Windows News, Tips and Tricks

New Microsoft Security Intelligence Report Released

2009-11-04T12:06:00.001-08:00

Volume seven of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIRv7) - part of Microsoft's commitment to providing an unparalleled level of security intelligence to help keep individuals and organizations better informed and to maximize security investments - was released today and there are a couple of tidbits in the report that caught my attention that I thought I would pass on. As a reminder, the SIR is published by Microsoft twice per year and looks at the data and trends observed in the first and second halves of each calendar year.

The first thing that struck me while reading through the report is that for the first time, the SIR shares some high-level security best practices from countries that have consistently exhibited low malware infection. For example, Japan, Austria and Germany's infection rates remained relatively low during the first half of this year.

So how do these regions keep their customers and resources safe from cyber threats? Japan's infection rates remain relatively low is due in large part to collaborations like the Cyber Clean Center. The Cyber Clean Center is a cooperative project between ISPs, major security vendors and Japanese government agencies aimed at educating users on how to keep their PCs infection free. Austria has implemented strict IT enforcement guidelines to lower piracy rates and this, along with strong ISP relationships and fast Internet lines, has helped ensure the ecosystem is kept up to date with security patches. Germany has also leveraged collaboration efforts with its CERT and ISP communities to help identify and raise awareness of botnet infections and, in some cases, quarantine infected computers.

The other thing that stood out to me was the graph below. This graph shows the effectiveness of automatic updating and shows what happened to the trojan downloader family Win32/Renos once Microsoft released a signature update for Windows Defender via Windows Update and Microsoft Update. Within three days, enough computers had received the new signature update to reduce the error reports from 1.2 million per day to less than 100,000 per day worldwide! To me this shows how important it is for users and organizations to utilize automatic updates to help prevent the spread of malware!

The report also underscores some of the trends that we have seen from previous versions of the report: for example, the infection rate for Windows Vista is significantly lower than that of its predecessor, Windows XP. It also tells me that the higher the service pack levels of an OS, the lower the infection rate. Once again, these items help point out that you need to keep your software up-to-date. With Windows 7 now available it might be a good time to look at upgrading your OS!

Take a look at the full report at http://www.microsoft/com/sir and use the information to help protect yourself, your networks, and your users.

10 things to do after installing Ubuntu 9.10

2009-11-04T12:05:00.002-08:00

Ubuntu 9.10 is excellent, it has improvements in every field, it is faster, more responsive, the effects are smoother, the apps installation easiest than ever :)) But after installing your system you must spend some time of fine tuning your system... Here is 10 things how to do that:

1. Install Graphics drivers. According to your graphic card, you need to install graphic drivers to support advance compiz effects. In this particular case, I'm using nvidia, so in Applications/Ubuntu Software Center search for nvidia drivers without quotes (or ATI, Intel, VIA or other depending of your graphic card). Next select the newest one and click install. If you have older graphic card maybe you should downgrade your driver version. Ubuntu will automatically suggest that when you start System/Administration/Hardware drivers to activate your graphic driver. Select the driver from the list a click activate. After restart you will have new drivers activated with advance compiz effects..

2. Fonts. To install Microsoft Windows fonts, open your terminal (Applications/Accessories/Terminal) and enter:

sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

If you want to install any other fonts you can get from the net or use your font database follow this steps:

Go to your home folder (Places/HomeFolder)
Enable Show Hidden Files option from Nautilus View menu
Then create new folder with name .fonts (with dot in front)
Now in new folder copy all your true type fonts. If you want to copy your Windows fonts, you can find it in WINDOWS/Fonts folder.
After that, the new fonts will be active, you can try it with OpenOffice or other application.

3. Make LCD Monitor Adjustments To optimize your Ubuntu LCD Screen go to:

System/Preferences/Appearance and choose Fonts tab.
Select the SubPixel Smoothing (LCD) and click details.
Next - find Hinting field and select Medium.
Close the Appearance window. Your pixels should be smoother now.

4. Make Ubunty 9.10 Multimedia ready (DVD, Divx, Xvid, MP3, WMA, WMV, MOV, etc..). Go to Applications/Ubuntu Software Center and search for Gstreamer plugins. From the list bellow, install one by one next Gstreamer plugins:

GStreamer ffmpeg video plugin
GStreamer extra plugins
GStreamer plugins for mms, wavpack, quicktime, musepack
GStreamer plugins for aac, xvid, mpeg2, faad

After installation you can play all you favorite songs and movies in various multimedia formats.

To enable protected DVD playback, you must install a few things more:

First, Medibuntu to the repository - Medubuntu is a repository of packages that cannot be included into the Ubuntu distribution for legal reasons (copyright, license, patent, etc). Doing that is quite easy, just copy and paste in terminal this commands block by block(Ctrl+Shift+V in terminal to paste):

For DVD:

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/karmic.list output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2

You can also add Windows, Real Networks, Quick Time and other codecs support:

Ubuntu 9.10 32bit

sudo apt-get install w32codecs

Ubuntu 9.10 64bit

sudo apt-get install w64codecs

That's it. For DVD player, we recommend to install VLC media player. For anything else, the native Ubuntu player is excellent.

5. Install Screenlets Screenlets are Widgets (Clock, Calendar, Weather and other useful things on your desktop). Go to Application/Ubuntu Software Center, search for Screenlets and Click install. Next you can set up screenlets from Applications/Accesories menu.

6. Mount your Windows HDD 's on Ubuntu startup with PySdm. You can install Pysdm with Ubuntu Software Center or with your terminal:

sudo apt-get install pysdm

Next run the app with

sudo pysdm

On partition list you can found all your hard drives. Click on the drive you want to mount, then on general preferences tab click Mount and apply. If the disks are not mounted on startup, start your Pysdm again and select Mount on startup options then apply. Be careful, dont play with the rest options if you are not experienced user because you can damage your Ubuntu system.

7. Set another Keyboard Layout If your language is not native English, you can set another keyboard layout so you can write to you native language.

Open System/Preferences/Keyboard and select layout tab.
Then click Add, and from the new window select your country or language and click add again.
You default keyboard layout shortcuts are both ALT. If you want to change that, go to Layout Options/ Keys to Change Layout/ and select your combination.

8. Add Rar support to Ubuntu. Many files on the net (music, subtitles, e-books, rapidshare files etc...) are packed in .rar so you must add rar support to use them. It is easiest part of all tuning processes so open your terminal and copy/paste next line:

sudo apt-get install rar unrar

9. Install Skype and additional themes on your Empathy messenger. To install Skype go to Skype official page and download the latest Skype for Ubuntu 8.10+. Open it with gdebi installer and follow the on screen instructions. After that you can find Skype on Applications/Internet menu.

To install additional empathy themes follow this excellent DetectorPRO tutorial.

10. Install Adobe Flash Plugin to Firefox You can do it manually from Ubuntu Software Center or Adobe official page (select .deb package in version download) or enter some address with flash content example "youtube" and select install missing plugins from Firefox

After all this tunings, make update to your system Go to System/Administration/System Update and make sure that everything is on and up to date. Enjoy and have fun with your new Ubuntu 9.10 experience.

Easy Install 65+ empathy chat themes on Ubuntu

2009-11-04T12:05:00.001-08:00

To install new chat themes first download the themes .deb file from here.

Install it with double click and then follow the next easy tutorial. You must copy the installed themes on your home folder. Here is the steps:

Find the installed files in /usr/share/empathy-chat-themes . You can do it manually or in nautilus click on pencil below the back/forward icons and copy the path without quotes.
Next open your local folder on new nautilus window: Click Places/Home Folder.
From the View tab select Show hidden files
Go to .local/share folder and make new folder adium then make another folder inside adium called message-styles.
Final step, copy all files from /usr/share/empathy-chat-themes (Ctrl+A to select all and Ctrl+C to copy) and copy to .local/share/adium/message-styles/ (Ctrl+V to paste)
That's it, you can found empathy themes in edit/preferences/themes in empathy window

Awesome Windows 7 Resources

2009-11-04T12:04:00.003-08:00

With Windows 7 now available worldwide, I wanted to share some resources available to help IT Pros become more proficient with Windows 7 and consumers more savvy about new support resources for Windows 7.

Microsoft Learning has developed a wide range of training and resources for IT Pros that address the benefits and key technical aspects of Windows 7. With these resources, IT Pros can prepare for deployments and become Windows 7 experts within in their organization. These resources include:

The Windows 7 Learning site with information, tools and resources to help people get up and running on Windows 7, such as Learning Snacks, Learning Plans, certifications currently available on Windows 7, and resources for classroom and online training.
The Career Campaign site that provides guidance, career paths, special offers and certifications for common IT job roles. Through Learning Plans and special offers, IT pros can train to get certified on Windows Server, Windows client technologies, Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SQL Server. Individuals can chart their course from their current skill level to their desired job role and skill level, from beginner through experts, with clear guidance on classes, upgrades and newest releases, along with special offers that will help individuals meet their career goals.
Special offers from Microsoft make it easier for individuals who are getting started in their careers, changing job roles or advancing within their organizations get the training they need. This includes limited-time offers and discounts on training and certification, making it easier to embark on a career course, such as: discounts of up to 25% on certification exams, Career Packages that include classroom training, a Certification exam and a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate (available through select Certified Partners for Learning Solutions) and discounts on e-Learning collections for self-paced study.
Springboard Series on TechNet is a GREAT place for IT Pros to Discover & Explore, Pilot & Deploy and Manage Windows 7. Be sure to keep your eyes on the Springboard Series Blog too.

Since many IT Pros serve double-duty as the IT expert for their friends and family, there are support tools available in and around Windows 7 that make it easier for them to help consumers address their issues. Detailed on Microsofts PressPass site, these resources provide end-to-end Windows 7 support that includes built-in self-healing and support tools, easy-to-use automated and scripted solutions and customer support through new social media forums, including:

Windows Update: Automatically updates software to help prevent problems.
Windows Action Center: includes more than 20 automated troubleshooters that fix more than 150 common problems.
Scripted diagnostics and solutions: through Fix IT solve common software problems with the click of a button.
Online Support: through Microsoft Answers provides peer to peer help, guidance from customer support experts and Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs).
In the moment help: through tweets to the @MicrosoftHelps Twitter account.
Easier, more intuitive online resources such as the Windows Help and How To center and the solution centers available on support.microsoft.com .

For more information about the value of training and certification, and to keep up with new Windows 7 training resources, visit Born to Learn; and for more information about the consumer support resources available in Windows 7, please visit support.microsoft.com.

Special thanks to the folks at Microsoft Learning and Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) for reaching out to me and compiling these awesome resources to share with you today.

The Windows Marketplace for Mobile Client and your Setup code

2009-11-04T12:04:00.001-08:00

The Windows Marketplace for Mobile client provides users a streamlined experience to purchase and install applications on their Windows Mobile 6.5 devices (coming soon for 6.1, and 6.0).

As you will notice when installing applications, the user interface is different from the typical CAB file installation (see below) perhaps you are used to.

It is very important that the Marketplace install experience be uniform and streamlined. To keep it this way, no custom UI (errors, prompts, informational messages, etc.) should be displayed during installation or uninstallation.

If you absolutely must display custom UI, there are some things you should know about the Marketplace client.

The Marketplace client achieves a streamlined experience by suppressing the normal user interface, displaying a client specific progress bar and providing feedback when the installation has completed. This can cause problems for applications that have custom prompts implemented in the setup dll. For example, you may want to prompt the user to start your application after installation has completed. This is easily done by adding the appropriate MessageBox prompt to the Install_Init export of your setup dll. However, there can be problems with this.

The foreground display of your MessageBox or other custom UI, depends on knowing the window handle of the calling process. When your application is installed with the Marketplace client, no window handle is passed to your setup DLLs exported functions. This can cause your custom UI to not be displayed in the foreground. This causes confusion for the user since it looks like the installation is still running, but there is no UI feedback. The only recourse for the user is to use task manager to locate the prompt window and select it to bring it to the foreground. This is a very poor user experience.

You can resolve this by using the MB_TOPMOST | MB_SETFOREGROUND flags when calling MessageBox or WS_EX_TOPMOST when creating a window for custom UI.

Have you tried the Marketplace client yet? No? Dont have a 6.5 ROM update or device yet? No problem. Download the Windows Mobile 6.5 standalone emulator images here. These come with a fully functional Marketplace client you can download and install apps with.

Hope this helps.

Mike

Now Available: Security Baselines for Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8

2009-11-04T12:03:00.001-08:00

Now that Windows 7 is available, are you looking for some security baseline recommendations from the experts? Then here’s another timely release from the Microsoft Solution Accelerators team! Today, new security baselines for Windows® 7 and Windows® Internet Explorer® 8 are available for download.

Over the past few months, the Solution Accelerators team collaborated with Microsoft security experts, multiple government agencies worldwide, and a large community of IT security professionals to develop and test these new security baselines.All of these baselines are free for you to use.

In case you are not familiar with all of the security baselines available for Microsoft products, they ship as part of the Security Compliance Management Toolkit (SCMT) Series. The SCMT helps you to plan, deploy, and monitor security baselines for Windows® operating systems, Internet Explorer, and 2007 Microsoft® Office applications. It contains background information about compliance, and planning advice about how to automate security compliance. It also refers you to other tools and guidance that you can use to establish and deploy a security baseline, and then monitor and maintain compliance with your established configuration.

Where do you start?

At a high level, security compliance consists of four basic steps:

Plan how to meet security baseline requirements.
Deploy security baseline configurations.
Monitor security baseline configurations.
Remediate security baseline configurations.

The tools, guidance, and recommendations in the SCMT help you through each step of this process and give you the support to make key decisions about security baseline settings for your specific environment.

Here’s what you get:

Security guide – The toolkits include new and updated security guides for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Microsoft Office 2007 SP1, and Internet Explorer 8. The guidance provides you with best practices and automated tools to help you plan and deploy your security baselines.
Attack Surface Reference workbook – A resource that lists the changes introduced as server roles are installed on computers running Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.
Security Baseline Settings workbook – A resource that lists all of the prescribed settings for each of the preconfigured security baselines that the guides recommend.
Security Baseline XML – XML files that allow you to consume the data defined in the security baseline settings workbooks.
GPOAccelerator tool – A tool that you can use to create all of the Group Policy objects (GPOs) you need to deploy your chosen security configuration. This release also supports creating security configurations on computers not joined to a domain.
Baseline Compliance Management Overview – The overview discusses best practices on how to monitor security baselines for Windows operating systems, Office applications, and Internet Explorer 8.
DCM Configuration Pack User Guide – A step-by-step prescriptive user guide about how to use Configurations Packs with the DCM feature in Configuration Manager 2007 R2.
DCM Configuration Packs – Configuration Packs that provide prescriptive security information, which you can use to check the compliance of systems in your environment.

What should you do next?

Learn more about the Security Compliance Management Toolkit Series.
Download the Security Compliance Management Toolkit Series.
Find other Windows 7 Solution Accelerators here: Windows Desktop Solution Accelerators.
The Solution Accelerators team is developing a new tool called the Security Compliance Manager. It will help you manage your security and compliance process for the most widely used Microsoft technologies. Join the Beta review program and provide your feedback on the features you want most.
Get all the step by step guides, whitepapers, how to’s and screen casts on deploying and managing Windows 7 in your environment from the Springboard Series on TechNet.

MacOS 10.6.2 kills support for Intel Atom

2009-11-04T11:36:00.003-08:00

Apple continues its fight against increasing number of hackintosh community, particularly the growing part devoted to modification of the Atom netbooks machines. Apple will upgrade the upcoming Snow Leopard 10.6.2 to exclude the possibility of successful installation on Atom driven netbooks.

Something similar may be included in MacOS 10.5.9 update. So if you are already MacOS user on Atom netbook avoid these upgrades.

Hackintosh scene has experienced rapid popularity among cheap netbooks owners because the Mac Os installation process is very easy with minimal modifications. Especially popular are Dell Mini 9 and 10 becouse all hardware components simply works with MacOS system.

Windows Home Server grows as your needs grow

2009-11-04T11:36:00.001-08:00

November 3, 2009 at 1:15 pm

If you look back at posts from several weeks ago, I wrote about the Top 10 Reasons to use Windows Home Server. Since then, I have been explaining each bullet in more detail including backup and restore , installing your home server , and connecting to friends and family through Windows Home Servers Remote Access. Today, I will tell you a little more about item number 5 on the list - Windows Home Servers Drive Extender and how it can provide an unlimited amount of space for your large collection of recorded Family Guy episodes or the thousands or pictures that are sitting unprotected on your PC.

With Windows Home Server, storage space grows as your needs and digital possessions grow. Thanks to Windows Home Server Drive Extender , you are able to add internal or external hard drives of any size so which will create an unlimited amount of storage space for your HD movies, pictures, or huge collection of Family Guy episodes. Users will no longer have worry about disk drive letters (C:, D:, E:, etc. etc.) as they add more hard drives to their home server, since Windows Home Server treats the disk space as a large pool of available space. Windows Home Server also monitors the health of each hard drive that is added. The lights on the outside of the server will turn Red if a drive is failing, Purple if there's a drive but it's not configured and Blue if it's configured and healthy.

