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February 2007 - Posts

Make a difference with DesignIT

Posted Wednesday, February 28, 2007 2:25 PM by James Senior
How could you help a charity if we offered £15,000? That's the question and we want your answers. For all those IT professionals who dedicate their time to a charity, this competition is a great opportunity for you to help even more. We are asking you Read More...
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Windows Vista Developer Week

Posted Tuesday, February 27, 2007 6:10 PM by James Senior
It's Developer week for Windows Vista on Channel 9 and On10 , the two online Microsoft TV channels for developers and IT Pros. Make sure you check out what's going on over there - it's well worth a look. One that caught my eye was the Windows Vista Diagnostics- Read More...
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Vista Favorites Problem and solution

Posted Monday, February 26, 2007 7:13 PM by James Senior
I know. You are supposed to spell "Favourites" with a "u" in the middle. However, I'm going to sway towards convention and use the Americanisation of the English language in this post, for indexing purposes only. I'm the kind of guy who likes to keep Read More...
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Rightmove.co.uk using Virtual Earth

Posted Thursday, February 22, 2007 2:49 PM by James Senior
I used Rightmove.co.uk to find my current appartment in Reading and it does a brilliant job of bringing together properties from various estate and letting agents from across the UK. I was pleased to find out ( via Mike Taulty's blog ) that they have Read More...
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Daily Mail eReader Beta Release

Posted Thursday, February 22, 2007 1:59 PM by James Senior
Developed by the creative gurus over at Conchango , the Daily Mail eReader brings a traditional format onto your Windows Vista desktop. It's similar to what the New York Times have done with their reader but of course the Daily Mail is a British newspaper. Read More...
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Virtual PC 2007 RTM

Posted Tuesday, February 20, 2007 10:34 AM by James Senior
Virtual PC lets you create separate virtual machines on your Windows desktop, each of which virtualizes the hardware of a complete physical computer. Use virtual machines to run operating systems such as MS-DOS, Windows, and OS/2. You can run multiple Read More...
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Partners! Get the new Vista Demo Toolkit!

Posted Tuesday, February 20, 2007 9:37 AM by James Senior
The new Partner DRT is LIVE! Please visit www.windowsvista.com/YourDRT where you can set up the Demo Readiness Toolkit on your own primary PC. No need for a dedicated demo PC! Also of worthy note is www.IE7Demos.com which shows off the security enhancements Read More...
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UK Web Agency Blog - it looks like Expression

Posted Monday, February 19, 2007 1:08 PM by James Senior
Andrew Shorten has just created the "Microsoft blog for and about UK Web Agencies". His first post is about getting started with designing rich User Experiences on the Microsoft platform and technologies like WPF, WPF/E, Expression et. al. I've been playing Read More...
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BackOfMyHand.com Mashup

Posted Monday, February 19, 2007 10:20 AM by James Senior
I was finding some stuff using Live.com over the weekend and noticed this rather nifty mashup based on Live Maps called BackOfMyHand.com . You can get local information on things like best romantic restaurants in London to what to see in Oxford . The Read More...
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Office 2007 Training

Posted Monday, February 19, 2007 10:11 AM by James Senior
Excellent resources available on training for Office 2007 which are well worth a look. See the full list here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT102036981033.aspx Training presentation: Outlook 2007—Create great-looking signatures for your Read More...
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Into the Future with NextGenUG

Posted Monday, February 19, 2007 10:03 AM by James Senior
The guys over at NextGenUG have got another great event coming up here at Microsoft UK HQ which is well worth a look: NxtGenUG Fest 07 The day has a theme: “Into the future …”. We start the day looking at current technologies such as Vista, then we move Read More...
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Vista signed by Bill Gates

Posted Thursday, February 15, 2007 6:19 PM by James Senior
If you want to get your hands on a piece of software history and are quite keen Windows Vista you might want to get your hands on the "Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate UPGRADE Limited Numbered Signature Edition". Let's gloss over the fact that the length Read More...
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Vista Accessibility chat with Saqib Shaihk

Posted Thursday, February 15, 2007 6:14 PM by James Senior
They let me loose with the Partner-TV camera again the other day and I wandered over to Building 1 to chat accessibility with Saqib Shaihk. In the interview he talks about his experience so far with Vista and the things he likes including Instant Search Read More...
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Google Branding

Posted Wednesday, February 14, 2007 6:50 PM by James Senior
Mis-spelling your company name is now cool. Expect the following changes as competitors and other websites try and keep up with Googe and it's new Web 3.0 image: Microoft Yaoo 3Signals igg YoTube IkiPedia YSpace IBM Image: Spot the mistake: Technorati Read More...
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The £980,000 Laptop

