and a case of DVDs – aka manual installation work), then you can start rolling out desktops. In Proof of Concept, you are typically targeting the lab and IT department staff first. Once you’ve worked in their feedback and feel confident about letting your custom builds loose into the wild, you can begin with Phase 2 and rolling out to end users. If you take away anything from this series, remember to start small and grow your pilot user count based on your confidence level, support activities, user demand and any other indicator of pilot capacity.

Generally speaking, no news is good news when piloting. Sometimes you need to work to collect feedback and other times it will come to you very quickly, especially if something isn’t working and is impacting multiple users. Be prepared to hear about things like applications not working correctly, the Web browser not rendering pages like it used to, printers not being configured, hardware not getting recognized or working and people not finding the old functions they used to have in the old – often customized – operating system. If you are coming from an environment where users had full administrative privilege, then expect some questions around User Account Control prompts or other configuration management features. Much of the feedback you’ll receive will be in response to Windows working by design, but others will require work or workarounds.

Architectural changes like going from 32-bit to 64-bit will impact older 16 bit applications (they won’t install or run) and non-standard devices with unsigned drivers (they won’t work). Moving users from administrative account privileges to standard user account privileges will have another set of challenges, if uses are accustomed to administering their machine. The payoff in the long run will be worth it, but expect to get some helpdesk calls even if you use due diligence to inform users of the change.

To handle communications to and from users, there are several tactics that can be used. In most cases, you will want to implement an Intranet portal to allow users to submit feedback and also have helpdesk staff trained for telephone calls or instant message-based support. In addition, proactive meetings and open forums with pilot users are recommended to get as much feedback as possible on all areas of the pilot, its processes and the software being tested.

There are many tactics to get people involved and the ones I have seen work both within Microsoft and at other companies are:

• Having an executive sponsor. This is vital to a good pilot, as the executive sponsor can help with areas of budget and organizational challenges, plus let’s face it, sometimes users tune out to emails coming from the IT department whereas they may react more quickly to emails coming from an executive sponsor.
• Identifying Pilot Group Leaders. These are people with a true pulse on how others are feeling about the pilot, the process itself and the software they are testing for you. Group leaders interact with pilot users on a regular working basis and hear the good and bad aspects – often getting information not sent to the helpdesk. As an information aggregator, they also reduce can help the communication traffic required to each pilot users
• Staying up-to-date with how people communicate. With so many communication channels available, you’ll want to stay up-to-date with communications to and from users. This might mean using social networking portals, email, in-person meetings, group calls, videos, etc. It usually isn’t enough to bury a pilot group RSS feed into your standard email client configuration or build an Intranet portal – users still may not consume the information.
• Communicating and requesting feedback often. This might seem counter-intuitive if you want to minimize helpdesk activities (especially for those outsourcing the helpdesk), but if you open up other less expensive channels, you can prompt pilot users for frequent feedback and ultimately collect more data to prepare for the production deployment.

These are just a few tactics to get users involved and there are many more. Other tactics like user recognition for the most bugs filed, group morale events and pilot program branded swag have been used with high degrees of success as well. If you are in a constant state of piloting something like I was, these tactics can be applied to anything you are piloting – not just a Windows pilot.

Analyzing User Feedback

There are both reactive and proactive phases to handling user feedback. As feedback comes in, you will want to perform initial triage of the feedback. Remember the severity levels I defined in Part 2[j1] of this series? These severity levels will help indicate how quickly you need to respond and how critical a fix is. Also, you will find patterns for feedback and duplication of feedback. It is important to keep a count of the duplicate issues or trouble tickets to gauge how many people are impacted. Based on severity and number of users impacted, you can decide how you go about addressing issues – or if you address them at all. Some issues will be technology-related, others will be based on lack of user training and others will be cultural in nature. Despite the nature of the issues, all of these categories are addressable before the production deployment.

Before we defined severity levels in Part 2, we also defined areas to validate the technology and associated processes, then we talked about quality gates to proceed from phase-to-phase. Part of your analysis will be checking whether validation and quality goals were met, if not, you may need to continue the pilot and push out your schedules a bit to ensure that you have enough information and quality to proceed into the production deployment.

Finally, there are business aspects to measure. Will the technology meet business objectives? Have we identified ways to minimize user disruption? Do we have a plan to train users sufficiently and proactively manage the issues we know will come up in the production deployment? All of these should be answered and your executive sponsors will be keen on knowing the work already performed, current status and what is planned to correct any outstanding issues. The pilot is only complete when you have enough information to proceed with a go/no-go decision and that are confident in your abilities to deliver the new technology to a broader set of users.

This was the final part in the Windows 7 Pilot series. Thanks for reading and please comment on additional content you’d like to see covered.

Happy piloting,

Jeremy Chapman

Source: The Windows Blog | 10 Mar 2010 | 3:54 am

Google unveils its cloud-based Apps Marketplace, wants 20% revenue share

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Tuesday evening, during an event televised over YouTube called Google Campfire One, Google executives lifted the curtain on its cloud-based Apps Marketplace for PC-based applications, with the promise of opening its online store with 50 charter vendors later in the evening. The Marketplace is designed to feature applications that integrate with the company's existing Google Apps, Gmail, and other cloud-based services.

Google Vice President of Engineering Vic Gondotra told attendees at the company's headquarters that the company plans to utilize very simple terms of service. Think of a garden, but more with clearly marked paths as opposed to walls. Extending the concept of the Android Marketplace from handsets to computing devices, the company is inviting developers to build applications using its Studio tool, then deploy those apps by way of the Marketplace. Each developer is asked to pay a $100 sign-up fee, and then give Google a 20% revenue share for sales, at whatever price the developer charges. (We have not seen yet whether there will be a price cap.)

11:10 pm EST March 9, 2010 · "The Google Apps Marketplace...[is] a great way to discover, to find, and install applications into your business. But not just any applications -- applications that are deeply integrated with Google Apps...that enable a single sign-on, that enable different kinds of cloud-based software to share data," explained Vice President of Engineering Vic Gondotra to the Campfire One attendees. "Applications that integrate with the navigation, integrate with the user interface of the tools that your employees already know and love and use every day."

The integration Gondotra spoke of will take place through a relatively simple XML-based manifest, the typical length of which is promised to be not very long. An actual Google Apps manifest (not the abbreviated version used in Google's slides) is pictured below.

Each category in this manifest represents a point of integration with the Google Apps environment -- actually, with any online service that Google Apps is capable of reaching. Gmail is one of these places; tonight, the company's director of engineering, David Glaser, promised a theoretical level of integration with Gmail that would enable business apps developers to create Gmail plug-ins that would appear to match, or maybe rival, the functionality available in Microsoft Outlook.

Glaser demonstrated the creation of an app manifest, which would also contain the "pages" (actually resources identified with URLs) that link to Google Apps' various points of integration. Perhaps the one that will be most often used is single sign-on, which will enable the identity of the Google Apps user to be shared with that of the custom app. Through the OAuth-based authentication protocol Google will use, developers will be able to deploy databases for their cloud apps using their own clouds, if you will, and then let Google's authentication pass through to the developers' clouds to validate users and enable the granting of permissions.

Glaser outlined another point of connection: "If you've ever used Google Apps, you've noticed at the top left of the screen, right above your mail or your calendar, there's a nav bar. That means you're a click or two away from getting at any of the other apps in the Google Apps suite...Well, if you have an application, you probably want it to be a part of the same navigation model, part of the same nav bar, so your users are a click or two away from not only the built-in Google Apps, but also from your app. How do you do that? You put an entry in the manifest -- a few lines of XML, you tell us, 'Here's the string that I want to have show up in the menu, and here's the link that it should go to when somebody clicks on it.'"

The keyword here again from Google is "simple," which is what will distinguish its cloud-based apps ecosystem from Microsoft Windows Azure in almost every respect. An app in Google's environment would appear to be leveraged on an existing Google App or service. As Glaser explained, a custom app will have its own home page, if you will; but as Gondotra explained, what makes the app usable in the first place is its connectivity with the existing hub that Google has in place. So the development studio for such apps (itself a Web application, pictured above running in Firefox on Google's favorite PC operating system, Windows XP) is specifically geared to generate this manifest and plug apps into the existing hub.

That's not to say apps won't or can't stand alone on their own, or even pre-exist, as Gondotra told the audience: "We're not mandating that you have to build on a particular platform. You don't have to use App Engine, although we'd be delighted to see that. You may already have an existing app built on your own infrastructure, your own tools, your own hosting environment...It's very easy to integrate even that existing app into Google Apps."

The ability for apps to stand on their own was exemplified this evening by charter partner Intuit's first entry into the Marketplace. It showed an online payroll application for small business that enables office managers to keep track of employees' payrolls, using tools that are also integrated into Google Calendar. (It's hard not to notice that Google's app development platform runs on Firefox, while it prefers to run the apps themselves on Chrome.)

Among Google's list of 50 charter developers, we noted, was Zoho -- a company whose existing cloud-based apps had actually competed against Google Apps, while using many deployment resources actually created by Google.

The exact terms and conditions that apply to Google's developers' agreement -- a $100 one-time up-front fee to enroll per developer (not per app), and a 20% cut of the revenue -- are not known as of this evening. Vic Gondotra did say, however, that Google will enable online resellers to promote and sell apps from the Marketplace, with 20% of the cut from resold apps also going to Google and the rest to their developers.

"Remember, with that rev share, you not only get to reach the 25 million customers, but you also get to take advantage of over 1,000 resellers who are not only going to be able to resell Google Apps, but may, in fact, be able to drive business directly to you," stated Gondotra. He did not say whether this resale operation would actually take place as part of Google's existing advertising platform, which may be why the early number of resellers (one thousand) is so high.

A few years ago when Google premiered its online apps on a mostly free business model (with some subscription revenue attached for upper-level apps more recently), folks wondered how Google would turn this into a revenue center. Now we know the answer: The company wants to earn its cut not from its core apps, but from a substantial slice of your apps.

Source: Betanews | 10 Mar 2010 | 3:50 am

Samsung launches its eReader, connects with Barnes & Noble

By Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews

After showing a prototype of its first electronic reader at CES in January, Samsung on Tuesday officially rolled out the new device, spilling all the details about the final feature set while also unveiling a new partnership with Barnes & Noble.

Unlike other gadgets in the increasingly crowded field, the Samsung eReader lets people make notes in the margins of e-book pages, pointed out Vickie Cullen, a Samsung spokesperson, at a press event in New York City where the company launched a number of CE products including this device, 3D TVs, and a 3D Blu-ray player.

Users of Samsung's eReader can modify the electronic pages by underlining words, for example, and they can use built-in voice recording functionality to produce audio memos and annotations. It's also able to read text aloud, but only with electronic books that support text-to-speech (TTS) technology.

A reader can make notes in the margins through the use of a special electromagnetic resonance (EMR) stylus pen. In a demo at the event, we saw how you can easily make the brushstrokes wider or narrower or even turn the pen into an "eraser" by touching the tip of the pen to icons at the bottom of the screen.

The eReader comes in a slider form factor with a six-inch E-ink screen displaying at 600x800 resolution in eight shades of grey.

Cullen said that you can import drawings and photos in JPEG and BMP formats as well as other files downloaded from the Internet to a PC, using the eReader's mini-USB port. Other supported file formats include e-pub, PDF/a, and TXT.

Slated to ship this spring for $299. Samsung's new device offers 26 GB of internal memory, plus an external Micro SD slot capable of increasing storage by another 16 GB.

The product also comes with built-in speakers and Bluetooth technology for playing back music or TTS translation, she said.

Readers can use the gadget's built-in Wi-Fi, together with Samsung's proprietary EmoLink technology, for sharing content -- including notes jotted in e-book margins, for instance -- between two devices.

Samsung has also joined the growing list of e-reader makers now partnering with Barnes & Noble -- the arch rival of Amazon.com, the pioneer of the field. Through a new deal between Samsung and Barnes & Noble, users of Samsung's new eReader can use either a Wi-Fi or PC connection to browse, sample, and download content from B&N.

Source: Betanews | 10 Mar 2010 | 3:35 am

Get your glasses ready: Samsung soars into the third dimension

By Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews

At a press conference in New York City on Tuesday, Samsung unveiled new 3D products that include six HDTV series, a Shrek 3D movie, and a DVD player designed to handle 3D along with regular Blu-ray and standard DVD disks.

Samsung's initial 3D TV line-up -- which requires 3D glasses for viewing - ranges from the LED 7000/8000/9000 Series to the LCD 750 Series and the Plasma 7000/8000 Series.

Samsung also debuted the 3D-capable BD-C6900 Blu-ray player, a 3D-enabled release of Dreamworks' Monsters vs. Aliens along with the entire Shrek series, and a large set of Internet-downloadable applications for the 3D Blu-ray player and some of Samsung's 3D TVs.

Kicked off by an ad campaign broadcast during Sunday's Academy Awards show, the first two 3D TV models from Samsung -- the 46" and 55" editions of the LED C7000 -- are already available in stores, said Dave R. Das, director, Visual Display Marketing, in an interview with Betanews at the event.

So, too, are the first 12 apps for Samsung's 3D gear, with others slated for completion by the end of March, said Jason Han, senior manager, content partnership, CE Division.

The remaining 3D TVs -- and the 3D Blu-ray drive, priced at $399 -- are expected to roll out over the next few months.

The widget-enabled 3D apps will run not just with the new Blu-ray drive, but also the LED TVs, all of which are IP-capable. The first dozen apps include Rovi TV Listings, Yahoo, and streaming video movie apps from Netflix, Blockbuster, and Vudu, along with several games. One of the applications due out later this month is a Skype video conferencing app that will use a custom camera. The camera is slated to sit on top of a Samsung TV and to be sold by Skype.

Although all of the apps released in March will be offered free of charge, Samsung plans to start selling "premium" apps over this summer, Betanews was told.

Samsung dubbed the press conference "3D Wonder," and the name turned out to be apt for more reasons than one. Many of the journalists did marvel at the quality of the Samsung-supplied 3D experience, particularly during an airing at the event of a 3D Dreamworks' Shrek movie displayed on a huge "cube" of LCD panels.

Yet some also wondered aloud whether, during the current deep recession, all that many consumers will be willing to invest in the 3D ware, which Samsung is pricing at the rate of $150 for a pair of 3D glasses and about $1,599.99 to $6,999.99 for a 3D TV.

Source: Betanews | 10 Mar 2010 | 3:31 am

Rock Band 3 confirmed for holiday release, will “revolutionize” genre

Source: Neowin.net | 10 Mar 2010 | 3:30 am

Denon Announces A/V Receivers Compatible with Windows 7

Yesterday, Denon announced that much of their current line of audio and video (A/V) receivers have earned Compatible with Windows 7 logo.

The following models have received the logo:

• AVR-4310CI
• AVR-3310CI
• AVR-990
• AVR-4810CI (recently released and shown above)
• ASD-51W
• ASD-51N

Denon has also said that their new A/V receivers, scheduled to be announced in 2010, will also carry the Compatible with Windows 7 logo.

As you’re building your stereo system at home or looking to update an existing stereo system, you should definitely consider A/V receivers such as Denon’s models that carry the Compatible with Windows 7 logo. That means these receivers work great and can take advantage of Windows 7. For example if one of the Denon receiver models above powers your stereo system at home, you can use Windows 7’s Play To feature to streaming your music to your stereo system over your home network.

Denon’s A/V receivers with the Compatible with Windows 7 logo come with built-in Ethernet and wireless allowing the unit to connect right up to your wireless network.

Because Denon’s units are not just audio receivers but video receivers too, one of their devices connected through HDMI to a HDTV can receive HD video streamed from any one of your Windows 7 PCs in your home using Play To.

Source: The Windows Blog | 10 Mar 2010 | 2:25 am

American cities fight for Google's attention

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

One month ago, Google put the word out that it was looking to build and test its own fiber-to-the-home networks in a couple of cities. The speeds would be up to 1 Gbps and the reach would initially be about 50,000 homes.

Immediately, hundreds of cities began making pitches to attract Google's attention, some earnest, some outlandish.

Topeka, Kansas unofficially renamed itself "Google" for the month and garnered a considerable amount of attention; Sarasota, Florida quickly followed suit and re-named its City Island "Google Island".

Duluth, Minnesota's mayor Don Ness jumped into a 35 degree Lake Superior as a dual-purpose media event for Google Fiber and the Special Olympics; and 1,000 Morgantown, West Virginia residents last week held up signs saying "We Want a Gig" at the WVU-Georgetown basketball game.

But the majority of the cities interested in getting Google Fiber haven't resorted to cheap publicity stunts, and are hoping that their answers to Google's Request for Information will be much more convincing.

"I think we're going to draw the line at silly stunts," Madison, Wisconsin alderman Mark Clear said today. City officials there are hosting a public meeting to gather ideas for their pitch and show the community's interest in the project.

Juneau, Alaska has made the case that its isolated, mountainous location will serve as an ideal testing ground since it is both environmentally challenging and populous.

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley reminded us of Baltimore's historical significance as "that place from which our nation's railroads emanated, and the place that was the source of the first telegraph message ever sent."

Kalamazoo, Michigan is using health care as its wager. The Kalamazoo Gazette's Editorial board argues that its modern health care facilities and its major medical corporations Pfizer and Stryker could benefit greatly from the fiber network.

In just under three weeks, we will be able to see which approach worked. March 26 is the last day Google will accept submissions for its fiber optic trial, and it will announce which cities it has chosen shortly after.

Source: Betanews | 10 Mar 2010 | 12:13 am

Almost #3 now: Dell's decline is Acer's gain

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

With the economic sinkhole of 2008-09 now a figment of many technology companies' past, most PC manufacturers are back on their regularly scheduled growth curve. Last month, Dell had indicated to investors that it was returning to that curve as well, reporting "product shipments...up at double-digit rates year-over-year" during its end-of-fiscal year 2010 earnings report.

According to iSuppli, which tracks worldwide PC unit shipments, that Dell claim -- which not a single analyst even questioned at the time, according to Seeking Alpha's transcript of Dell's February 18 earnings conference -- gives "plus or minus" a whole new meaning. The market analyst firm's statistics on full-year unit shipments, published today, show Dell's numbers declining by 9.946% during calendar year 2009. Dell's fiscal 2010 began in February 2009, so iSuppli's numbers cover most of that period plus January 2010 -- in a quarter where Dell actually recovered slightly.

Dell shipped just under 39 million PCs, which is beneath the psychological benchmark of 10 million units per quarter. In the last quarter, Acer topped Dell for the first time in quarterly units shipped; and this last quarter, put some distance between itself and Dell, gaining 1.5% of worldwide market share in the last quarter of 2009. Acer shipped 11.86 million PCs during that quarter -- almost 29% more units than for the previous year's final quarter -- and 38.48 million for the full year.

What's Acer's secret? According to the breakdown by iSuppli principal analyst Matthew Wilkins, Acer doesn't waste its time selling desktop PCs in markets that don't want them. As a result, four out of every five units Acer ships are notebook PCs, and it can concentrate on selling those notebooks in heavier volume in markets such as North America.

Dell's breakdown is a little fuzzier, with iSuppli only being able to ascertain that its mix of desktop PCs to notebook PCs has declined at a lesser rate than the rest of the industry. (Again, nobody asked.) Last February, Dell executives credited higher shipment rates in the storage systems segment (a non-consumer division) as contributing to the company's generally better revenue numbers. Perhaps that's the double-digit gain Dell was referring to. But the second quarter report credits the Mobility division with 31% of net revenue for fiscal year 2010, versus 25% for desktop PCs. Gross margin for Dell in its last fiscal year slipped to a minuscule 16.6%.

Source: Betanews | 9 Mar 2010 | 11:38 pm

MSN Homepage Launch Begins Today

Today is an exciting milestone for MSN. We are beginning the launch of our new homepage to our customers in the U.S. The new MSN homepage cuts through the clutter with a clean, new design and offers search, news, local and social networking – all in one place. We encourage you to try the new homepage today and learn more about the many cool features.