*Screen shot of a Windows Home Server with over 3TB of space

In a recent satisfaction survey completed by Windows Home Server users, we found that 54% of people using the English version of Windows Home Server have 4 or more hard drives connected to their server! Some more fun facts about how people today are getting the most out of their Windows Home Servers Drive Extender include:

The largest number of hard drives currently attached to a home server is 30, there are lots and lots of people with more than 10 hard drives attached to their home servers
The largest amount of available disk space that we have seen (so far) is: 36.603516 terabytes
The largest amount of used disk space that we have seen (so far) is: 24.093750 terabytes

*Fans in a home-built Windows Home Server that are being used to cool 13 hard drives.

WindowsHome Server Drive Extender provides the reliability benefits of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) without the complexity. Windows Home Server supports reliability by duplicating designated shared folders so important data (e.g. your Photos, Music, etc.) will be stored on separate hard drives helping to provide protection against hard drive failure. Folder Duplication is configurable on a per shared folder basis, so a given shared folder can have multiple copies, with each one being stored on a separate hard drive.

How is it different from RAID solutions?

Any hard drive, any time. You are not restricted to simply adding more hard drives of the same type and size. When you want to grow your home server storage, you just buy whatever hard drive you like and add it.
Internal and external hard drives can be used to grow your storage. No space in your home server case? No problem, plug in one or more USB 2.0 or FireWire hard drives.
Hard drive removal, as explained above. With time, it will be important to remove the older smaller hard drives and put in new larger hard drives so you can store more stuff.

To see how easy it is to add and remove a hard drive first hand, take a look at the screen cast below:

-Nicole

Springboard Series Blog Migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7

2009-11-04T11:34:00.000-08:00

Every day this week long-time Springboard technical contributor and Windows deployment insider, Jeremy Chapman, will post a blog about how to think about Windows 7 deployment projects. We debated on making this a whitepaper or a feature article, but to keep things less formal, we went with a multimedia blog series. This series won't just cover steps to publish images in your Windows Deployment Services environments, instead it goes much broader into the major steps of deployment all-up; from figuring out what applications and hardware you have to migrating files, managing applications, building images, incorporating drivers and automating stuff end-to-end. Jeremy has been a veteran member of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit team and while he won't be posting the classic "1500 pages" of how-to content, he will stay on his quest for the elusive and often escalated-for "one-page paper" to migrate enterprise customers from Windows XP to Windows 7. Let's see if he can do it!

Part 1 is already up and parts 2-5 are coming each day this week:

The "One-Pager" for Moving from Windows XP to Windows 7 (Overview)
Migrating User Files and Settings from Windows XP to Windows 7
Application Management and Preparing for a Windows 7 Deployment
Choosing and Image Strategy and Building Windows 7 System Images
Automating the migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 End-to-End

Subscribe to the RSS feed or check back for the rest this week. If you are coming to TechEd Europe next week, Jeremy will be delivering multiple sessions on Windows deployment and application compatibility. Please let us know what you think about these blogs, the longer multimedia format and whether you would like to see other topics covered.

As always, thanks for reading and I hope to see some of you next week at TechEd!

Stephen Rose

NVIDIA and Windows Touch

2009-11-02T21:16:00.001-08:00

Windows 7 will change the ways you interact with your PC. How you ask? Windows Touch.

Touch refers to the way Windows lets you interact directly with a computer using a finger. Compared to using a mouse, keyboard, or pen, touch can be much more engaging, natural, and convenient.

The Windows Touch technology in Windows 7 is an evolution of the technology that is rooted in Windows Vista. In Windows Vista, single-touch input improved the interaction when using the pen stylus and the mouse of earlier Tablet PC platforms. With Windows 7, users can directly manipulate their computer environment through multitouch for the first time. Users can use a variety of gestures directly on their computer screen to move data, including:

Touch, or mouse-such as behavior: tap, double-tap, right-click, drag, and select.
Touch gestures- such as Flicks (navigational and editing).
Multitouch gestures-- such as zooming in, zooming out, panning, and rotating.

A Windows 7 PC powered by NVIDIA GPUs will deliver faster, more engaging Windows Touch experiences. NVIDIA GPUs are well known for accelerating 3D interfaces. The Windows 7 Aero desktop, now designed using the DirectX 10 API and designed for Windows Touch, is no exception. From the new taskbar previews to Aero Peek, Flip, Snap, and Shake, NVIDIA GPU provides a snappy 3D experience. Windows 7 also uses the GPU to reduce memory consumption by half by eliminating the need to keep a second copy of each window in system memory. This frees up system memory for other applications and keeps your PC responsive.

Multi-touch capability was designed into the core of Windows 7 and is a perfect fit for the new highly visual GPU-accelerated applications like Cooliris and Super Loiloscope. Cooliris lets you browse the web in 3D and now with the addition of Windows Touch, the experience becomes even more immersive. With Super Loiloscope you can have fun creating videos and applying effects with the touch of your finger.

Touch input does not replace the keyboard and mouse, it enhances them. Touch is a natural and intuitive way to interact with you PC when you are doing common computing tasks such as:

Web browsing
Interacting with photos
Playing games
Organizing music and video (creating playlists, sorting media, and organizing content)
Reading and sorting e-mail
Using documents
Managing a Windows workspace

As you can see, your Windows 7 Touch experience will be faster, smoother, and more immersive with an NVIDIA GPU in your PC.

Microsoft Just Made the Webs Best Video

2009-10-29T21:16:00.001-07:00

Remember this hilarious video called A Brief History of the Web I blogged about in March? The video has won the Best Online Video (standalone) at the OMMA Awards. Very cool! You can see the full list of winners here. If you havent seen the History of the Web video already, you should ;-)

The New Efficiency

2009-09-29T12:50:00.000-07:00

We are all experiencing the results of the economic reset. Companies and consumers are scaling back spending to lower levels despite modest signs of growth. However, we are all recognizing that you cannot simply save your way to success. Costs savings are critical but not enough. In response to this, businesses are emphasizing efficiency which includes trimming costs but also involves increasing productivity and innovation for sustained growth. Microsoft is calling this the New Efficiency.

As mentioned last week by Stephen Rose, Microsoft is hosting a special VIP Business Leadership Roundtable event on September 29, 2009 in San Francisco from 9 to 10:30am Pacific to discuss the New Efficiency and other relevant trends.

Attendees are encouraged to join in on the conversation with our CEO Steve Ballmer and co-host Robert Youngjohns as they discuss major trends in the workplace and the role of technology in driving growth and competitive advantage during this economic reset. Steve and Robert will be joined by a panel of early adopter customers representing key industries like automotive, hospitality, transportation and IT. Attendees will get a close look at how real companies are justifying IT investments across the desktop, server, and network and beyond. The event will be broadcast live over the web and listeners will be able to submit questions to Steve Ballmer and the rest of the panel.

Add the event to your calendar and watch it live here at www.TheNewEfficiency.com.

Things are heating up as we ramp up for Windows 7s launch on October 22nd!

Seavus Project Evolution - Integrated Project Collaboration Environment for MS Project users

2009-09-29T12:48:00.004-07:00

Seavus Project Evolution is a MS Project based suite of tools, designed to create a real collaboration environment for all projects in your company. It is a suite for project teams to successfully manage task updates, report and track issues, as well as acquire knowledge using wikis.

This collaborative project management suite allows project viewing, updating, tracking and team collaboration.

This suite include tool for every team member of the project team:

For team members - Seavus Project Viewer - Team members install Seavus Project Viewer in order to view mpp files and more important to collaborate amongst each other in order to provide greater value to the project.
For Project Managers - MS Project Standard add-in - Project managers install the add-in to their MS Project Standard. Once the project manager is logged into the server she/he can explore and use the Seavus Project Evolution features.
For team members out of the office - Seavus Web Client - If you are out of the office on a meeting or a business trip you can use the Seavus Web Client to access Seavus Project Evolution and work on your projects same as if you are in your office.
Storage of information - Seavus Project Server - The server is where the collaboration happens. Project managers and team members connect to the server to manage/update task progress, report and track issues, acquire knowledge using wikis.

What should we say more! This is the best compact EPM (Enterprise Project Management) suite on the web.

Link for more: Seavus Project Evolution

Moving to Windows 7

2009-09-29T12:48:00.003-07:00

Most consumers will experience Windows 7 one of two ways, either by upgrading their existing PC or by purchasing a PC with Windows 7 preloaded. At work, most of our business customers have their own in-house IT support (or a dedicated partner that they work with) to deploy new versions of Windows.

For the customers that want to upgrade their own PC (and have experience installing Windows), an overview of the process is provided below.

For customers running Windows Vista:

Once Windows 7 is available on October 22nd, customers will be able to upgrade from their current edition of Windows Vista to a corresponding edition of Windows 7. For example, it is fairly straightforward to upgrade from Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Home Premium or from a 32-bit version of Windows Vista to a 32-bit version of Windows 7. The process involves inserting the appropriate Windows 7 installation disc, running the setup program, and choosing the Upgrade installation option. An Upgrade is the fastest and easiest type of installation and will preserve your files, settings, and programs.

For customers running Windows XP:

Customers who wish to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 will need to follow a different upgrade process due to the changes in PCs since the introduction of Windows XP in 2001. To upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 you must first determine if your PC meets the minimum system requirements using the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. Assuming it meets the requirements, you can install Windows 7 using the Custom installation option. A custom installation does not preserve your files, settings or programs so you need to first back up your data to an external drive and re-install your programs once installation has completed.

If you are upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 and installing it yourself, we have detailed step-by-step instructions here.

If you are a business customer, please note that there are other migration options for you that include a broad range of deployment tools and guidance to assist your migration to Windows 7. This also includes solutions to assess application and hardware compatibility. Please visit the Springboard Series.

For customers who want to upgrade to Windows 7:

Weve received a lot of questions from our customers about getting Windows 7 before October 22nd. While you wont be able to go into a store and purchase a copy until then, you can take advantage of our pre-order option which is available now via the Microsoft Online Store as well as a variety of participating retailers. If youre an eligible college student, you can also take advantage of a sweet deal on Windows 7 for $29.99 by visiting http://www.win741.com/. And, if you have multiple PCs at home, then on October 22nd for a limited time, youll be able to get the Windows 7 Family Pack Offer, which will provide 3 Upgrade Licenses for $149.99. Look for more details on this soon.

For more information on moving to Windows 7, I suggest you read our Windows 7 Upgrade FAQ which answers many of the commonly asked questions regarding moving to Windows 7.

Join Us For The New Efficiency Launch Event

2009-09-29T12:48:00.001-07:00

Early adopters speak out on business value live September 29^th 9-10.30am PDT

Join in the conversation during this must-see event and see top technology leaders and Microsofts Steve Ballmer, debate the role of IT during this economic reset. Can cost savings, productivity and innovation come together to drive business growth? Get a closer look at how real companies are justifying IT investments across desktop, server, network and beyond. Youll also find sessions related to new releases of Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft Forefront, Microsoft System Center, and Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack.

Learn how to get the most out of your Windows Home Servers capabilities

2009-09-29T12:47:00.001-07:00

There are many materials which can help you learn how to use your Windows Home Server to its full potential. These items include things such as books, videos, and our product guide. There are some great books about Windows Home Server including Windows Home Server Unleashed and the Windows Home Server Bible. If you are more of a visual learner, HP has created a number of How To videos and demos which walk you through the different features of your Home Server. Train Signal is another company that utilizes videos as a great way to provide information about Windows Home Server.

The Windows Home Server training created by Train Signal has many great features. It includes over 13 hours of interactive video instruction covering all of Windows Home Servers capabilities. Train Signal focuses on how to take advantage of all the features and options that Windows Home Server provides in a very detailed and organized layout. It is simple to follow along and find exactly what you would like to learn about. The training is comprehensive in that it covers everything from installation, configuration, maintenance, troubleshooting, as well as a few more advanced Home Server tricks. The highlight of this product is that the training is designed for regular PC users who have little technical expertise, not just IT professionals.

To watch some of their training videos for free, you can visit: http://www.trainsignaltraining.com/free-video-training/free-windows-home-server-training-videos/.

Widget Anatomy Performance and Battery Life

2009-09-29T12:45:00.002-07:00

This is part three of my Widget Anatomy series which which will explain the ins and outs of the Widget Framework that is shipping as part of Windows Mobile 6.5. In this installment I will discuss how to squeeze the last drop of performance out of the Widget framework to ensure all our Widgets are interactive, alive and fun to use while being good mobile citizens and not draining the users battery dry in the process.

All good things

JavaScript is a cool language. Its simple to learn, use, and understand but it really can get us into a lot of trouble if not used wisely. this is true on all platforms but we must pay special attention to its implications while developing for a mobile platform.

So, just because we are among friends here Ill share a little secret that showcases the biggest challenge to creating responsive Widgets. Here it goes are you ready? On Windows Mobile 6.5, JavaScript execution blocks the UI. This means that, whenever there is a script running nothing else can be processed in the widget which includes menu commands and keyboard or touch input processing. Also note that, during script execution the Widget cant redraw in other words, any screen updates done during the execution of the script will not be reflected on the screen until after the script finishes its execution.

I know that this sounds like a big obstacle to overcome but it is really not that bad.

One Small Step

On very interesting aspect of performance is that, in most cases, perception is reality. In a mobile application world, this means that for every user action there is a immediate response from the application that assures the user that their input was acknowledged and is being processed.

The best way to accomplish this on widgets is to minimize the amount of code that is executed on the event handler and defer all actions that are not related to updating the UI to give feedback to the user after a small timeout.

   1: function onCoolActionClick() {

   2:     document.getElementById('waitCursorLayer').style.display = "block";

   3:     window.setTimeout("doCoolStuff()", 50);

   4: }

5:

   6: function doCoolStuff() {

   7:     countToAMillion();

   8:     document.getElementById('waitCursorLayer').style.display = "none";

   9: }

The same technique can be applied to break out expensive operations to allow processing of the always important user events.

   1: function countToAMillion(currentCount) {

   2:     // Count to a million in 10 incremets to ensure the UI events can be processed

   3:     var countBlockStarts = currentCount;

   4:     var countBlockEnds   = countBlockStarts + 10;

5:

   6:     for(var i = countBlockStarts; i < countBlockEnds; i++) {

7:

   8:         // Check to see if we are done

   9:         if(i >= 1000000) {

  10:             return;

  11:         }

12:

  13:         // Write the current count

  14:         document.getElementById("currentValue").innerHTML = i;

  15:     }

16:

  17:     // schedule the next few elements

  18:     window.setTimeout("countToAMillion(" + countBlockEnds + ")", 50);

  19: }

Another trick that will come handy for most Widgets since they are generally full of dynamic content is that using innerHTML is significantly faster than creating the DOM elements individually and then appending them to the document. You should never append them to the document one by one, as this will completely destroy your performance since it will force the Widget to re-layout multiple times -- and this is really slow!. I know that this might not be possible in all cases but it is a nice tool to have in case your widget is having performance issues creating dynamic content.

Awakening

Now lets focus our attention to the flip side of performance which is, without a doubt, battery life. It is a fact of life that our Widgets, since they are executing code on the device, will have an impact on battery life. The goal is to minimize its effects to ensure happy users.

Thankfully the road to user happiness is not as rough as it might seem, there are a few principals that, if we keep them in mind while writing our Widget code, then we will know for sure that we are only using the power that is necessary to complete our task.

Only consume network resources when your widget is active.
Minimize animations when the widget is idle.
Cache data locally as aggressively as possible, use the widget persistent storage as a repository since it will be preserved across runs (and even upgrades).
Be aware of the current battery level and minimize network operations when the battery is running low.
Always (and by that I really mean always!!) use asynchronous network requests.

Example:

   1: function onShow() {

   2:     // The widget was activated and is running in the foreground

   3:     // refresh the widget data

   4:     refreshWidgetData();

   5: }

6:

   7: function onHide() {

   8:     // Stop al recurring timers to be a good Widget citizen

   9:     stopAllTimers();

  10: }

11:

  12: function onLoad() {

  13:     var systemState = widget.createObject("SystemState");

  14:     var batteryStrength = systemState.PowerBatteryStrength;

15:

  16:     batteryStrength.addEventListener("changed", optimizeNetworkUsage);

17:

  18:     widget.onshow = onShow;

  19:     widget.onhide = onHide;

  20: }

Thats it for now, but before I completely forget, one set of tools that will be your friend tracking performance issues on your widgets (and web applications as well) is the IE8 amazing developer tools (to start them, just press F12) which include a script profiler and it works great for widgets!

Next post: Widget Anatomy Security

Making Windows 7 Location Aware with u-blox Products

2009-09-29T12:45:00.001-07:00

Last week, embedded GPS chip maker u-blox announced support for Windows 7s Sensor and Location Platform. Windows 7 has built in location awareness using the new Windows Sensor and Location Platform. PCs with u-bloxs AMY-5M chip or their PCI-5S/PCM-5S receiver cards with Windows 7 can now be location-aware with u-bloxs new Windows 7 driver available for download here.