Posted Wednesday, February 14, 2007 6:24 PM by James Senior
Nationwide is the UK's largest building society and last year one of its employees had a laptop stolen from his home. They reported the laptop stolen to Nationwide and then went on holiday. 3 weeks later he told them that the laptop had contained customer Read More...
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Action Pack Webcast

Posted Tuesday, February 13, 2007 8:27 PM by James Senior
It's slated for one hour, but I hope they bank on running over because there are going to be a few questions from people logging on to this Action Pack webcast. Not happy, want to give feedback and improve future action packs? Do something about it - Read More...
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Dreamscene Sneak Preview

Posted Tuesday, February 13, 2007 8:08 PM by James Senior
Got Vista Ultimate? Want movies on your desktop? You can now download the DreamScene Preview from Ultimate extras (search ultimate from the start menu) and download the preview. Enjoy all the video goodness! This is not the final version, but a mere preview Read More...
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Thirteen23 Case Study

Posted Tuesday, February 13, 2007 1:54 PM by James Senior
The chaps who came up with Nostalgia , a WPF app that allows you to browse photos on Flickr explain how they used the new Expression tool, Blend, to create a stunning user experience with relative ease. They written about their experience with Blend and Read More...
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Web 2.0 Mashup Competition

Posted Tuesday, February 13, 2007 8:29 AM by James Senior
The Connected Services Sandbox contest was launched by Microsoft and BT at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona and gives developers a chance to win $25,000 for creating a 2.0 mashup. According to Computer World Usage scenarios can include a combination of Read More...
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Free Vista Deployment Summit

Posted Monday, February 12, 2007 9:23 AM by James Senior
The training maestros over QA-IQ are running a free Windows Vista Deployment Summit at Microsoft UK HQ on April 18th. There is capacity for 120 people but, as always, the tickets are going very quickly . The summit will feature Jason and Keith from the Read More...
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Live Writer Gadget

Posted Friday, February 09, 2007 4:42 PM by James Senior
Scott has been beavering away at a gadget to assist in the creation of blog posts using Windows Live Writer (my tool of choice for blogging). It's still early days but he's on to a good thing here - make sure you check it out by visiting his site here: Read More...
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Windows Vista Business Value Tool

Posted Friday, February 09, 2007 4:21 PM by James Senior
The Windows Vista Business Value Tool is a Partner tool that can be used to help quantify your customer's costs and benefits with Windows Vista. Please note that this is a business value discussion tool and not meant to be a licensing configurator nor Read More...
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Updated Outlook Gadget

Posted Friday, February 09, 2007 9:09 AM by James Senior
A new version of the Outlook Gadget is available which features No of total unread emails, upcoming appointments and tasks as well as 12 skins - oooh aahhh. Get it here: http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=70fb2f30-af97-4c69-94a5-6b6a713505aa&l=1 Read More...
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Target Virtual Earth Mashup

Posted Friday, February 09, 2007 9:04 AM by James Senior
Target in the US have integrated Virtual Earth into their store locator section of the website. It looks beautiful and is extremely easy to use. They've customised the push pins to be actual targets that represent stores in the area and also have changed Read More...
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NextGenUG interview Scott Guthrie

Posted Thursday, February 08, 2007 6:04 PM by James Senior
Dave and Rich over at the NextGenUG got to interview Scott Guthrie (Mr .NET) on Saturday after the Web Developers conference held at MS UK. Scott had by far the most busy session and the normally nice ladies at reception were turning people away at the Read More...
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Partner access to Vista and Office

Posted Thursday, February 08, 2007 9:16 AM by James Senior
It has been over four years since the last major release of Office or Windows and twelve years since we launched both products simultaneously. A lot has changed in that time with regard to how we license these products and the different number and type Read More...
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Small Software Developer? Daunted by MS technology adoption?

Posted Wednesday, February 07, 2007 4:27 PM by James Senior
I admit it, keeping track of all the latest technologies coming out of Microsoft is a challenge in itself - I should know! :-) For developers it's an even more daunting challenge because their knowledge is out of date in short amount of time. For our Read More...
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Enterprise Search with Sharepoint

Posted Wednesday, February 07, 2007 7:38 AM by James Senior
Something I use internally at Microsoft a lot is the search within Sharepoint to find documents, websites & any resource within the company. I find it particularly useful for finding people who own relationships with other companies (I guess it's Read More...
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IIS7: a whole load of hosting goodness

Posted Wednesday, February 07, 2007 7:37 AM by James Senior
The IIS website over at www.iis.net has had a revamp in the wake of the Vista launch which of course comes with IIS7; the latest and greatest version of Internet Information Server. One of the things that I like about IIS7, apart from the new management Read More...
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Wikipedia Explorer Video

Posted Wednesday, February 07, 2007 7:36 AM by James Senior
Nay - one of my esteemed graduate colleagues from Microsoft France - has gone and put together a Soapbox video of the WPF Wikipedia Explorer application I recently blogged about . Nice one Nay! I'm looking forward to seeing what the mystery WPF-Sharepoint Read More...
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MSDE on Vista - are you ready?