Since the preview of our new homepage began in November, we’ve been very busy gathering over 70,000 pieces of customer feedback and introducing over 30 updates in our quest to deliver the best homepage to stay in the know.

Check it out here: http://www.msn.com/preview.aspx 

Source: http://msnblog.msn.com/blogpost.aspx?post=1686726

Send via e-mail | Submit to Digg | Add to Live Favorites

Source: Bink.nu | 9 Mar 2010 | 11:14 pm

Working with the HTML5 Community

We’re always excited to engage with members of the W3C including the developers of other browsers as well as the broader web development community to help shape the direction of emerging Web standards, particularly HTML5.  This includes participating in events like TPAC, which we wrote about in November, and on-going engagement with various working groups.  Patrick recently talked about joining the SVG working group, and I’d like to share a brief list of other happenings on the way to making HTML5 well-defined, well-tested, and accessible:

• Providing feedback on HTML5
  Tony Ross, Internet Explorer Program Manager, and Jonas Sicking of Mozilla, led a discussion about extensibility in HTML5 at TPAC after our initial submission.  While the working group hasn’t resolved the issue yet, we think the event helped inform everyone and generate the different proposals submitted since. 
• Testing HTML5
  Kris Krueger, Internet Explorer Test Lead, was appointed facilitator of the W3C HTML5 Testing Task Force.  The task force has set up necessary infrastructure like a wiki, Bugzilla, a work item tracker, and CVS repository for test cases.  With that in place, they’ve started to review DOM Level 2 HTML test cases to use as the start of HTML5 testing.  As with CSS2.1, we think a good test suite is critical to ensuring a specification results in interoperable implementations.
• Ensuring new specifications enable accessibility
  We care deeply about an accessible web so besides implementing accessibility-focused browser features, we’re working with Apple, IBM, and other interested parties to ensure the new HTML5 <canvas> and <video> elements have great accessibility support so everyone can use sites leveraging them.  This work is driven by the Accessibility Task Force.  Together, we’re working on <canvas> HTML prototypes to use as ‘proof of concepts’ to ensure the feature is well-designed, as discussed in a recent teleconference. 
• Indexed DB Proposal
  Together with Mozilla, we’re excited about a new design for local storage called Indexed DB.  We think this is a great solution for the web.  Look for another post with more information about this proposal.  In the meantime, you can read the latest working draft. 
• DOM Level 3 Events
  Travis Leithead, Internet Explorer Program Manager, continues to help close down open issues with the latest editor’s draft. It’s been awhile since the working group published the last working draft and the group plans to publish an update soon that will improve clarity for implementers and web authors alike. On a recent teleconference, we noted that DOM Level 2 Events was published as a Recommendation nearly 10 years ago; it’s exciting to have the next milestone in sight!

Finally, you can read an interview with Paul Cotton from Microsoft and co-Chair of the W3C HTML Working Group on the W3C Blog.

Adrian Bateman
Program Manager

Source: IEBlog | 9 Mar 2010 | 10:23 pm

That wasn't supposed to happen: IE usage share steady since choice screen

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The window of opportunity may be closing for the first test of government mandated fairness and equal choice among Web browsers, with neutral results. There are a number of studies recently that say computer users in general have a tendency to automatically distrust notices that pop up on their screen. More attention was paid to those studies since last March, after Microsoft's deployment of Internet Explorer 8 over Windows Update was followed by a general downtrend in IE usage, interrupted by a brief respite in early October, according to global tracking data from analytics vendor StatCounter.

If what Microsoft's security representatives have said is true -- that the key window for adoption of an update or patch usually comes a few days after Patch Tuesday -- then StatCounter's tracking data for IE usage in Europe could count as sweet revenge. Since Microsoft deployed its browser choice screen for European users, in compliance with European Commission directives, on March 1, StatCounter reports European usage share for all versions of Internet Explorer has stayed steady at about 46.6%, with negligible gains since the beginning of the month.

This while Mozilla Firefox continues an unusual decline of about two points of European usage share since the first of the year, and relative newcomer Google Chrome ticks up at about one point per month.

So far, Internet Explorer 6 usage remains rock solid at 6.37% as of yesterday, tied with Chrome 4 in usage share for Europe. This as the adoption rate of Firefox 3.6 among former users of version 3.5 has tapered off somewhat. Worldwide usage share of IE6 continues to decline at the almost invisible rate of a tenth of a point per week.

Thus far, there's no indication from StatCounter's charts that the browser screen has impacted the usage rate of any browser on the continent, one way or the other. The trends that had been in place, including the tapering off of Firefox 3.6 adoption, appear to be continuing.

Anyone looking for a technical reason for this lack of a trend may not be able to point to faulty algorithms anymore. In recent days, Microsoft implemented a fix to the randomization of browser choices on its browserchoice.eu Web site, in response to a discovery that was validated last week by IBM's Rob Weir, that the JavaScript function Math.random used by IE wasn't shuffling browsers' positions fairly. The revised code now clearly employs a random shuffling algorithm, which creates arrays of pointers that exchange places with one another like shuffling cards -- an alternative that Weir and others had suggested.

As Weir posted on Saturday, Microsoft's revised code is now about as fair as it gets, with each of the top five browsers getting 20% placement, plus or minus only a few thousandths of a point. As a suggestion for the future, Weir pointed out the irony of searching for proper programming methodologies using, ironically, Google Search.

"Several commenters mentioned that if you search Google for 'javascript random array sort,' the first link returned will be a JavaScript tutorial that has the same offending code as Microsoft's algorithm. This is not surprising," Weir wrote. "As I said in my original post, this is a well-known mistake. But it is no less a mistake. If you use Google Code Search for the query "0.5 - Math.random()" lang:javascript you will find 50 or so other instances of the faulty algorithm. So if anyone else is using this same algorithm, they should evaluate whether it is really sufficiently random for their needs. In some case, such as a children's game, it might be fine. But know that there are better and faster algorithms available that are not much more complicated to code."

Source: Betanews | 9 Mar 2010 | 10:10 pm

New, Modern PCs Can Save Small Businesses Time and Money

Helping small businesses not just survive but thrive is key to our global economic recovery. Together, small and midsize businesses employ the majority of the world’s workforce and as we all know, will be the key to future job creation.

Cutting costs and being more productive are top of mind for all of us, including small business owners who had to hunker down over the past couple of years. As a result, many are now faced with aging hardware that doesn’t meet the demands of today’s business environment. Small business owners are ready for new PCs but are wondering if now is the right time to make that investment.

Market research firm Techaisle conducted a survey with 1000 small businesses in the US, UK, China, Brazil and India, funded in part by Microsoft and Intel, and found that having older PCs negatively impact small businesses in several ways, including productivity and maintenance costs. What’s more, the study found that 40 percent of PCs in small businesses are more than 3 years old, and many are still running Windows XP (which was released about a decade ago and whose support is about to end.)

Techaisle’s research showed that there are five main ways small businesses can benefit from newer PCs, including better security, improved productivity (40% less downtime than older PCs,) often 1.5 times less costly to maintain, they can take advantage of newer applications and enhanced support – all benefits that should save small businesses real time and money.

Looking at specific hardware and software innovations that help make new PCs more efficient and the people that use them more productive, Techaisle pointed out the benefits such as improved graphics, energy efficiency and wireless communication in PCs with faster, multicore processors, including those in Intel’s 2010 Core vPro processor family. Techaisle suggested upgrading to Microsoft’s Windows 7, in particular Windows 7 Professional, rather than Home Premium, for its advantages in stability, security, collaboration, manageability and compatibility with older applications.

We’re glad to see these benefits coming through for small businesses because they helped us build Windows 7 Professional and identify the benefits that mattered most on a variety of new business PCs. Our passion is helping small businesses thrive – we encourage small businesses to go to our Windows for Small and Midsize Businesses site to learn more about Windows 7 Professional.

And if you’re wondering where to find out about the new, hot business PCs available out there – check out our blogs on Dell’s new Vostro 3000 (announced today!), HP’s new PCs for businesses, and Lenovo’s new ThinkPads.

We also want to hear from you how we can take your technology experience to the next level for your business – drop us a note!

Source: The Windows Blog | 9 Mar 2010 | 9:02 pm

Sony proves PS3 is still a movie machine with HD content from all major studios

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 have lagged behind Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Xbox 360 for most of this generation, and the PSP and PSP Go now face a serious threat from Apple's iPhone OS-based handhelds. Despite these factors, though, Sony has managed to set up one of the strongest Web-based storefronts for digital content distribution to its consoles. Offering full downloadable games, add-ons, XMB customizations, game trailers, and HD Hollywood feature films and television episodes for rent or purchase, the PlayStation Network is an attractive and easily navigable repository for media on Sony game machines.

It's a shame that setting up and hosting online games for the PS3 isn't as simple as its store.

Today, Sony announced the "Movies" section of the PlayStation Network has finally been completed, and HD content from all six major US movie studios (20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros.) is now available.

"PlayStation Network is the first and only service to deliver high definition home entertainment from all six major studios, directly to consumers for download," said Peter Dille, SCEA senior vice president of marketing and PlayStation Network.

Sony did not give a number today of how many titles are available from these studios, but instead listed 19 releases that hit the US PlayStation store in High Definition today.

The "completed" store will launch next in the UK, France, Germany, and Spain.

Source: Betanews | 9 Mar 2010 | 8:52 pm

Dell Introduces Vostro 3000 Series Windows PCs

Dell today, is introducing the Vostro 3000 series of Windows PCs targeting specifically at the Small Business customer.

The new thin, lightweight and durable laptop computers feature powerful processors, high-end graphics and built-in security, and are designed for small businesses; helping them stretch their budget and protect their data, and come with dedicated small business services and support to keep a small businesses moving.

Vostro 3000 series consists of a 17” model (Vostro 3700), a 15” model (Vostro 3500), a 14” model (Vostro 3400), and a 13” model (Vostro 3300). And they come packing quite a “punch”.

The Vostro 3000 series will come with the latest Intel Core processors, including, the optional the quad-core Intel Core i7 processor available on the Vostro 3700. The Vostro 3300 is one of the thinnest commercial 13” laptops with an integrated optical drive. And the Vostro 3400 can offer up to a full day of productivity while “out-and-about” with up to 8 hours (based on lab testing and could vary by configuration) of battery life with an optional 9-cell battery. The Vostro 3700, 3500, and 3400 can come with an optional high-definition WLED screen and the 3700 offers up to 1GB NVIDIA GeForce discrete graphics.

All of the Vostro 3000 series PCs ship with built-in microphones and webcams as well, a full range of wireless options including 802.11g/n, Bluetooth, and mobile broadband. Oh and Dell is also offering an optional fingerprint reader too!

For more information on the new Vostro 3000 Series Windows PCs, see this blog post on Direct2Dell by Alex Gruzen, Senior Vice President for Dell Consumer and SMB. More photos of the Vostro 3000 Series can be seen here on Dell’s Flickr page.

The Vostro 3000 Series of Windows PCs look to be a powerful family of business-class PCs perfect for the small business user.

Source: The Windows Blog | 9 Mar 2010 | 7:30 pm

Samsung reveals just how expensive 3D in the home is going to be

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

At CES this year, every major consumer electronics company involved in the HDTV market had floorspace dedicated to 3D TVs. They were convinced that 3D in the home is ready for widespread adoption, and the popularity of James Cameron's Avatar would kickstart adoption.

Samsung today announced its full 2010 3D TV lineup, which shows just how expensive it's going to be to upgrade your home theater to the third dimension.

The 3D TV lineup includes the LED 7000/8000/9000 Series (starting at $1,999.99, about halfway down the chart), the LCD 750 Series, and the Plasma 7000/8000 Series. The 46" and 55" LED C7000 will be available this month, and the rest will roll out at different points during the spring.

But the TV is only one part of the whole setup. You will need at least a 3D-capable Blu-ray player, one pair of active shutter glasses for every viewer, and, of course, the 3D discs. Samsung will be selling its 3D Blu-ray player for $399.99, and its Blu-Ray home theater system for $899.99 this April.

With the immediate point of entry at $2,400, Samsung could at least throw in some stitches to close the wound to your bank account. So the company announced a promotion program where customers who buy a 3D TV and 3D Blu-ray player will get two pairs of active shutter glasses and a 3D Blu-ray copy of Monsters vs. Aliens for free.

Tomorrow, Panasonic is expected to unveil its 3D offerings for the year with a similar promotional tie-in with Best Buy.

Source: Betanews | 9 Mar 2010 | 6:12 pm

Welcome back to the big leagues: Opera denies severity of 10.5 exploit

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

12:02 pm EST March 9, 2010 · A spokesperson for Opera Software provided Betanews this morning with a summary of a complete blog post on the alleged exploit of Opera 10.5, published moments ago:

"The original report about the Windows-only malformed Content-length header problem is not a security issue, but a variant of the issue, brought to our attention by Secunia, has a theoretical possibility of allowing arbitrary code to run. We have developed a fix for the problem, which is being tested, and are planning to release an update of Opera soon. Until then, if Opera crashes on an untrusted site, you should avoid visiting that site again."

11:52 am EST March 9, 2010 · Though Opera, like all Web browsers, has never been immune to exploits, the news of the first serious exploit to affect its new and groundbreaking version 10.5 now has the company's representatives taking time away from shoring up the final Mac version of 10.5, to respond to what security firm Secunia is calling a "highly critical" exploit in the new product.

Last Wednesday, purported PHP server-side exploit code for Opera appeared on a "gray-hat" Web site where such exploits are commonly found. The author's name is credited as Marcin Ressel -- who, contrary to blog reports, does not appear to be an engineer either with Secunia or Vupen Security (it could just be a made-up identity, for all anyone knows). In his code listing, Ressel left contact information for an e-mail address using the Polish .PL domain, along with a playlist of favorite music from a Polish streaming site.

In the comments section of the code, Ressel describes the exploit as, "Integer overflow leading to out of bounds array access R/W [read/write]." The overflow is apparently triggered by a maliciously malformed HTTP response header; specifically, the Content-Length property is replaced with a bunch of '9's.

An examination of the code indicates, by the author's own admission, it may not be very sophisticated. For example, the statement that generates the malformed header is capped with the comment, /*Generated by my own fuzzer*/ -- which could mean that he wrote a fuzzer, or that he happens to own an effective fuzzer. The code does appear to try to establish a stealth socket connection with the client, which the code presumes is Opera (it does test for operating system, but does not appear to test for browser brand).

So the question is whether the exploit code, after generating an exception, delivers a malicious payload to the Opera browser. In a statement last Friday, Opera Communications Director Tor Odland told the Norweigian tech news service Digi.no all of one sentence: that Opera had confirmed the exploit was not harmful. And in a follow-up statement this morning on Twitter, Opera engineer Haavard wrote, "Our security guys are working on proper public information on Secunia advisory 38820." This after having tweeted earlier that no one on Opera's development team has been able to actually deliver a malicious payload using the exploit.

The Secunia advisory, published last Thursday, states, "Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code." The keyword here could be "may," as opposed to "does" or "will."

Ressel's comments indicated that while the exploit affected Opera version 10.5 for sure, he felt confident that it probably affected version 10.1 or earlier. The Secunia advisory made the same claim, effectively that older versions were possibly impacted. And while Vupen's advisory claimed its team had confirmed only that 10.5 was vulnerable, the term "prior" was used under "Affected Products." It might, or may, or will be nice for someone to actually try that out and see.

Source: Betanews | 9 Mar 2010 | 5:52 pm

Chip Shot: OEMs Deliver Intel-embedded WiMAX Laptops as VMAX Lights Up Taipei

Source: Intel Press Room | 9 Mar 2010 | 5:12 pm

TechNet Magazine March 2010

Editor's Note: TechNet Magazine Readers Speak, We Listen
We asked TechNet Magazine readers for their input, and you delivered in spades. Read on to find out what new services we're providing based on reader feedback.
by Jeff James

Virtualization: Shimming Applications for App-V4.6
Chris Jackson explains how to make your applications compatible with Windows 7 in a virtualized environment using Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V).
by Chris Jackson

Tip of the day

Get a Free Set of PowerShell Commands for Managing Hyper-V R2
Windows PowerShell doesn’t include this library of functions. But with them, managing Hyper-V directly from the shell is much simpler.

Featured Articles
Privacy in the Cloud Computing Era: A Microsoft Perspective
by Microsoft
Microsoft, NSF Open Azure to Researchers
by David Nagel
Can We Secure Cloud Computing? Can We Afford Not To?
by Microsoft BlueHat Blog
Clouds Done Right
by Iqbal Khan
Microsoft to Congress: Time to Seed Cloud Computing
by Wyatt Cash

TechNet Magazine Home

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Source: Bink.nu | 9 Mar 2010 | 4:21 pm

Office 2010 Beta Resource Kit Technical Library in Compiled Help format

Downloadable CHM version of Office 2010 Beta Resource Kit content on TechNet.

This downloadable CHM is a copy of content in the Office 2010 Beta Resource Kit technical library. The CHM is current as of the date above. For the latest information, see the technical library on the Web.

Download At Source

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Source: Bink.nu | 9 Mar 2010 | 4:19 pm

Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Dynamic Data Center—Join the Beta Now!

The Solution Accelerator team is working on a new guide: Dynamic Data Center.

The design process in the free Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Dynamic Data Center allows your organization to strategically plan a Dynamic Data Center infrastructure that is designed for ease of manageability. Key benefits of the guide include:

· The infrastructure is designed using best practices to reduce the administrative burden of managing the Dynamic Data Center.
· A single set of requirements is tracked throughout the entire design process and then transferred to the appropriate supporting Infrastructure Planning and Design guides.
· The infrastructure design of the virtualization hardware and the management software includes determining the scaling and architectural limits of each component.

With this guide, you can design a Dynamic Data Center that will allow your organization to be responsive to changing market conditions by presenting new ways to develop, deliver, deploy, and manage applications and IT infrastructures.

Strategically planning your infrastructure can help you avoid problems before they begin, allowing you to serve your customers more accurately and reliably, as well as saving you time and money.

Click here to sign up for the beta

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Source: Bink.nu | 9 Mar 2010 | 4:18 pm

Chip Shot: Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow Goes Mobile - Postcard Style

Source: Intel Press Room | 8 Mar 2010 | 11:13 pm

Windows Phone Sessions at MIX10

MIX is right around the corner, and the Windows Phone 7 Series developer team (@wp7dev) is very excited to be talking about the development platform. This is a guest post by Joey deVilla, Microsoft Developer Evangelist, about our upcoming sessions at MIX.

We’d love to see you at MIX, but if you can’t make it, all the sessions will be streamed over at http://live.visitmix.com/ We’ll also have content making it over to Channel9 over the course of next week.

I hope to see you at MIX!

@ai

Source: The Windows Blog | 8 Mar 2010 | 11:04 pm

Latest HTML5 working draft published despite claims of 'sabotage'

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Should the next version of HTML, the Web standard that embodies how pages are laid out and constructed, include explicit specifications for inline, 2D dynamic graphics? There's valid arguments on both sides. One side believes that the ability to plot charts and animations would have been part of the original HTML standard anyway, had the technology existed on the back end in the beginning; giving HTML 2D graphics now, they say, plugs a hole left open for too long. Another believes the HTML5 standard should simply specify an API for plug-ins, to let separate groups of engineers evolve a methodology for plotting graphics at their own pace, and on their own track.

From one angle, the debate appears as innocuous as this: Should graphics be considered within the scope of a markup language, or not? But any debate on the topic of Web standards development has never sustained continued viewing from one angle alone. From another angle entirely, one can't help but notice that the principal advocate of letting the so-called Canvas element be developed separately, is an engineer with Adobe, which has more than the average stake in the outcome of Web graphics development.