There is a u-blox GPS chip inside the Microsoft GPS dongle that ships with Streets and Trips 2009. I went out and grabbed a copy for myself to try out making Windows 7 on my laptop location-aware.

I plugged the dongle in, installed the u-blox Windows 7 driver, and the GPS dongle appeared as a sensor in Windows 7. I of course enabled the u-blox GPS sensor (or location sensor).

Windows 7 utilizes location-awareness in several different ways for the user. The inbox weather gadget is one.

If a person has a location sensor enabled in Windows 7, the Find location automatically in the weather gadget settings can be checked. If checked, this will allow the weather gadget to utilize the Sensor and Location Platform to discover your location and display weather from your location. In my case, it accessed my location using the u-blox GPS sensor I have enabled. As you move locations with your laptop, the weather gadget will chain to your current location.

If you have Streets and Trips 2009 and the Microsoft GPS dongle that comes with it, use it to make Windows 7 location-aware with the weather gadget.

As more and more laptops PCs come with GPS in them, Windows 7 is designed to take advantage of location natively within the OS. This offers a great experience for people always on the move.

For more information on the Windows Sensor and Location Platform in Windows 7, click here. If youre a developer, learn how to make your application location-aware with Windows 7 with these resources on the Windows Sensor and Location Platform here.

Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 update

2009-09-28T21:14:00.001-07:00

Weve talked extensively about the improvements that Power Pack 3 for Windows Home Server will deliver for users. We were proud to show off the beta code of Power Pack 3 at the recent CEDIA 2009 custom installer technology show, where we got lots of positive reception to the feature set. Its clear that the anticipation of using Windows Home Server with the upcoming Windows 7 client PC operating system is reaching feverish pitch! OK, maybe that was a slight exaggerationBut the bottom line is that weve gotten tremendous feedback (and test coverage) from you, our enthusiasts, around Power Pack 3 and we couldnt be more excited.

This being said, our top priority is to ensure the absolute highest level of product quality, and to this end, we will continue with additional testing of the software. As with past software releases, our team will not ship the official final release of Power Pack 3 until the community has validated our work. We expect to deliver before the end of the year.

For those Windows 7 users who do not have the Beta installed, there are a few important scenarios they should be aware of. These scenarios can be addressed by downloading and installing the Power Pack 3 Beta for the most optimal experience for Windows 7 users on a Windows Home Server network:

Restoring a full image of a Win7 client PC (or bare metal restore): there are a few rare cases where a Win7 client PC may not be able to restore his or her full image backup from a Windows Home Server. This has to do with how Windows 7 uses hard links for some system files. Power Pack 3 beta fixes this issue.
Windows 7 client PCs will not automatically wake up to do a backup: Windows 7 users can work around this by doing manual backups, or also by turning on the wakeup timer in the Windows client Control Panel. Power Pack 3 beta also fixes this issue.
Mounting a backup hangs at 79% with Autoplay enabled: Although weve seen only a few cases of this, Windows 7 users may see a stall during a file/folder restore operation, which is caused by Autoplay being triggered during the operation. As a workaround, users can disable Autoplay in the Windows client Control Panel. Power Pack 3 beta also fixes this issue.
Cannot install the Windows Home Server Client PC Connector software on Windows 7 Starter Edition PCs: while there currently isnt a workaround for this, Power Pack 3 beta addresses this issue and allows users to install the Connector software correctly.

So the net result is that there are a number of reasons that Windows 7 users should check out the Power Pack 3 release from great new features to fixes of the above technical issues. For the optimal experience of running Windows 7 PCs on a Windows Home Server network, we point you to our Microsoft Connect site to download the current beta release of Power Pack 3: https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer. Enjoy!

- Posted on behalf of Dave Berkowitz

Windows Home Server, Windows 7, Xbox 360 and Windows Media Center make an appearance at Cedia 2009!

2009-09-25T21:18:00.001-07:00

You may have the technology but are you using it? Maybe youve heard the Better Together story but you have not had a chance to really fully experience it. That is exactly what we wanted to show you at Cedia 2009. Cedia is the largest event of the year for custom installers to come and learn about new technology emerging in their industry. Think of Cedia as the CES for custom installers.

Windows Home Server teamed up with Windows Media Center, Windows 7 and Xbox to demonstrate how Microsoft technologies come together in the home. The booth was designed to be a replica of your home, your home office and your office away from home. This was done in an effort to emulate real working home scenarios. The picture below illustrates the booths layout:

The Office:

This networking nerve center demonstrated how users can access their content in various ways in their office, away from home or away from their living room. Attendees were shown such features as centralized storage, access to content on the go, Home Group, copying TV content from one Media Center to another and remote streaming. This is also where the Windows Home Server HP MediaSmart powered the entire booth, which included 9 extended Xboxs & 6 tuners connected to the N9 Niveus high-end Media Center PC with the new AEP 2.0 technology (which allows for an increase from 5 extenders to 10 & 4 tuners to 8), with photos, videos and music content. The Niveus N9 was located in the theater room.

The Bedroom:

Your personal get away spot in your home should enable you access to all your content at whim. The bedroom revealed a portable Windows 7 Media Center on a Sony VAIO laptop and an Xbox 360 extender connected to a large display. Giving you the ability to watch your content, listen to a little music and even record TV without leaving the comfort of your own bed; maybe you just wanted to obtain the score of your favorite team. The Windows 7 Media Center laptop demonstrated the new Netflix tile in Windows Media Center.

Family Room:

With only an Xbox 360 connected to your large screen TV, you have gaming and entertainment from one device. The family room is the central place to come together and watch TV, stream movies, view photos and even play some music. With the Xbox 360, you can play a few video games while streaming music from the home server. With the recent Xbox 360 update, Netflix enables you to stream movies and TV shows from the internet!

Theater Room:

The theater room is probably the most impressive part of the home, aside from the Windows Home Server being in the office serving all of the music, videos and photos content. Enjoy the luxury of your surround sound while playing Blu-ray movies, enjoying television, home movies or blaring music until your ears hurt. Be amazed as 8 different tuners record content at the same time and store it on the HP MediaSmart Server powered by Windows Home Server. Travel to any of the 9 different Xbox 360s in extender mode and watch the recently recorded TV or change the channel to a more enjoyable show.

Cedia Announcements:

Lets talk about the announcements and some of the technology making this all possible.

Windows Home Server:

Power Pack 3 was a big part of the show. This enables the use of libraries in Windows 7, automatic archive of TV content (which is very important with 8 tuners capturing content constantly) and single file restore in Windows 7. The Zune and Windows Phone compression feature allowed TV content to be played on your mobile devices. It was very exciting to see attendees reactions to these new features!

S1Digital announced a new Digital Entertainment Platform, which provides centralized archiving, storage and distribution of HD movies, live and recorded HD television, videos, music, photos and more. This is all based on the Windows Home Server platform.

Windows Media Center:

Probably one of the biggest announcements at the show was the ability to add your own Digital Cable Tuners to your PC. Before, you needed to purchase a computer with a special BIOS to be able to record digital TV.

CETON showed off their new single card that has 4 tuners with-in the S1 Media Center running the theater room and an extender. This single card could record 4 channels at once. They also have a 6 channel version here.

Here are a few other show announcements from Windows Media Center. To read more please visit here.

Switched Digital Video (SDV) support added to Windows Media Center.
End Customers Can Now Add Digital Cable Tuners With CableCARD to Their PCs
Digital Cable customers can now enjoy more TV portability in Windows Media Center
New Firmware for ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuners
Windows Media Center Features in Windows 7 highlighted

#WinWin7 Twitter Contest Rolls On

2009-09-22T21:17:00.001-07:00

Since the first tweet went out on the #WinWin7 Twitter Contest, the Windows Outreach Team on Microsofts official Windows Twitter account @MSWindows has been busy giving away some great (and somewhat goofy) prizes to their followers. The best part, through, is that I hear that things are just heating up.

Heres a recap of what theyve given away in the #WinWin7 promotion so far:

7 piping hot pizzas delivered right to followers doors
7 pounds of candy to satisfy followers penchants for sugar
$7.77 in shiny Andrew Jackson dollars and pennies
7 Microsoft keyboards and mice (PC mice, not live mice, thatd get messy)
@WindowsGamer gave away some signed Warhammer art books
2 gaming keyboards from @WindowsGamer
7 sodas from the stash on Microsofts Redmond campus

Theres more to come and the prizes are only getting better (and somewhat goofier).

Starting today, they are making a push for 77,777 followers by Windows 7 GA (October 22nd). Starting at 42,777 followers, they will give out a copy of Windows 7 to one of their lucky followers. Starting there, they will continue to give away a copy of Windows 7 for every 2,000 followers (so, at 44,777 then 46,777 and on and on). For those good at math, the more people we get to join, the more chances you (as a follower) have of winning a copy of Windows 7. All followers of @MSWindows are eligible, so those who have been loyal followers since the beginning are still in the running. Winners will receive their copy of Windows 7 they won after the Oct. 22 launch date.

When the magical number of 77,777 is reached, the Windows Outreach Team has some great (and super-secret) prizes to hand out. If youre not following @MSWindows on Twitter already, you should consider doing so as things look like they will get pretty interesting ;-)

For more on the Windows Outreach Team, read this blog post.

Finalist Emails for Windows 7 Launch Parties Go Out Today

2009-09-21T21:15:00.001-07:00

Weve had an overwhelming turn out of people signing up to host a Launch Party for Windows 7 since going live earlier this month. Starting today, finalist emails are going to those who signed up to host a Launch Party and if you dont get a finalist email, dont worry, there are still other ways to participate.

If you signed up to host a Launch Party and receive the host finalist email, please read the email carefully. Receiving the finalist email doesnt mean youve been accepted to host just yet. You will need to be among the first to respond via a link within your email to be confirmed as a host. This extra step is needed due to the amazing response weve had from people interested in hosting a Launch Party. Spots to host a Launch Party are limited so we want to make sure folks who signed up are still able to host.

After responding to the finalist email and confirming, you will then receive a confirmation email. Youll then be able to begin planning your Launch Party and sending out invites!

If you were not accepted to host a Launch Party or live in a country where Launch Parties are unavailable to host, you can still hold a Windows 7 gathering of your own. We are providing Windows 7 tips, content, demos, and training here online for you to host your own gathering or meet-up.

Windows Home Server Team is featured in a new whitepaper titled, How Microsoft listens and responds to customers

2009-09-20T10:26:00.001-07:00

The Windows Home Server team was cited as an example in a recently released whitepaper titled, How Microsoft listens and responds to customers. The Customer and Partner Experience site provides an overview of Microsofts company-wide system of measuring our efforts to encourage strong customer focus from senior executives down through the entire employee base. An excerpt from the whitepaper is below.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Microsoft Connect: A Product Feedback Community

When it comes to understanding how Microsoft products perform in real-world situations and identifying ways that we can improve our products, theres no better barometer than immediate feedback from customers and partners. To enable this, we have consolidated many of our listening systems into Microsoft Connect, a centralized feedback platform for product teams that enables customers and partners to interact directly with Microsoft developers and product managers.

The Microsoft Connect Web site (http://connect.microsoft.com) has more than 1.4 million registered users, averages over 1 million visits per month, and has delivered more than 8.5 million downloads of applications and documents. Virtually every major business group in the company has a presence on Microsoft Connect, with more than 1,900 programsincluding betas, Technical Adoption Programs and Customer Advisory Councilscurrently hosted on the site.

For example, the Windows Home Server teams Connect programs have been instrumental in helping developers improve the product. Were constantly using Connect to answer questions, discover technical bugs and get the right feedback into our system, says Jonas Svensson, Windows Home Server community program manager. Connect helps us engage with a vibrant community of users on an ongoing basis. We provide them with access to early versions of Windows Home Server. In return, Connect participants submit suggestions on how to improve the product, which gets timely feedback into our system.

Svenssons team recently released the Power Pack 3 beta for Windows Home Server through Connect. The Power Pack is an update that provides fixes for known issues and adds new features to improve the functionality of Windows Home Server, including enhancements for Windows 7based computers. Connect has allowed us to get this important update into the hands of tens of thousands of users who can thoroughly test it out and report back on their experience, says Svensson. We deliver much-anticipated product functionality, and our users are helping ensure great integration with Windows 7 at the time of release.

Install Emesene 1.5 with one click on Ubuntu

2009-09-19T21:26:00.001-07:00

The new emesene version comes with various bug fixes and improvements and new features:

Compatible with the latest Window Live Messenger(tm)
New plugin set (Plus! colors, Notifications, Mail check, etc.)
HTTP connection and proxy support
@msn accounts support
Better contact list management with Privacy Tab and ability to reject users
Improved Offline Messaging experience
Support for msn groups
No more gui locks
Experimental webcam support with a configurator
New layout options and improved usability along with customization
Tons of new languages supported

To install emesene 1.5 on your Ubuntu system with just one click, download .deb package from getdeb.com according to your Ubuntu version or follow the next links:

Emesene 1.5 for Ubuntu 9.04 32bit click here
Emesene 1.5 for Ubuntu 9.04 64bit click here

Emesene 1.5 for Ubuntu 8.10 32bit click here
Emesene 1.5 for Ubuntu 8.10 64bit click here

After downloading, double click on downloaded .deb file to install it. Enjoy.

Student Offer for Windows 7

2009-09-17T21:27:00.001-07:00

Based on reader comments, I know many are college and university students. I figured I would take a moment to highlight a great deal for those folks weve announced today. For a limited time, we are offering the LOWEST PRICE ($29.99 in the US) for Windows 7 exclusively to college and university students. This offer is perfect for students who are not planning to buy a new PC but want to experience all the benefits that Windows 7 will provide. To learn more about the offer and to check eligibility, students should visit www.Win741.com.

Students in the US can pre-order their copy of Windows 7 in the US starting today and students in the UK can pre-order their copy beginning on September 30th (pre-ordered copies will be available for download beginning October 22nd). Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Korea and Mexico can participate in this offer on October 22nd (Windows 7 GA).

Windows 7 is easy to use and great to take on the go to class as well as staying in touch with friends and family via Windows Live!

Windows 7 gives university students the tools they need manage their work (including an easy to use design, the ability to easily connect to devices, and take on the go to class and the library), stay in touch with friends (with Windows Live Essentials) and have fun (including Windows gaming, Windows Live Movie Maker and Windows Media Center to interact with TV and movies).

Games for Windows Program Gets an Update

2009-09-16T21:26:00.001-07:00

In 2008, the global PC game software market reached $12.7 billion in revenue from a combination of retail sales, subscriptions, virtual item sales, advertising and digital distribution revenue according to the PC Gaming Alliance Horizons Software Report (click here to download the report). This was up 18% from 2007! PC gaming is hotter than ever!

So today we are announcing that we are revamping the Games for Windows Program. This revamp includes new technical guidelines, a self-certification option, and a set of 22 technical requirements which are designed to:

Create an easier game installation experience.
Support both 32-bit and 64-bit Platforms.
Support Ratings and Parental Controls in Windows 7
Game titles populated in the Game Explorer.
Enhanced game update notifications for game titles.
Stability, security and compatibility against commonly known issues.

The idea is to have more game developers participating with more game titles that pass a standardized set of technical requirements. Games that go through and pass these technical requirements will offer consumers a better gaming experience. Gamers can expect awesome high-quality gaming with Games of Windows titles going forward.

The new requirements for Games for Windows will also allow developers to take advantage of Windows 7 features and compatibility when Windows 7 is released on October 22^nd.

You get some of these improvements today with Games for Windows LIVE titles. When you install the Games for Windows LIVE 3.0 client on Windows 7, Games for Windows LIVE is added to Game Providers in Games Explorer.

As you can see, I can receive the latest news on Games for Windows LIVE in the right-hand pane directly within the Games Explorer in Windows 7. When I click on Street Fighter IV (which is a Games for Windows LIVE title) I can see whether or not the game is up to date directly from Games Explorer.

You can download the Games for Windows LIVE 3.0 client here.

I posted about many of the brand new enhancements to Games Explorer (and the gaming experience) in Windows 7 several months ago.

Starting today, the program will be available to all PC gaming developers and publishers.

Over the past few years, we have worked to improve the quality of PC gaming in Windows for consumers through the Games for Windows. We hope that the revamp of the program we are announcing today makes gaming in Windows and on a PC even better!

New Zune Software Update for Zune 4.0 Optimized for Windows 7!

2009-09-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

Today, Zune 4.0 hits. Zune 4.0 comes with awesome new devices (the Zune HD), new software, and new online services. For the complete announcement for todays release, see this press release [Link coming soon] or see this post by my Zune pal Brian Seitz over on Zune Insider.

Theres been a lot of talk about the amazing Zune HD. Having the honor of using one for the last few weeks, I can say it truly is one great device. However, I want to talk about whats in new Zune software update. The Zune Team has put a lot of work into the software update including optimizing it for Windows 7! More on that in a bit

The Zune 4.0 Software Update brings in several key new features designed to make discovering new music and playing music in your collection even better.

