Tech today

MSXML 4.0 Service Pack 3 Beta Coming Soon!

Ankur Mittal — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:16:05 +0000

The MSXML Team is getting ready to release the MSXML 4.0 Service Pack 3 Beta very soon! MSXML4 SP3 is a complete replacement of previous MSXML 4.0 service packs. The new service pack includes: - A number of security bug fixes - Reliability improvements The Beta will be available on Microsoft Download Center in the [...]

Microsoft Research and Disney•Pixar’s WALL•E Explore the Real Universe

Ankur Mittal — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:04:42 +0000

Microsoft Research teamed up with Disney•Pixar to create a virtual tour of the universe hosted by none other than WALL•E, the animated robot from Disney•Pixar’s latest film, “WALL•E,” which is available in stores today on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can take the tour and view the universe [...]

Microsoft LifeCams and Windows Live Messenger: The Perfect Holiday Side Dishes

Ankur Mittal — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:03:47 +0000

With holiday-related travel costs already up 25 percent over last year,1 people are looking for alternative ways to connect with distant loved ones this holiday season. When it’s not possible to attend that family gathering in person, Microsoft LifeCams offer an easy, fun and affordable way for people to connect with friends and family all [...]

Upload Photos to Facebook with New Windows Live Photo Gallery Plug-in

Ankur Mittal — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:56:22 +0000

Michael Palermiti, Program Manager on the Windows Live Digital Memories Experience Team (the awesome people responsible for Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Movie Maker), has posted about a new plug-in for Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta that allows you to upload photos directly to Facebook. Using LiveUpload to Facebook, users can configure multiple [...]

Microsoft starts to talk about Silverlight 3; coming in 2009

Ankur Mittal — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:54:33 +0000

Less than a year after sending out Beta 1, Microsoft released the final version of Silverlight 2 in October. According to Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s .NET Developer Division, the final release of Silverlight 2 has been downloaded and installed on more than 100 million consumer machines in the past four weeks. What’s [...]

Exchange Online and SharePoint Online Out of Beta and Ready for Purchase

Ankur Mittal — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:53:54 +0000

Today, at a launch event in San Francisco, Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division at Microsoft Corp., was joined by customers and partners to announce the availability of Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft SharePoint Online for businesses of all sizes in the United States. These subscription services offer businesses a new way to [...]

New Xbox Experience releases tomorrow

Ankur Mittal — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:53:04 +0000

In 1954, the introduction of color TV heralded the dawn of a new era in entertainment. On Nov. 19, more than 50 years after that dramatic shift, a new era in home entertainment begins with the New Xbox Experience, as millions of Xbox 360 consoles will transform in an instant through the power of software. [...]

Microsoft Unveils Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008

Ankur Mittal — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:51:37 +0000

At the RoboDevelopment Conference and Expo in Santa Clara, Calif., Microsoft Corp. today announced the general availability of Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 (Microsoft RDS), the newest version of its robotics programming platform. Microsoft RDS includes a simple programming model to support building asynchronous applications, a set of visual authoring and simulation tools to aid [...]

Developers making plans for Windows Azure, Windows 7

Ankur Mittal — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:37:08 +0000

Like most of the developers and other technology professionals who attended the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2008, held at the Los Angeles Staples Center Oct. 27-30, Dan Rigby attended to see the latest from Microsoft and rub elbows with Microsoft’s technology leaders. But equally important was the chance to catch up with peers, and meet [...]

Microsoft Expands Virtualization Initiatives With HP

Ankur Mittal — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:36:03 +0000

In support of HP’s Virtual Connect announcement, this morning Microsoft announced product, sales and services initiatives with HP designed to help businesses more easily adopt and deploy virtualization to help lower IT costs and make IT more efficient. Microsoft and HP have expanded their work together to sell and market storage, server and networking consolidation [...]

Windows Server 2008 IIS7 Media Packs

Ankur Mittal — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:40:06 +0000

IIS Media Pack 1.0 provides media-specific extensions that make delivering media from IIS simple, and cost-effective. Building on the security, reliability and manageability of IIS 7.0, IIS Media Pack protects media assets as it increases scalability by supporting more concurrent users per server. IIS supports all media file types, including WMV, FLV, and MP4, and [...]

A note about Hotmail, SkyDrive and Photos storage space

Ankur Mittal — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:36:03 +0000

In the latest Windows Live documentations, it mentioned several details about the storage spaces that are available throughout Windows Live services: Hotmail’s minimum storage space will be 25GB and this will be ever-increasing as required at the end of each month, making it basically unlimited storage (subject to abuse control) The ability to download e-mail attachments [...]

Upcoming Windows 7 Media Center Feature: Broadband TV Services

Ankur Mittal — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:35:05 +0000

By now you have most likely seen what some of the new features of Media Center in Windows 7 are, but don’t think it stops there. In this series I will go over some of the upcoming features of Media Center in Windows 7. These features should start appearing in later builds, although some of [...]

Microsoft to Launch Online SharePoint, Exchange on Monday

Ankur Mittal — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:54:28 +0000

Microsoft on Monday will release the first of several of its hosted business-productivity services. The company will launch Exchange Online and SharePoint Online at an event in San Francisco, according to an e-mail from its public relations firm. A spokeswoman from the agency confirmed that the services will be available Monday. Exchange Online, a hosted version [...]

Windows 7’s new “play all” decoders, encoders and transcoding capabilities

Ankur Mittal — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:53:45 +0000

When Microsoft finally releases its follow-up to Windows Vista and it’s time for the business and technology journalists (yes, bloggers are included in that grouping) across the world to decide if Windows 7 is the kind of operating system most people should want to use, Microsoft will be facing a deluge of biased individuals that, [...]