Category Archives: Microsoft

Xbox Ambassador Tyler

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Ambassador Conversation via MSN Messenger

I’m very excited to say that I have been accepted to the Xbox Ambassador team. While I cannot call myself a direct employee of Microsoft and am not to advertise as such, I am officially volunteering my time for Xbox and Xbox Live. Above isn’t the best image in the world, so feel free to click on the image and it will expand.

As of now, what I do is take questions via MSN Messenger, though the user doesn’t know that I’m on the messenger. I can hit “y” to accept a question or “n” to deny it and let someone else take it who might be able to help more. I’ve taken quite a few and found myself getting along with the users great, so perhaps I have a future in this, I’m not sure.

To be accepted, the Xbox Live Enforcement team basically ran a background check on me and liked how I play and what I do. As of now I am an Xbox Ambassador, but hopefully I can work my way up to the XBLPET (Xbox Live Protection and Enforcement Team). I love helping people and being able to do so on the Xbox 360 is just perfect for me. I love the interactions I’ve had and haven’t had to let anyone go yet without solving their issue. I just have a knack for knowing what I’m doing, I guess.

If you have any questions about this position, me, or whatever else, feel free to comment here or message me on Xbox Live at TylerW507.

Microsoft Previews Windows 8 at BUILD

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Microsoft’s conference, titled BUILD, starts on Tuesday, September 13th. A keynote is expected to focus on the future of Windows 8. Little is known about Windows 8 as of now, such as a Metro-style interface similar to Windows Phone 7 and that it will be “optimized for both touchscreen tablets and traditional desktops and laptops.”

Windows 8 will run on ARM chips in addition to Intel processors, which is the first version of Windows to do so. There will also be a much faster boot process, especially if your computer has a solid state drive. USB 3.0 and Hyper-V will also be supported. As far as an app store, it is just considered “likely” to happen, but has not been officially confirmed.

Ars Technica will be delivering a liveblog of the BUILD conference keynote, which begins at 11:00 AM Central (or 9AM Pacific).

Source: Ars Technica

Microsoft Begins Talk of Windows 8

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Microsoft is finally beginning to talk to the public about Windows 8. Earlier this week, Microsoft started a “Building Windows 8″ blog, and Windows Live Division President Steven Sinofsky provided some information about the operating system in a post on Wednesday.

This post has a high-level overview of how Windows 8′s development is organized and which feature areas the teams are currently working on. There are the same basic ones that come with any OS such as “Kernal Platform,” “Networking Core,” and “Performance.” However, one of them is called “App Store,” which confirms one of many rumors that Windows 8 will include an app store feature. Nothing about Windows 8 is too certain that we are learning behind-the-scenes, but there will definitely be an app store as part of Windows 8.

Besides the surprising “App Store” team, there was also a team titled “Hyper-V.” Windows 8 appears to be including a Hyper-V virtualization platform, which is usually only found in server variants of the OS. The presence of this team, though, would seem to confirm that Hyper-V virtualization is now a feature of the Windows client operating system, too. Sinofsky also pointed out that “some features are built in the core OS but are ultimately only part of the Server product.” So, the possibility remains that Hyper-V will be one of those features.

Among the teams is an XAML team, confirming the leaked e-mail announcing that XAML, which is the XML-based user interface language that is currently used in both .NET and Silverlight, was being developed by the Windows team and not by Microsoft’s developer tools division.

There was a similar post listing the teams in the Engineering 7 blog. This blog listed 23 teams, which included one responsible for Microsoft’s Web browser. This post lists 35 teams and also states that there are others that are not a direct part of the Windows 8 team, such as the one for Internet Explorer.

Windows 8 may have more teams, but the Windows 7 groups had no obvious people tasks that also correspond to another team’s work. Windows 8 may also have “Application and Media Experience” and “Media Platform” on top of everything Windows 7 had, but it is lacking “Media Center.” Actually, the latest Windows 8 betas appear to be lacking the Media Center functionality as well. This is a pretty good sign that Media Center, an application that never gained much attention, is no longer a stand-a-lone application, but its capabilities have been distributed throughout Windows 8′s other media features.

Source: Ars Technica

Improved Office Compatibility for Lion Coming in a Few Months

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Improved Office compatibility coming to Lion, but not for a few months

One of Microsoft’s biggest software products to date is the productivity suite Office. Well, Office for Mac will gain support for new Lion features, including auto save and fullscreen mode, in a future update that is being worked on. The features will be available in a few months.