Quickplay is a new screen in the Zune software that gives you quick access to your content.

Here, you can pin your favorite content (up to 6 items), see new music and videos added to your collection, and view your history of recently played music, podcasts, and videos. Quickplay also showcases 5 Smart DJ mixes of your favorite artists or bands you pick.

Speaking of Smart DJ

A Smart DJ mix automatically creates a playlist of music from your collection - but goes the extra mile by ALSO mixing in music from Zune Marketplace. These Smart DJ mixes are available by right-clicking on an artist, a song, or an album in your collection. When a Smart DJ mix is created, it pulls in music from your own collection and also the Zune Marketplace. If you have a Zune Pass, all songs including those from Zune Marketplace will play for you. If you dont have a Zune Pass, suggested songs in the Smart DJ mix will be grayed-out.

If you prefer not to see suggested music from Zune Marketplace in your Smart DJ mixes, you can unselect a radio button and only your personal collection will be listed.

You can also choose to save the Smart DJ queue as a playlist, with finite control in the edit playlist setting, for listening at a later date.

The below screenshot of the Smart DJ mix for Weezer playing shows what playing a Smart DJ mix looks like with the options to save as a playlist and the ability to choose not to play songs from the Zune Marketplace.

But wait, theres more!

The Zune software now comes with Mini Player Mode. This allows you to keep the player always on top of other applications while browsing the Web, checking email, or whatever else you might be doing on your PC.

And if Mini Player Mode doesnt do it for you, you can also add playback controls to the Windows Taskbar (right-click on taskbar, choose Toolbars, and then choose Zune).

As I mentioned above, the new Zune software is optimized for Windows 7. That means it takes advantage of key Windows 7 features!

Using Jump Lists in Windows 7, you can access albums youve pinned under Quickplay as well as your preconfigured Smart DJ mixes of 5 of your favorite artists or bands. It also lets you shuffle all music and resume playing music if on pause.

With Taskbar Previews (just hover your mouse over the Zune button on the Windows Taskbar in Windows 7), you can move to the next song, go back to the previous song, and pause your music and rate songs!

And with Aero Snap, you can resize the Zune software to the top or bottom, left or right of your screen.

Zune now also features for the first time download-to-own, or rent full movies in combination of their growing TV show library. These movies and TV shows can be downloaded in standard definition (SD) or high definition (HD). A remember, Zune Pass is only $14.99 and now comes with unlimited access to streaming music online! Oh and you also get 10 MP3 song credits a month to redeem too.

Give the new Zune software a try for free by clicking here.

Disclaimer: My music tastes do not represent that of Microsoft ;-)

The safest place for your digital memories

2009-09-15T21:26:00.001-07:00

Many people today have rescued their important documents and media by using Windows Home Servers backup and restore capabilities. One man claims that Windows Home Server even saved his marriage.

Hopefully, by now you have read our Top 10 list for the reasons you should use Windows Home Server. Now, I will be telling you a little bit more about each point, and we are going to start with the most commonly used features, Backup and Restore.

The prospect of losing or damaging your precious possessions is terrifying. Today, a lot of those possessions are digital, such as your irreplaceable pictures. In general, we do our best to protect those items by occasionally backing up our computers, but shouldnt something that important be looked after better? For total peace of mind, Windows Home Server does a complete image-based backup automatically everyday.

With Windows Home Server's data recovery capabilities, you can bring back individual files or folders. You can even recover a PC that's had an unfortunate accident or hard drive failure because Windows Home Server makes a copy of the entire contents of your home computers hard drive. Scott Hanselman is one of the many people that have used this feature, and he claims that it was so successful, it saved his marriage. In this post , Scott Hanselman writes about how he saved the day when his wifes PC had a hard drive get smashed in by their 2-year old son. Windows Home Server is known for its speed when going through the restore process, and Scott is a true testament to that claiming I hit Finish and it took like 11 minutes (creepy fast) to restore. In no time, he had his wifes PC fully restored and running like normal.

Scotts story is only one among many others. One member of the Windows Home Server team asked the public to tell him their stories of how their Windows Home Server has saved their lives. Hundreds of people responded to this post, along with enthusiastically talking about how much they love having a Home Server.

Some highlighted quotes from this forum include:

I also had a very easy time setting up Windows Home Server and it just works".
After about an hour or so, I went and watched TV while this was running, I was back in business. This definitely saved me time in rebuilding the laptop, without Windows Home Server it would have been 8 hours of rebuilding the OS and reinstalling all of my applications.
This has to be one of Microsoft's best products that have come down the line.
Windows Home Server saved me from a fairly ugly Saturday night and Sunday rebuilding my workstation.
I actually don't have a bad thing to say about it, great product.

If you are interested in learning more about Windows Home Server and its backup and restore capabilities, HP has created a "How To" video where you can watch an HP MediaSmart Server protect your files.

For further information, you can also visit www.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver.

How to mount your hard drives on Ubuntu 9.04

2009-09-15T20:32:00.002-07:00

Usually Ubuntu mounts your hard disks during OS installation, but sometimes your windows hard drives are not mounted and you must mount manually for every use. Fortunately, there is a simple solution with a an app called Pysdm. This app has Graphical User interface and mounting your disks and setting mount options on every Ubuntu start is a breeze. To install the Pysdm, start your terminal and enter:

sudo apt-get install pysdm

After installation enter:

sudo pysdm

No need to wait begin your Windows 7 deployment now!

2009-09-15T20:32:00.001-07:00

As you already know, on August 7th we made Windows 7 RTM available to our Volume License (VL) customers who have Software Assurance (SA). Windows Server customers are able to download 2008 R2 as of August 14th and on September 1st, we announced VL customers without SA are able to purchase Windows 7 through Volume Licensing. With this broad availability to our business customers, I want to share TCO (total cost of ownership) data from early adopters, some feedback from enterprise customers, and advanced companion tools and applications to enable the best experience as businesses deploy Windows 7. We have a lot going on, so read on for all the details.

To support early migration to Windows 7, today we announced on the MDOP Team Blog that we will be releasing Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2009 R2 in late October 2009, which Ill also talk more about in a bit.

Deployments are happening right now and your company can begin deployment as well! Several of our early adopters are already having great success with Windows 7. I thought I would share some of the TCO findings from studies of three enterprise customer deployments. Customers involved in the studies were:

Baker Tilly (Professional Services - UK): 2,200 users
City of Miami (Local Government - US): 2,235 users
Getronics (IT Services - Netherlands): 14,300 users

Some of the key TCO findings from the studies include:

Direct cost savings of IT labor dedicated to PC management are expected to be in the range of $89-160 per PC annually. That means IT Pros are saving up to two hours per desktop annually. For companies with several thousand PCs, this frees up a lot of valuable time, allowing IT departments to focus on more mission critical efforts and support their business more efficiently.
Overall, the $70-$160 in savings per PC annually represents reduction of IT labor costs ranging from a 10-20%. For example, Baker Tilly has been able to re-focus their IT force on strategic projects and estimates theyll save 18% on PC management costs.
Companies are realizing power savings with Windows 7 that add to the direct savings in IT Labor. For example, the City of Miami estimates their expected power savings alone ($54 per PC per year) justifies their Windows 7 deployment.
City of Miami also expects to save big on service desk costs. Previously, the city IT staff had to physically travel to the PC users location to resolve support issues. Windows 7 has advanced capabilities such as Remote Desktop, which now help the IT staff to diagnose and resolve issues remotely, saving both travel time and end-user downtime. Built-in features like the Problem Steps Recorder (PSR) have been described as a nugget of gold in the operating system. Specifically, PSR helps users communicate problems to the service desk, reducing the need to dispatch technicians to user locations by as much as 90%.

These TCO studies represent a few of our Windows 7 customers. You can find out more by reading the full TCO studies. Here is what other early deploying customers are saying about savings and overall value:

Gokboru Kilic, Client Systems Professional, Turkcell:

We expect support costs to drop by 20 percent with Windows 7.

Andreas Viehauser, Head of Client and Software Management, Raiffeisen Informatik:

We are able to deploy to different computer devices using the same image filehelping reduce deployment time by 60 percent. What used to take three and a half hours now takes as little as one hour.

Miguel Lopez, Project Manager, F. Hoffman LaRoche:

With Group Policies and Windows 7, well have more granular control over our computers and can more easily enforce how we govern our IT environment.

Henk Siereveld, Global IT Director, Bugaboo:

Our users love Windows 7. It provides an easier way of working, the interface is attractive, and it offers more functionality than our prior operating systems.

John McConeghey, IT Manager, Pella:

We opted to roll out Windows Server 2008 in tandem with Windows 7 because there are synergies that we gain by deploying the two products together.

Mark McBeth, Vice President of IT, Starwood Hotels & Resorts:

From an IT perspective, weve received positive feedback on the performance and stability. For us, those are the very first things we look for in an OS for Sheraton.

John McConeghey, IT Manager, Pella

We opted to roll out Windows Server 2008 R2 in tandem with Windows 7 because there are synergies that we gain by deploying the two products together.

Similarly, customers who have deployed App-V from MDOP are also seeing significant savings. Our recent App-V Cost Reduction Study shows Microsoft App-V is THE desktop virtualization product that delivers immediate savings on the desktop. App-V is estimated to provide an annual savings of $156 in hard costs and $125 in user productivity, yielding a total savings of up to $280 per PC annually.

We are happy to see so much excitement from early Windows 7 adopters, showing the real value Windows 7 provides enterprises. We recently asked Forrester to take a closer look at a broad set of enterprise customers to understand the real challenges of enterprises today and what is most important to them. Forrester surveyed over 318 senior IT decision makers and C- level IT executives in the US, Germany and Japan, with 78% of the respondent companies having over 500 PCs.

Key findings from their survey include:

For 87% of companies, controlling costs is a critically or very important business priority.
For 84% of companies, improving employee productivity is a critically or very important business priority.
For 54% of companies, improving employee mobility is a critically or very important business priority.
For 86% of companies, security is a critically or very important technology initiative.

As such - mobility, employee productivity and security requirements are surfacing as central challenges to the customers experience:

These companies support on average 174 Branch offices each; with only 38% of employees on average working in HQ; with 20% of the branch office workers dissatisfied with their access to corporate data.

68% of the companies struggle with the inability to manage PCs when those are not physically connected to the corporate network.
10% of the helpdesk calls are VPN-related.
23% of the helpdesk calls being related to users needing to install applications to do work and 14% of helpdesk calls are caused by users corrupting their systems by installing unauthorized software overall an industry concern over malware management.

The study confirmed the real challenges of enterprises today which increase companies costs each year. With Windows 7 and MDOP, we developed Windows Optimized Desktop to target challenges to help address the customers most critical needs. Its important to note that customers who deploy Windows 7 and MDOP with their existing server infrastructure will be able to expect significant value, user productivity, stronger data protection, and security and PC management. They can also expect automation improvements that can help them save costs and improve efficiency. The great news for customers here is that they do not have big dependencies on other deployment initiatives before they can realize the benefits of their Windows 7 deployment. However, if customers choose to deploy Windows Server 2008 R2 with Windows 7, they can expect even greater cost savings, reduced complexity and increased user productivity.

We also continue to innovate on MDOP to ensure it serves as a valuable enabler to the deployment and management of Windows 7. As I already mentioned, well be releasing MDOP 2009 R2 in late October. MDOP 2009 R2 will add Windows 7 support for all of the tools except MED-V, which will support Windows 7 in the first quarter of calendar year 2010 via MED-V 1.0 SP1. I recommend reading the MDOP Team Blog for more information on MDOP 2009 R2.

Furthering our efforts help companies deploy Windows 7, we recently announced the availability of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010. MDT 2010 is optimized to support Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 deployments, and has built-in capabilities to support customers migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7.

With the release of both MDOP 2009 R2 and MDT 2010, and other resources available on the TechNet and Springboard websites, customers can feel confident about the deployment support available for Window 7.

Now is the time to begin testing and deploying Windows 7 with MDOP and Windows Server 2008 R2!

Windows phone Designer Themes

2009-09-15T20:31:00.001-07:00

Fashion Week is in full swing in New York City this week, and today, were excited to announce five designer themes created just for Windows phones. The themes, which include custom palettes and wallpapers, were designed by some of todays hottest designers: Diane von Furstenberg, Vera Wang, Isaac Mizrahi, Rock & Republic and Ron Arad.

We feel these designer themes are great examples of how Windows phones are moving into the consumer space and our Windows phone offerings on October 6 will continue this expansion of the brand.

Smartphones are just as much a fashion statement as the clothes you wear and are quickly becoming a must-have accessory. The designer themes are just one more way that Windows phones help folks customize their device to fit their style. No other mobile platform offers this level of self-expression.

Were excited to team up with these designers to let people customize their mobile device to fit their personality and express their style. Its time to cast aside your drab default wallpaper and devices theme and make this year about style, color and fun!

These Windows phone exclusive designer themes will be available for free on all Windows phones running Windows Mobile 6.5 on October 6 and can be downloaded for free from Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

How to make song list from Winamp

2009-09-15T20:29:00.000-07:00

If you want to record some mp3s to CD or other media and you dont want to make song list with a hand writing, you can use Winamp as a song list generator. Open the songs or add the songs you want to burn in Winamp and press Ctrl+Alt+G. Next, the Winamp list will be shown on your internet browser. Copy that list in Notepad, Write, Word, OpenOffice for printing, font changing editing Thats it, easy and simple.

Join the Clubhouse and have your Windows Home Server blog posts showcased

2009-09-14T21:26:00.001-07:00

Are you using your blog to talk about Windows Home Server? Do you want to enhance your personal reputation and get your posts showcased on Microsoft websites? If so, you should join The Clubhouse. The Clubhouse is a place that brings together people using their blogs to help others understand how to use Windows Home Server.

How does The Clubhouse work?

You first need to apply to join The Clubhouse. There is a short review process in order to insure that there is a good fit for the bloggers applying and the rest of The Clubhouse.

Once youre approved, you continue to write your fantastic Windows Home Server content on your blog and now you use Windows Home Server tags (such as Remote Access, Photo Sharing, Document Management, image based backup to name a few) to categorize your post . Your posts are brought into the Clubhouse and correctly categorized via the tags and your RSS feed (having an RSS is a requirement to take part in The Clubhouse).

In order to use the tags needed to identify your contributions for The Clubhouse, you will need to add the Clubhouse & Windows Home Server specific tags to your current blog service. (Complete directions can be found here.) Once you publish your post with the Windows Home Server tags it appears within The Clubhouse where members of The Clubhouse rate one anothers contributions, so the top rated content can be showcased on Microsoft websites, newsletters, and even tweeted from @winhomeserver. So its up to your community of peers to choose which content is good enough to get showcased.

Where is your content showcased?

After you get enough good votes inside The Clubhouse your posts will be highlighted on Microsoft's Windows Home Server product website. Were working on our implementation so here a few examples of how the Clubhouse content is currently being displayed on some Microsoft websites.

Explore Windows Live:

Discover Windows Vista:

Outside of the really cool opportunity to get your content from your blog showcased on Microsoft websites, The Clubhouse offers several other perks.

As you continue to write your own content you will gain community recognition by earning Club Points and Badges. When you earn a certain amount of Club Points, you get Badges. Each Badge you earn will appear next to any of your content showcased on Microsoft websites. You also can earn special-recognition Badges as well. These Badges are a great way for people reading your content to see how much you rock.

Recap of the steps you need to take:

1. Apply to join The Clubhouse.

2. Tag your posts with the specific Windows Home Server Tags provided.

3. Watch for your posts on Microsoft websites.

If you blog about using Windows Home Server please apply for The Clubhouse! It can be a great way to gain more exposure of your content!

Lenovo IdeaCentre D Series Home Server now available for purchase in the United States

2009-09-11T21:26:00.001-07:00

Previously announced, Windows Home Server category grows with the announcement of the Lenovo IdeaCentre D400, we are pleased to confirm that Lenovo is now taking orders in the United States. Lenovo, a leading Chinese PC manufacturer recently followed up their launch in their home market by bringing the IdeaCentre D Series Home Server models to the United States. This series consists of the IdeaCentre D400 AU and IdeaCentre D400 BU. For $499.99, the AU version ships with 1GB RAM and will come with a 1TB hard drive. At $599.99, the BU version also has 1GB RAM and ships with 2TB of storage space. The Lenovo model has 4 hard drive bays to accommodate storage expansion.

Reminder: Windows Home Server software has a technology called Drive Extender that allows users to add internal and external drives of any size to increase the pool of available storage space on the home server.

Now Available for purchase!

Image: Lenovo IdeaCentre D400

The IdeaCentre D series are now available for purchase on Lenovo's web page. Who will be the first customers to get their hands on this new model? We already put in our order!

-Nicole

Announcing New Tools for IT Professionals & Developers Transitioning to Windows 7

2009-09-10T21:26:00.001-07:00

Today I am pleased to announce some new technologies to help developers and IT professionals make the transition to Windows 7.