When the Adobe stakeholder appears to agree with the co-chair of the working group, who hails from Microsoft; and the author of the would-be Working Draft document has ties to Google, it's not long before someone from Opera Software, quite literally, cries "Sabotage!"

Last month, among members of the W3C's HTML5 Working Group, a dispute arose over whether the Working Group had the authority to declare the specifications for the Canvas element (not just the plug-in, but the component itself) part of HTML5. Adobe engineer Larry Masinter raised the point that he believed the decision had already been made to split Canvas 2D into its own First Public Working Draft (FPWD).

Indeed, there was evidence to back Masinter up on this point, as other W3C participants were either working under the belief that Canvas 2D was on its own track, or noting that a dispute on that issue had yet to be resolved. During a W3C presentation last month, long-time project leader Philippe Le Hégaret acknowledged that a specific difficulty remained before the Last Call Working Draft -- the next-to-last stage on the diagram he was showing the audience -- could be completed.

"If you take a specification like the HTML5 specification, it's still in the Working Draft status," reads Yahoo's official transcript of the presentation. "We still have several open issues opened against the document. In particular, several accessibility issues that need to be resolved before we can move the document to Last Call."

By "accessibility," Le Hégaret was using a keyword in the argument in favor of breaking Canvas out from HTML5: that letting a separate group handle it at its own speed, would make Canvas more accessible to its own developers.

In an interview published by the W3C just last Friday, Le Hégaret corresponded with HTML5 Working Group Co-chair Paul Cotton, who also manages Web Services Standards Strategy for Microsoft Canada. In an obviously leading question (like I've never asked a leading question myself), Le Hégaret asked Cotton to explain what HTML5 has evolved to become, in the broad sense. "I agree that many of us use the term 'HTML5' very loosely," began Cotton's response, obviously agreeing with someone in the room.

"First, I believe that most people use the term 'HTML5' to refer to the HTML5 specification currently being worked on by the HTML WG," he continued. "The HTML5 specification defines the syntax and the semantics of the elements and attributes in the HTML markup language and several of the APIs that are used to process HTML documents. Recently the HTML WG has started to break the HTML5 specification into more modular and separate Working Drafts -- e.g., HTML+RDFa, HTML Microdata, and HTML Canvas 2D Context. The HTML WG is also publishing two additional documents to aid users of HTML5: the HTML5 differences from HTML4 specification and HTML: The Markup Language which is aimed at developers that produce HTML5 output. Each of these additional Working Drafts are still part of 'HTML5' and are all on track to become separate but related W3C Recommendations or Working Group Notes. I believe that the content of these WDs taken together will define the part of 'HTML5' being worked on by the HTML WG."

That's how Microsoft's participant described the situation just last Friday. Last February 5, in the Working Group's public mailing list, Adobe's Masinter made it clear he believed Canvas 2D was being split into a separate Working Draft document, and that he disagreed with others' assessment that the WG's own director could somehow also include it concurrently within HTML5.

A diagram of the typical evolutionary process of a W3C Working Draft, from a February 2010 presentation by HTML5 Working Group member Philippe Le Hégaret.

The following Monday, it appeared as though Le Hégaret sided with the gathering consensus that Canvas is essentially already part of the understood scope of the broader document. However, he did suggest a kind of intermediate solution: the document modularization concept. "The scope of the [Working Group] charter says: 'This group will maintain and produce incremental revisions to the HTML specification,' and the deliverables indicates: 'a language evolved from HTML4 for describing the semantics of documents and applications on the World Wide Web.' I don't think it sets boundaries on what ought to be part of the HTML specification. Whether the figure, video, or data-* is inside the HTML5 specification or in an adjunct doesn't make a difference. We've been encouraged on several occasions to modularize the HTML specification itself, in fact. The Context 2D API was part of the HTML5 specification even before the creation of the charter and was accepted as such by the Working Group."

As the minutes of the public meeting of the Working Group from the following Thursday, February 11, indicate, when one of the meeting co-chairs -- Microsoft's Paul Cotton -- stated that the requested changes (the "diffs") were being worked into the Call for Consensus document -- implying that all was going swimmingly -- Adobe's Masinter interrupted. "Do I need to repeat objections?" he asked. "The co-chairs are aware of the formal objection," Cotton responded.

The other co-chair was IBM engineer and Apache contributor Sam Ruby. "It would be helpful to repeat the objection," Ruby said. "It would be helpful to people who aren't reading w3-archive e-mail," Cotton added, referring to the administrative mailing list for private issues among members -- usually points of order.

But here, Le Hégaret made a bold statement: "We won't approve the [First Public Working Drafts] until the [Formal Objection] is resolved." What formal objection? Wasn't there a dispute over whether there even was an objection? Cotton asked Masinter and Le Hégaret to forward their objections to the public list for everyone to read; they agreed.

Next: The search for a conspiracy theory...

The search for a conspiracy theory

So how deep was this problem? According to the HTML5 document's designated author, Ian Hickson, it was the standards world's equivalent of a Senate filibuster: "The latest publication of HTML5 is now blocked by Adobe, via an objection that has still not been made public (despite yesterday's promise to make it so)," Hickson wrote. He cited a source who apparently wished to remain anonymous, for reasons he said had to do with belonging to "one of the secret W3C member lists," implying that the Working Group had a public agenda and a private one. This despite the fact that the differences between Masinter's and Cotton's perception of the matter may have been trivial at best.

Later, in a blog post entitled "Sabotage!" obviously intended to raise the eyebrows of would-be news aggregators, Opera Software engineer Anne Van Kesteren essentially alleged Adobe -- the manufacturer of Flash, a proprietary graphics technology -- was blocking the forward progress of HTML5 on a technicality: "The objection to HTML Canvas 2D Context is spurious in particular since it has been part of the W3C draft of HTML5 since the very beginning," Van Kesteren wrote. "The scope question for that API has been raised two years ago and was resolved back then, involving all the layers of W3C, including its Director. That it is now decided to publish it is a separate document does not change the resolution of this decision on scope."

But while the "sabotage" story was raging, the creator of the Web himself, Tim Berners-Lee, called upon the W3C to implement an "annotation" to the Working Group charter to enable the modularity that Cotton referred to. "I agree with the WG chairs that these items -- data and Canvas -- are reasonable areas of work for the group. It is appropriate for the group to publish documents in this area. On the one hand, they elaborate areas touched on in HTML4. On the other, these elaborations are much deeper than the features of HTML4, but also they form separate subsystems, and these subsystems have strong overlaps with other design areas. It is important (a) that the design be modular; (b) that the specifications be kept modular and (c) that the communities of expertise of the respective fields (graphics and data) be involved in the design process. I am asking the domain lead to annotate the charter in place to make these points clearer to newcomers."

Calling the entire substance of the blocking/filibuster allegation "hooey" in a personal blog post two weeks ago, Larry Masinter revealed not only that he followed through with his procedural objection, but he essentially got what he wanted: a change in the charter of the Working Group so that it did encompass Canvas 2D, rather than having a charter that appeared to contradict its own work. But then Masinter's retort took on the broader, and more timeless, topic of what the devil is going on here anyway.

"Updating the charter to say these things were in scope was always a way of bringing them into scope," Masinter wrote. "That W3C wanted to save face and call it an 'annotation' and skip the normal W3C rechartering process -- well, so many exceptions were made for HTML in the first place, that's fine. What makes a 'standard' process 'open' isn't just 'everyone can read the mailing list.' Trying to follow the HTML standard requires withstanding a 'denial of service' attack; thousands of e-mails, messages, posts, edits to track every single month. No one person can really follow what's going on.

"I've worked on scores (more than 20 and probably more than 40) different working group charters," Masinter continued. "I think I really understand why working groups have charters, how the words in a charter are chosen carefully, and why it's important to keep things in scope. Is that being nit-picky? Yes, but that's what I do. And, I claim, it's what makes good standards: Follow process, pay attention to details. My perspective is that what makes a good standard is very different than what makes a good implementation guide. Many otherwise good software engineers (even those with a great deal of experience) really don't see it, since their experience and intuitions have served them well in building complex software systems, or leading open source projects."

As of now, the HTML5 Working Drafts are officially published, with Canvas 2D among a handful of specifications broken out into modular drafts of their own, as Berners-Lee advised. And that prompted a note of applause last Friday from Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 Program Manager Adrian Bateman: "Just like good software design, loose coupling and high cohesion are good principles for defining web standards. That doesn't make them easy to apply and there is still more work to do to reduce the coupling between drafts. The group is working on improving the tools used to generate the documents to improve the cross-references, which will help towards this goal."

Bateman's comments have contributed to blog posts today pointing to "rumors" that IE9, and Microsoft in turn, would come around to supporting HTML5. This despite the fact that its own man may be to thank for getting the whole draft put together prior to Microsoft's MIX conference next week.

Source: Betanews | 8 Mar 2010 | 11:01 pm

PC gaming service Steam ported to Mac, lets users buy titles on both platforms at no extra cost

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Valve Corporation's Steam is the leading digital distribution channel for PC games. With over 1,000 titles available for purchase, an integrated social network and database of open game servers, Steam has attracted more than 25 million users since launching in 2003.

Today, Valve officially announced Steam will be coming to Mac in April, along with Source, the 3D gaming engine used in popular games such as Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Counter-Strike.

Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve said, "Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac. Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play."

John Cook, Director of Steam Development said, "We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients."

Source: Betanews | 8 Mar 2010 | 9:18 pm

10 things Microsoft did right in 2010 (so far)

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

It's throw-Microsoft-a-bone Monday, not that I can promise much meat on it. Microsoft may have fallen behind in mobile, been talking about a three-screen strategy off of two screens, and clumsily competed as usual, but some early 2010 actions deserve at least a little praise. So here's where I give it.

First, some context. There's doing right -- and there's doing right. Some of the stuff here I'll assert Microsoft did right I previously dinged the company for getting wrong. That's because what's right for Microsoft might be wrong in a greater competitive landscape, like taking right action A too slowly or not soon enough. With that introduction, here are 10 things Microsoft has done right in 2010 (so far), presented in no order of importance. Microsoft...

1. Started over with Windows 7 Phone Series. Microsoft was right to start with a fresh new mobile operating system (if it's really as new as claimed). Windows Mobile -- now called Windows Phone Classic -- had run aground. I called Windows 7 Phone Series a "lost cause" because new supporting handsets aren't expected until around the holidays. The time horizon is simply too long. But matters would have been much worse had v7 been a makeover v6.x and delivered (as rumored) next year. Microsoft made the tough decision of building new.

2. Put user experience before backward compatibility with Windows 7 Phone Series. I do hope this is a sign of more changes to come. For decades, Microsoft has prioritized back compatibility, often hobbling new products -- and so the developer and customer experiences. With Windows Phone 7 Series, existing 6.x devices will not be upgradable. From a Windows 6.x device sales perspective, the no-upgrade policy is nothing short of disastrous. That's a short-term sacrifice Microsoft makes now for possible long-term gain -- assuring a better user experience for Windows Phone 7 Series devices. Like many of the things in this Top 10 list, something done wrong also is something done right.

3. Took down the Waledac botnet. In late February, Microsoft wrangling gained a court order to shutdown nearly 230 Internet domains alleged to have been used by cybercriminals. Microsoft scored a major triumph against a major botnet.

4. Released Outlook Social Connector beta. Outlook is rapidly looking outdated, even with the spruced up user interface coming with Office 2010. Outlook Social Connector beta for Office 2007 mimics functionality built into v2010. The People Pane is a nice start, but Microsoft has got to expand its social circle beyond LinkedIn and in-company or outside-organization relationships exposed through Outlook (and other supporting Microsoft corporate software).

5. Filed a complaint -- and encouraged others to do so -- against Google in the European Union. Google is rapidly becoming a dangerous monopoly, more so than Microsoft in the 1990s. While the EU's investigation is at best preliminary, the complaints are potentially more dangerous than some Microsoft Watchers suggest. A single complaint, made by Sun in 1998, led to the Europe's Competition Commission 2004 ruling that Microsoft violated local antitrust laws. A second ruling followed, leading Microsoft last week to offer a browser ballot box in Europe. Microsoft's own experience is lesson enough how potentially beneficial a competitive complaint can be.

6. Killed Essential Business Server. EBS was a great idea in 2008 -- to offer midrange, midpriced server software for midsize businesses. But the weak economy and loss of the project's originator (from Microsoft to to the Federal Communications Commission) changed everything. Perhaps if Steven VanRoekel had stayed at Microsoft, EBS' fate would have been different.

7. Extended .NET, Silverlight and XNA development across three screens, including Windows Phone 7 Series. Microsoft already had development pieces in place for two screens -- PC and game console. By supporting Windows Phone, Microsoft creates opportunity for developers to create games or other applications one time for consumption on multiple devices.

8. Demonstrated Skinput. During last week's TechFest, Microsoft researchers showed off skin -- on the forearm -- as a natural user interface. Microsoft Research paper "Skinput: Appropriating the Body as an Input Surface" offers a wonderful overview of the concept. My teenage daughter writes reminders on her arm nearly everyday. In California, seemingly everyone under the age of 35 has several tattoos. Why not use the skin even more functionally? The technology takes advantage of the varying acoustic properties of skin and bones.  Skinput is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that gives hope about future Microsoft innovation.

9. Launched Mediaroom 2.0. Microsoft's living room strategy is a work in progress -- and has been since the debut of Windows Media Center nearly a decade ago. Slow progress is still progress -- and Mediaroom 2.0 offers much for telcos looking to deliver a television programming experience better than cable (as an AT&T U-verse customer I can attest to the better-than-cable experience). Then there is the coming Mediaroom support for Xbox. As aforementioned in No. 7, Microsoft already is preparing developers for delivering games across three screens.

10. Set Office 2010 business launch for May. The timing is just about right for the first big wave of enterprises to deploy Windows 7. Traditionally, larger businesses deploy new versions of Office and Windows at the same time whenever possible. Microsoft simultaneously released Office 2007 and Windows Vista. But slow -- or no -- enterprise Vista migrations meant that simultaneous Office and Windows release didn't equate to simultaneous deployments. By offsetting Office 2010 and Windows 7 business launches by about 8 months, Microsoft gave business customers time enough to test and qualify Windows 7. Meanwhile, a very public Office 2010 preview allowed for additional testing, too. Many more businesses will now have the more logistically viable option of deploying both products simultaneously or around the same time.

Source: Betanews | 8 Mar 2010 | 9:06 pm

Verizon claims 5-12 Mbps 4G LTE service in 25+ markets, but where's the hardware?

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Still racing for an LTE launch in the second half of this year, Verizon Wireless has been testing its trial 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks in Boston and Seattle since last August.

Today the wireless network operator says it will be able to deliver speeds between 5-12 Mbps downlink and 2-5 Mbps uplink at launch.

"Our LTE rollout plan positions Verizon Wireless to be a global leader in 4G LTE deployment. We are on track to deliver an outstanding wireless data experience to customers in 25 to 30 markets covering roughly 100 million people by year's end," Tony Melone, senior vice president and chief technical officer at Verizon Wireless said in a statement this morning. "As device makers, manufacturers and others around the world begin to introduce newer and faster products to take advantage of these incredible new speeds, Verizon Wireless will be positioned to offer our customers new and exciting products on the nation's first 4G LTE network."

The first commercial deployments of LTE belong to TeliaSonera in Norway and Sweden, which opened for business last December. However, consumer equipment that can take advantage of the increased bandwidth continues to be seriously limited. Nokia announced it was the first to make an LTE modem, and TeliaSonera partnered with Samsung to offer a USB LTE dongle, but there are currently no smartphones or consumer devices utilizing the technology.

Last year, Verizon CEO Dick Lynch said LTE laptop modems and handsets won't be out until a year after the LTE network launches.

Meanwhile, the United States' fifth largest network operator MetroPCS expects its LTE network to be completed in the second half of 2010 as well. Like TeliaSonera, MetroPCS has partnered with Samsung for its first consumer LTE device.

Source: Betanews | 8 Mar 2010 | 8:47 pm

Microsoft sends flowers to Internet Explorer 6 funeral

In Seattle, "IE6" was a trending topic on Twitter thanks to a CNN story on Aten Design Group's funeral for Internet Explorer 6. The tongue-in-cheek memorial is happening this evening in Denver.

Those mourning the antiquated Web browser, but unable to attend, were asked to send flowers. So, guess who sent flowers….

Microsoft.

In the twitpic photo, a funeral guest is showing off the card that arrived with Microsoft's bouquet. It's a little hard to read, so I asked Microsoft to confirm the text. (Microsoft also confirmed it indeed sent the flowers).

The card reads:

Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven.

The Internet Explorer Team @ Microsoft

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Source: Bink.nu | 8 Mar 2010 | 8:39 pm

WiMAX radios aren't the business for Cisco any more

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

In late 2007, Cisco Systems Inc. acquired a WiMAX company called Navini Networks, consuming the smaller competitor's 70 commercial WiMAX deployments, all of the network hardware, and its portfolio of Radio Access Network (RAN) patents. Though Cisco was never exactly hot on WiMAX as a wireless standard, the company saw that the 4G standard was maturing, and made its move into the WiMAX base station business.

At the time, Cisco senior vice president Tony Bates said, "Recently, the WiMAX radio systems to deliver broadband wireless have matured, customers are deploying live networks, and overall investment and demand has increased. Therefore, Cisco views this as the proper time to add licensed WiMAX products to our broadband wireless offer."

Not two years later, though, Cisco says it is halting that business to shift its focus away from radios.

A company spokesperson told FierceBroadbandWireless, "After careful review, our mobility strategy is to focus on providing a radio-agnostic IP end-to-end mobile multimedia services network. Cisco will continue to focus on the packet core and to also focus on investment in radio technologies such as femtocells and Wi-Fi. As part of this decision, we have decided to discontinue designing and building new WiMAX base stations. We believe the best way for Cisco to serve our customers is by delivering value at the edge and the core of our customers' networks."

Rather than focus on a single, isolated radio technology, Cisco is going to push the network-agnostic IP core technologies it acquired last October when it bought Starent networks. Starent's technology supports a much wider range of access technologies such as GSM, CDMA, UMTS, LTE and even WiMAX, and already has a significant number of customers. This way, Cisco can offer technologies to whichever network standards are out there without suffering if one becomes less popular than another.

Sai Subramanian, Director of Product Marketing for Cisco's Wireless Business Group recently said, "We expect to continue to be a significant player in the WiMAX market... just not in the access part of the network."

Source: Betanews | 8 Mar 2010 | 7:31 pm

Windows Essential Business Server (EBS) Discontinues

Microsoft announced the decision to streamline their server product portfolio and will discontinue future development of EBS, effective June 30^th, 2010.

Since the launch of EBS, several changes have occurred that drove our decision to streamline our server product portfolio. First, midsize businesses are rapidly turning to technologies such as management, virtualization and cloud computing as a means to cut costs, improve efficiency, and increase competitiveness. Those capabilities are already available through other offerings, including Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Center and the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS).

Secondly, Microsoft remains fully committed to small and medium-sized businesses. We recognize that ending future editions of EBS could result in additional cost and complexity for our EBS customers. Therefore, we are going to provide a limited offer for all EBS 2008 customers. Beginning on June 30, 2010 through December 31, 2010, current EBS 2008 customers can get the individual component software from the EBS 2008 suite for free (local taxes, shipping and handling charges may apply). To learn more about this offer, EBS customers can visit http://www.microsoft.com/ebs.

This decision not to ship future versions of EBS does not come lightly and will not impact any other Windows Server products and solutions, including the next version of Windows Small Business Server (SBS).  As a matter of fact, we are working hard to build the next version of SBS and look forward to a second decade of success with this award winning small business offering.  

There is a tremendous amount of talent and expertise on the EBS product development team and Microsoft is committed to transitioning members of the EBS product team to work on other projects within the Microsoft Server and Cloud division.