Within Lion, the main Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 applications —Word, Excel, and PowerPoint—ran just as expected. All the files tested opened without any issues and there seems to be no bugs within the functionality of the applications. Right now, the suite is basically the same as Snow Leopard, but with its Lion-goodness.

Earlier today, Fox explained that a future update for Office for Mac 2011 will add support for new Lion features. This includes Lion’s new file management features including auto save and versions, as well as window management like fullscreen mode and auto resume. Adding these types of features obviously takes some hours behind a desk coding away, as well as testing, so this support will be added “in months, not days – just to set expectations.”

A wait like this may come with some complaints for users who are becoming attached to such features in Lion, especially since the developers have had access to the Lion OS for several months. Still, large applications like Office take quite a bit of time and effort to add features like this. Office has a lot of custom UI code in it which must be tested many times in order to prevent regressions.

When bugs are found, they will be addressed by regular updates, and Office 2008 will even benefit from such fixes. However, Office 2004 is pretty much useless, as it’s PowerPC app and Lion do not offer Rosetta compatibility.

Source: Ars Technica

ARM Chips to Compete Against PS3 and Xbox 360

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ARM has been trying to higher their performance lately, and it looks like they may have been successful yet again. They told the Inquirer that a new Mali GPU design is due out in 18 months. This will make their chips equal to the current-gen gaming consoles. The ARM-based mobile chip will surpass these two consoles in pixel-pushing capacity at some point in the future.

ARM has said this in the past (2009 and 2010) and failed to deliver, but it doesn’t take imagination to imagine that this could happen with an 18-month timeframe. At the 2010 ISSCC, Microsoft showed a combo chip that puts the CPU and GPU of the Xbox 360 on the same 45nm die and clocks in at only 372 million transistors, which Ars has said to be “over 100 million transistors more than NVIDIA’s 40nm Tegra 2 mobile chip from that same year.” It seems quite possible that ARM will be able to at least reach what is currently the standard in 18 months, even if it is taking what is in a gaming console and putting it into an application processor. After all, Moore’s Law should withstand at least some general guidelines as to this happening.

That being said, it is certainly plausible that ARM could have something out for application processing that the consoles deliver now, but the real question might be: what will NVIDIA or other companies come up with in 18 months, and will the ARM’s promise really be that great by then?

Source: Ars Technica

Microsoft Office 365 Goes Live

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Microsoft has launched Microsoft Office 365, a cloud-based productivity and collaboration suite. Office 365 combines access to Exchange e-mail, Lync messaging, SharePoint collaboration, the Office Web Apps, all into one monthly subscription. They happen to be quite proud of launching this, and the pricing isn’t too ridiculous given the capabilities.

There are seven different price plans available. There is a price plan for small businesses and individuals at $6 per user per month, four enterprise plans ranging from $10 to $27 per user per month; and two for kiosk workers, ranging from $4 to $10 per user per month. The small business and enterprise plans offer 25 GB of e-mail, which one would probably never reach, SharePoint access, and Lync messaging. The more expensive prices add Office Web App access, the full desktop Office suite, and Lync voice capabilities.

Announcing the product’s launch, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer particularly emphasized the value Office 365 can offer small businesses. Unlike BPOS, Microsoft’s previous cloud-hosted Exchange, SharePoint, and Office Communications offering, which had a five-seat minimum, Office 365 can be used even for single-person businesses. Small organizations have access to the full range of Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync capabilities, with almost none of the administrative overhead. Ballmer claimed that this levels the playing field between small and large companies, saying that Office 365 gives “small and midsize businesses powerful collaboration tools that have given big businesses an edge for years.”

The availability for Microsoft Office 365 has been promised as 99.9 percent. Its BPOS service has suffered many periods of downtime lately, as well as network connectivity problems that prevent North American customers from using their e-mail.

Source: Ars Technica

Windows 8 Unofficial Announcement

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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was giving a speech in Japan. In this speech, he talked to many people of something that Microsoft is planning to roll out next year (2012). He called it “Windows 8.” Yes, that’s right, folks: a new Operating System already. Well, not already, actually, since Microsoft likes to release a new operating system every 3 years.

Even better news is that this operating system will be for the “PC, slates and tablets.” And to add some humor to this post, Steve Ballmer’s speech was hastily retracted by Microsoft. They have called it a “misstatement.” New hardware for Windows 7 will arrive next year, but neither the name, nor the date is known about the next operating system.