For developers, we are announcing the public beta for the Platform Update for Windows Vista. The Platform Update for Windows Vista is a set of runtime libraries that makes it easy for developers to target both Windows 7 and Windows Vista. The Platform Update for Windows Vista includes:

Windows Ribbon and Animation Manager Library: contains the Windows Ribbon API, a command framework that enables developers to quickly and easily create rich ribbon experiences in their applications, and the Windows Animation Manager API, an animation framework for managing the scheduling and execution of user interface element animations.
Windows Graphics, Imaging, and XPS Library: components for developers to leverage the latest advancements in modern graphics technologies for gaming, multimedia, imaging and printing applications. It includes updates to DirectX to support hardware acceleration for 2D, 3D and text based scenarios; DirectCompute for hardware accelerated parallel computing scenarios; and XPS Library for document printing scenarios.
Windows Automation API: allows accessibility tools and test automations to access Windows user interface in a consistent way across operating system versions.
Windows Portable Devices Platform: supplies the infrastructure to standardize data transfers between an application and a portable device, such as a mobile phone, digital camera, or portable media player.

Please note that the Windows Automation API will also be made available as a separate download for PCs running Windows XP.

The Platform Update for Windows Vista will be available to all Windows Vista customers through Windows Update, so developers leveraging these libraries in their applications can feel confident knowing it is broadly deployed. Third-party applications that require the Platform Update for Windows Vista can have Windows Update detect whether or not it is installed; if not, Windows Update will download and install it silently in the background. The ability for PCs to download this update can be managed by IT professionals Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) and other third-party desktop management tools. To participate in the public beta for the Platform Update for Windows Vista, click here.

For IT Professionals, we are also announcing the upcoming release of the Remote Desktop Connection 7.0 (RDC7) client for Windows XP and Windows Vista. RDC7 will allow users who connect to machines running Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 from Windows XP or Windows Vista to take advantage of features such as Windows Media Player redirection and true multi-monitor support. For more information on RDC7, see this blog post on the Remote Desktop Services Team Blog.

The release candidate for the Windows Management Framework is also available. This is a collection of tools to help IT Professionals manage a mixed environment of Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP PCs and includes:

Windows PowerShell 2.0
Windows Remote Management 2.0
Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS 4.0)

For specific details or to download the release candidate, click here.

We believe these tools and collection of libraries will be extremely useful to IT Professionals and Developers transitioning their organizations and applications to Windows 7. We expect to have the final versions of the RDC7 client, the Windows Management Framework, and the Platform Update available sometime in Q4 2009.

Top 10 reasons to use Windows Home Server

2009-09-09T22:02:00.000-07:00

You may have been hearing a lot about Windows Home Server recently, so now you are asking, why should I buy one, and what benefits will I get out of it? Well, to help you answer those important questions, the Windows Home Server team has come up with the Top 10 reasons to use this product! In this post, you can read a brief overview of each item, but check back soon because we will be taking a closer look at each point, along with how Windows Home Server has already helped thousands of people.

1. Image-based backup

Rest easy and know that your irreplaceable videos and pictures are always safe since Windows Home Server automatically backs up your entire computer on a daily basis.

2. Restore

If catastrophe strikes, Windows Home Server has simple and fast data recovery with a restore feature for single files or entire hard drives that have failed.

3. Monitor

Windows Home Server will monitor the health status of your home network and immediately alert you if there is a problem.

4. Centralize

Windows Home Server stores your digital memories in a central location so you can access what you want from any computer on the network and save time by having all your things in one place.

5. Storage

With Windows Home Server, storage space grows as your needs grow. You are able to add internal or external hard drives of any size so that you can have an unlimited amount of storage space for HD movies, or your home videos.

6. User accounts

Windows Home Server allows you to create up to 10 user accounts. To increase protection, you can change the Shared Folders that users have access to, and enable remote access for each user.

7. Remote Access

When you are out of your home or office, Windows Home Server has remote access capabilities that make it possible for you to view, find files, and even use applications.

8. Stream media

Windows Home Server enables you to view, listen, and watch your videos, movies, and picture slideshows through playback devices such as Xbox 360.

9. Fully Expandable

Windows Home Server add-in programs can enhance and extend your home server's capabilities. There are already over 100 add-ins available for download.

10. Easy to use

An uncomplicated, self-explanatory installation process for Window Home Server will have you up and running with minimum time and effort.

Hopefully, you are now ready to buy your very own Windows Home Server and start organizing, protecting, and sharing all of your digital experiences!

-Nicole

Top 10 reasons to use Windows Home Server
September 9, 2009 at 1:18 pm

1. Image-based backup

Rest easy and know that your irreplaceable videos and pictures are always safe since Windows Home Server automatically backs up your entire computer on a daily basis.

2. Restore

If catastrophe strikes, Windows Home Server has simple and fast data recovery with a restore feature for single files or entire hard drives that have failed.

3. Monitor

Windows Home Server will monitor the health status of your home network and immediately alert you if there is a problem.

4. Centralize

Windows Home Server stores your digital memories in a central location so you can access what you want from any computer on the network and save time by having all your things in one place.

5. Storage

6. User accounts

Windows Home Server allows you to create up to 10 user accounts. To increase protection, you can change the Shared Folders that users have access to, and enable remote access for each user.

7. Remote Access

When you are out of your home or office, Windows Home Server has remote access capabilities that make it possible for you to view, find files, and even use applications.

8. Stream media

Windows Home Server enables you to view, listen, and watch your videos, movies, and picture slideshows through playback devices such as Xbox 360.

9. Fully Expandable

Windows Home Server add-in programs can enhance and extend your home server's capabilities. There are already over 100 add-ins available for download.

10. Easy to use

An uncomplicated, self-explanatory installation process for Window Home Server will have you up and running with minimum time and effort.

Hopefully, you are now ready to buy your very own Windows Home Server and start organizing, protecting, and sharing all of your digital experiences!

-Nicole

How to Find the Right Hosting Service in the Jungle of Deferent Types of Web Hosting Services

2009-09-09T22:00:00.000-07:00

Any webmaster would be able to tell you that the hardest aspect of creating and maintaining a website is actually choosing the right web host. There is a jungle of web hosting providers on the internet. Many are fakes and many are legitimate web hosting companies.

There are different types of web hosting services available in the market but many people fail to recognize that and end up in to big confusion. With various options like dedicated hosting, shared hosting, reseller hosting, video hosting and VPS hosting it is normal for you to get puzzled. So, we are going to explain some of the terms, proposed some good hosting review site and there you can find the most popular and cheap web hosting services and their reviews.

Dedicated server hosting works well for large business websites. It provides businesses with highly secure, powerful websites without the cost of having an in-house solution. Businesses can use customized software and applications meeting the specific needs of their business. However, they can do this at a much lower cost than owning and maintaining their own server. By utilizing dedicated server hosting rather than owning a server they also will not need to operate and maintain and data center.

A hosting customer does not typically need a dedicated server for a basic website. If the website does not use a great deal of bandwidth or disk space, shared hosting services work quite well and at a lower cost. If a website does not require customized hardware and applications, shared hosting rather than dedicated server hosting is typically the best choice.

Because dedicated hosting is costly and the small business owners do not want to take the risk initially and that is why shared hosting was the best option available for them. But then, reseller hosting came to the market. What is it? When one account owner allows somebody else to access the space for their website, then it is known as reseller hosting. So, you are the second level user here and accessing someone else's space and paying them for that. Obviously, the price becomes cheaper. This is reselling of the server. You can access the control panel and manage the database. Not only that, you will get the bandwidth reserved for that user. This is just like shared server but buying from an existing user.

The other type of hosting is Virtual private servers. VPS is a web services infrastructure that slices a single physical web server into multiple "virtual" web servers. Virtual private servers take virtualization to the next level- by splitting the existing server space and creating virtual servers out of every partition. Despite sharing server hardware, each VPS is fully isolated with its own file system, processes, users, applications, and resource allocations. Thus you are allowed to do all the alterations in your rented office space and the neighbors are completely shielded out.

You may wonder why VPS hosting and why not dedicated hosting. Well, the cost is really very high and unaffordable for the small businessmen. In a VPS server you can actually get the benefit of both shared server and dedicated server bit in a cheaper rate.

Its not easy to decide which one you should go for. The apparent Advantages of VPS are as follows:

Cost effectiveness: VPS allows you to hire only the space that you want. While having a physical server shall involve a huge investment and you shall not want the entire space that comes with it.
Control: One of the biggest advantages of a VPS is the fact that you get "root" level access to your server. This allows you to install or delete any software you want, including the OS, create any accounts you want, set permissions the way you want - effectively all the same things you can do on a dedicated server, only at a lower cost.
Enhanced security: A VPS is also more secure than shared hosting. This is because on a shared server, all the websites are running within the same operating system. If the server gets hacked, all the sites will be vulnerable.

And, its disadvantages:
The only apparent disadvantage with the VPS is indeed just an out come of the facilities it provide. The fact that it allows root level access to the server means that you have to be proficient in system management for there is always a chance of wiping out system files or causing some other system malfunction. Thus, if you are not proficient in using the systems you will be better off with a hired professional taking care of your system.

So, if you are webmaster who look for a good hosting site - Webhostinggeeks.com offer independent reviews of the best web hosting providers. This web hosting reviews site has been made to help you escape the jungle of web hosting provider. They have reviewed only the top web hosting companies.

After you go through this review and get necessary knowledge you are ready to go to Webhostinggeeks.com website and you should have hopefully escaped from the jungle and have found the perfect host for your website. We hope the web hosting reviews on this site will be useful to you. If you are still confused send us an email or just comment this post with your question.

How to launch OpenOffice.org faster on Ubuntu

2009-09-08T21:26:00.001-07:00

Open Office is a little start up slow, so to fix that follow this excellent tutorial. Open the Startup Manager, you can find it on System-Preferences-Startup Applications and add a new entry. In the command filed type:

openoffice-nodefault-nologo

and reboot.

With this option, OpenOffice.org will be cashed on system start up, so the feature OO opening will be blink fast. There will be a little startup delay to initial boot-up but I'm sure that you'll hardly notice it. Enjoy.

Widget Anatomy The Keys for a Great User Experience

2009-09-05T10:03:00.003-07:00

Previous post: Widget Anatomy The Manifest

This is part two of my Widget Anatomy series which will explain the ins and outs of the Widget Framework that is shipping as part of Windows Mobile 6.5. In this Article we will discuss the major challenges of creating a great user experience that not only looks great, but it integrates nicely with the phone and its snappy and fun to use.

The dark side of choice dealing with screen DPIness

One of the coolest things about the Windows Mobile ecosystem is that there are many different devices with all shapes and forms for me to pick up the one that matches my lifestyle best. All those choices do have a dark side though, there is a variety of screen resolution/sizes we need to make sure our Widgets work and look great on.

The table bellow shows all the supported Resolution/DPIs Windows Mobile 6.5 supports and as you can see it is a big table.

Thankfully for widget writing, there really are only two options, one that we will call HiDPI (for 192) and then LoDPI for the rest. The reason is that, in practice, a document designed for 96 DPI (Internet Explorer on the desktop at 100%) will look fine on 96 DPI, 131 DPI and 128 DPI but it will look way too small on a 192 DPI screen.

Now that we have reduced the supported DPIs to only two, then the best (and easiest) way to handle this in your widget is as follows:

1) Generate two CSS Style Sheets for your widget. You can call them something like HiDPI.css and LoDPI.css, and the basic rule is, for HiDPI, things should be about twice as big to look the same way as they do on the desktop.

2) Detect the screen resolution at runtime to determine which CSS to load. Here is an example:

   1: function applyCSSStyle() {

   2:     var width = document.documentElement.clientWidth;

   3:     var cssFile = "css/LoDPI.css";

   4:     if (width >= 480) {

   5:         // The document is wider than 480 pixels

   6:         // it must be a High DPI device

   7:         cssFile = "css/HiDPI.css";

   8:     }

9:

  10:     // Add the correct CSS style sheet to the document

  11:     var headID = document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0];

  12:     var cssNode = document.createElement('link');

  13:     cssNode.type = 'text/css';

  14:     cssNode.rel = 'stylesheet';

  15:     cssNode.href = cssFile;

  16:     cssNode.media = 'screen';

  17:     headID.appendChild(cssNode);

  18: }

19:

  20: function onLoad() {

  21:     applyCSSStyle();

  22: }

How to best utilize those SoftKeys

The Widget API gives you full control over the soft key menu bar, but since we want our widgets to behave as native applications do there are a few guidelines we should try follow:

1. The left soft key should always represent the default action and it should be context sensitive to what the user is supposed to do at that particular step in the User Scenario.

2. The right soft key can be either a menu or a button, when there only are two possible actions you should save the user one click and make it a button that said, if you do this there should be a way for the user to exit the widget somewhere on your UI.

Just as a quick reminder, calling widget.menu.append(menuItem) Adds a menu item to the right SoftKey, if it was a button it will turn into a menu with the non configurable label Menu, also, the Exit menu item is added automatically and cant be renamed nor removed. calling widget.menu.setSoftKey(menuItem, widget.menu.rightSoftKeyIndex) removes all menu items from the right SoftKey and turns it into a button.

Best practices

The following are some of the best practices we have found really help greatly widgets be the best they can be:

When possible, integrate with the phone skin by using theme able colors like highlight (details)
Use art assets that match the screen DPINess, or, just provide a high resolution set (shrinking is always better than expanding)
Minimize scrolling, vertical scrolling is ok on some cases, horizontal scrolling in almost all cases is a general NO NO
Handle the screen rotation event, remember that this must be fast
Load fast, generate all dynamic content after the widget is loaded.
Give visual feedback to all user actions.

Next post: Widget Anatomy - Performance the final frontier

How to install Skype 2.1 beta on Ubuntu 9.04

2009-09-05T10:03:00.001-07:00

This is beta version and anyone who uses Skype professionally should avoid this installation tutorial. Skype 2.1 beta announced new features and improvements:

Skype's SILK codec for outstanding sound quality
High Quality Video
PulseAudioSending SMS messages
Organizing your contacts with contact groups
Chat improvements (typing indicator, new emoticons and message editing)

To install the new version, first download .deb file from here (for 9.04 choose 8.10 +). Next, double click on downloaded file to install it or if you cannot install it with double click open your terminal and copy and paste this lines (Ctrl+Shift+V to paste):

sudo apt-get autoremove skype skype-common
sudo dpkg -i skype-ubuntu-intrepid_2.1.0.47-1_i386.deb

Enjoy.

The Nokia Booklet 3G + Windows 7 = Awesome Mobility

2009-09-05T10:02:00.001-07:00

Today at Nokia World 09, Nokia will be talking more about their upcoming new mini laptop the Nokia Booklet 3G which was announced last week.

Nokia has just announced that the Nokia Booklet 3G will ship with Windows 7. The Nokia Booklet 3G comes with built in A-GPS functionality. Because of this, it can take advantage of the Windows Sensor and Location Platform which means your PC and programs can know where they are for location aware computing. With built in 3G/HSPA capabilities, it will also utilize Windows 7s mobile broadband enhancements. The Nokia Booklet 3G + Windows 7 is an exciting combination!

The Nokia Booklet 3G brings Nokias extensive experience to the PC for a fresh perspective. With the Nokia Booklet 3G, Nokia wants you to be able to leave your cables and chargers at home just like with a mobile phone. With up to 12 hours of battery life, the Nokia Booklet 3G is perfect for all-day mobility. Nokia as adopted its overall design DNA with the design of its first laptop. The Nokia Booklet 3G features a premium design with a chassis made from a single piece of machined aluminum. The aluminum chassis is strong and robust. It requires no fan (thats right no fan) making for one quiet PC. The HD display for the Nokia Booklet 3G is glass covered for a crisp and clear view of the screen. Nokia wanted to keep the design clean and uncluttered so the Nokia Booklet 3G includes a single HDMI port, 3 USB ports and a single headphone jack that doubles also for a microphone.

The performance is equally as impressive as its design. The Nokia Booklet 3G is designed to go from being shutdown to checking email or browsing the web in around a minute.

For a better look at the Nokia Booklet 3G, I suggest checking out this really slick video here. A for the full spec line-up, click here.

I look forward to checking out the Nokia Booklet 3G in the very near future. Stay tuned for more information (it will be available in a number of markets the 4th quarter 2009) and pricing.

What is Windows Home Server?

2009-09-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

Since Windows Home Server is a new addition to The Windows Blog, we thought it would be a good idea to give everyone a refresh on what exactly Windows Home Server is and what it can do for you.

Windows Home Server was designed for households and home-based offices that have more than one personal computer. It was created to help you simplify your digital life, and provide an easy way to access your media and files from any computer, inside or outside your home. The leading benefits of Windows Home Server will help you Share, Protect, Organize, and Grow all of your digital content on up to 10 PCs through three basic services. These include automatic PC back-up, restoration ; document and file sharing ; and remote access capabilities. Windows Home Server software will typically be sold with new server hardware from companies like Acer and HP.

The great news about this product is that you dont have to be computer savvy to set it up or to use it. To get your home server up and running, it only takes three easy steps: plug in the power, connect an Ethernet cord, and install the Windows Home Server connector software.