Finally, in building these products for midsize customers we’ve had the unique opportunity to work closely with customers and partners worldwide. We would like to sincerely thank those of you who provided feedback, participated in the development, and used Windows Essential Business Server.

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Source: Bink.nu | 7 Mar 2010 | 8:27 pm

Street Fighter IV 50% off via Games on Demand

Last Friday I posted about the first of a series of hot deals that will happen at the end of every week this month. Last week it was a hot deal for Batman: Arkham Asylum. This week it’s Street Fighter IV. Starting today and running through to Monday March 8th 5:00pm Redmond time, Street Fighter IV will be available through Games on Demand at 50% off. That’s $19.99 (or 1600 Microsoft Points). Keep checking this page for hot deals for game titles available through Games on Demand. Remember, to take advantage of Games on Demand, you will need the Games for Windows – LIVE client installed. You can download it here.

Source: The Windows Blog | 6 Mar 2010 | 2:10 am

Internet Explorer 8 Still the Best at Staying Safe While Browsing the Web

Back in August, I wrote a blog post about how Internet Explorer 8 offers the best protection against socially engineered malware threats. This week, NSS Labs released a new study that continues to show Internet Explorer 8 to be the #1 browser in blocking malware! When the first study was revealed, the Internet Explorer Team announced that Internet Explorer 8’s SmartScreen Filter had provided over 80 million blocks of malware. Almost a year after Internet Explorer 8 shipped, Internet Explorer 8’s SmartScreen Filter has provided over 560 million blocks of malware – averaging over 3 million blocks per day! Wow.

The SmartScreen Filter uses a special URL Reputation Service (URS) with data centers hosted around the world and has evaluated over 250 billion URLs to help keep Internet Explorer 8 users safe! Every day, the SmartScreen Filter URS processes about 4.1 billion URLs looking for malicious websites and files; and since it was first introduced in Internet Explorer 7, the URS has processed over 5.7 trillion requests!

Malware is the biggest and most common security threat facing people browsing the Internet today, and Microsoft is investing heavily in keeping people protected while using Internet Explorer with features like the SmartScreen Filter, Protected Mode, DEP, and more. Check out this post on the IEBlog for more info about the NSS Labs study and how to make sure the SmartScreen Filter is turned on. If you’re not already running Internet Explorer 8, or haven’t upgraded, this is a great reason!

Source: The Windows Blog | 6 Mar 2010 | 1:42 am

Announcing the Windows Home Server YouTube channel

Whenever I’m confused on how to do something and am looking for some help, YouTube is one of the first places I go. Without fail, I can always find some form of video that gives me the answer I need. The Windows Home Server team has also seen the benefits of YouTube, and we thought it would be helpful and fun for our customers if we started making our own videos!

Now, with the new creation of our Windows Home Server videos, we have made our very own Windows Home Server channel on YouTube. On the channel, you will find variety of different videos including:

• Team interviews – learn about Windows Home Server’s team members and how they use the product in their day-to-day lives.
• Windows Home Server overviews – if you are still learning about Windows Home Server, watch an overview on how it can beneficial in your home or even a small business.
• Informational how-to screen casts – each how-to video will show you how to use various features of Windows Home Server.  

Be sure to subscribe to the channel so that you can watch all of our newly added videos!

-Nicole

Source: The Windows Blog | 6 Mar 2010 | 1:37 am

IE8 SmartScreen Filter - Protecting Users at Internet Scale

The RSA 2010 Security Conference is just finishing up here in San Francisco, and I’m struck by how many of the conference sessions and keynotes have warned about the threat that socially engineered malware poses to the security of the Internet. Malware has become the scourge of the Internet, and it’s not just the security experts who are worried—the top story in my morning paper yesterday described how a typical malware attack compromised a financial firm’s network. Our data shows that one out of every 250 downloads is the result of a user being tricked into downloading malware to their PC.

We’re proud of the protection SmartScreen® Filter provides to protect IE8 users from such attacks, and I’d like share some of the latest numbers on our level of protection.

Since we launched IE8 in March 2009, SmartScreen has blocked over 560 million attempts to download malware, recently averaging over 3 million blocks per day! Hosted in datacenters around the world, SmartScreen’s URL Reputation Service (URS) has evaluated over 250 billion URLs to help keep IE8 users safe from malware. Even more impressively, since IE7’s Phishing Filter was introduced in 2005, the URS has processed over 5.7 trillion reputation requests in order to block malicious web sites. Every day, Microsoft receives around 300 million telemetry reports from IE8 users and processes 4.1 billion URLs looking for malicious websites and files. On the back end, our systems and analysts evaluate over 1 terabyte of binaries every day to help identify sites delivering malware.

The Q1 2010 NSS Lab’s test shows that Microsoft’s continued investment in SmartScreen is paying off. Since launch, IE8’s SmartScreen Filter has continued to improve its protection against Socially Engineered Malware threats.

IE6 and 7 don’t provide protection against socially-engineered malware. If your family and friends aren’t up-to-date, please encourage them to upgrade to IE 8 for a safer Internet experience.

While IE8 offers the best built-in protection any browser offers against socially engineered malware, you still should follow best-practices to stay safe online. For instance:

• Enable SmartScreen Filter using IE8’s Safety menu ().
• Install antivirus and antispyware software from trusted sources and keep it up-to-date. Microsoft Security Essentials is available for free.
• Turn on your firewall.
• Enable Automatic Updates for Windows and other Microsoft software using Microsoft Update.
• Keep your computer's other software, including browser add-ons, up-to-date.
• Before downloading software, consider the risks and be aware of the fine print. For example, make sure the license agreement does not conceal a warning that you are about to install software with unwanted behavior.

You can read more tips and learn about common Internet attacks over on the Security Tips blog.

Stay safe out there!

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager

Source: IEBlog | 5 Mar 2010 | 10:44 pm

Welcome to the new Windows Phone Developer Blog

As we roll towards full public disclosure of the details of the Windows Phone 7 Series development platform there needs to be a place where members of the team building it can engage in conversations with the community.

This is the place. Subscribe to this feed to get deep technical information on the tools, platform capabilities, and so forth. We’ll be linking to other blogs and content sites as well. We’ll do our best to keep away from marketing spiel and instead focus on great technical conversations.

On twitter we are @wp7dev.  We use #wp7dev to track twitter conversations on the platform.

Here are a set great blogs from some of the team members you’ll be getting to know:

Charlie Kindel:

Topics: Everything
Blog: blogs.msdn.com/ckindel
Twitter: @ckindel

Andre Vrignaud:

Topics: Multi-screen gaming
Blog: www.ozymandias.com
Twitter: @ozymandias

Christian Schormann:

Topics: User experience design
Blog: electricbeach.org
Twitter: @cschormann

Shawn Hargreaves:

Topics: Game design
Blog: blogs.msdn.com/shawnhar 
Twitter: @shawnhargreaves

Todd Brix:

Topics: Marketplace
Blog: windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowsphone  
Twitter: @toddbrix

Anand Iyer:

Topics: Mobile social media
Blog: www.artificialignorance.net/blog
Twitter: @ai

Michael Klucher:

Topics: Game development
Blog: klucher.com
Twitter: @mklucher

-cek

Source: The Windows Blog | 5 Mar 2010 | 7:37 pm

W3C HTML Working Group Publishes New Drafts

Last week, the W3C HTML Working Group reached a decision to publish several new working drafts and these are now available. The discussion about what to publish and how to structure the HTML5 specification has taken several months. In November, at the TPAC meeting, a request was made for the Microdata section of the specification to be removed. Back in August, I posted about our support for a separate Canvas 2D API specification.

Some people in the community raised concerns about exactly what should be in scope for the HTML working group. Tim Berners-Lee shared his thoughts:

“I agree with the WG chairs that these items -- data and canvas -- are reasonable areas of work for the group.  It is appropriate for the group to publish documents in this area. On the one hand, they elaborate areas touched on in HTML4. On the other, these elaborations are much deeper than the features of HTML4, but also they form separate subsystems, and these subsystems have strong overlaps with other design areas. It is important (a) that the design be modular; (b) that the specifications be kept modular and (c) that the communities of expertise of the respective fields (graphics and data) be involved in the design process.”

We strongly support Tim’s call for modular design and modular specifications in web standards. Large monolithic documents are hard to consume and take longer to stabilise with well thought out engineering decisions. In fact, the decision to take these features from HTML5 and make them separate documents continues the process that started last year as the storage and networking APIs were moved out of HTML5 and into the W3C WebApps working group. Just like good software design, loose coupling and high cohesion are good principles for defining web standards. That doesn’t make them easy to apply and there is still more work to do to reduce the coupling between drafts. The group is working on improving the tools used to generate the documents to improve the cross-references, which will help towards this goal.

Microdata and Canvas 2D are now available as new working drafts alongside the core HTML5 draft. This also sets Microdata on a similar footing to the updated HTML+RDFa draft. You can review the full set of documents published yesterday here:

• HTML5
• HTML+RDFa
• HTML Microdata
• HTML Canvas 2D Context
• HTML: The Markup Language
• HTML5 diffs from HTML4

Adrian Bateman
Program Manager

Source: IEBlog | 5 Mar 2010 | 5:56 pm

New IT Trends Bring Change to Mid-Market Product Line

Today Microsoft announced that effective June 30, 2010, Microsoft will discontinue future development of Windows Essential Business Server (EBS)the infrastructure solution we designed specifically for midsize businesses. This blog post is to specifically answer the question around whether the change affects other Microsoft solution products.

The short answer is, no.

In no way does today’s EBS announcement impact Windows Small Business Server, Windows Home Server and Windows Server 2008 and R2.

Our decision to discontinue future plans for Windows Essential Business Server was based on several factors, but most notably in response to midsize businesses making a rapid shift towards technologies such as management, virtualization and cloud computing as a means to cut costs, improve efficiency, and increase competitiveness.  As it happens, those technologies are offered today through other Microsoft solutions, and midsized customers are adopting them, including Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Center, Microsoft Exchange Server, and the Microsoft Business productivity Online Suite (BPOS).

We believe that streamlining our server product portfolio will provide clarity for customers and partners to determine which option might be right for them.

Microsoft remains fully committed to small and medium-sized businesses. EBS customers can look forward to continued support and a number of options for continuing with EBS or transitioning to other technologies.

For more information, click here.

Source: The Windows Blog | 5 Mar 2010 | 5:01 pm

New IT Trends Bring Change to Mid-Market Product Line

Today Microsoft announced that effective June 30, 2010, Microsoft will discontinue future development of Windows Essential Business Server (EBS), the infrastructure solution we designed specifically for midsize businesses. This blog post is to specifically answer the question around whether the change affects other Microsoft solution products.

The short answer is, no.

In no way does today's EBS announcement impact Windows Small Business Server, Windows Home Server and Windows Server 2008 and R2. 

Our decision to discontinue future plans for Windows Essential Business Server was based on several factors, but most notably in response to midsize businesses making a rapid shift towards technologies such as management, virtualization and cloud computing as a means to cut costs, improve efficiency, and increase competitiveness.  As it happens, those technologies are offered today through other Microsoft solutions, and midsized customers are adopting them, including Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Center, Microsoft Exchange Server, and the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). 

We believe that streamlining our server product portfolio will provide clarity for customers and partners to determine which option might be right for them.

Microsoft remains fully committed to small and medium-sized businesses. EBS customers can look forward to continued support and a number of options for continuing with EBS or transitioning to other technologies.

Source: Windows Server Division WebLog | 5 Mar 2010 | 4:52 pm

Microsoft & the Cloud

Today at the University of Washington’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), Steve Ballmer spoke to students about Microsoft and cloud services. You can watch his speech on-demand below.

As Steve mentions, at Microsoft we’re “all in” for the cloud– including Windows. We have Windows Azure, a platform and environment for creating applications and services for the cloud. And we also have Windows Live ID as an identity and authentication system – which today represents 460 million users! Speaking of Windows Live, I suggest reading the posts on Inside Windows Live from members of the Windows Live engineering team. Their posts offer some great insight into the work being done in supporting the massive scale of many of the Windows Live products and services including Messenger and Hotmail.

For more information on cloud services from Microsoft, I suggest checking out our new Cloud website. This post from Daniel Read on the Official Microsoft Blog is also worth reading as well. Daniel is the Corporate Vice President for Technology Strategy and Policy and the Extreme Computing Group.

Source: The Windows Blog | 5 Mar 2010 | 3:09 am

Tab Isolation

Tab isolation has recently become a more popular topic. This post is a quick survey of what tab isolation is, how it works, and what it provides.

What is it?

Tab isolation is a way to improve a browser’s reliability by containing the impact of a crash. Depending on how it’s implemented, tab isolation can also help contain some security attacks. There are two different implementations available today, each with different benefits.

In a tabbed browser without isolation, a problem in one tab can crash the entire browser. For example, a crash in a webpage in Firefox 3.6 or IE7 will bring down the entire browser. While modern browsers have features to recover tabs after a crash, the point of isolation is to contain the problem and prevent the browser from stopping. You can see a demo of this here (starting around 13:25). 

A Quick Historical Survey

On March 5, 2008, Microsoft released the first IE8 beta with Loosely-Coupled IE (or LCIE for short). This was the first mainstream implementation of tab isolation. On September 2, 2008, Google Chrome’s first beta released with “process isolation.” Mozilla Firefox has recently discussed an “Out of Process Plugins” (OOPP) or Electrolysis project aimed at isolating Firefox plug-ins, such as Flash, from the rest of the browser.

How do isolation approaches differ today in approach and benefits?

There are a lot of different subsystems in a browser to isolate from each other, and different ways to do it.

IE8 isolates the frame process (title bar, back button, address bar, etc.) from the tabs processes (that show web pages). If anything causes a site to crash (an extension like Flash, or the rendering or scripting engine, etc.), the frame and other tab processes will not crash. IE isolates the whole tab – all of its code, data, and extensions – to keep IE resilient to webpages with issues.

In addition to using multiple processes, IE8 on Windows 7 and Vista (and IE7 on Vista) sandboxes the tab processes in Protected Mode for security reasons. Specifically, tabs run without permissions to install software, modify settings, or change files of any user. Protected Mode provides defense in depth so that (in most cases) security vulnerabilities in the browser or an add-on (like Flash) cannot be exploited to harm the computer. Isolation makes this additional security possible. (Technically, there are several different types of isolation (process isolation, origin isolation, etc.), and of sandboxing (integrity levels, restricted subsets, DOM mirroring, etc.) as well.)

Chrome’s isolation is a bit different, factoring the different subsystems of that browser along different lines. From their documentation, they have separate processes for rendering, for the frame, and for add-ons (native plug-ins, not extensions). As with IE7, part of Chrome runs with lower privilege. Unlike IE (where page add-ons run in low), plugins in Chrome by default run with more privileges. As with any architectural difference, there are scenarios that are better in one architecture and worse in another. Theoretically, for example, a vulnerability in the Flash control running in Chrome does not have a defense in depth protection like Protected Mode to contain it.

Isolation is a super important part of modern browsers.  It’s essential for delivering a more reliable browsing experience. It can also improve security. Depending on how it’s engineered, it can also have an impact on compatibility with sites and browser extensions.

Andy Zeigler
Program Manager

Source: IEBlog | 5 Mar 2010 | 12:16 am

MS COO Kevin Turner: CeBIT Keynote

CeBIT Global Conference
Remarks by Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner
Hannover, Germany
March 4, 2010

Kevin Turner CeBIT Keynote Transcript

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Source: Bink.nu | 4 Mar 2010 | 9:05 pm

I-O Data Signs Linux Software Patent Agreement With Microsoft

I-O Data customers will receive patent covenants for their use of devices running Linux and related open source software.

Microsoft Corp. and I-O Data Device Inc. have entered into an agreement that will provide I-O Data’s customers with patent coverage for their use of I-O Data’s products running Linux and other related open source software.

Specifically, the patent covenants apply to I-O Data’s network-attached storage devices and its routers, which run Linux. Although the details of the agreement have not been disclosed, the parties indicated that Microsoft is being compensated by I-O Data.

“We’re pleased to reach this agreement with I-O Data,” said David Kaefer, general manager of Intellectual Property Licensing at Microsoft. “Microsoft has a strong track record of collaboration with companies running Linux-based offerings, and this agreement is a reflection of our commitment to partner with industry leaders around the world.”

This patent agreement is an extension of the strong relationship between Microsoft and I-O Data in both the consumer and enterprise markets. The companies recently worked together on a Windows 7 marketing campaign, and I-O Data released one of the industry’s first Windows 7 API-based sensors, which automatically detects when a person enters or leaves an office or room.

Microsoft’s Commitment to IP Collaboration

Continue: I-O Data Signs Linux Software Patent Agreement With Microsoft I-O Data customers will receive pa

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Source: Bink.nu | 4 Mar 2010 | 9:01 pm

Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie: Computing, Naturally

Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie sees technologies converging to transform how humans and computers work together.

It’s safe to say that computers have become a bit more powerful over the past 15 years.

Cellular technology untethered our phones. The Internet brought the world into our homes and offices. And the power of microprocessors has kept leaping forward. Now we’re embarking on a new era, where all kinds of powerful computers, in all shapes and sizes, will work hand in hand with vast online databases. Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, calls this the “client plus cloud” era.

Mundie, whose job is to interpret the impact of emerging technology trends, says that changes under way in the tech industry today have the potential to completely change the technology world as we know it.

“We’re approaching an imminent sea change in technology that will transform everything we know today,” Mundie says. “A combination of the cloud plus very powerful client machines, along with a revolution in how people interact with computers, will define the next era of technology — and have a vast impact on society.”

Recent, significant advances in microprocessors, up to 100 times as powerful as the machines we’re using today, are emerging at every level — chip, device and data center — and are enabling our everyday client devices including PCs, phones, e-books, game systems and more to take on very complex computing tasks. At the same time, the cloud is scaling up its service capacity thanks to massive data centers. Taken together, they form a new programming paradigm, the seamless client-plus-cloud platform.

And if that’s not enough, we’re also seeing new ways to interact with computers, via a natural user interface or “NUI” that embraces gestures, anticipatory computing, expressive response, contextual and environmental awareness, and 3-D or even immersive experiences. These new forms of input, Mundie says, will create a startling transformation in how humans and computers interact.

“The transition to a natural user interface will change everything from the way students write term papers and play computer games to how scientists study global population growth and its impact on our natural resources,” Mundie says. “In the healthcare field, physicians and patients alike will also benefit from simpler and more effective tools with which to communicate and share information.”

The NUI Revolution

Continue: Computing, Naturally Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie sees technologies convergi

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Source: Bink.nu | 4 Mar 2010 | 8:57 pm

March 2010 Bulletin Release Advance Notification

MSRC Blog: Today we are providing advance notification to customers that we will be releasing two bulletins this month affecting Windows and Microsoft Office products. Both bulletins are rated Important and address a total of 8 vulnerabilities.

We recommend that customers review the Advance Notification webpage and prepare to deploy these bulletins as soon as possible. To provide additional guidance for deployment prioritization, customers should note that both bulletins will address issues that would require a user to open a specially crafted file. There are no network based attack vectors.

We’re also continuing to monitor the situation with Security Advisory 981169, the VBScript issue disclosed on Monday. There are no known attacks but we encourage customers to review the advisory and apply the suggested workarounds where possible. Customers that are running Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Vista are not affected.

As always, we will be hosting a public webcast where we will go in to details about the bulletins for March and where customers can ask questions. We will have a room full of engineers on hand to answer those questions live during the webcast. Here are the details:

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Source: Bink.nu | 4 Mar 2010 | 8:52 pm

Software Update Deployment SuperFlow for SCCM

This SuperFlow provides information that helps you to prepare for and deploy software updates after you configure the software updates infrastructure and synchronize software updates.

