Archive for July, 2006

Ever wondered what it would be like to walk through your digital photos in 3D or see what hundreds of other people shot at the same location? See Photosynth in action and hear how Live Labs is exploring new ways to change the way you think about the web.

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Ed-Helms exposes Microsoft’s nefarious recruiting techniques during a recruiting video. Interviews include Soma Somasegar; Corporate Vice President of the Developer Division.

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Ruby in Steel will plug into Visual Studio to blend the benefits of Microsoft’s development environment with Ruby technologies.

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OpenOffice.org less secure than Microsoft Office?: “OpenOffice.org has been increasing in both popularity and visibility over the past several months. Version 2.0 has added a number of new features to bring it closer to feature parity with Microsoft Office, and it also offers full support for the Open Document format. However, a report just released by the French Ministry of Defense says that it still falls short of Microsoft’s office suite in one important area: security.”

Microsoft, Yahoo connect IM services | Tech News on ZDNet: “The companies are set to release on Thursday a limited beta test of a service that will enable users of Windows Live Messenger (the next generation of MSN Messenger) and Yahoo Messenger with Voice to connect with each other.
The move creates a global community of nearly 350 million accounts, the companies said. The beta service is being launched globally in 15 localized languages.
‘It’s the first-ever bridge between two global instant messaging services,’ Blake Irving, corporate vice president in Microsoft’s Windows Live Platform division, said Wednesday. “

What’s Office Live?: “What is Office Live, anyway? How does it relate to Windows Live? How does it relate to Office 2007? We interviewed the Office Live team to get the answers. Brian Jeans, Tara Brown and David Lee give us the details, show off some of the cool features, and explain what it means for developers. Check it out!

Here are the links mentioned in the video:
Office Live Team Blog: http://spaces.msn.com/OfficeLiveBlog/
Office Live Community Forums: http://officelivecommunity.com/
Office Live Dev Center on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/service/officelive/

Sign up for Office Live: http://officelive.microsoft.com”

Daniel Lehenbauer’s Blog : ZAM 3D Training Videos: “ZAM 3D is a tool for authoring 3D content for use with the Windows Presentation Foundation. Channel 9 recently posted a video recording of a ZAM 3D training session by Electric Rain CEO Mike Soucie and lead designer Jim Foley. The video has been divided into 4 parts. Part 1 begins with background on the company and outlines the sort of 3D applications they are targeting with their tool. Instruction on using the tool starts ~15 minutes in.”

Apple switch ad (Parody)

“Here is a short guide to some of Steels features for programming Ruby On Rails in Visual Studio…”

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The library includes hundreds of sample database schemas for tons of topics ranging from Airline Reservations to Organizations and People to Car Servicing to Pizza Delivery.

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Private Folder 1.0, which is saved to a person’s desktop, aims to shield private data from others when they have access to someone’s computer or account. The potential fallout from IT administrators remains to be seen, should their colleagues opt to hide sensitive data in a private, password-protected folder. Microsoft does not offer support for the software.
“Private Folder 1.0 is a useful tool…to protect your private data when friends, colleagues, kids or other people share your PC or account,” the software giant said in its announcement.

Microsoft adCenter Labs Home

Microsoft announced the creation of adCenter Labs on January 12, 2006, a significant milestone in its evolution as a competitor in the Internet global marketplace.
With Windows Live and Office Live signaling the transition of Microsoft’s product focus from standard software to web services, advertising is swiftly rising to prominence among Microsoft’s latest online initiatives. Already the principal profit driver for Microsoft Network (MSN), advertising promises to be a critical revenue source for Microsoft for years to come. Indeed, paid search and display advertising have already proven lucrative for both MSN and its competitors.

As emerging media and markets signal important marketing opportunities worldwide, they also present intriguing new challenges to the Microsoft adCenter mission.
Playing a vital role in this mission is Microsoft adCenter Labs, incubator of new digital advertising technologies through state-of-the-art research, breakthrough innovation, rapid prototyping, and large-scale system integration.

In plain English, Microsoft’s goal is to help deliver smarter, more relevant advertising to the right people at the right time.

One of the most significant changes to Vista’s interface is the new look of the Windows Explorer file management tool. Explorer has undergone much more than just cosmetic changes. It’s now more intuitive and easier to use in many ways–although it may take a little getting used to for those who have become set in the ways of Windows 2000/XP.

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Microsoft’s “Argo” / Xbox wireless portable media player – Engadget: “one possible form Microsoft’s Argo / Xbox-branded wireless portable media player could take. Sent to us from an insider working on the project, we’re told the device pictured above is indeed a part of ‘Project Argo,’ and from what we can tell it definitely jibes from the blurry pics we caught a while back; though if the piece from earlier today is to be believed, this could just be one of numerous Microsoft portables. It’s hard to tell just how much larger the screen on this thing actually is, but it does indeed appear to be a 4:3 aspect ratio display, and could be 3, even 3.5-inches wide. Keep your eyes peeled, you know we do our best to have this stuff as early as possible.”

Not a demo, not a timed trial, but fully free. FTA: “Whether Microsoft virtualization technology is an important component of your existing infrastructure or you’re just a Virtual PC enthusiast, you can now download Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1 absolutely free.”

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Grossman Family Basketball Game 2005

Here is another reason that Local.Live is the best map site on the web.
Windows Live Local for Outlook: Map your appointment and meeting locations directly from within Microsoft® Office Outlook®. Get driving directions, print detailed maps, find optimized trip routes, and estimate travel times. Receive reminders based on the estimated travel time. Even save details to view when you’re offline.
Send Outlook appointment location details to others—even those without the add-in.
Quickly locate restaurants, hotels, coffee shops, gas stations and other points of interest near your meeting location and map the best route. “

Virtual Earth (MapPoint) B2B : Call For Free on Windows Live Local: “The team just rolled out a sick little feature. Let’s say you’re searching for Starbucks in Redmond and you find the one you want – once you hover over the location you can now click a link reading, ‘Call for Free.’ When you click it you’re prompted for your phone number (which you can save for next time). Enter your phone number and submit; your phone will ring. When you pick it up you’ll hear a voice that says, ‘Connecting.’ You then hear the phone ring and someone at Starbucks in Redmond is on the other end. One less thing to do to get in touch with them. Now, if I can only get white page data and my ex-girlfriend’s address. . .”

Wells Fargo Directly Extracts Insights from Data with Tableau: “Wells Fargo is a diversified financial services company, providing banking, insurance, investments, mortgage and consumer finance for more than 23 million customers through 6,200 stores, the Internet and other distribution channels across North America and internationally. We’re headquartered in San Francisco, but we’re decentralized so every local Wells Fargo store is a headquarters for satisfying all our customers’ financial needs. Wells Fargo has $482 billion in assets and 153,000+ team members. We’re one of the United States’ top-40 largest private employers. We ranked fifth in assets and fourth in market value of our stock among our peers as of December 31, 2005.”