Starting to sound pretty cool? Lets take a closer look at each of these features.

Organize:

Lets pretend that you just got back from an amazing vacation and uploaded all of your new photos to one of your home PCs. Now, your family is over and wanting to see them, but you forgot which computer and folder you put them on. Instead of spending the time it takes to search through multiple locations, you could be using Windows Home Server and enjoying your picture slideshow. Windows Home Server provides an effortless way to organize and manage all of your media including the vacation pictures. After installation, a pre-defined set of shared folders will be shown: Photos, Music, and Videos. Windows Home Server will organize your familys files and media, by storing them in one of the shared locations. Since all of these files will be stored in a central place, they can easily be found and accessed from any computer on your home or office network. Therefore, it doesnt really matter which computer you put your pictures on since you can see them on any computer that is connected to your Home Server. Furthermore, if you enable user access, everyone on your network will have the ability to add and view media that is located in the Shared Folders.

*Organize devices

Protect:

I think we have all experienced the feeling of losing important files or pictures we love, and it is absolutely devastating. Everyone is aware that you should regularly back-up your computer in order to prevent loss of these valuable things. However, how often do you really find yourself doing it? With Windows Home Server, you will no longer need to run around your house with USB hard drives doing manual backups. Instead, Windows Home Server enables you to rest easy knowing that all of your irreplaceable videos and pictures are safe with Windows Home Servers daily, automatic image based back-up and restoration feature.

The ability to restore individual files or even your entire computer is what makes backing up significant. Restoration can include accidentally deleted files (documents, music, pictures, videos), or complete computers. If your vacation pictures or crucial financial information accidentally get deleted, they will not be lost forever since you can restore to a previous point in time. You can also increase protection of certain files with Windows Home Server with since you have the ability to duplicate your shared folders. When you have more than one hard drive in your Home Server, your memories and files can then be stored and copied across multiple hard drives.

Share:

Windows Home Server helps families and small offices centralize and connect their digital experiences. It provides an easy and reliable way to store, access, and share whatever is most important through remote access. Like other features of Windows Home Server, remote access is fast and simple to use!

When using remote access, Windows Home Server lets you stay connected with friends and family. Once installed, your Home Server will automatically assign you an uncomplicated web address such as yourname.homeserver.net. You will then be able to share pictures, music, and documents through the password protected web address. From this site, you can upload media to the Shared Folders on your Home Server when using PCs that are not on your home network. This will give your friends and family the ability to log in through the personalized web address and download any pictures or files that you may have there. It is also simple to locate, view files, and even run applications from your home PC just as if you were sitting in front of that computer.

Grow:

With Windows Home Server, storage space grows as your digital life grows. The ability to increase the number of drives in your Home Server is one of the biggest innovations for Windows Home Server. You can very easily add internal or external hard drives of any size so that you will have an unlimited amount of storage for your collection of files, photos, and videos. Once you have two or more drives plugged in, the server will see this additional storage as one large drive instead of many individual drives. This will result in a much easier process when locating and storing files since you will only be searching through one virtual drive.

*Acer Aspire easyStore H-340

Your Home Server is also fully expandable meaning you have the option to download extra features to help customize your Home Server. The development community has created add-ins for Windows Home Server that extends its capabilities in fun, exciting, and useful ways. There are currently over 100 add-ins available for download including Whiist for photo sharing, and Lights Out for power conservation.

For more detailed information about Windows Home Server, check out the product guide at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/support.mspx.

To purchase and learn more about Windows Home Server, please visit www.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver.

- Nicole

Introducing The Windows Outreach Team and #WinWin7 on Twitter

2009-09-04T21:26:00.001-07:00

If you happened to be searching for pizza on Twitter Search yesterday or are following the @mswindows Twitter account, chances are you witnessed the kickoff of #WinWin7. The Windows Outreach Team kicked off 7 weeks of Windows 7 by sending 7 piping-hot pizzas to 7 lucky Twitter followers.

And it wont stop there.

Throughout the next 7 weeks, @mswindows will be giving away prizes all based on the number 7 (for Windows 7). Winners must take part in the challenges and are encouraged to invite friends to join in on the fun which all culminates on launch day - October 22nd.

Make sure youre following @mswindows and tell them Brandon sent you. Oh and watch for the official #WinWin7 hash tag too.

Speaking of the Windows Outreach Team, how about meeting the supporting cast? You may have seen them on some of your favorite blogs and forums and didnt really know who they were. Lets change that.

Jeff D, Cody G and Ron S, are a savvy team tasked with reaching out to users and creating a real resource within the communities on the Web.

Along with Josh T on the @mswindows account, these team members bring a wealth of knowledge (both consumer and even a bit on the techy side) to the table. Anywhere from gaming to watching your media across your home network, these guys have been there and tried out the fixes and know what works and what doesnt. You can bet on them to offer advice and an open ear, not a sales pitch and a bottom line oddly enough, none of them wanted to be a snake oil salesman growing up.

So, keep a lookout for the team on some of your favorite blogs and forums and feel free to say hi or just ask a question. Theyll be sure to help get you on the track to whatever it is you need.

If you have any questions for the Windows Outreach Team, just send a tweet to @mswindows. Or leave a comment here too of course.

NOTE: The Windows Outreach Team also runs the Windows Live Twitter account @windowslive too.

Launch Parties to Help Tell the Windows 7 Story

2009-09-03T21:26:00.001-07:00

Last night, many employees here at Microsoft (including me) received an email from Tami Reller, Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Vice President for the Windows Business Group. Her email invited Microsoft employees to host a Launch Party for Windows 7 and were extending this invitation out to you! These Launch Parties will be a way for everyone to get involved in the excitement of the launch of Windows 7 on October 22nd. You helped make Windows 7, now you can help launch it!

These gatherings can are a way for people who are excited about Windows 7 to bring together their friends, families and acquaintances to see the experience the product. They can happen anywhere - at home, in a cafe, at schools, or at other community gathering spots and can be as flexible and creative as you and your circle of people. Im thinking about hosting a Launch Party myself and thinking about where and who to invite to my party when I host it.

If you live in one of the countries where Launch Parties will be available for you to host, you can apply here to be a Launch Party host. In order to host a Launch Party, your application must go through a review process first. If your application passes the review process, you will be sent an email letting you know you have been accepted. A MyParty page is created for you by House Party where you (as the host) can add who you want to invite to your party and invite them. You will also receive a kit to help you with your party, including Windows 7 Host Help Videos and Host Notes (demos) and other materials to make your Launch Party fun.

Todd Bishop wrote a good blog post talking about Launch Parties which is worth reading if youre interested in hosting one!

Note: If you dont live in a country where Launch Parties are available to host dont worry! You can still hold a Windows 7 gathering of your own. We will be providing Windows 7 tips, content, demos, and training online starting September 15th for you to host your own gathering or meet-up.

Windows Home Server Team discusses upcoming Power Pack 3 release in video interview

2009-09-02T21:26:00.001-07:00

CJ Saretto, Senior Program Manager provides an overview of Power Pack 3 features including how it will improve the Windows Home Server experience with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center. Fan Zhang, Development Lead on the Windows Home Server team in China also gave his input on several new features including Backup Warning Suppression, and Windows Search 4. (Keep in mind that Windows 7 is compatible with the current version of Windows Home Server, but Power Pack 3 will offer additional enhancements).

It has been just over 1 month since the Power Pack 3 BETA was made available to the public and we have seen great participation. We have received helpful user feedback and the work toward a final release in the end of October is looking good.

The video is posted here.

If you are still interested in trying out the Power Pack 3 BETA and becoming a participant, you can sign up on Microsoft Connect: https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer.

-Nicole

Introducing a new home for the Windows Home Server Blog

2009-09-02T18:44:00.001-07:00

The Windows Home Server team is pleased to announce our move to a new home on The Windows Blog. With our product growing up we wanted to be closer to family and friends. As you can see, we now share the street with the Windows 7 Blog, the Windows Mobile Blog and other extended Windows family members.

During the transition, archived Windows Home Server team posts will still be accessible at http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver.

Please add our new blog address to your RSS feed. http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowshomeserver/rss.aspx

- Steven

Windows 7 Volume License and Trial Availability

2009-09-02T18:43:00.003-07:00

Last month we made Windows 7 available to customers with Software Assurance and to MSDN and TechNet Subscribers. Today I am happy to announce two more ways for businesses to get Windows 7 for their deployment and evaluation.

Volume License Availability, at a Discount
Starting today, businesses can order upgrades to Windows 7 from a Microsoft Volume License Reseller. This option is for businesses that dont already have Windows Software Assurance and want to upgrade their existing business PCs to Windows 7. There are two editions of Windows 7 available through Volume Licensing:

Windows 7 Professional: Designed for small and midsize organizations, Windows 7 Professional provides a PC experience you can count on, helps you get more done, and helps safeguard your work. Today, we are also starting a 15% discount on Windows 7 Professional upgrade licenses that will run until February 28, 2010. Contact your Microsoft reseller to take advantage of this offer and confirm availability in your area (discount is offered on Microsoft pricing to its channel partners; pricing offered by partners may vary).
Windows 7 Enterprise: If you have an active Software Assurance agreement or purchase one with your Windows 7 Professional upgrade licenses or new PCs with Windows 7 Professional, you can deploy Windows 7 Enterprise. Designed for enterprises and businesses that want to optimize their desktop IT infrastructure, Windows 7 Enterprise will help make users productive anywhere, enhance security and control, and streamline PC management.

Windows 7 will run on most PCs businesses have today. More information on tools to help with your upgrade to Windows 7 is available at www.windows.com/business/upgrade. Additionally, we recommend that customers with Software Assurance purchase the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) to aid in their enterprise OS management. The MDOP subscription currently includes six technologies that help reduce the TCO of a Windows 7 desktop. MDOP simplifies application deployment and lifecycle management and provides a solution for resolving application incompatibility through virtualization. MDOP also increases IT responsiveness and user uptime through robust diagnostics and monitoring capabilities, and increases IT control by providing asset tracking and group policy change management.

Keep in mind that Windows Volume Licensing upgrades are only available for PCs that already have a qualifying Operating System, such as Windows Vista Business or Windows XP Professional. For a list of qualified versions of Windows 7 operating system licenses, download the Windows 7 and Optimized Desktop Volume Licensing Guide available on http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/how-to-buy.aspx.

Windows 7 Enterprise 90-Day Trial
If you are an IT Pro who does not have a Software Assurance Volume Licensing agreement and are not an MSDN/TechNet subscriber, you can download the Windows 7 Enterprise 90-Day Trial. This is something many of you have asked for as a means to continue evaluating Windows 7 in your environment prior to deployment, and I am pleased to announce that you can download it starting today from the from the Springboard Series site on TechNet. Read all the details about this trial edition in Stephen Roses post.

Businesses now have access to multiple resources they can use to plan their deployment or begin upgrading their PCs to Windows 7. Beginning October 22, 2009 all customers will be able to purchase new PCs with Windows 7.

Windows phones are Coming on October 6th!

2009-09-02T18:43:00.001-07:00

In just five weeks, youll have a bunch of new Windows phones to choose from. But before we show you some of the cool, new phones that will be coming out, I want to explain how were trying to make phones even better with Windows.

When we started work on Windows phones, we met with people all over the world who were likely to buy a smartphone and talked with them about whats important to them in their phone. Looking at the U.S. market, for example, we found that about 15 million people in the next year will buy a new smartphone.

Of the people we talked to, 74% listed productivity as the top feature they value in their smartphone. We took this feedback to heart, making the user interface more touch friendly and improving notifications and updates from e-mail, text and calendar items. We also included the latest Internet Explorer Mobile browser and added free services like My Phone to help protect data in the event of a lost phone and Windows Marketplace for Mobile for access to a wide variety of applications for direct download.

Interestingly enough, we discovered that most people who carry a Windows phone dont realize its running Windows Mobile. We also heard from many people considering their very first smartphone purchase that theyd very strongly consider a phone running Windows because its a brand they know and trust. Youll see us try to simplify our branding so its easier for people to know when theyre carrying a Windows phone and easier to find them in stores.

One thing that was very clear after all these conversations about phones is that there is no one size fits all in this market. On Oct. 6^th, youll see new Windows phones designed for a variety of tastes, needs and price points - with or without keyboards, with or without touch screens, as well as your choice of GPS, accelerometer and high resolution camera. There are a lot of great options and we cant wait to show them to you. Until then, keep an eye on our partners as they announce details on new Windows phones and where you can find them this fall.

In North America: Mobile operators AT&T, Bell Mobility, Sprint, TELUS and Verizon Wireless, and phone manufacturers HP, HTC Corp., LG Electronics, Samsung and Toshiba Corp.

In Europe: Mobile operators Orange, Deutsche Telekom AG and Vodafone Group Plc, and phone manufacturers Acer, HTC, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba

In Latin America: Mobile operator TIM Brazil, and phone manufacturers HTC, LG Electronics and Samsung

In Asia Pacific: Mobile operators NTT DOCOMO Inc., SOFTBANK Mobile Corp., SK Telecom, Telstra and WILLCOM Inc., and phone manufacturers Acer Inc., HTC, LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba

The Device Experience in Windows 7

2009-09-02T18:41:00.002-07:00

I am posting this on behalf of Jack Tao who is a Program Manager on the Windows 7 Devices & Media Team. Jack is one of the newer members of his team and wants to introduce Windows 7's new device experience and the Device Stage feature. He joined the Devices and Media Team first as an Intern Program Manager in 2007. While working on device connectivity features at the time, he saw a mockup of the Windows 7 device experience that was nothing more than a PowerPoint slideshow. It promised to make using devices with Windows easier than ever while providing device makers unique opportunities for differentiation. A year later, he graduated from college and came back to the same team in Microsoft full-time. He worked on integrating picture and video import with Device Stage and learned firsthand how "slide-ware" becomes software.

In this blog post, he and Robin Goldstein, Max Morris, and Marc Pottier will tell you about how Device Stage works. They will explain their motivations and design process, and also show how our partners participated.

More and more, people are relying on devices besides PCs and laptops for their information, communication, and entertainment experience. Most of these devices can connect to a PC locally or wirelessly, can join networks, and increasingly have their own rich applications, services, and data capabilities. Our goal with Windows 7 was to help customers use and manage these devices in a more enjoyable way and to help device makers provide access to their device experiences and services in a flexible but consistent manner.

What is the Windows Device Experience?

Previous versions of Windows presented a component and function-centric view of devices. Consider the experience for a customer with a multifunction printer in Windows Vista and XP.

At the high level, a Printers folder shows fax and print functions represented as separate devices, with generic icons, while the scanner function is not represented at all. At the system level, the experience challenge is further illustrated by the tree node representation of the Windows Device Manager.

For device makers, our partners, the device experience Windows has provided has also been limiting. There was no easy way to integrate services, unique features, and branding directly into Windows. As a result, there was a lack of distinction in the device experience Windows provided for different devices, even if the devices had quite different features. In addition, device makers are increasingly writing unique applications to provide access to services, offers, and support for their products. To achieve differentiation and to fully leverage the features of their devices, many device makers substitute their own device experience for the one Windows provides.

From the user perspective, all of this leads to an incoherent experience when trying to accomplish common tasks with devices.

Creating a Better Experience

In Windows 7, we started by clearly defining the device experience that we believed our users and our partners need and want:

User experience features that define how people discover and use devices that are connected to their PC.
System and platform features that define how device makers present their devices and related services in Windows.

We wanted to enhance the installation and configuration process by improving enumeration and display of device capabilities, presentation of devices, and access to configuration settings. We also wanted to create a discoverable and enjoyable way of accessing applications and services specific to a device.

From a design perspective, we determined the user experience should support finding and recognizing devices, discovering device capabilities and common tasks, and accessing support services and accessories. Also, the user experience should be natural and have a consistent work flow with little to no learning curve.

The value for device makers would come from simplified installation and deployment, clear brand association, prominent placement in the experience, and extensibility and customizability of the experience.

The Windows 7 Device Experience

In Windows 7 we introduced several new features to address the challenges and meet the goals outlined above. These new features are supported by system and platform enhancements that define how device makers present their devices, related applications, and services within the Windows user interface. Two of the key features we developed involved new user experiences for devices.

Devices and Printers: Available from the Windows 7 Start menu, a new experience known as Devices and Printers lets users see all the devices connected to their PC. The devices represented are the ones users can actually touch and feel not abstract components or functions. A multifunction printer now shows up as a single device in Devices and Printers, not as a collection of three or four components. Devices can be connected via USB, or paired via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth wireless interfaces. Device makers do not have to do anything for their devices to show up in Devices and Printers. But if they want to, they can customize the experience the user will have by using a new set of XML schemas supported in Windows 7. They can also develop custom context menu handlers to be shown when the user right-clicks on the device.

Devices and Printers with custom device data

Device Stage: Device Stage provides a new way for users to interact with devices. It includes a visual interface that makes it easy for customers to find and use applications and services for their devices. Device makers that develop device experiences for Device Stage use a new set of XML schemas to specify rich branding and customization of the interface, including defining custom tasks to install software and links to services. Device makers can update their custom Device Stage experiences by submitting updated XML to Microsoft for distribution to Windows 7 PCs across the Internet.