The SuperFlow interactive content model provides a structured and interactive interface for viewing documentation. Each SuperFlow includes comprehensive information about a specific dataflow, workflow, or process. Depending on the focus of the SuperFlow, you will find overview information, steps that include detailed information, procedures, sample log entries, best practices, real-world scenarios, troubleshooting information, security information, animations, or other information. Each SuperFlow also includes links to relevant resources, such as Web sites or local files that are copied to your computer when you install the SuperFlow. The Software Update Deployment SuperFlow provides information that helps you to prepare for and deploy software updates after you configure the software updates infrastructure and synchronize software updates.

Download details Software Update Deployment SuperFlow

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Source: Bink.nu | 4 Mar 2010 | 8:48 pm

What's New in Folder Redirection and User Profiles

Discusses the improvements in folder Redirection and user profiles and how to customize default user profiles.

Folder Redirection and user profiles in the Windows 7 operating system provide users with a consistent user experience, regardless of where the user is logged on. This document discusses the improvements to these technologies and how to customize default user profiles.

Download details What's New in Folder Redirection and User Profiles

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Source: Bink.nu | 4 Mar 2010 | 8:46 pm

Windows Server 2008 R2 Upgrade Paths

Outlines supported and unsupported upgrade paths for Windows Server 2008 R2 SKUs.

Download details Windows Server 2008 R2 Upgrade Paths

Windows 7 Upgrade Paths

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Source: Bink.nu | 4 Mar 2010 | 8:45 pm

Intel Expands Intel® Atom™ Processor-Based Platform to Home, Small Office Storage Device

Source: Intel Press Room | 4 Mar 2010 | 6:08 pm

CSS Crunch: new IE Extension for developers

There are many tools in the market that allow you to customize your pages' cascading style sheets (CSS), but there are actually a very few that do the opposite—scan for all the CSS rules in the document and remove those that are not used. Cleaning out the CSS will not only reduce the bandwidth impact, but will also improve the performance of the browser (minimizing the time spent by the CSS engine to parse the style sheets).

In this post, I will describe how to build that tool using a bookmarklet and a new standard function introduced in Internet Explorer 8: document.querySelectorAll().

Let’s start with the basics: a Web page can include many cascading style sheets, each of which is composed of one or more selectors. For instance, #elementId { }, .className { }, and body{ } are each examples of selectors. Using the function querySelectorAll(), you can programmatically inspect the DOM tree and count the number of times each selector is actually used.

For instance, the following code snippet counts the number of times the CSS class Foo is used in the document:

var selectorCount = document.querySelectorAll(“.Foo”).length;

Now that we have this information, we need a way to run this script inside the document. For the purpose of this article, I didn’t want to change our server-side code.

I decided to create a bookmarklet, which is a special link that can interact dynamically with the currently loaded page. The syntax of the bookmarklet is fairly straightforward:

<a href="javascript:( 
    function() {          
        var c = document.createElement('script');
        c.type = 'text/javascript';
        c.src = 'http://demos.cloudapp.net/IE/CssCrunch/Scripts/CssCrunch.js'; 
        document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(c); })();">            
    CSS Crunch
</a>

As you can see, at runtime this injects a remote script file that runs the analysis and displays the result.

If you scroll to the bottom of the list of CSS rules, you’ll see an option to remove temporarily unused selectors. This allow you to test if the page still displays and behaves the same way, as shown in the picture below.

I’d like to stress the fact that the goal is not to reach 100% usage on any page; there are scenarios in fact where the same style sheet could possibly be used by multiple pages and it makes sense to pre-fetch some rule, or where the page compression balance well having additional styles to maintain. Instead you should use this tool to identify possible areas for improvement.

That’s it! You can try it here:

1. Right click Run CSSCrunch and select “Add to Favorites”
2. Accept the security warning (by default, any bookmarklet is considered unsecure due to its nature)
3. Choose a location (for example, Favorites Bar)
4. Installed! You can now browse to this test page (or any other site) and click "CSS Crunch" in the Favorites Bar

This is just a starting point; if you are interested in doing more, you can find the source code here. I encourage you to look at the underlying code and customize it to suit your needs. For example, you might want to add support for multiple-pages analysis, or integration with server-side tools such as Visual Studio or IIS, or a compression capability such as Microsoft Ajax Minifier.

Ok, time to go! I'm checking the CSS on this blog now… :)

Have fun!

Giorgio Sardo
Web Technical Evangelist
Microsoft Corporation

Source: IEBlog | 4 Mar 2010 | 2:12 am

Chip Shot: Intel's Talent Development Programs Snag Top Honors

Source: Intel Press Room | 4 Mar 2010 | 1:13 am

Forrester provides tips to Windows 7 early adopters

As I’ve shared on this blog before, we’re always eager to hear about our Windows 7 customer experiences and how we can improve our support and tools we offer them through their deployment. So today, I’d like to share some insightful findings from a February 2010 report from Forrester Research, written by Ben Gray, “Lessons Learned from Windows 7 Early Adopters,” as well as feedback about our newly announced App-V 4.6 from several Microsoft Valued Professionals (MVPs) at our recent 2010 MVP Global Summit. My hope is that sharing this feedback will better help our other customers during their deployment planning and rollout.

Forrester’s report asked 40 early Windows 7 adopters about their experiences to help IT managers develop their Windows 7 migration strategies. Overall, they found Windows 7 to be a “solid release,” with IT managers all over the world saying the benefits they’re seeing with productivity, security, management and green IT costs are well worth the effort. Customers are experiencing faster startup and shutdown times, more reliable sleep mode and overall stability of the OS, faster access to data and applications through improved search, and a superior mobile and branch office connectivity experience.

Here are a few of the lessons Gray touched on in his report:

• Don’t underestimate the application compatibility challenge: While we’ve done a better job preparing the hardware and software ecosystem for Windows 7, work still remains for IT managers responsible for application inventorying, testing, remediation, and packaging. We offer a number of free tools, such as ACT and MDT 2010, to automate many of these processes.
• Tie the OS upgrade to the natural PC refresh cycle to ensure hardware compatibility: Many IT managers look at hardware and OS upgrades as one in the same, meaning they purchased or leased new desktops, laptops, and netbooks from Dell, HP, Lenovo, and others with Windows 7 preinstalled. However, one-fifth of the firms with which Forrester spoke treated Windows 7 as an opportunity to extend the life of their existing hardware by another two to three years because it delivers a lighter and snappier user experience that utilizes resources more efficiently than both Windows XP and Vista.
• Invest in a client management suite to automate the deployment and ongoing management: With the emergence of netbooks and heterogeneous clients, along with the accelerating shift from physical to virtual clients, additional importance has been placed on having the right systems management tools in-house.
• Don’t overthink training, but shrink the delivery time and get creative: Even with all the enhancements and benefits that come along with Windows 7, the user experience hasn’t changed significantly from Windows XP and Windows Vista and shouldn’t require a large effort on training. Still, IT is encouraging users to attend training by shrinking the time required and embracing Web 2.0 delivery mechanisms such as collaboration portals, blogs, wikis, podcasts, and two-minute tips and tricks videos.
• Explore client virtualization as a means to accelerate Windows 7 deployment: Application and desktop virtualization provide a less expensive, less complex migration path to Windows 7. Application virtualization in particular helps to significantly reduce application regression testing cycles and the deployment process, and firms can package their applications in a matter of weeks or days rather than months, with little to no risk. 

Along these lines, we asked several MVPs at the 2010 MVP Global Summit, here on Microsoft campus, what they thought of App-V and what it means for IT Pros during their migration to Windows 7 – see the video below or read more about App-V 4.6 and MED-V 1.0 SP1 RC on the MDOP blog.

Forrester’s findings are in-line with our tips for Windows 7 adoption, particularly as tools like Windows Anytime Upgrade and Windows Easy Transfer make the upgrade process smoother while compatibility between Windows Vista and Windows 7 remains straightforward. For Windows XP users, the Windows Upgrade Advisor is a valuable tool to determine system requirements before you perform a custom installation (you can find more detailed instructions here on that process, along with an FAQ here. 

Looking for additional background? 

• Read more about Microsoft Services here.
• IT Pros can also visit the Springboard Series on TechNet for a variety of valuable resources.
• Businesses of all sizes can find more information on how Windows 7 meets their specific needs here.
• If you’d like to hear how other customers have used App-V and MED-V, please visit these recent case studies: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Purdue, Bethel Park School District (BPSD), Florida International University, Indiana University, CDW, AppServ and Sporton.

As always, I welcome you feedback and look forward to hearing how your Windows 7 deployment goes.

- Gavriella

Source: The Windows Blog | 3 Mar 2010 | 8:08 pm

Creating a Safer, More Trusted Internet

The RSA Security Conference is underway this week in San Francisco and Microsoft's own Scott Charney, Corporate Vice President Trustworthy Computing, delivered one of yesterday's keynote addresses: Creating a Safer, More Trusted Internet. The keynote centered on Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative, our End to End Trust vision, and how we have been working to further protect the security and privacy of for all the users of the Internet.

The End to End Trust vision has not changed over the last couple of years and we don't anticipate it changing for some time. We continue to make progress along this vision and Scott outlined many areas where we are actively engaged and providing thought leadership. The keynote showcased how our vision for End to End Trust applies to cloud computing, detailed progress toward a claims-based identity meta-system, and called for public and private organizations alike to prevent and disrupt cybercrime.

One of the most interesting aspects from my perspective was the notion of creating a "World Health Organization" model for the Internet. We are calling on the governments and industry to creatively help prevent cybercrime by implementing technology and policy models that assess PC health before connecting the machine to the Internet. This is an ambitious vision and one I am proud to support.

If you want to know more about the things Scott talked about in his keynote and our End To End vision, I encourage you to visit the newly revamped End To End Trust website for more details.

Source: The Windows Blog | 3 Mar 2010 | 7:35 pm

Chip Shot: Orange Becomes First Network Operator to Endorse MeeGo™

Source: Intel Press Room | 3 Mar 2010 | 7:12 pm

Intel Honors 16 Companies with Preferred Quality Supplier Award

Source: Intel Press Room | 3 Mar 2010 | 7:09 pm

Intel Honors 10 Companies with Supplier Continuous Quality Improvement Award

Source: Intel Press Room | 3 Mar 2010 | 7:08 pm

Chip Shot: Intel's Malcolm Harkins Receives RSA Award

Source: Intel Press Room | 3 Mar 2010 | 6:13 pm

Chip Shot: The Rocket Project Powered by Sony and Intel Helps Science Students Reach for the Stars

Source: Intel Press Room | 3 Mar 2010 | 6:12 pm

AMD Expands AMD Fusion Partner Program

Source: AMD Press Releases | 3 Mar 2010 | 6:07 am

Windows 7: More than 90 Million Copies Sold!

Today during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, our Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein announced that Windows 7 has sold 90 million licenses to-date! That's a lot of Windows 7.  We're humbled and excited that people are responding so positively to Windows 7 - our customers have made it the fastest selling operating system in history.

Peter also had an opportunity to show off some of the great hardware innovation coming from our partners in the PC business. He brought three great PCs on stage to show off: the Sony VAIO X which is so sleek and portable it could fit inside a MacBook Air, the Dell Adamo XPS which is the thinnest PC in the world, and the HP Envy 13 which combines breakthrough industrial design with tons of power. I had a hand in helping to get these PCs to Peter for the conference and it was fun to hear him talk about them on stage.

All in all, some great momentum for Windows 7 and some great PCs!

Source: The Windows Blog | 2 Mar 2010 | 10:41 pm

HDMI and Windows PCs

Lately, folks have been talking a bit about HDMI. HDMI is a special type of connection designed to deliver digital content from one device to another audio or video device through a single connection. That content can be standard definition (SD) or high definition (HD) movies or something as simple as MP3 music. HDMI is a completely digital connection, as it transmits uncompressed digital data. It is a standard that is replacing the old-style analog connections such as S-Video and VGA. A common use for HDMI today is connecting devices like a PC or an Xbox 360 to a HDTV.

As I had been seeing a lot of talk about HDMI, I realized that HDMI is very common today in Windows PCs. In looking at the PCs I currently have in my office and at home, the majority of them have HDMI. Those PCs include my Dell Studio 1555, Dell Inspiron Zino HD, Acer Aspire Revo, Toshiba Satellite E205, Acer Aspire 1420P (the “PDC laptop”), ASUS G71Gx, HP TouchSmart 600, and HP Envy 13. These PCs span a variety of form factors from small “nettops” to full-blown all-in-one PCs. Even netbooks are now shipping with HDMI (it’s smaller than the VGA connection).

All the above mentioned PCs are running Windows 7 of course. What’s great about Windows 7 and HDMI is that when I plug any of these laptops into a HDTV via HDMI, it recognizes the display and sets the screen resolution correctly. And because HDMI does not just do video but audio too, it also brings in the audio. During the holidays while visiting my parents, I connected the HP Envy 13 I was using at the time to my dad’s 52” HDTV. We rented several movies from the Zune Marketplace and watched this in full HD on his HDTV.

Of the PCs I mentioned above – the Acer Aspire Revo and Dell Inspiron Zino HD are prefect little Home Theater PCs (HTPCs) with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center. And with HDMI – a single cable connected to an HDTV is all one needs to watch movies, play music, go through family photos, watch DVDs, or even watch live TV*.

*You’ll need a TV tuner to watch live TV in Windows Media Center. Some PCs are so small they don’t support any additional hardware inside the actual system. Not to worry! You can pick up a USB TV tuner which works just fine! I’ll talk about this in a later blog post.

You can also add HDMI to existing desktop PCs (for the folks out there that like building their own desktop PCs) fairly inexpensively. Many graphics cards today are shipping with HDMI built in. Earlier this month, I blogged about 2 new affordable DirectX 11 graphics cards from AMD: the Radeon HD 5570 and Radeon HD 5450.Both these graphics cards come with HDMI.

Many Windows PCs ship with Blu-ray playback capabilities. You can use your PC to play Blu-ray movies. With HDMI, you can connect a Windows PC to an HDTV and watch Blu-ray movies on your HDTV without having to go out and buy a standalone Blu-ray player. Most of Windows PCs that ship with Blu-ray also ship with software for Blu-ray playback. I also did a blog post about Corel WinDVD Pro 2010 last December which is Compatible with Windows 7. Corel WinDVD Pro 2010 is an excellent application for Blu-ray playback in Windows 7 as well.

Source: The Windows Blog | 2 Mar 2010 | 9:37 pm

Piloting Windows 7 - Part 3 : More Project Planning, Pilot Phases and Timelines

In the last post I started the planning process, but we are far from finished. We’ve basically outlined what we want and quality bars, but we haven’t actually mapped out the test cases, pilot phases or built a timeline yet. Let’s start by looking at test cases for the pilot.

Initial Testing for the Pilot

As this is just a pilot, you should not expect to be testing with the full rigor of a production deployment. That said, the more committed you are to actually deploying the operating system you are piloting, you could argue that testing as much as possible in early pilot phases will pay off in the long run, resulting in less testing for the production deployment. Your test cases should cover the following primary categories:

• Application and hardware compatibility. Required applications and targeted hardware works with Windows 7. As discussed earlier, this may include 64 bit considerations.
• Unattended operating system and application installation. Windows 7 is installed and configured without prompting users or administrators for more information. Application installations are fully-automated or included in the base image. If you are evaluating Application Virtualization or desktop virtualization, considerations should be added to these tests.
• User State Migration. Users get back their data and profile from the previous operating system – if it exists. This testing will also include any required computer backups for potential roll-back to the previous user-specific environment. 
• Windows 7 base image validation. This ensures that the base image(s) can be installed on the hardware you are targeting and nothing was impacted by the System Preparation (sysprep) process.
• The deployment process itself and end user outcome. This ensures the end-to-end process is working, infrastructure is delivering as expected and the migration experience of the user is acceptable. If you are evaluating Application Virtualization or desktop virtualization, considerations should be added to these tests.

While this list isn’t exhaustive, it covers the main areas for your initial test cases. Testing can be iterative and results-based, so may uncover additional areas to test or de-prioritize some of the main categories above if everything simply works as expected.

We’ll define the phases as an addendum to testing. Especially with lab deployments as the first pilot phase, there is little to delineate it from “initial testing” or “initial piloting” – both are early tests of functionality and often the operating system and general application testing will bleed into the testing of automation elements. Now let’s define our phases and assume that with Phase 1, a person in IT is actually using the computer for common tasks and we aren’t just looping installations of Windows images.

Phase 1: The Lab and IT Department – aka “Proof of Concept”

There are a couple of phases to a typical pilot rollout. The first phase really involves your IT department gathering common hardware types – or standard hardware for orgs with standards in place – and installing the operating system and applications that comprise the current desktop standard image or standard build in a lab. This is often called a Proof of Concept or POC for short. For the POC, you are performing light validation that everything works and noting what doesn’t work. If you are thinking about moving to 64 bit, now is a good time to open up those test matrices as well and build systems using a 64 bit version of Windows 7. Also, if you are considering re-architecting how applications or the entire desktop is delivered (think Application Virtualization or desktop virtualization), you probably want to try out the options you have in mind in the lab – before you test these implementations on unsuspecting users.

Phase 2: End Users and Production Hardware

When it comes to end user testing, depending on which operating system you are coming from, you probably want to start small and gradually grow your pilot user base. If your users have Windows XP or Windows 2000, the transition to Windows 7 will be a significant change for many users. For organizations with Windows Vista in production, you may be able to be a bit more aggressive with your timelines. If you are using an opt-in approach, you can phase in additional users with on a schedule or based on helpdesk, issue and feedback load. Based on these activities, you can ratchet up the user count based on your ability to support them.

With end users, you are paying particular attention to most of the primary categories of test cases I listed out above; application and hardware compatibility, user state migration, Windows 7 base image validation, and the deployment process itself. As you roll out to end users, pay attention to end user communications, training and tips for using new features. The Enterprise Learning Framework helps the IT department author emails for communicating new Windows and/or Microsoft Office features to end users during the pilot and production deployment phases.

While the content Microsoft provides to aid in end user training may suffice, pay attention to how people use their PCs and make sure they are aware of and using new features. Find out which features resonate with people and observe where people have issues. You can use this information to augment your user training for the production deployment.

Establishing Timelines 

Timelines should be established to follow your project objectives and organization size. For a single site, single language pilot with limited applications, you can probably perform Phase 1 in as little as 2-3 weeks and Phase 2 in as little as 30 days. Once you add more geographies, applications, hardware, changes to how desktop images or applications are delivered, etc., then you’ll need to add time accordingly. I haven’t seen many organizations where the initial pilot exceeds around 4 months in total. Every pilot is different though and there will be some that exceed 4 months or the “pilot” itself transitions into other phases of the deployment project, continuing as user validation for application compatibility mitigations. There is no one-size-fits all pilot timeline, but the main objective here is to have a rough schedule in place based on your unique environment and know what you are testing for and would like to validate.

With that, I will end part three of the series. In the next blog, I will highlight strategies for installing your image builds and harvesting and making sense of user feedback and information once Phase 2 has begun.

Stay tuned and thanks for reading,

Jeremy Chapman

Source: The Windows Blog | 2 Mar 2010 | 9:18 pm

Chip Shot: Intel Previews New Global Education Solution

Source: Intel Press Room | 2 Mar 2010 | 9:13 pm

Intel® Makes Oscar® Debut

Source: Intel Press Room | 2 Mar 2010 | 8:08 pm

How IE8 Determines Document Mode

This post describes how IE8 determines what Document Mode such as Quirks or Standards Modes to use for rendering websites. This topic is important for site developers and consumers.

It’s related to the Compatibility View List that we recently updated. This list is down by over 1000 websites, from over 3100 to just over 2000, since IE8 released last March. As we work with site developers and standards bodies, we’re excited to see the sites that need to be on the Compatibility View (CV) List continue to go down.

Data-driven Design

Before we dig in to the design details, I want to share some of the data we use to design the compatibility experience.