We do, however, now know that there will be a new operating system (Windows 8) next year (2012). For many, that is good enough news to get the attention swirling.

Source: Ars Technica

 

Microsoft to Purchase Skype

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There were reports circulating that Facebook and Google were wanting to partner with Skype. However, that may never actually happen.

It has been confirmed that Microsoft is going to purchase Skype for $7 billion. After all of the debts by Skype, the deal is said to be a value of $8.5 billion. It’s strange that Microsoft would want to buy Skype, seeing as how Windows Messenger already offers free voice and video chat. However, Microsoft would gain an excellent VoIP infrastructure as well as already paying customers.

Windows Messenger is free, and its users definitely do not want to pay. Skype’s 8 million paying users will definitely add a profit to Microsoft.

Source: Ars Technica

Paul Allen’s Idea, Man!

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Sorry for the quirky title with a play on words, actually punctuation, of the title of the book. It’s corny, but I’m used to it. Anyway, Paul Allen definitely has a very interesting book here. It is titled Idea Man: A Memoir by the Co-founder of Microsoft.

In the book, he talks about everything from the past, including meeting Bill Gates for the first time, as well as the present and future.

Many only know him for his excessive amounts of money, as he’s worth $13 billion. Paul Allen is also the owner of an NBA Basketball team, hopes to achieve commercial space flight, and has a very oversized yacht. While all of this is true, he was also the co-founder of Microsoft, a corporation that we should all be familiar with.

According to Paul Allen, Idea Man: A Memoir by the Co-founder of Microsoft, sets the story straight in terms of everything in his life, including some mischievous events that happened by Bill Gates. These events included the time when Bill Gates tried to dilute Paul Allen’s shares when he was recovering from cancer. This event is probably most closely related to Eduardo Saverin’s dilution by Mark Zuckerberg, but Paul Allen did not fall victim to this.

After Paul Allen kept his wits and saved his shares from being diluted, he resigned. Bill Gates wanted to buy his shares for $5 each, but Paul Allen said $10, which was absurd at the time, and they both knew Gates wouldn’t do it. How much are those shares worth now, you ask? A whopping $25 per share. And believe me, there are a lot of shares owned by both parties, as can be seen by their bank accounts. Paul Allen is, and always will be, continued to be known as the Co-founder of Microsoft, perhaps the biggest technological corporation in the world.

I’m looking forward to reading this book, but be forewarned: this is the writings of Paul Allen. I am not saying Paul Allen is not credible by any means, but that it may be biased, even if unintentional. Bill Gates has said in regards to this book that he remembers some events differently, but that he does respect everything Paul Allen has done and continues to do for technology and Microsoft.

Source: Engadget

Internet Explorer 9 Release

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With the expansion of technology developing as quickly as it is, sometimes we struggle to find the sense of what is. What exactly am I talking about? It’s hard to understand what would be defined as “a lot” nowadays. Internet Explorer 9 was released recently, and the Internet Explorer described their results of the release on their own blog as “wow.”

It’s time to do the daily breakdown of this “wow” factor. It is really worthy of a “wow,” or is it just a new release by Microsoft? Well, perhaps I should let you be the judge of that. It basically adds on to the Windows 7 experience with transparency and roundness being featured.

IE9

It is also notable that this browser is significantly sleeker and quite faster, but that is expected in a new version. The real test of any product, especially on such a large scale, would be how many people downloaded IE9 to use for themselves. Have a guess?

Internet Explorer 9 has officially received 2.35 million downloads in the first 24 hours of the release. Why am I not so impressed? While it may seem like a pretty large number, let’s think about this for a few seconds. Internet Explorer 9 can only run on the Windows Operating System, eliminating all Mac users as potential downloads. This isn’t new with Internet Explorer, but just something to keep in mind. But what about 2.35 million, surely that means something?

Actually, back in 2008, Firefox 3 got the Guinness World Record for most downloads of a product in a 24-hour period. They received 8 million downloads. Firefox 3 was also available on both Mac and PC. More people use PC than Mac, but even if it were 50/50, that would mean they still almost doubled the single-platform downloads that IE9 has received. Keep in mind, the number of internet users has not slowed down at all, but keeps growing every day.

I will admit that Internet Explorer 9 is definitely an improvement from the previous version, but for my personal use, I’ll probably stick to Firefox or Google Chrome. All in all, I would say that I am pleased with Internet Explorer 9, but a “wow” might be a bit exaggerated.

Source: Engadget