Device Stage can be accessed by double-clicking a supported device from within Devices and Printers.

The Device Stage user interface follows the model of any Shell view in Windows, and Device Stage devices appear on the Windows taskbar whenever Device Stage is open. In this way, users can interact with devices in the same manner as they would an application, with access to the enhanced taskbar functionality, including jump lists.

For portable devices, Device Stage also provides a multifunction version of AutoPlay, so the device icon will appear on the taskbar whenever the device is connected to the PC. If the device maker does not develop a Device Stage experience for a portable device, the Windows 7 AutoPlay experience is maintained.

Device Stage Design Principles

As we set out to design Device Stage, we established some guiding principles early in the project to help us focus the design and development process. These principles were gleaned from our partners, from extensive customer feedback, from focus groups around the world, and from our own vision for how devices should work with Windows.

Here's a look at how some of the high-level ideals that guided our design.

Use your device in seconds: Plug in your device to your PC and use it right away.

As we explored device scenarios, we came to realize that just connecting a device to a PC can sometimes be intimidating. You often need to find & download custom drivers and install software supplied by the device maker to use your device, sometimes even in just the right order. With Device Stage our goal was to reduce, and in some cases eliminate, the need to install additional software on the PC. We wanted people to literally just plug in their devices and start using them.

What we did: The first thing we did was work to improve the reliability of the experience. To qualify for a fully branded Device Stage experience, devices must be certified to meet our minimum requirements. This usually means devices need to earn the Compatible with Windows Logo certification and that their drivers ship in box with Windows or are available from Windows Update. This quality check makes sure that the device is compatible with Windows and that it will have a good experience when connecting to Windows. In the document device case, an in box driver distribution program for printers, scanners, and multifunction printers provides a similar quality check, so it's also a basis for certification.

The next step was to provide a device experience on connect. To do this, we added a "baseline" feature to Device Stage. When connected for the first time, a device that has opted to use the baseline feature has immediate support in Device Stage. The baseline device experience provides quick access to the core features of the device.

Finally, we needed to support an upgrade mechanism from the baseline to the custom device experience. As users work with the baseline experience, Windows 7 also checks online to see if the device maker has provided a custom device experience for the device. If available, Windows 7 downloads and installs it, and then offers the user the opportunity to upgrade. The result is an effortless first-connect experience-you plug in your device, and moments later you are interacting with a fully branded experience designed explicitly for you device.

Example of an upgrade from a baseline experience to a fully branded Device Stage experience

Everything you need for your device in one place: Windows 7 makes the device the center of your experience.

In earlier versions of Windows, users needed to know ahead of time which applications to use with their devices. AutoPlay sometimes helped users discover applications for portable devices, but the model didn't scale well to services or web-hosted content. As devices have become increasingly sophisticated and varied in their functions, this problem has become more acute-leading people to hunt and peck through the Start menu or control panel for applications or configuration options, or to navigate complex websites to find product information. We wanted to make it easier for people to find compatible programs and access content and services for their devices-from their device itself.

What we did: In Windows 7, we flipped the device experience model on its head. Instead of making applications the focus of the device experience, we chose to make the device the center of attention. To improve discoverability, we created Devices and Printers within which every device connected to a PC appears. We also enabled device makers to provide photorealistic icons of their device to help customers recognize their device in Windows. If the device maker has opted-in to Device Stage, double-clicking on the device icon navigates to the device's Device Stage window.

Devices and Printers is easily discoverable and available from the Start menu

Improving device discoverability was just the first step. We still needed to provide an easy way to access the applications, content, and services for a device. This requirement led us to the model for making device tasks available from within the shell, along with partner customized services and links in a single Window.

Different devices have different usage patterns: A single interaction model doesn't work for all devices.

Device interaction models vary greatly based on the type of device and the capabilities it supports. For example, printers are always connected, and most people usually access printer functions through the Print dialog from an application. Portable devices (mobile phones, portable media players, and digital still cameras) are different. Many portable devices are multifunction and can be used to perform a wide range of tasks. They are also only occasionally connected to the PC, but they are typically heavily used when they are connected. As we worked across device-classes, we realized that the device experience needed to fit within the user's usage patterns.

What we did: One example of a device-specific behavior is the behavior of Windows when a portable device connects to and disconnects from a PC. When you connect a portable device to the PC, you'll notice that its icon automatically appears in the taskbar. Since the device is likely the focus of the user's attention, this provides quick access to the device while it's connected. Hovering over the device taskbar icon will show you its status, and right-clicking will display a jump list of its frequently-used tasks.

Placing the device icon on the taskbar helps discoverability and access to tasks while the device is connected - but what happens when it disconnects? Because portable devices come and go, we also wanted to make sure it was easy to remove a device from Windows. Disconnecting a portable device removes it from the taskbar and automatically closes all Device Stage windows, ensuring that the desktop remains clean and uncluttered.

Disconnecting a portable device automatically closes all Device Stage windows to reduce desktop clutter

It's our partner's device experience: Windows device experiences are the embodiment of our partner's brand & unique device capabilities.

We partnered closely with many device makers and were careful to listen to their requirements, analyzing these for common needs and scenarios. We found that many partners didn't especially enjoy developing desktop software, but found it a necessary investment in order to deliver features for their devices.

Some people buy devices based solely on the technical specs and hardware capabilities of the device, but for many consumers, buying a new device is also an emotional decision. Millions of dollars are spent on marketing the latest devices in an attempt to form a connection with people and build desire for the product. This customer relationship is critical to our partners, and we decided early on that Windows should reinforce this connection.

What we did: We provided a platform to enable the look and feel as well as the contents of the experience to be almost entirely up to the device maker. Device makers can develop custom tasks so that device experiences are specifically tailored to particular devices. Custom tasks could include links to product manuals, shopping sites for compatible accessories, and sites for getting technical support, or even online services that interact directly with the connected device.

Anatomy of a Device Stage Experience

The Device Stage experience is presented through the Device Stage window and the device icon on the taskbar. Working together with Devices and Printers, these interfaces provide a coherent device experience, enabling users to quickly find and access the features for their device.

Why are the devices on the Taskbar? Devices appear on the taskbar whenever a Device Stage window is open. With portable devices, the taskbar icons appear when the device is connected, regardless of whether the Device Stage window is currently open or not. This makes it easy to access and recognize when a device is connected. Interacting with the device from the taskbar is as easy as managing windows and documents in an application.

Getting storage status from the Taskbar Preview.

Launching tasks from the device Jump List.

Mouseover for Aero Peek when the Device Stage window is also open.

Whats in the Device Stage Windows? The Device Stage window contains a branding header along the top of the window, with a space for tasks and task categories in the area below.

The Branding Bar: The branding bar is made up of a handful of graphics: a background image, an overlay image, a device hero image, and primary and secondary logo images. These images are specified by the device maker and presented by Device Stage when the device experience is displayed. Device makers can experiment with a different look and feel by creating custom graphics and referencing them in the Device Stage XML.

The XML sample below shows how graphical elements are expressed in the branding bar.

Behavior.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<deviceBehavior experienceId="{11874871-83cc-4f8a-af63-0535325ec131}" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windows/2008/deviceExperienceBehavior">

<header watermarkAlign="left" textColor="#FF000000" backgroundImage="Light_Sky_Left.png" watermarkImage="Light_Bubbles_left.png" sheen="false">

<modelInfo image="sample_device.png" launcherThumbnail="sample_launcher.png" />

<logos split="horizontal" scalingBehavior="maximizeLogoSize">

<logo image="sample_logo1.png" valign="center" halign="right" />

<logo image="sample_logo2.png" valign="center" halign="right" />

</logos>

</header>

<appearance textColor="#FF000000" descriptionColor="#FF808080" frameColor="#FF666666" backgroundColor="#FFffffff" />

...

Tasks and Categories: The tasks and categories area enables users to launch applications and browse to websites from Device Stage. To help ensure core device functions are always available to users, Windows 7 includes a number of built-in tasks such as picture and video import, contacts and calendar sync, a ringtone editor, printer queues, hardware control panels, and more.

For example, a picture and video import program is included in Windows 7 and it's available in Device Stage through a built-in task. Without requiring additional software to be installed, a user can connect their camera or mobile phone and use the task to import photos and videos right from Device Stage. Also, the user can set this task as the default action for Device Stage to take whenever the device is connected. If a user prefers to use a different, compatible program-such as Windows Live Photo Gallery, or other software from a third-party-the user can easily change the task to use the preferred program instead at any time.

The Device Stage Metadata Package: To deliver the experience to the user, the graphics and XML defined by the device maker must be assembled together into a file known as a device metadata package. The package is associated with a given device or device family and is what Windows 7 uses to create the experience whenever a device connects. Packaging files together makes it easy to distribute the device experience as described in the next section.

Device Stage End-to-End System

To make Device Stage work as easily as we wanted it to, we needed to invest in more than just the Windows 7 experience. We developed and deployed a set of Internet services with to support the development and validation of custom Device Stage experiences by device makers, as well as to support the distribution of these custom device experiences to Windows 7 PCs. The following diagram illustrates the end-to-end steps in this system.

The system is managed by Microsoft to support the global scale of use expected by Windows 7 device maker partners and users. Here's how the system works to deliver on our design principles.

Family Programming Model

The programming model for customizing a Device Stage experience leverages familiar design, development, testing, and verification processes. XML is the language used for expressing customization, letting the device maker benefit from existing investments in the development tools of its choice. Customization can be done in a language-neutral way, with text resources encoded directly within separate XML files. This makes it more efficient and less error-prone to localize a device experience.

The overall development process is simply a matter of design, editing, and refining XML template documents provided by Microsoft for each device class. The XML templates encode the basic experience for a particular device class. Syntactic accuracy for any changes made can be verified by comparing a custom experience's XML files against XML schema description (XSD) files. Windows 7 can also be configured to support rapid testing to verify the device experience works as expected in Device Stage.

Low-cost Validation and Management

The validation and management process leverages and extends existing business processes supported by Windows Quality Online Services (Winqual) around the Windows Logo Program for Devices. It is through this process that the device maker and Microsoft agree to customize the device experience for a particular device.

Device makers first design, develop, test, package, and verify their custom device experience offline. The resulting metadata packages can then be submitted for validation via the Web. Winqual's process makes sure the device maker identity and its submissions are validated and secured using VeriSign IDs.

The validation process involves checking the XML files for correct syntax, and verifying that graphics files meet the visual layout guidelines, and submissions are checked using anti-virus and other security filters.

The validation process is designed to be automatic, lightweight, and efficient with a rapid turnaround to address any errors that may exist.

Finally, Microsoft signs device metadata packages it validates to guard against tampering, giving the device maker and users confidence in the integrity of the system. This also provides for flexible distribution by the device maker. The device maker can update, replace, and remove validated device metadata packages through Winqual at any time. If any issues with a device experience arise, Microsoft and the device maker can work together to update the device experience.

Support device maker control

The end-to-end system was designed to put the device maker in control of the device experience. Only the device maker who certifies a device is able to customize the corresponding device experience. The system supports automated schemes to avoid most conflicts in device identifiers. When conflicts do occur, they are efficiently resolved by Winqual with interested device makers before having any impact on the user.

A device maker can produce a device experience for a family of devices, and then create an experience for a specific device from that family. This is useful for lowering upfront investment costs and for providing the same experience to a family of devices that have common functionality and appearance. Depending on the device identifiers used, a device maker can customize an experience directly on behalf of its business partners.

Flexible distribution and installation

Once signed, device metadata packages can be distributed to Windows 7 PCs through many paths. The distribution and installation process is separated from the validation and management processes in order to provide maximum flexibility to the device maker and a high-quality experience for the user.

Microsoft distributes all signed device metadata packages to Windows 7 PCs via the Windows Metadata Information Service (WMIS). After it installs device drivers for the device, Windows 7 queries WMIS for a matching device metadata package. After the initial query and in the background, Windows 7 will periodically check for updates to the device experience.

Device makers can install device metadata packages directly during setup, either from the device or from a setup application (depending on the device class). Device makers can also distribute packages via their own websites, or make packages available to enterprise customers for installation to administratively-managed Windows 7 PCs.

Match what the user sees

The device experience the user sees in Device Stage needs to correspond to the device the user perceives as the integrated, physical device, and the device experience has to be in the language the user is currently using in Windows. So, when Windows 7 looks for a device metadata package, it uses identifying information about the device and the current user's language settings. Device metadata packages are matched based on the physical device the user sees. To help with this matching, new investments in Windows associate the logical functions for a physical device automatically and seamlessly. This is an addition to the previous device model in Windows, which was organized around logical functions and buses VS organized around the physically integrated "piece of plastic" that the user actually perceives.

Device Stage Adoption

Unlike Devices and Printers, Device Stage requires the device maker to invest in developing a custom experience, and the device has to be certified to work well with Windows. Also, because the platform is new, Microsoft only supports a limited number of device classes in Device Stage at this time. Together, these limitations help make sure the Device Stage experience will work correctly on Windows for a device. However, this also means adoption of Device Stage by the industry can take time.

Windows 7 initially only supported portable and document devices, including mobile phones, portable media players, digital still cameras, printers, scanners, and multifunction printers. Based on industry feedback, Device Stage now supports the PC itself as well as HID-based devices such as keyboards and mice. Further device class support will be added after Windows 7 ships, because the end-to-end system supports extensibility without changes to the Windows 7 PC. Participation from PC and device makers in the supported device classes is ramping up, and we should see more custom experiences emerge as new Windows 7 PCs are launched.

For the portable and document device classes, to help minimize their upfront investment and improve initial adoption, Windows supports device makers with compatible devices who do not offer a custom Device Stage experience to target Device Stage anyway, using the baseline Device Stage experience. With the baseline experience, there is no partner branding or tasks, but all of the built-in Windows tasks are enabled, as well as integration with the Windows 7 taskbar, jump lists, Devices and Printers, and AutoPlay as applicable. For the Windows 7 launch, we expect partners to take advantage of this option as they work to develop their custom Device Stage experiences. Over 5000 devices already support the baseline Device Stage experience.

Device Stage for mobile phone using the baseline Device Stage experience

Yes, you can try this at home!

If you want to see Device Stage in action for yourself, Devices and Printers is a good place to start. Available from the Start menu, it provides one easy place for you to manage printers and USB, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi devices. From here, change your default printer, open a link to browse files on your portable media player, or launch Device Stage for a compatible digital camera.

In addition to trying out Devices and Printers, chances are you'll also have a Device Stage compatible device. Many popular cameras, media players, mobile phones, printers, scanners, and multifunction printers support at least the baseline Device Stage experience. And many device makers are busy adding support for a custom Device Stage experience, in these device categories and others. Don't be surprised if one day Windows 7 automatically offers a custom Device Stage experience for your device.

We hope this post has given you some insights into how Device Stage works and how we built it. We're always looking to improve Windows, so we welcome your feedback!

- Jack, Robin, Max, & Marc

Windows 7 on ASUS and the Future of Innovation

2009-09-02T18:41:00.001-07:00

Working at ASUS, I have witnessed, first-hand, the great strides made in technological innovation and exceptional focus that goes into our high-quality products. Instilled with traditional values of hard work and discipline, ASUS continues to build upon its success that has made it far more than just the worlds leading motherboard company. And now with Windows 7 just around the corner, we have already been running beta versions effortlessly on our systems to ensure maximum compatibility and optimized performance.

Personally, I have used Windows 7 on a number of our notebooks and have truly enjoyed the streamlined features and incredible performance that makes my already fast notebook even faster. Loading programs, finishing my work, or just surfing the Web - Windows 7 simply makes everything looks better, perform faster, and is much more intuitive than other operating systems. Meeting the great people at Microsoft, I can see the amount of detail and research that has gone into making Windows 7 into what I see today. Building off Windows Vista, Microsoft further refined and finessed the architecture to create an easier so that everything I want to do is done better.

ASUS is thrilled to provide users with a new experience - based on high-speed, innovative ASUS technology and reliable Windows 7. The benefits are numerous. I have had the privilege of using Windows 7 on ASUS notebooks and would recommend it to anyone thats interested in eye-catching style, ultimate performance, advanced security, and reassured dependability.

Marcus Teixeira
Marketing Team at ASUS

What is Windows Home Server?

2009-09-01T21:26:00.001-07:00

Since Windows Home Server is a new addition to The Windows Blog, we thought it would be a good idea to give everyone a refresh on what exactly Windows Home Server is and what it can do for you.

Starting to sound pretty cool? Lets take a closer look at each of these features.

Organize:

Protect:

Share:

**Windows Home Server screen shot of uploading and sharing pictures remotely

Grow:

**Windows Home Server screen shot of adding a new hard drive and total storage space

**Acer Easy Store

For more detailed information about Windows Home Server, check out the product guide at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/support.mspx.

To purchase and learn more about Windows Home Server, please visit www.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver.