When looking at the doctype and X-UA-Compatible meta tag and header on thousands of high traffic websites worldwide such as qq.com, netlog.com and those on the initial CV List,

• 26% specify Quirks such as amazon.com, tworld.co.kr, and unibanco.com.br.
• 41% specify a Transitional doctype that puts them in Almost Standards Mode.
• 14% have already added an X-UA-Compatible meta tag or HTTP response header to render in IE7 Standards Mode.

Here’s why this makes sense; many high traffic websites want to render in as many browsers as possible, which is why they write for Quirks. Many websites have pages written specifically for IE7 and many web authoring tools such as Aptana Studio and Expression Web specify the Transitional doctype by default:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

Thinking in terms of web-scale, there are billions of pages written specifically for either Quirks, IE7, Almost Standards, or the latest Standards. IE needs to support all of these web platform variations to ensure that our broad, world-wide, user-base has the best experience.

With this data in hand, we designed IE8 with a few principles in mind:

1. Render websites in the most standards compliant way by default.

   As stated in previous posts, we’re committed to interoperability, which means rendering websites in the most standards compliant way possible by default.

2. Users expect the web to just work in IE.

   A small set of users will tinker to get websites that expect and work best in IE7 Standards Mode to work in IE8’s more standards-compliant default mode. For everyone else, IE8 includes Compatibility View Settings.

   The best experience here is one that works automatically as the web developer intended. This is why we created the Compatibility View List. It’s also important to give users the ability to fix websites that aren’t on the list yet through the Compatibility View button.

3. Web developers are in control of how their content renders.

   The X-UA-Compatible meta tag and header override IE and user settings. They also provide web developers with fine-grain control over how each webpage renders in IE.

   For example, some websites have pages written for Quirks and others for IE7 Standards. When IE receives an X-UA-Compatible header with an EmulateIE7 value from servers, it renders each page in the appropriate Quirks or IE7 Standards Mode.

4. Give web developers tools and time to help transition their content to IE8 Standards.

   IE8 introduced the X-UA-Compatible meta tag and header to provide web developers time to transition their websites to IE8 Standards. As mentioned above, many websites have already used this mechanism to specify that their content should run in IE7 Standards Mode.

A Diagram on How IE8 Determines Document Mode

Given the above principles, there are four rules that you can remember about how IE handles doctype, X-UA-Compatible meta tag and header, Developer Tools, and Compatibility View Settings. These rules follow the diagram below from top to bottom:

1. The Developer Tools settings override all Document Modes for pages displayed in a tab.
2. The X-UA-Compatible meta tag and then header override Compatibility View Settings and the doctype unless the X-UA-Compatible value is EmulateIE7 or EmulateIE8.
3. The user’s Compatibility View Settings override the Microsoft Microsoft Compatibility View List.
4. If none of the above rules apply, the doctype determines whether the webpage renders in IE8 Standards, IE8 Almost Standards or Quirks Mode.

Compatibility and interoperability are complex. To reduce complexity for developers and users alike, we would love to see websites transition from legacy browser modes. We respect that the choice of mode is up to the site developer. We’re excited to work with sites and standards bodies to continue improving IE’s implementation of interoperable standards.

Many thanks to Jesse Mohrland for verifying the diagram.

Marc Silbey
Program Manager

Source: IEBlog | 2 Mar 2010 | 8:07 pm

Windows 7 Assists Healthcare Companies with Patient Care

This week, the Healthcare IT Conference and Exhibition 2010 (HIMSS) takes place in Atlanta, Georgia, where hundreds of educational exhibits will be on hand to showcase the latest in healthcare technology. While Microsoft is showcasing a variety of new solutions and health applications for improved collaboration with doctors, care facilities and patients (more on the conference here), we also wanted to share a few healthcare customers who are seeing the benefits from Microsoft technology and Windows 7 deployment. Particularly within the high-speed environment of a healthcare facility, boosts in increased productivity, time savings and easier manageability are of utmost importance for staff and the patients they work with – we’re very excited to help make this possible.

Sinofi-avantis: Sanofi-aventis, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, wanted its 100,000 employees around the world to have the most current operating system on their desks so that they could communicate and innovate – which is why they chose Windows 7. Employees will be better able to help the business fulfill its transformation goals by tapping into the latest productivity and collaboration technologies.

Darryl Corum, Senior Director of Client Engineering Services at Sanofi-aventis:

I am convinced that the improved performance of Windows 7, combined with the higher performance of new solid-state disk drives, will drive productivity up and costs down. Startup and shutdown times are greatly reduced, performance penalties from data fragmentation have been eliminated, disk failure rates are expected to be reduced, and lower power consumption results in longer battery life in portable computers. This all contributes to an improved user experience. End users are excited at the increased responsiveness of their PCs.

F. Hoffman – La Roche: Based in Basel, Switzerland, F. Hoffmann-La Roche is a leader in researched-focused healthcare. As part of its IT plan to simplify its computing environment, the company upgraded users’ computers to the Windows 7 operating system. As a result, Roche is benefiting from enhanced IT security, streamlined IT management, increased system performance, and an improved user experience.

Dieter Reichert, Program Manager of Workplace Solutions at Roche:

(With Windows 7) Employees don’t have to worry about manually synchronizing their data—it’s now synchronized automatically, and users have access even when they are disconnected from the network. This is a big win for our users.

Partners HealthCare: Boston’s Center for Connected Health, a division of the Partners HealthCare medical network, recently found they needed to create a flexible technology platform to help patients manage chronic conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension, outside traditional medical facilities. Using a mix of Microsoft products and Software plus Service solutions (with plans to roll out Windows 7 this summer), Partners HealthCare was able to provide a communications gateway for patients and healthcare providers to collaborate on treatment programs.

Douglas McClure, Corporate Manager for Technology and Operations at the Center for Connected Health:

Using software-plus-services, we were able to develop the Connected Health Care Suite relatively quickly without going through a huge, time-consuming evaluation of all the products on the market and trying to figure out how to integrate them into our solution. Instead, Microsoft technologies and the software-plus-services approach allow the CHCS to plug in to existing systems and devices with ease.

RehabCare Group: RehabCare Group, which plans to roll out Windows 7 this year as well, provides rehabilitation program management services for more than 1,200 facilities across the United States with 150 specialized applications and 2,500 desktop and laptop PCs among a highly mobile staff. With Microsoft Application Virtualization and System Center Configuration Manager, RehabCare cut the time for large-scale deployments of new applications from weeks to less than one day, delivered application updates 80 percent faster for a savings of 1,200 IT staff hours per year, improved asset tracking, and enhanced reliability and service for widely dispersed employees. With all this increased productivity, therapists could more easily focus on the most important piece of their day – their patients.

Mike Brimberry, Lead Systems Engineer for RehabCare Group:

Using Microsoft application virtualization and management technologies has had a huge impact. By helping us streamline and strengthen key processes, Microsoft enables us to efficiently handle the needs of a growing business.

For more information on Windows 7 for large, medium or small businesses, check out our business site, or read more enterprise company case studies or SMB case studies. We also have a resource dedicated to IT professionals: the Springboard Series on TechNet offers information, tools and guidance for migrating to Windows 7.

Source: The Windows Blog | 2 Mar 2010 | 7:09 pm

Keeping the Messenger service running—on a massive scale

If you read Jeff Kunins' post a few weeks ago about the growth of Windows Live Messenger in the last decade, you already know that Messenger's growth has been pretty phenomenal. With such growth comes passionate feedback from customers, and a unique set of challenges around supporting those customers with a reliable service. My name is Russ Arun, and I'm a Group Program Manager for Windows Live, focusing on the server side of Messenger. In building the Messenger service we've always focused on these core principles:

• Scale - making it easy to support more customers using a set pattern
• Reliability - making the system redundant where needed
• Efficiency - delivering the best service for the least cost

In this post, I’d like to focus on some history, basic architecture, and insights into how we deploy Messenger.

Back in the day

The Messenger service in its early days was built on a Unix variant system. Each time we had to upgrade the Messenger servers, we had to bring the service down, install the upgrade, and then bring the service back up. Of course, we would do this at around midnight Pacific Standard Time. As Messenger became a global service, this became untenable as it was right in the middle of the day for our customers in Europe and Asia.  We also had our share of issues, and we learned as we went along.

I remember one upgrade—this was 6 or 7 years ago—when bringing the service back up caused issues for our customers for a much longer period of time than we would have liked. As you can imagine this was not a good day for the team or for our customers. But we learned from our mistakes. At this critical juncture in the evolution of Messenger, we added a new core principle to our earlier list: what we call “no cloud down.”

No cloud down

No cloud down basically means that the "cloud" servers (where information about your IM connections are stored) are never all down at the same time, so your service is never interrupted. To help us achieve this goal, first we moved all Messenger activity to Windows-based servers. We worked to avoid cascading failures from affecting the system as a whole, by making various parts of the service redundant. And as with the Hotmail backend architecture, we made it easy to build more capacity by using “clusters” of servers that can be deployed in a single data center or across multiple data centers to service all the traffic. We also made the Messenger client more resilient to network-related issues.

Three types of servers

To get an idea of how Messenger is put together, it is simplest to start from the original architecture of Messenger. We basically had 3 server types:

• Connection servers
• Presence servers
• Switchboards

When you sign in to Messenger, your Messenger client talks to the connection server, which holds the session state. After a successful sign-in, a “subscription” is established on the presence server, which keeps track of your online presence and fans this information out to all of your online Messenger contacts. While you and your friend are chatting, the switchboard provides the meeting point where your messages are exchanged. Although Messenger has evolved over time, this basic architecture remains the same.

The number of connection servers is scaled to the number of users simultaneously logged into the system (its scale is network-connection bound). Approximately 13% of our customers are connected to the service at any one time, but that number has been going up rapidly because of the growth in always-on mobile connections, and the addition of various web sites that now integrate Messenger (for example, Hotmail).

Presence servers are scaled to the amount of data we have about user presence (in what we call the “presence document”) and the number of Messenger contacts (also known as subscriptions) to whom we need to communicate any change of state. The presence server is mainly memory bound; it scales with the complexity of information in the presence document multiplied by the number of users hosted on each presence server.

The scale of the switchboard is bound by the number of users simultaneously having IM conversations. This simplicity in design lets us scale up reasonably well. For example, if we see an increase in the average number of Messenger contacts that users have, we scale up by increasing the number of presence servers, or increasing the memory in each presence server. If a presence server goes down, in this simple design, we can recreate the subscriptions from all the connected Messenger clients.

To decrease the latency of bringing up new presence servers, we've optimized in various ways, but the core architecture based on these three server types remains the same. We've also done various optimizations to reduce the load on our service, where possible. For example, file transfers (when you send a file to someone else in Messenger) happens P2P (it goes directly from one computer to another computer without ever being stored on our servers). As we've added other features and expanded Messenger to span multiple data centers, we've kept true to the simplicity of the original design and retained our ability to scale by each server type.

Working together

We've also worked hard to make the client and server work well together, while taking into account the realities of the Internet. For example, when a Messenger client logs into our identity system, it gets a ticket with a timeout, or “lease,” which expires at a specific time. During the term of the lease, if the Windows Live ID identity system has any service-related issues or the network connection from the client to the service drops, the ticket allows the client to continue to access the Messenger service without the user having to sign in again, as long as the lease has not expired. This allows the client to provide our customers with the necessary service, while preserving the authentication guarantee from our Windows Live ID identity system.

Lately, our Messenger service for the web is being adopted more than ever before, both by our own Windows Live Hotmail service, and by various non-Microsoft websites. For ease of integration with non-Microsoft services, developers can use the Messenger Web Toolkit, which comes with an SDK (Software Development Kit) that allows any web service to add a Messenger web bar to any relevant page. This adds to the value of the services who adopt it, by allowing their customers to chat with Windows Live customers without leaving their site.

Messenger also provides federation (interoperability) with enterprise networks using Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS). We make the connection between Windows Live and the selected enterprise network using the SIP protocol, the same method we use to connect Windows Live Messenger with Yahoo! Messenger. These federation services bring networks of massive scale together. Messenger servers can also talk to multiple end-points: desktop, web, and mobile. Many higher end mobile phones have Windows Live Messenger mobile clients available. It is also possible to communicate from Messenger to a mobile phone through SMS (text messaging). Someone signed into Messenger on their desktop can add a phone number to a Messenger contact (in selected countries). The desktop Messenger user can then send IMs to their friend's mobile device, and the friend can reply from their phone via SMS, with each person using the method that works best for them. To enable this, Messenger is integrated with the SMS network.

Careful planning for updates

Given all of the interoperability requirements, you can imagine the carefully choreographed operation it takes to update the Messenger desktop client. Each update has to interoperate with multiple versions of Messenger, in multiple languages, and in multiple countries. The bandwidth needed for such an update is a sizable portion of the overall bandwidth consumed on an average day by all of Microsoft. This of course means that the Messenger servers have to support multiple protocol dialects and multiple versions of a particular dialect at a time. Similarly, upgrading any Messenger server type requires that the upgraded servers continue to work across the rest of the server types and honor all the supported protocols.

The current Messenger system, which supports more than 300 million customers, runs on a few thousand servers spread across multiple data centers worldwide. Apart from the three server types mentioned above, we also have servers that automatically manage the system to reduce human intervention to a minimum. Since Messenger is mostly stateless, automated management of Messenger is easier than for other, "stateful" services. The same quality makes Messenger more efficient in the cost of running the system.

I hope that I've been able to convey a sense of the architecture of the Messenger service, how we are able to scale it by server type, and some of the nuances of running the service.

Russ Arun
Windows Live Messenger

Source: The Windows Blog | 2 Mar 2010 | 6:43 pm

AMD Unveils Versatile AMD 890GX Chipset for High Definition Entertainment on Virtually Any PC Budget

Source: AMD Press Releases | 2 Mar 2010 | 6:02 am

Windows Home Server Featured in Innoventions Dream Home at the Disneyland® Park

“Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho

It's home from work we go . . . “

A familiar song from your youth? That’s right, "Heigh Ho" is a song sung by the seven dwarfs in the 1937 animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as they come home from (and go to) work. It is the movie’s most popular song, but, while most people mistakenly sing "it's off to work we go," the lyrics are really “it’s home from work we go.” Just a little trivia for you. 

So what does this have to do with Microsoft? Well, I point out “it’s home from work we go,” because we all want to get home to our Windows Home Server, now don’t we? And Windows Home Server is now in one of the coolest homes around, the Innoventions Dream Home in Tomorrowland at the Disneyland^® Park in Anaheim, California. The home delivers on Walt Disney’s vision for showcasing cutting-edge technologies that make life better and easier.   

This home of the future has recently been updated and now features the HP MediaSmart EX495 Home Server. You can check out a virtual tour of the home here. Hint: look behind the desk in the family room where the white arrow is pointing. You’ll see other cool Microsoft products in the home, including an Xbox 360 Elite and Microsoft keyboard and mouse.

The Innoventions Dream Home was first introduced in June 2008 with Microsoft as an original exhibitor , and the home has been a huge hit since then. The home, which shows how a connected digital lifestyle can simplify and enhance many aspects of daily family life, is a perfect showcase for how Windows Home Server helps families centralize and connect their digital experiences.

The Innoventions Dream Home is both a show and a showcase, offering guests a hands-on experience with new in-home technologies, some that are practical and some that are just truly astounding – like the Magic Mirror, a virtual mirror that projects accessories, hairstyles and clothes from your closet onto your reflection, allowing you try out different "looks."

Also, check out the Taylor Morrison Dream Home Giveaway contest on the Innoventions Dream Home site. Depending on where you live, looks like you could be in the running to win the home of your dreams – the perfect place to put your Windows Home Server!

- Stephanie

Source: The Windows Blog | 2 Mar 2010 | 2:38 am

Windows Server AppFabric Beta 2 Available!

The Beta 2 for Windows Server AppFabric is available for download today at http://msdn.microsoft.com/appfabric.  We’re encouraging developers and IT professionals working with .NET 4 and Windows Server to download the Beta and provide feedback, as we prepare to release the final version of Windows Server AppFabric to be delivered by Q3 of 2010.

First announced at PDC 2009, Windows Server AppFabric is a set of application services focused on improving the speed, scale, and management of Web, Composite, and Enterprise applications.

To date, more than 8,000 developers have downloaded the Beta 1 version of Windows Server AppFabric.  Customers, including, Associated Press, Bentley, and Jettainer are already seeing strong benefits that include significantly increased performance, simplified development and management, and improved availability and reliability for their most demanding applications. 

Developers and IT Pros using Windows Server AppFabric can expect the following benefits:

Faster Web Apps Made Easy

Windows Server AppFabric helps developers improve the speed and availability of web applications through distributed in-memory caching and replication technology that works with current ASP.NET applications.

Simplified Composite Apps

Developers can simplify the development of composite applications with the pre-built application services in Windows Server AppFabric, used in conjunction with Visual Studio tools and .NET Framework capabilities (ASP.NET, WCF and WF). IT Pros can also simplify the deployment, monitoring, and management of composite applications with configuration and monitoring capabilities that are integrated with familiar tools (PowerShell, IIS Manager, and System Center).

Enterprise Performance and Availability

An enterprise’s most important and demanding applications can achieve elastic scale, performance, availability, and reliability (benefits often associated with the cloud) with the help of Windows Server AppFabric. These and countless other benefits from an unparalleled partner ecosystem utilize familiar skills from the .NET Framework and Windows Server.

Complementing these Windows Server AppFabric services for on-premises development, Windows Azure platform AppFabric delivers connectivity services (specifically Service Bus and Access Control, formerly known as “.NET Services”) for composite applications spanning to the cloud. Together, Windows Server AppFabric and Windows Azure platform AppFabric provide a comprehensive set of services that help developers rapidly develop new applications spanning Windows Azure and Windows Server, and which also interoperate with other industry platforms such as Java, Ruby, and PHP.

Source: Windows Server Division WebLog | 1 Mar 2010 | 7:46 pm

Productivity Adventure with Windows Phone, IncaX, and the Office of Naval Research

With all the buzz lately around the upcoming Windows Phone 7 Series it’s easy to lose site of some of the amazing things that can already be accomplished today with Windows Phones as a part of the powerfully integrated Microsoft stack. Last week I had the pleasure of spending a day with some amazing folks who are doing some incredible things with Windows Phone, Microsoft Azure, Silverlight, Bing Maps, SharePoint, Photosynth and more all brought to life by the geocast goodness of Microsoft partner IncaX. Office of Naval Research (ONR), has been utilizing these technologies to help the US Navy as well as local law enforcement on the North Carolina coastline to evaluate the capabilities of their emergency response units. Conceived by Dano Debroux, Director, Disruptive Business Technologies (ONR), and supported by IncaX, HP, and Microsoft, the geocast efforts by the Office of Naval Research are a great demonstration of how the Microsoft technology can be used in a variety of extreme situations, including military, law enforcement, disaster relief, and more.

In today’s video we head out on another Productivity Adventure and see the work that has been done by the ONR first hand. To see its initial use we will observe a sea based emergency response scenario. We also hear how the use of these technologies has been received in the field and they are impacting training exercise evaluations. Finally, we actually get to head out in to the field with some great folks form the US Navy where we stimulant an insurgent bomb placement to test sensor equipment and special response team effectiveness. In the final scenario we actually carry HP Glisten Windows Phones to capture and transmit the entire mission. Although the video is somewhat unpolished, I think you will still find the use of geocasting in the scenarios pretty compelling.

The scenarios portrayed are really enabled through the power of IncaX LiveMedia GPS, a solution built entirely on the Microsoft stack. Though running today on existing Windows Phones, IncaX is already poised to deliver new enhanced capability for the next generation Windows Phone 7 Series.