Posted Monday, February 05, 2007 5:56 PM by James Senior
My girlfriend - who also works at Microsoft (yes we're just one big happy family here at MS UK) - has just started blogging on SQL Server and she's detailed some excellent information for users of MSDE who want to upgrade to Windows Vista. Check out her Read More...
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IE Address bar gets the green light

Posted Monday, February 05, 2007 3:47 PM by James Senior
There's been quite a bit written about IE7 and the red address bar that warns users of a suspicious or known-phishing website. However, it was only on Friday that the functionality was turned on to display a new form of user security awareness. Yes, my Read More...
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Cunning Advertising

Posted Monday, February 05, 2007 3:37 PM by James Senior
I heard on the grapevine that we had done some clever advertising incorporating clips of upcoming tv shows into the flip-3d within Vista and here it is, featuring a sneak preview of the new season of Lost: Very cunning because it keeps people watching Read More...
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WPF/E CTP (Feb 2007)

Posted Monday, February 05, 2007 10:12 AM by James Senior
This little blighter slipped out the door on the 2nd and I didn't even realise! Lucky Mike Taulty has got his ear to the ground and spotted the release and also a rather nice Vista environment built with WPF/E. Kind of makes the www.seewindowsvista.com Read More...
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Wikipedia Explorer

Posted Friday, February 02, 2007 4:06 PM by James Senior
The guys over at DotNet Solutions have put together a rather cool application called Wikipedia Explorer which uses WPF and .NET 3.0 to navigate through the vast universe of information available in Wikipedia - even erroneous stuff about the Office Open Read More...
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Windows Vista Volume Activation and Reduced Functionality Mode

Posted Friday, February 02, 2007 3:21 PM by James Senior
James O'Neil has an excellent post on over on his blog and exactly what is involved in using Volume License keys & retail keys and how they must be activated in order to use all the features in Windows Vista. He describes the different ways you can Read More...
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Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Public Beta

Posted Friday, February 02, 2007 2:50 PM by James Senior
We are pleased to announce the release of the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Public Beta! Please proceed to the Downloads area of this Connect site and download the TWO packages labeled Version 1.0.151.7: Software: Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Read More...
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Geeks bearing gifts

Posted Friday, February 02, 2007 10:47 AM by James Senior
Today at DesignerUtopia I was fortunate enough to sit in on the session delivered by Tjeerd Hoek, User Experience Design Director on Windows Vista. One of the interesting things he talked about was how they collected feedback from families using good Read More...
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Google: The Masterplan

Posted Friday, February 02, 2007 10:26 AM by James Senior
Mr Pallot pointed an interesting site out on Google today which poses some interesting questions. What do you think about what the site says? http://masterplanthemovie.com/ Read More...
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Turn those pages remotely at the British Library

Posted Thursday, February 01, 2007 4:52 PM by James Senior
So at the internal launch event in the UK I demoed the British Library application to everyone and it definitely created a lot of WOW effect. To check out the application yourself, head over to http://www.bl.uk/ttp2/ttp1.html where you can turn the pages Read More...
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Aspen Mountain in WPF

Posted Thursday, February 01, 2007 4:34 PM by James Senior
More news from the Designer Utopia Event , Beau Ambur from Metaliq showed off their Aspen snowboarding WPF application to the technical crowd. Again he highlighted the great way that the Expression tools integrate seamlessly with Visual Studio, finally Read More...
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Standards based web design: the opposite of Microsoft based web design

Posted Thursday, February 01, 2007 3:48 PM by James Senior
"Standards based web design is the opposite of Microsoft based web design" That was a joke one of the Microsoft speakers used at the event today. It got a laugh but behind the humour is a serious message. We're aware of the perception and the reason why Read More...
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XAML, it sounds like "camel"

Posted Thursday, February 01, 2007 2:21 PM by James Senior
Robby Ingebretsen from Identity Mine presented at the Microsoft Designer Utopia event today in London and showed off an application they had created - Roxio Studio 9.5 - that shows off the WPF framework and significantly improves the user experience over Read More...
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