As you’ll recall, several months ago Microsoft acquired Caligari because of their advanced 3D toolset - trueSpace (among other assets). So starting today trueSpace 7.6 is now available for download…..FOR FREE! And, there is a direct connection into Live Search Maps so you can create SUPER high resolution 3D models using trueSpace, then right from the environment upload the model into Live Search Maps as a collection item. Once you’ve created your collection, you can import your collection into your Virtual Earth application and BAM you have your own custom 3D models in your Virtual Earth application. We’ll host the models right in our 3D collections cloud! This is going to be a long post - get some coffee and make it diesel.
Register and Download trueSpace 7.6 for free:
http://www.caligari.com/Products/trueSpace/tS75/brochure/intro.asp?Cate=BIntro
http://cart1.caligari.com/web/Truespacemainreg.aspx
Source- MSDN Blog
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Microsoft Corp. today announced that it intends to acquire DATAllegro Inc., a provider of breakthrough data warehouse appliances. The acquisition will extend the capabilities of Microsoft’s mission-critical data platform, making it easier and more cost-effective for customers of all sizes to manage and glean insight from the ever-expanding amount of data generated by and for businesses, employees and consumers.
“DATAllegro is a tremendously innovative company that has started to redefine the data warehouse market,” said Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Data and Storage Platform Division at Microsoft. “Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers enterprise-class capabilities in business intelligence and data warehousing, and the addition of the DATAllegro team and its technology will take our data platform to the highest scale of data warehousing.”
“Integrating DATAllegro’s nonproprietary hardware platform and flexible software architecture into Microsoft SQL Server will provide customers with the strongest offering in the market,” said Stuart Frost, CEO of DATAllegro. “We are excited to join forces with Microsoft and continue the innovation this company was founded on.”
Unlike most data warehouse appliance vendors targeting the 1–25 terabyte range, DATAllegro has specialized in large-volume, high-performance data warehouses. DATAllegro’s data warehouse appliance installations boast some of the largest data volume capacities in the industry — up to hundreds of terabytes on a single system. DATAllegro clients span such markets as retail, telecommunications and manufacturing.
Source- Microsoft Press Release
The blogosphere was atwitter (pun intended) over the past day or two about Facebook’s recent revamp designed to make user pages more profile-centric. But Facebook isn’t the only one going this route. It sounds like Microsoft is going more profile-centric in a couple of different ways with its upcoming Windows Live software and services.
Microsoft recently completed its internal “Milestone 1? release of its next wave of Windows Live services, according to Brian Hall, General Manager of Windows Live. Microsoft is planning to make the first test bits of software and services for the PC, Web and phone that are part of “Windows Live Wave 3? available to folks outside the company as part of a private beta later this summer, he said.
Windows Live Profile already exists as part of Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft’s existing blogging/social-networking platform. I’m not clear whether Microsoft is intending to replace Live Spaces with a more profile-centric platform or just make Live profile more front and center to the next version of Live Spaces.
“There’s lots of opportunity for improvement with Spaces,” Hall said. He noted that the user base of Live Spaces grew quickly, “but the (user) engagement on Spaces compared to other social sites is low.”
Source- ZDnet
Quick update from Microsoft’s Financial Analyst Meeting (FAM): Microsoft Senior Vice President of Online Services and Windows, Bill Veghte, just told attendees that Microsoft will release the final version of Internet Explorer (IE) 8 to the Web “later this year.”
Microsoft has tried its best not to provide a ship target for IE 8 — like most of its Windows client family of products. Company officials did acknowledge last month that a second public beta of IE 8 is due out in August.
source- ZDnet
After months of searching for ways to defend its oft-maligned Windows operating system, Microsoft may just have found its best weapon: Vista’s skeptics.
Spurred by an e-mail from someone deep in the marketing ranks, Microsoft last week traveled to San Francisco, rounding up Windows XP users who had negative impressions of Vista. The subjects were put on video, asked about their Vista impressions, and then shown a “new” operating system, code-named Mojave. More than 90 percent gave positive feedback on what they saw. Then they were told that “Mojave” was actually Windows Vista.
“Oh wow,” said one user, eliciting exactly the exclamation that Microsoft had hoped to garner when it first released the operating system more than 18 months ago. Instead, the operating system got mixed reviews and criticisms for its lack of compatibility and other headaches.
To be sure, the focus groups didn’t have to install Vista or hook it up to their existing home network. Still, the emotional appeal of the “everyman” trying Vista and liking it clearly packs an emotional punch, something the company has desperately needed. Microsoft is still trying to figure out just how it will use the Mojave footage in its marketing, though it will clearly have a place.
Source- Cnet
Now that Microsoft has released a fix for the data corruption bug in Windows Home Server, channel partners are hoping Microsoft will embark on an advertising and marketing blitzkrieg to show consumers that having a server in the home can, in fact, make their lives easier.
Before this week’s release of Power Pack 1, the first major update for Windows Home Server, Microsoft may have been reluctant to trumpet the virtues of a product whose primary function of backing up users’ data was in doubt. Now that it has fixed the glitch, Microsoft can continue working on the challenge of creating demand for the brand new home server segment. Susan Bradley, a Small Business Specialist partner in Fresno, Calif., describes Home Server as a “strong” product, but says she’s “honestly concerned” about the amount of marketing Microsoft has devoted to the product thus far.
Source: CRN
The success of the iPhone, both the original and the recently released 3G model, has fueled rumors that Microsoft is working internally on a similar phone built on the Zune audio player. The Zune player has failed to compete against the iPod family as grandly perhaps as Microsoft wished but perhaps the folks in Redmond believe a phone version might change that.
We have totally unconfirmed information from a reader who wishes to remain anonymous that Microsoft is indeed working on a Zune phone. This source had information about a meeting this week in Redmond that was planning a Zune phone to compete with the iPhone. According to this information the Zune phone will be based on a specialized variant of Windows Mobile 7 and key functionality will be centered around WIndows Live Services.
Source: jkontherun
This download (VSTOR30.exe) installs the Visual Studio Tools for the Office system 3.0 Runtime, which is required to run VSTO solutions for the 2007 Microsoft Office system built using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.
When installing the VSTO runtime on a non-English version of the operating system, you should also install the appropriate language pack (Note: this link will not work until the language packs are available; they are coming soon) to see the text of the messages from the VSTO runtime in that language, rather than English.
Note: VSTO solutions built for use in Microsoft Office 2003 require the Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Second Edition Runtime, not this one.
Download here
Ankur Mittal | July 25, 2008