To learn more about the technologies presented and to begin leveraging the power of geocasting and geolocation services use the links below:

• Get started geocasting using IncaX LiveMedia GPS here
• Lean more about the Windows Phone platform here
• Learn about Microsoft Azure cloud services here
• Learn about Microsoft Silverlight technology and it’s capability here
• Learn about the powerful mapping platform for development provided by Bing maps here
• Learn more about Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and its dashboard capabilities here
• Learn more about the power of Microsoft Photosynth technology here

Michael Gannotti is a Technology Specialist for the Microsoft Corporation and the author of the blog SocialMedia Talk. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter

Source: Windows Phone Blog | 1 Mar 2010 | 12:42 pm

Productivity Adventure with Windows Phone, IncaX, and the Office of Naval Research

With all the buzz lately around the upcoming Windows Phone 7 Series it’s easy to lose site of some of the amazing things that can already be accomplished today with Windows Phones as a part of the powerfully integrated Microsoft stack. Last week I had the pleasure of spending a day with some amazing folks who are doing some incredible things with Windows Phone, Microsoft Azure, Silverlight, Bing Maps, SharePoint, Photosynth and more all brought to life by the geocast goodness of Microsoft partner IncaX. Office of Naval Research (ONR), has been utilizing these technologies to help the US Navy as well as local law enforcement on the North Carolina coastline to evaluate the capabilities of their emergency response units. Conceived by Dano Debroux, Director, Disruptive Business Technologies (ONR), and supported by IncaX, HP, and Microsoft, the geocast efforts by the Office of Naval Research are a great demonstration of how the Microsoft technology can be used in a variety of extreme situations, including military, law enforcement, disaster relief, and more.

In today’s video we head out on another Productivity Adventure and see the work that has been done by the ONR first hand. To see its initial use we will observe a sea based emergency response scenario. We also hear how the use of these technologies has been received in the field and they are impacting training exercise evaluations. Finally, we actually get to head out in to the field with some great folks form the US Navy where we stimulant an insurgent bomb placement to test sensor equipment and special response team effectiveness. In the final scenario we actually carry HP Glisten Windows Phones to capture and transmit the entire mission. Although the video is somewhat unpolished, I think you will still find the use of geocasting in the scenarios pretty compelling.

The scenarios portrayed are really enabled through the power of IncaX LiveMedia GPS, a solution built entirely on the Microsoft stack. Though running today on existing Windows Phones, IncaX is already poised to deliver new enhanced capability for the next generation Windows Phone 7 Series.

To learn more about the technologies presented and to begin leveraging the power of geocasting and geolocation services use the links below:

• Get started geocasting using IncaX LiveMedia GPS here
• Lean more about the Windows Phone platform here
• Learn about Microsoft Azure cloud services here
• Learn about Microsoft Silverlight technology and it’s capability here
• Learn about the powerful mapping platform for development provided by Bing maps here
• Learn more about Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and its dashboard capabilities here
• Learn more about the power of Microsoft Photosynth technology here

Michael Gannotti is a Technology Specialist for the Microsoft Corporation and the author of the blog SocialMedia Talk. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter

Source: The Windows Blog | 1 Mar 2010 | 12:42 pm

HP Introduces New PCs for Businesses – Including New Tablet PC

Today, HP has unveiled several new Windows  7 PCs targeted specifically at business customers ranging from small and medium businesses to the enterprise.

First up is their brand new multitouch enabled Tablet PC – the HP EliteBook 2740p Tablet PC.

The 2740p Tablet comes with a 12.1 LED display (at 1280x800 screen resolution) and weighs in at 3.8 pounds. It will ship with Intel Core i5 or i7 processors and support up to 8GB of total memory (DDR3). It will support standard hard drives as well as either an 80GB or 160GB SSD. Its keyboard is designed to be spill resistant with drains. The 2740p also ships with integrated HP Mobile Broadband supporting EV-DO and HSPA (a mobile carrier service will be needed of course) and also includes GPS. TPM 1.2 is also included – perfect for BitLocker user in keeping data safe and secure which is super important to businesses. HP went all out with this Tablet PC by supporting the MIL-STD 810G military standard for vibration, dust, humidity, altitude, and high temperatures. The HP EliteBook 2740p will start at $1,599 (USD) and is expected to be available next month in the U.S. For more on the specs for the 2740p, click here to read the Data Sheet (PDF) from HP.

Next up is the HP EliteBook 2540p.

The 2540p also comes with a 12.1 LED display (at 1280x800 screen resolution), Intel’s Core i5 and i7 processors, supports up to 8GB of memory (DDR3), and also supports the MIL-STD 810G military standard. It also comes with integrated HP Mobile Broadband (including GPS) just like the 2740p Tablet PC. The 2540p includes a fingerprint reader – perfect for the Windows Biometric Framework in Windows 7 – and TPM 1.2 for keeping data secure with BitLocker. In an effort to help protect natural resources – the 2540p has post-consumer recycled plastic resin in at least 12% of total plastic content on the PC. The HP EliteBook 2540p will start at $1,099 (USD) and is expected to also be available next month in the U.S. For more on the specs for the 2540p, click here to read the Data Sheet (PDF) from HP.

HP is also introducing brand new designs for their HP ProBook s-series PCs. The new design features a brushed-aluminum metal case and a matte surface which will be available in either available in “caviar” or “Bordeaux”.

The HP ProBook s-series will offer HD LED-backlit displays in the following screen sizes:

• 13.3 inch - HP ProBook 4320s | Click here for the Data Sheet
• 14 inch - HP ProBook 4420s | Click here for the Data Sheet
• 15.6 inch - HP ProBook 4520s | Click here for the Data Sheet
• 17.3 inch - HP ProBook 4720s | Click here for the Data Sheet

HP will ship their ProBook s-series PCs with Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors and include a choice of Intel HD Graphics or discrete graphics option featuring AMD’s ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4350. The HP ProBook s-series will start at $719 (USD) and also should be available in the U.S. next month.

For business customers always on the go – these new Windows 7 PCs are worth looking at.

Source: The Windows Blog | 1 Mar 2010 | 9:25 am

Get Batman: Arkham Asylum 75% off via Games on Demand!

In a few previous blog posts I’ve done over the last couple months, I talked about or mentioned the awesome Games for Windows – LIVE game Batman: Arkham Asylum. In early December, we introduced Games on Demand for Games for Windows – LIVE with Batman: Arkham Asylum as one of the showcase titles. Today, Batman: Arkham Asylum officially kicks off a month of sales for game titles on Games on Demand! And these sales are going to be hot. How hot? Well, Batman: Arkham Asylum is on sale today at 75% off the regular price putting the game at only $12.49 (USD). This deal for Batman: Arkham Asylum goes to March 1st 10am PST.

To download Batman: Arkham Asylum, you need to have the latest Games for Windows – Live client installed on your PC. You can download the latest version here.

As I said above, this deal for Batman: Arkham Asylum officially kicks off a month of sweet deals on games offered through Games on Demand on Games for Windows – LIVE. At the end of each week throughout March, a new deal will hit – so keep your eyes peeled on www.gamesforwindows.com for those deals as they hit.

One more thing – the SideWinder Gaming folks will be giving away a new SideWinder X4 keyboard (or maybe 3) via their Twitter account. The SideWinder X4 isn’t out yet so this could be your change to get one before anyone else!

Source: The Windows Blog | 27 Feb 2010 | 12:10 am

Simplify with the Volume Activation Management Tool

There’s a new Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT) available from Microsoft to help administrators manage Multiple Activation Key (MAK) activation for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. The way MAK activation works is that the key must be installed on the end system (there are a number of ways to do this - see our latest TechNet Webcast for more details and demos) and then that system is activated with the Microsoft-hosted activation and validation services either online or over the phone. If you are activating one system with MAK, the effort required is minimal. However, if you want to MAK activate multiple systems or transition between activation methods (i.e. MAK to KMS, KMS to MAK, etc.) it gets a bit more complicated. VAMT can help with that.

VAMT uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to communicate with end-systems and provides the following features to help manage activation:

• Track and administer multiple MAK keys and remaining activations
• Discover systems via IP address, computer name, Workgroup or Active Directory membership
• View current activation status for Windows Vista (and later) and Windows Server 2008 (and later) operating systems – includes data such as license state, Windows edition, and the last 5 of the product key installed on the end system
• Transition systems between MAK and KMS activation (and vice versa)
• Perform activation/reactivation using cached data (i.e. local reactivation)

The current version of VAMT (1.2) is part of the Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows 7. Unlike previous editions, VAMT 1.2 is only available in the Windows AIK and is not published as a standalone download.

The primary difference between VAMT 1.1 and 1.2 is the added support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. If you are using an earlier version of VAMT, you’ll need to install VAMT 1.2 to manage MAK keys and activations for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. You will first need to uninstall the older version of VAMT and then install VAMT 1.2 as part of the Windows AIK. Your current inventory/key data can be saved in a Computer Information List (CIL) file (XML) and opened in the new version. No need to re-enter any keys or rebuild your computer list.

An updated version of VAMT (VAMT 2.0) is currently in beta and expected to release in the first quarter of this year. VAMT 2.0 is a managed MMC plug-in and will offer a number of new features:

• Support for the upcoming Office 2010 release
• Support for additional product key types, such as KMS keys
• Additional computer search capabilities (LDAP query)
• Command Line Interface that can be scripted to run VAMT tasks without the interactive UI

Download the beta today and give it a try.

No matter the version you are using, VAMT can help with several management and tracking activities related to product activation in your environment.

Until next time!

- Jodi

Source: The Windows Blog | 26 Feb 2010 | 11:06 pm

Piloting Windows 7- Part 2 : Initial Project Planning for a Windows 7 Pilot

Continuing the series with our guest blogger, Jeremy Chapman.

As with any IT project, the first part of planning is about building a plan. There are several things you’ll want to accomplish with a pilot and depending on your organization, the importance of each validation area will vary. I think of the pilot as trying to achieve the following key tasks

1. Technology validation. This not only validates the desktop environment you are delivering, but also how you deliver it. This covers everything from inventorying current users’ desktops, to imaging, applications and deployment technologies.
2. Process validation. Process validation is ultimately for ensuring that you have covered all bases for the project and implementation infrastructure, while making sure that you have the right people and resources in place for the production rollout.
3. User validation. User validation is not about validating the user’s abilities, but instead it gauges the impacts specific to the deployment process, new desktop environment and especially application experience.

 
Once you have the project goals in mind, there are many ways to execute the pilot in minimize user disruption. The idea is to start small and gradually increase the number of pilot seats – ensuring that you have an adequate representation of users, hardware types and sites (or geographic locations). Now is the time to document a plan for rolling out the pilot. You will also want to define success criteria relatively early in the process and what should constitute sign off for each phase. This typically means the number of issues and issue severity that you are willing to live with during each phase – recognizing that things should improve as you get closer to the production deployment. The concept of severity is important here as with any testing. You can use the following as a sample guideline for classifying severity:

• Severity 1. A fatal error, or a critical fix is needed before production
• Severity 2. Error is non-fatal, but it still needs to be fixed before production
• Severity 3. A fix isn’t required before production deployment
• Severity 4. Generally a nitpick, does not affect usage, performance or the average user, but somebody had to log it

Your quality gates should reflect these severity levels and include some count or measure for success. These numbers should get better as you approach production deployment. Here are a couple of examples:

• System performance. Were the desktop computers successfully migrated? The target for success is that 90 percent of all desktop computers migrated received only severity 3 or 4 issues.
• User satisfaction. How satisfied are the users with the outcome of the migration? Were all of the authorized data and settings migrated? Are their new installations usable? Did they need to call the help desk? How much downtime did they experience? Severity is can be judged individually per question above – you might want to stick with the 90% 
• Operations readiness. How satisfied is information technology (IT) Operations with how the pilot went? Were there critical issues that had to be resolved? Success in this case might be if more than 10% of users were dissatisfied with the delivery, service and issue resolutions.

By now you should have project goals, a system for assigning and prioritizing issues and a few quality gates defined for sign-off when moving up phases. Now is the time when we define the high level phases for the project with timelines and who is targeted per phase. I’ll save that for Part 3 of this blog series though.

Stay tuned and thanks for reading,

Jeremy Chapman

Source: The Windows Blog | 26 Feb 2010 | 4:53 am

Prevent Loss of Sensitive Information Using the Windows Server 2008 R2 File Classification Infrastructure

Today I want to discuss the importance of information classification and how it can be used to prevent data breaches and help organizations with compliance requirements such as PCI, HIIPA, ISO 27001, the Massachusetts Data Protection Law 201 and other similar legislation.

Information classification is the critical first step in managing data based on its business value. When the information’s value is understood, organizations can apply security policies to reduce the risk of information leakage. The new File Classification Infrastructure (FCI) in Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 enables organizations to protect data by automatically classifying files and applying policy. FCI includes the ability to define classification properties, automatically classify files based on location and content, and invoke file management tasks such as file expiration and custom commands based on classification.

Once the files have been classified, appropriate security can be applied based on the business value of the information. For example, in a PCI environment, FCI-based classification can be used to identify files that contain sensitive credit card information, and in a health care environment, FCI based classification can identify files with private health information. Once the files have been classified file management tasks can be used to segment sensitive files onto more secure storage devices, to protect files with encryption, and to assign more restrictive permissions to the files. This helps ensure that information stored on file servers is well secured.

Another concern is email. Email messages or email attachments are a security risk as email cannot easily be controlled. One of our FCI partners, Titus Labs has extended classification and information protection to the Microsoft Outlook environment. Titus Labs Message Classification can recognize file attachments that have been classified using FCI.

The Titus Labs solution can examine the FCI classifications of Microsoft Office attachments, and can apply policy that can restrict the distribution of sensitive information. Titus Labs’ Safe Recipient policies can be used to:

• Protect the distribution of email within an organization. By examining all the recipients of an email, the Titus Labs policy can verify via Active Directory whether the recipient is allowed to receive attachments of a given classification. This prevents inadvertent data loss by warning the user that one of the recipients should be removed. For example, in an internal scenario, a financial organization may want to ensure that an employee in corporate finance is restricted from sending files classified as MERGER / ACQUISITION to another employee working as a broker or trader.
• Protect the distribution of email outside the organization. By examining the domain of each of the recipients, the Titus Labs policy can verify that the domain is listed as trusted in the policy and can warn the user of a possible data breach and warn them or force them to change the recipient list. In the following example, the sender has mistakenly selected the wrong Anne Hollingsworth at an external address. The sender receives a warning because the email contains an attachment that has been classified as CONFIDENTIAL / INTERNAL USE.

Invalid recipient is detected based on classification

This is an example of the power of FCI to protect your sensitive information. Click here for more information on FCI.

Sabrinath S. Rao

Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Windows Server Marketing - ISV Ecosystem

Source: Windows Server Division WebLog | 26 Feb 2010 | 12:18 am

New ATI Radeon™ HD 5830 Graphics Card Brings Huge Performance, More Choice for DirectX® 11 Gaming

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today introduced the ATI Radeon™ HD 5830 graphics card, bringing gamers the cutting-edge features and performance of the award-winning ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 series at a lower price than ever before at less than $250 USD.¹ With the introduction of the ATI Radeon HD 5830, gamers have another great choice in graphics hardware, with full support for DirectX® 11 gaming, ATI Eyefinity technology,² and ATI Stream capabilities.³

Source: AMD Press Releases | 25 Feb 2010 | 5:00 am

Mi-Greatness: Full release version of Windows Server Migration Tools update lets you migrate Hyper-V and RRAS

Remember back in December, when we released the Beta version of the Windows Server Migration Tools update...the one that allows you to migrate Hyper-V and Routing and Remote Access Services to servers running Windows Server 2008 R2...no? OK, you don't. That was three months and a lot of holiday partying ago. We understand.

The full release version of the Windows Server 2008 R2 Migration Utilities is now available. The update allows you to use the Windows Server Migration Tools-a set of Windows PowerShell cmdlets that shipped with Windows Server 2008 R2- to migrate Hyper-V and RRAS. And the detailed guides that take you through Hyper-V and RRAS migration, one step at a time, are now complete and live as well.

Full release versions of other guides (for migrations that do not require the Tools) have also gone live. Check out the Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP2 Migration Guide, and guides for the other role services of Network Policy and Access Services (NPAS), Health Registration Authority and Network Policy Server.

Your feedback is absolutely welcome, and essential to making the guides the best and most useful that they can be. Take a moment to rate the guide topics as you evaluate them, by using the star rating system in the upper right corner of every TechNet page. Fill the accompanying text box with your comments and suggestions for improving the guides. Visit the Windows Server Migration forum to ask questions, or discuss the guides, the Migration tools, or your migration experiences.

Plenty of other Migration resources are available with the new guides; you'll find everything on the Migration Portal for Windows Server 2008 R2.

-- Cheers from the Windows Server Migration Team!

Source: Windows Server Division WebLog | 25 Feb 2010 | 2:58 am

BIEB Update: Microsoft IT Speaks Out on Today’s IT Trends

BIEB stands for Microsoft’s Because It’s Everybody’s Business campaign. But it’s more than an ad campaign, it’s also a slick Web resource with loads of value-add IT Pro content. Here’s a quick update on some of the latest additions:

Where the folks in my group build the Windows Server products, Microsoft’s CIO, Tony Scott, actually has to use them. And he’s generally deploying new Microsoft technologies a year or more ahead of everyone else on the planet – while simultaneously servicing the IT needs of 85,000+ of the most technology hungry info workers you’d ever want to meet. Not an easy job. So when Tony wants to talk about the trends and innovations he sees coming in IT, my ears perk up.

You can check out Tony’s article here, as an Adobe Acrobat download (it’s right at the top of the page). His views on unified communications and virtualization were inline with my expectations, but I like his attention to cloud and employee productivity. It’s a short article, and well worth the read.

Additionally, Jeff Wettlaufer writes about the availability of System Center Configuration Manager’s Reporting Dashboard beta; Mike Gannotti gives you an inside peek at how SharePoint is powering the U.S. Olympic Committee’s pressbox site; and yours truly has a new post up there on Windows Server 2008 R2’s top benefits, which links to some deeper interviews given to Windows IT Pro magazine by Bill Laing (Windows Server Corporate Vice President) and our own Ward Ralston, my boss in Windows Server Marketing.

If you’re up for more reading, you can also download a new free e-Book (available here) entitled, Understanding Microsoft Virtualization R2 Solutions. Microsoft has been delivering a slew of new innovation around both server and desktop virtualization over the past several years; so folks looking to get a big picture handle on these new products and how to use them, this is the book for you.

There’s a lot more on the BIEB site, so I encourage you to poke around there for a while. And as always, ideas and feedback are much appreciated.

Oliver Rist

Windows Server Marketing

Source: Windows Server Division WebLog | 25 Feb 2010 | 12:06 am

AMD to Present at Wedbush Securities Management Access Conference

Source: AMD Press Releases | 24 Feb 2010 | 11:52 pm

Documenting Standards in IE

This post discusses some of the work we’re doing on the IE team to fulfill our commitment to document our support of web standards. A good starting point is Microsoft’s interoperability principles, something we’ve written about here on this blog before, and a principle that’s easy to see in action in our products, like IE8.

The essence of interoperability in this context is that the same web page markup works the same way across different browsers. There are many challenges in getting to this goal. Even with the best intentions, as an industry we are still learning and working through how to do this well. You can look at how different tests run even today in modern browsers (for example here at 19:57). You can look at how standards evolve, like how quickly CSS2 became CSS 2.1, or the process to finish CSS 2.1 and make it a final Recommendation, or what happened between XHTML and HTML5. You can look at the challenge of delivering interoperable products while specifications are under construction (as in the case of 802.11 wireless). There are many challenges, and the web standards process, primarily at the W3C and similar organizations, is an important means to get the different communities involved to a consensus agreement.

The work in developing a public CSS 2.1 test suite and contributing it to the W3C, our recent work on different aspects of HTML5, and the improvements in IE9’s interoperability we showed at PDC are all examples of our principles in action. You can try out some of the tests yourself, in different browsers and on different operating systems.

As part of our commitment to interoperability, we’re going to make more interoperability information available about IE and keep it up-to-date. Today we’re publishing the first pieces of documentation here. These documents are drafts, and are not final. We will post more here on the IE blog about interoperability documentation (e.g. how we engineered creating this documentation, the process for keeping the documentation up to date).

Thanks –
Dean Hachamovitch

Source: IEBlog | 24 Feb 2010 | 10:42 pm

AMD Changing the Game Education Initiative Expands Beyond United States

Source: AMD Press Releases | 23 Feb 2010 | 8:07 am

MIX - Microsoft, W3C and SVG

In addition to our engagement in the SVG Working Group, Doug Schepers, W3C Team Contact for the SVG Working Group, and I are going to be presenting SVG: The Past, Present and Future of Vector Graphics for the Web, at MIX 2010 in Las Vegas this coming March to share help developers understand where SVG is headed.  At Microsoft we have been investigating how SVG can deliver graphics for the next generation of the Web Development. Its inclusion in HTML5 promises many opportunities for developers to enhance their sites. We will provide an overview of SVG and how the standard is evolving to support a broader range of applications on the Web.

Patrick Dengler
Senior Program Manager

Source: IEBlog | 22 Feb 2010 | 10:31 pm

Search Providers: Best Practices on Setting the Default

This post describes a set of best practices for setting the default search provider. Our goal continues to be keeping users in control of their browser, following our published Guidelines and Requirements for add-on development.

If you write software that modifies Internet Explorer’s search settings or defaults through direct registry manipulation, your software may be contributing to user confusion and frustration.

Whenever a program tries to modify the default search provider through direct registry manipulation (e.g. modifying the DefaultScope registry key directly as described in an earlier blog post ), IE8 intercepts the change and prompts users to confirm what they want:

Figure 1: In this dialog, the software requests a search default change using the recommended SetDefault API and clear attribution is displayed. In this case, it is the Contoso Internet Toolbar software.

If multiple search providers try to reset the registry key every time it changes, it causes a confusing and frustrating user experience. The above dialog box will re-appear every time the key is modified directly.

IE8 includes a Search Provider Default configuration experience designed for this scenario. When your software uses the IOpenServiceManager API (to install a search provider) and the SetDefault API (to request users set it as their default), users will see clearer communication about what is happening. This transparency is an important part of the user being in control.

The following code sample shows how to install a search provider and request that the user set it as the default using the recommended APIs.

#include <windows.h>
#include <atlbase.h>
#include <openservice.h>

    HRESULT hr = E_FAIL;
    BOOL fComInitialized = FALSE;

    if (S_OK == CoInitialize(NULL))
    {
        fComInitialized = TRUE;

        //Open a handle to the OpenService manager
        CComPtr<IOpenServiceManager> spManager;
        hr = spManager.CoCreateInstance(CLSID_OpenServiceManager);

        if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
        {
            CComPtr<IOpenService> spService;

            //Install my search provider
            //URL-OF-SERVICE: See http://www.opensearch.org/Specifications/OpenSearch/1.1#OpenSearch_description_elements 
            hr = spManager->InstallService(URL-OF-SERVICE, &spService);

            if (hr==S_OK)
            {
                //Request that the user changes their search default
                hr = spService->SetDefault(TRUE, NULL);
            }
        }
    }

    if (fComInitialized)
    {
        CoUninitialize();
    }

When called, the SetDefault API will show the above dialog (See Figure 1 above) requesting the user to change their search default. The user can approve or deny this request from the software. If approved, the software can change the default setting. If denied, however, the software will not be allowed to change the user's default settings. The user can change the setting at any time by opening the Manage Add-ons window.

If the binary that is calling the SetDefault API is signed with a valid code signing certificate, the program name and publisher will be displayed in the Search Provider Default dialog box as in Figure 1 above. Code that calls SetDefault should be signed.

In summary, if your software monitors the DefaultScope registry key directly, please update your code to use the recommended APIs. This will allow the user to see the search provider default dialog only once and lets them be in full control of their default, in support of the Guidelines for add-on development.

If you are new to OpenSearch Extensibility and would like to learn how to offer your services or how to get started, check out the article Search Provider Extensibility in Internet Explorer.

Until next time,

Duc (Cash) Vo
Programmer Writer
Internet Explorer

Source: IEBlog | 17 Feb 2010 | 7:58 pm

AMD Delivers Performance, Stability, and Expanded Feature Set with New ATI Catalyst™ Driver Updates

Source: AMD Press Releases | 17 Feb 2010 | 6:01 am

Windows Server 2008 R2 & Intel Slam Dunk iSCSI Performance Benchmark

With the release of Windows Server 2008 R2, the Windows Server platform has evolved into a robust and scalable platform aimed squarely at the heaviest data center loads – and we’re always looking at new ways to prove it. Recently, in conjunction with Intel hardware, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V achieved amazing throughput results over iSCSI.

iSCSI stands for Internet Small Computer System Interface and amounts to a storage networking protocol that can carry SCSI data over TCP/IP networks. Because it allows client initiators to send storage commands to target SCSI-based storage devices on other machines across high-speed Ethernet networks, iSCSI is a popular way to build Storage Area Networks (SANs), as it allows network architects to use generic Ethernet components rather than closed-system SAN products. That means both a cheaper SAN network as well as an easier management stack.

The only trouble with iSCSI over Ethernet has been a nagging perception that this combination is slower than competing systems – and slow is death when you’re talking about storage. But that’s looking like a perception of the past following a fantastic iSCSI benchmarking result done with Intel hardware and Microsoft Windows Server software in January of 2010. Running on server hardware equipped with an Intel Xeon 5580 CPU and an Intel 82599 10GbE network interface card (NIC), Windows Server 2008 R2 achieved 715,000 IOPs. Leveraging new 10GbE network technology from Intel as well as the combination of Intel Virtual Machine Device Queuing (VMDq) matched with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Virtual Machine Queuing (VMQ), the combination achieved a performance result that amounts to line rate 10GbE performance and near-native iSCSI performance across a network!

Results like these prove that combining Windows Server 2008 R2 with high-performance hardware can provide bleeding edge performance without the need to move to closed, proprietary systems –while still providing enough horsepower to tackle heavy data center workloads. Lots of kudos to Intel and the Windows Server Storage Technologies team for some excellent engineering. For some more information on this benchmark result, check this post from the virt team.

Oliver Rist

Windows Server Marketing

Source: Windows Server Division WebLog | 16 Feb 2010 | 10:45 pm

Windows Phone Excitement

Yesterday was electrifying for Windows Phones! At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Steve Ballmer and the Windows Phone team revealed Windows Phone 7 Series; finally the cat is out of the bag as we have been bursting with excitement to talk about this announcement for months. If you saw the press conference, or any of the subsequent news coverage, you’re probably aware of the fresh new approach we are taking to the phone. Not only is there cool new design throughout, but the experiences, like Zune for music and Xbox Live for games, will bring together the experiences people really care about from web, music, gaming, and applications. Being an avid Xbox and Zune user myself, I could not be more excited for us to incorporate these and other experiences on the mobile phone. It seems strange to be so excited for the holidays when it’s only February, yet here I am.

Looking back on the last few months, I must say that it has been a gratifying time to work on this team. Last October we released the first mobile operating system to be called “Windows Phone” and opened the doors on a new app Marketplace. Also at that time, we committed ourselves to delivering a regular drumbeat of noticeable improvements. Since then, we’ve teamed up with our partners and delivered some great new phones like the award-winning Samsung Omnia II and HTC TouchPro 2, facilitated a growing number of fun and useful apps, and released several important improvements to the Windows Phone software. The new phone that I personally use is the HTC HD2. For those in the United States who have been waiting for it, today HTC and T-Mobile have announced that the HD2 will arrive on US store shelves in a month! In recent weeks, several of our partners have announced new Windows Phones and it certainly seems like there’s something for everyone.

• The “green” Sony Ericsson Aspen
• The Garmin Asus M10
• The HP Glisten
• HTC HD Mini

In addition to offering some great new phones we are also delivering to our device maker partners a new SKU, the Windows Phone 6 Starter Edition. This new SKU allows our partners can keep up with the growing demand for smartphones in emerging markets and offer people a lower cost alternative for work and play. Check out Bsquare’s announcement here.

The excitement continues as we look at the Windows Phone Marketplace. We have worked hard to build a store that is not just focused on pushing apps, apps, apps (quantity) but is also focused on quality; both in the apps themselves and the experience you will have when you shop. I have a personal appreciation for the store’s refund policy (I am a fickle buyer). Since the day we opened our doors last October, only four months ago, we’ve grown to offer over 1245 apps for people to choose from. Some recent additions include Prince of Persia (yeah, I’ve played it. What?), Tony Hawk’s “Vert”, and my favorite free app, Personal Assistant. I’m a busy person, and the Personal Assistant app gives me the ability to see banking transactions, travel information, and more right from my phone.

For our developer fans, I encourage you to check out Todd Brix’s blog. He has announced several updates that will help the developer community create fresh experiences and bring them to customers. Additionally, Todd has announced the winners of our Race to Market Challenge; the contest to see whose app could generate the most downloads and revenue. The grand prize was a Microsoft Surface Table. Just imagine having one of those in your house… great cocktail conversation. Click here to check out who won. With all that’s being announced today, this is a great time to develop for Windows Phones!

Lastly, for folks that are kept up at night worrying about security, the Windows Phone 6.5 operating system has officially obtained Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ (EAL4+). this certification provides government and enterprise customers with definitive information about the security features in Windows Mobile 6.5, and assurance that mobile workers can securely access sensitive data on information networks.

2010 is going to be an exciting year with new phones and plenty of new experiences. Mobility is in the air! Buenos Dias!

Source: Windows Phone Blog | 16 Feb 2010 | 3:00 pm

Windows Phone 7 Series – Show and Tell

Today at Mobile World Congress we are not simply announcing the existence of Windows Phone 7 Series – we are proud to show you our design results after more than a year of talking to real people, testing out various designs and thinking deeply about how to bring together the web, your data, and applications. For the first time ever, we are bringing together Xbox LIVE games and the Zune music and video experience to phones.  We won’t make you wait any longer. Go ahead and check out this video of our new Windows Phone running on real hardware.

Just about a year ago we took a hard look at the state of the smartphone industry – particularly at design. Our view is that the predominant user interface design – screens of icons to manage and navigate – has become a little outdated. It’s a UI paradigm that was created for the PC, where it’s EASY to have lots of separate apps which you navigate between, spend time with, and operate with a large screen and mouse. We said to ourselves “a phone is not a PC… it’s got a small screen, no mouse, and you want to use it not just for long periods but in short bursts—it should work great in the tiniest of moments.” We wanted to solve for “glanceability” – so you could get data and information without constantly going in and out of applications. We knew that we would need to innovate further to deliver something in which each of us, and each of our customers can take delight. So here it is.

The design you see here, in our mind, is the next logical step in the evolution of applications and it creates a more integrated experience that blends applications with each other and with the operating system. This allows applications and the operating system to share information with the user in a natural and seamless fashion. This intelligent integration blends content, applications, and services together to create a more natural experience for the user.

Our fresh approach to phone software is distinguished by smart design and truly integrated experiences that surface the content you care about. The Windows Phone 7 Series design represents a whole set of elements that fit together, from layout, to motion, to fonts, and even hardware integration. It’s a system that’s integrated into every aspect of the phone. It allows for easy reading, simple navigation, and natural gestures. These integrated experiences are called hubs. The following hubs bring together the value of applications, the Web, and the activities of people you care about in a single, simple UI that’s fast and easy to access on a small phone screen.

People. This hub delivers an engaging social experience by bringing together relevant content based on the person, including his or her live feeds from social networks and photos. It also provides a central place from which to post updates to Facebook and Windows Live in one step.

Pictures. This hub makes it easy to share pictures and video to a social network in one step. Windows Phone 7 Series also brings together a user’s photos by integrating with the Web and PC, making the phone the ideal place to view a person’s entire picture and video collection.

Games. This hub delivers the first and only official Xbox LIVE experience on a phone, including Xbox LIVE games, Spotlight feed and the ability to see a gamer’s avatar, Achievements and gamer profile. With more than 23 million active members around the world, Xbox LIVE unlocks a world of friends, games and entertainment on Xbox 360, and now also on Windows Phone 7 Series.

Music + Video. This hub creates an incredible media experience that brings the best of Zune, including content from a user’s PC, online music services and even a built-in FM radio into one simple place that is all about music and video. Users can turn their media experience into a social one with Zune Social on your PC and share their media recommendations with like-minded music lovers. The playback experience is rich and easy to navigate, and immerses the listener in the content.

Marketplace. This hub allows the user to easily discover and load the phone with certified applications and games.

Office. This hub brings the familiar experience of the world’s leading productivity software to the Windows phone. With access to Office, OneNote and SharePoint Workspace all in one place, users can easily read, edit and share documents. With the additional power of Outlook Mobile, users stay productive and up to date while on the go.

To find out even more and stay in the know, be sure to register at http://www.windowsphone7series.com. Partners have already started building Windows Phone 7 Series phones, and you will be able to purchase one in stores by holiday 2010. Oh yes, and there will be apps! We’ve written up a note about the developer opportunity in this companion article. 

You can read the full Windows Phone 7 Series press release here.

Source: Windows Phone Blog | 15 Feb 2010 | 3:02 pm

Have Virt Questions? Check out the Microsoft Virtualization Summit 2010

Virtualization is arguably the hottest IS technology today, crossing from data center to desktop and spawning a wave of innovation across the industry. If all this new technology has you scratching your head, make a point to check out the Microsoft Virtualization Summit 2010 coming soon to a city near you. The goal of these events is to provide answers to customer questions about Microsoft's extended virtualization stack. Attend the show to learn how server & desktop virtualization can help you:

• Build a desktop virtualization management strategy that helps you manage your applications, data, mobile workers and multiple physical and virtual form factors.
• Reduce desktop costs.
• Enable flexible and agile IT through virtualization.
• Increase desktop security and compliance.
• Improve business continuity and end user productivity.
• Understand how Microsoft is building a solid foundation for a private cloud.
• Increase end user productivity and streamline your IT management with Windows 7.

Don't miss it!

Oliver Rist

Source: Windows Server Division WebLog | 13 Feb 2010 | 1:12 am

New ATI Radeon™ HD 5450 Graphics Card Delivers Enthusiast Video Game Features and HD Multimedia Capabilities at an Entry-Level Price

Source: AMD Press Releases | 12 Feb 2010 | 10:12 pm

Adobe Flash Now Supports InPrivate Browsing

As a web browser, Internet Explorer is a platform for many kinds of add-ons (here are some great examples). IE users generally don’t distinguish between add-ons and Internet Explorer when it comes to performance, reliability, or privacy. They just use IE and expect it to work. That’s why the best add-ons do a good job of integrating with the IE user model, letting customers “just browse”.

Recently, Adobe announced that their latest version of Flash supports InPrivate Browsing. Version 10.1 of Flash will now respond to interfaces we built into IE8 when we first released it. When you browse to a site with Flash, it can store “Flash Cookies”, which are files created by Flash that websites can use to store data. Now, just like your IE history and cookies, these Flash objects will be deleted when you close your InPrivate Browsing window.

We’re really happy to see Flash adopt our InPrivate Browsing feature, and happy to see that they’ve also supported private browsing in Firefox and Chrome as well. Great job Flash team!

Andy Zeigler
Program Manager

Source: IEBlog | 12 Feb 2010 | 1:59 am

Chat with Windows Phone Designers at the TED Conference

Here is a brief chat with Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore and designers about how they think about design overall and how TED inspires them to utilize the ideas they take away from the conference to influence the design of products at Microsoft. The featured Windows Phone product members include Joe Belfiore, Albert Shum, Jae Park, Don Coyner, and Teresa Goertz.

Source: Windows Phone Blog | 11 Feb 2010 | 11:26 pm

ATI Radeon™ HD 5570 Graphics Brings a Big Visual Experience to Small Form Factor PCs

Source: AMD Press Releases | 9 Feb 2010 | 8:11 am

Power Management in Windows Server 2008 R2 – Improving your “gas mileage”

Everybody pays the power bill. 

Well... except maybe the power company.  But who wouldn’t want to reduce that bill?  Not to mention their environmental impact?

The biggest power savings many organizations will probably experience with Windows Server 2008 R2 is through server consolidation with Hyper-V, the built-in Hypervisor.  But we also had several other goals in mind to help people manage power and control costs while we were developing R2.

One of our goals was to improve power efficiency, out-of-the-box, with no manual configuration required on the part of administrators.  This improvement is derived from a variety of features, including an improved processor power management engine, timer coalescing, tick skipping, and R2’s new core parking capabilities.

As you may have already heard, these out-of-the-box improvements can help improve power efficiency by up to 18% over Windows Server 2003 running on the same hardware.

Some have asked, “Will every one of my servers save 18 percent?”  In brief, no.  To be clear, just as a car’s gas mileage depends on many factors - make and model, average speed, city or highway driving, today’s traffic congestion, and how well maintained it is - improvements in power efficiency will vary, as well.  Your specific savings will depend on many factors - on your particular server, your specific hardware configuration, the type of workload that server is running, and the server’s utilization level from moment to moment.  The only way to nail down specific savings is to actually test it.

While working on these power management features during the development of R2 we tested a variety of servers – new and old, large and small, relatively busy and relatively idle, running various workloads – in order to ensure that the changes we were making would help improve power efficiency across a wide variety of environments.  And they do.  But the specific improvement you see will depend on your own particular environment.

Another goal for R2 was to provide new capabilities to help people measure and manage power consumption.  If you walk up to a server running Windows Server 2003 or 2008 and fire up perfmon, for example, you can’t see power consumption, let alone easily collect that data across your environment.

But with Windows Server 2008 R2 and supporting hardware – such as the recent G6 servers from HP which have earned the Enhanced Power Management Additional Qualifier (www.windowsservercatalog.com) – you can monitor power consumption locally or remotely via WMI, change power plan settings, and even do power budgeting.  Of course, these features do require some work on the part of IT administrators to make use of this data – to set goals, make changes, and measure impacts. 

R2 offers the possibility to impact the environment – and costs – in a worthwhile way for organizations large or small.

Dan Reger

Senior Product Manager, Windows Server

Source: Windows Server Division WebLog | 5 Feb 2010 | 8:19 pm

AMD Professional Graphics Certified For Autodesk Design Software

Source: AMD Press Releases | 4 Feb 2010 | 3:02 pm

W3C SVG Working Group Update for January 2010

In this post, I want to share some examples of the progress going on in the SVG Working Group. Microsoft recently joined the SVG Working Group, and other members (Mozilla, Apple and Opera among others) welcomed us warmly. I'm hopeful about the ways that SVG (both its current direction and future potential) could make the web better. We want the spec to be clear, consistent, and predictable for developers. We’re working out ambiguities such as “Pointer events and clip-paths”, “CSS Selectors <use> and as well as inconsistencies with stroked-dasharray” and “<use> and its interaction with the DOM and rendering” so that web developers can write SVG once and know that it will be interoperable across browsers.

I have to admit I was a little hesitant at first to get guidance and clarity on a dozen or so items we found to be ambiguous (see public SVG WG discussion threads), however the positive response has been overwhelming.   Of course we are not the only members raising these issues, but we are happy to be a part of the process.  The future of SVG is bright.

Additionally, Microsoft looks forward to hosting the next SVG Working Group face-to-face meeting in Brussels this May.

A special thanks to those on the Working Group for their warm welcome and shared goals of creating a specification that will promote standards based interoperable graphics for the web.

Patrick Dengler
Senior Program Manager
Internet Explorer Team

Source: IEBlog | 2 Feb 2010 | 2:08 am

AMD Professional Graphics Validated for SolidWorks® 2010 on Microsoft® Windows® 7