-Nicole

Skype 2.1 beta for Linux

2009-08-31T21:26:00.001-07:00

It is known that Skype for Linux greatly lags behind the Windows and Mac version; it has fewer options and offers only basic functionality. Becouse the code is closed, Linux users can only remain the developers and let them know that we are their customers too. After an almost year break, the new beta version 2.1 is here. News is just a few, but they are certainly welcome.

Now there is a SILK codec, which should provide better audio quality even on slower connections, support for high quality video and also PulseAudio. Contacts can be organized in groups, and now it is possible to send SMS with Skype, there are new emoticons, typing indicator, so you can see when the other side is writing message. More info can be found here.

If you're impatient for the final release, beta version can be downloaded from the official Skype website (there are ready-made packages for Ubuntu 8.04, Ubuntu 8.10 +, Debian Lenny, Fedora 9 and openSUSE 10 & 11 +).

Pay pal with hidden fees

2009-08-21T08:33:00.001-07:00

Original article is on www.i4u.com. Ars Technica reports on some new PayPal policy changes that could end up costing you where you least expect it.

When they updated their policy in June, PayPal changed the way they handle certain transactions. It used to be that if you were using a personal account, you could make payments or transfers to other people for free. If you needed to send somebody some money, PayPal wouldn't charge you for the transfer. Things only worked this way for personal accounts, however, and business or premium account holders couldn't make 'personal' transfers to friends and family without paying.

Now that has changed, which is very nice. Premium and business users can send money for personal reasons without paying. Unfortunately, PayPal made another change to their policy that they weren't very transparent about. Now any transfer that has to do with goods or services has to pay the 3 cent+2.9% fee. This includes personal payments, and payments made any time someone sends you a request for money.

So, if somebody send request for payment, the transaction will be charged. You can get around this by claiming the money as a gift, but that doesn't work if there is an invoice or purchase order involved. Most transactions people make on Paypal are in this category, but people have just started to realize it.

Once again, PayPal has managed to provoke a great deal of ire without actually doing anything legally wrong. They altered their terms of use and stuck some small-text warnings in the on the login page. That's all they were required to do, but customers usually appreciate getting some large, formal warning from a company before a major shift like this. This won't do anything to help PayPal's image, but who cares about image when you have huge stacks of money?

Updated Version of Windows Live Family Safety Released

2009-08-21T08:32:00.001-07:00

With yesterdays update to Windows Live Essentials (which included the final release of Windows Live Movie Maker), we also released an updated version of Windows Live Family Safety.

Windows Live Family Safety is designed to help parents keep their children safer online. It offers parents the ability to manage which websites their kids can visit, as well as the list of contacts they can communicate with when using the Windows Live services such as Windows Live Spaces, Hotmail and Messenger. It can also generate a report for parents so that they can monitor their childrens computer and online activity. The best part is it lets parents monitor what their kids are doing from anywhere they are online from any Windows Vista or Windows 7 PC that has web access and that parents have administrative rights to (via http://fss.live.com).

The updated version of Windows Live Family Safety also offers deeper integration with Windows resulting in fewer log-in prompts and faster web surfing compared to previous versions of Family Safety while its running on the PC.

Windows Live Family Safety uses Windows accounts as the basis for storing settings. Parents are no longer required to have a Windows Live ID for each child who needs their own settings.

Windows Live Family Safety reads the Windows Parental Control (WPC) settings on Windows Vista and Windows 7 enabling parents to retrieve WPC activity reports from any Windows Vista or Windows 7 computer online. These reports include time spent on the computer, browsing history, and games and applications run. This monitoring is transparent to the end user, as a notification is displayed once on Windows account login when monitoring is enabled.

With Windows 7, there are new Windows APIs which provide software developers greater control of Windows Parental Controls UI and settings. Windows Live Family Safety takes advantage of the new Windows APIs. Its now easier for users to access Windows Live Family Safety directly from the Windows Parental Controls Control Panel in Windows 7.Windows Live Family Safety is another good example of Windows Live lighting up the Windows PC.

With these improvements to Windows Live Family Safety, Microsoft demonstrates its continued commitment to helping parents keep their kids safe on the Web. You can download Windows Live Family Safety, part of Windows Live Essentials, at download.live.com.

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse, Story, Family Safety, Security, Filters, Accounts, Family

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Release Candidate Now Available for Download

2009-08-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the release candidate of MDT 2010. This release contains numerous bug fixes since MDT 2010 Beta 2. MDT 2010 RC has been tested and will work with Windows 7 RTM and Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM as well as all previously supported operating systems.

A BIG thank you goes out to all who tested and have given feedback for MDT 2010 Beta 2 (see our post here). We were able to fix several bugs and push through some design changes based on your feedback. Now is the time for you to verify the bug fixes and continue to provide feedback as we work towards the release of MDT 2010.

As with any release please make sure you read through the release notes to understand the known issues with this release and make sure you have a backup of your deployment environment before you upgrade to MDT 2010 RC.

If you have not signed up on Microsoft Connect you can still do so here. If already a member, click here to get the Release Candidate of MDT 2010.

Introducing the Microsoft LifeCam Cinema

2009-08-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

A few days ago you may have heard about a new webcam from Microsoft Hardware that does 720p High Definition widescreen video. Well meet the new LifeCam Cinema!

The LifeCam Cinema records video at 720p HD in 16:9 widescreen up to 30 frames per second (fps). It uses ClearFrame Technology for smooth, detailed video and has an improved de-noiser. The improved de-noiser reduces image graininess - especially in low light. It also has a faster image-processing technology that keeps video smooth at any resolution. The LifeCam Cinema also has a high-precision glass element lens for much clearer video quality. You know how some webcams have blurry corners in videos? Yeah not here! Other features include taking 5.0 megapixel stills, a digital noise-canceling microphone, and a flexible attachment base bends to fit on most surfaces (like the top of LCD monitors and notebook screens, or simply on your desk desk).

Through the LifeCam 3.0 software (which can be downloaded here), LifeCam Cinema users will enjoy integration with both Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Movie Maker which was released yesterday. To record video and take still photos with the LifeCam Cinema, you will need the LifeCam software installed. After recording a video, you can quickly launch Windows Live Movie Maker to edit that video and share with friends and family online. Using Windows Live Movie Maker, you can add transitions and other animations to videos recorded with the LifeCam Cinema as well as music, captions and more. When taking still photos, you can view those photos in Windows Live Photo Gallery and edit and add tags.

The LifeCam Cinema will be available starting in September 2009 for an estimated retail price of $79.95 (U.S.).

For more information on the LifeCam Cinema, click here for the press release.

I am currently giving the LifeCam Cinema a spin myself courtesy of Microsoft Hardware. Expect to see some movies created with the LifeCam Cinema and edited with Windows Live Movie Maker in the very near future.

Microsoft Mobile Security Receives Global Recognition

2009-08-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

In case you havent heard the news from Sydney Australia, here is the latest scoop.

The Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system, System Centre Mobile Device Manager 2008 and System Centre Mobile Device Manager 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1) have obtained Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4 (EAL4). This news follows successful completion of the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) Australasian Information Security Evaluation Program. The DSD is the Australian Governments national authority for information security.

By meeting the security criteria for EAL4, Windows Mobile 6.1, System Centre Mobile Device Manager 2008 and System Centre Mobile Device Manager 2008 SP1 are accepted under the Common Criteria Recognition Arrangement (CCRA) by Australia and 25 other countries worldwide including the United Kingdom and the United States.

The CCRA ensures that evaluations of IT products are performed to high and globally consistent standards. Thus, this certification provides government and enterprise customers with definitive information about the security features in Windows Mobile 6.1, and assurance that mobile workers can securely access sensitive data on information networks.

Windows Mobile 6.1, combined with System Centre Mobile Device Manager 2008, extends mobile security for government and enterprise customers with on-device file encryption and remote device wipe, in the event of theft or loss. Users can access corporate data and intranets with mobile VPN and manage mobile fleets similar to the way IT departments manage PCs.

Commenting on this certification milestone, Don Kerr, product marketing manager for Windows Mobile, said, We are extremely proud of this successful Common Criteria evaluation as it offers widely recognised assurance that Windows Mobile delivers a very high level of security and protection of information networks.

Microsoft is committed to globally recognised evaluations and certification processes as a way of building trust in computing and providing customers in the public and private sectors with a more secure and reliable platform, said Mr Kerr.

Mike Burgess, first assistant secretary, Information Security, Defence Signals Directorate, said, We have worked very closely with Microsoft throughout this assessment process to ensure that Windows Mobile 6.1 meets the security needs for government and enterprise networks.

Our evaluation of emerging technology is rigorous, but ensures secure use in government systems. Government organisations and enterprises can be assured that Microsofts successfully evaluated products can be used to securely enable remote working. DSD looks forward to vendor interest in evaluating a hardware handset that will take advantage of Windows Mobile 6.1 to provide government with another secure option, said Mr Burgess.

The 26 members included under the Common Criteria Recognition Arrangement (CCRA) are: Australia and New Zealand, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States.

Jump List Tricks for Windows Media Player in Windows 7

2009-08-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

Back in June, I blogged the first of 6 blog posts dedicated to tips and/or tricks for Windows Media Player in Windows 7. I had originally intended to post the remaining 5 blog posts over the course of 3 weeks. However, that didnt quite happen. I intend to post the remaining posts, starting today with the 2^nd blog post, but wont commit to any specific timeline.

Windows 7 introduces Jump Lists as one of the many enhancements to the Windows Taskbar. And Windows Media Player takes advantage of this feature for quick access to your digital media.

Here are a few tips for working with the Jump List for Windows Media Player:

You can drag most items off of the Windows Media Player Jump List and onto the desktop to create a shortcut that can be used on any computer to do that query and return local items.
Doing a search on a view and double clicking one of the result items will log the search query to the Jump List. For example, can go to all songs and search for NOT genre:Christmas and youll get a Jump List item of all your music with no Christmas music (see above screenshot).
You can pin any file Windows Media Player will play in the Jump List by directly dragging and dropping the file onto the Windows Media Player icon on the Windows Taskbar.
Clicking Play All or playing a stack view from File Explorer will log to the Jump List.
If you go to Organize, then Options, and then Player - the last option in Player settings Save recently used to the Jump List instead of frequently used toggles what shows on your Jump List.

Hope you enjoyed these Jump List tips for Windows Media Player!

Internet Explorer 8 Offers Better Protection against Socially Engineered Malware Threats

2009-08-21T08:20:00.000-07:00

Today, socially engineered malware threats are on the rise and are heavily impacting the way people use the Internet - making it a consumer and industry issue.

A new study released today from NSS Labs shows that Internet Explorer 8 is the #1 browser in malware protection and also the #1 browser in phishing protection. The independent test results showed that Internet Explorer 8 blocks 3 times more malware threats than Firefox 3 and 10 times more malware threats than Google Chrome 2.

Given how Internet Explorer 8 performs against these socially engineered malware and phishing threats and the ongoing threat that cybercriminals pose against Internet users today, this is another good reason for consumers to upgrade to a modern browser and move on from earlier versions like Internet Explorer 6 where security issues were not then what they are today.

For more information on this new NSS Labs study and how Internet Explorer 8 continues to help keep people protected while browsing the web see this blog post from the Internet Explorer Team on the IEBlog.

Dell Now Offering Windows 7 Drivers for Commercial Desktops and Laptops

2009-08-20T21:26:00.001-07:00

Dell is jumping in to help business (commercial) customers get ready for Windows 7 by offering Windows 7 drivers for their commercial desktop and laptop PCs. They are posting their Windows 7 drivers here (see Drivers and Downloads on left-hand navigation).

By offering drivers for their commercial desktop and laptop PCs, Dell is helping business customers with Dell PCs in their environments prepare for Windows 7 deployments.

For more information, see this blog post on Dells Inside Enterprise IT Blog.

Get The New Windows Live Movie Maker Today!

2009-08-19T21:26:00.001-07:00

Brian Hall, General Manager for Windows Live, just has announced via the Windows Live Team Blog that the new Windows Live Movie Maker is now available. The new version of Windows Live Movie Maker is part of an update to Windows Live Essentials available for download here. Im currently running the new version of Windows Live Movie Maker on Windows 7 RTM and it will also run on Windows Vista too.

For more information on the new Windows Live Movie Maker, see Brians blog post or this awesome resource website which includes demo, HD samples and deep product info.

Sorry for such a short post, but Im off to make me some movies!

Understanding Windows 7 AppLocker

2009-08-18T21:26:00.001-07:00

Our guest blogger is Daniel Nerenberg. He is an MCT,MCSA,MCSE,MCTS,MVP, STEP Member and an independent consultant based in Montreal. He is also the President of the Montreal IT pro user group. Daniel has written and consulted on the topics of Windows deployment, application virtualization, and Windows infrastructure.

Window 7 RTM has been available for just a few weeks now, but already IT Pros everywhere are diving into great new features. One of the more exciting features introduced in Windows 7 is AppLocker. Many of you know about Software Restriction Policies, they allow you to block the execution of a program by file name or hash calculation. You probably also know how it was a race to block applications in our network with these methods. Users could change the name of the file, or applications updates so frequently that you would constantly need to generate new hash files.

AppLocker works under the premise that its easier to allow the applications you want, and block the rest. If youre running a Windows 7 machine you can see AppLocker by typing gpedit.msc into your search bar and pressing enter.

You can define policies based on executables, Windows installers, and scripts. Creating a new policy is simple. Right-click on any of the 3 categories and click Create New Rule.

You can create a policy to allow or deny an executable. You can also select which groups the rule will apply to.

You can choose to create a rule based on a publisher (the program needs to be signed), a program path, or a file hash (usually a good choice if the program isnt signed).

For this example I chose publisher. The Rule Wizard uses the information stored application signing certificate to learn about the application. You can adjust what level of information youll allow for an application.

In the above example the policy will only allow Internet Explorer 8.0.0.0 and above to run on the computer.

You can use the same steps to create exceptions for specific applications. One of the more convenient features is the ability to automatically generate rules. If you right click on any of the 3 categories and click Automatically Generate Rules you can quickly generate a list of rules based on applications that are already install on the computer (saving you a lot of work to get going with AppLocker!).

In this example, we scan your applications in the Program Files directory and create rules for those programs to run. Perfect for creating a baseline set of rules for applications on a gold image or group policy quickly.

So to summarize, AppLocker allows you from a high level (Publisher) to a granular level (Version) to choose what applications you would like to allow users to run (white listing) rather than creating long lists of what applications they cannot use (black listing).

Windows 7 Release Candidate Downloads End August 20th

2009-08-17T21:27:00.001-07:00

Just a reminder that you have until this Thursday, August 20^th 2009 to download the Windows 7 Release Candidate.

After that date, you will still be able to register your product and get registration keys but, the media will no longer be available for download.

If you have not downloaded the Release Candidate, please do so here.

Customizing Your Windows Live Messenger Contact List

2009-08-16T18:26:00.002-07:00

This is the first of several upcoming blog posts on different aspects of Windows Live Essentials. For more information on the Windows 7 + Windows Live experience click here.

First, I would like to congratulate the Windows Live Messenger Team for 10 years of Messenger! Find out how *you* can celebrate the 10 Year Anniversary of Windows Live Messenger by readingthis blog post from the Messenger Team. I have the pleasure of being able to say Ive been a Messenger user since V1. Its been exciting to see the progression of Messenger over the last decade.

Today, I use Windows Live Messenger as a primary communication vehicle (outside of email) with friends and colleagues. As you can imagine, I have a pretty big contact list. Being able to manage and customize the layout of my contact list is pretty important.

By default, Messenger will show all contacts in your contact list online or offline, as well as groups. Messenger will also show the tab bar, favorites, and Whats New feed. To customize this default layout of your contact list, you can click the contact list layout button next to the add contact button in Messenger (see below screenshot).

The Options window will appear with the layout options for your contact list.

This is where you can customize the layout of your contacts list in Messenger to fit your needs.

For me, because I have so many contacts in my contacts list, I find that I am doing a lot of scrolling between the different categories. Looking at my own IM behavior, Im usually chatting with contacts that are online. So to help alleviate some of the scrolling, I have unchecked Show offline contacts. This means that contacts that are offline will not appear in my contact list in Messenger until they come online.

You can view contacts on your contact list by different sizes in Messenger: Large, Medium, Small or Status only. To consume less space on my contacts list, Ive chosen to view contacts by status only. Whats great here is you can choose the sizes of your contacts by your main contact list and favorite contacts just in case you want your favorite contacts viewed differently than the rest.

If you someone whos not using Windows Live Groups, you can uncheck Show groups so this category doesnt appear on your contact list. You can also do this for other parts of the window on this menu too.

Hopefully talking about this helps those of you with large contact lists like me manage and customize the layout for a better experience in Messenger!

One last thing did you know that Windows Live uses a unified contacts store? That means the same contacts you have in Messenger are the same contacts you have in Hotmail or in Windows Live Mail on the PC. More on this and other aspects of Windows Live Essentials in upcoming blog posts!

Widget Anatomy The Manifest

2009-08-16T18:26:00.001-07:00

This is the first part of a new blog series that will describe, in detail, all major aspects of the widget framework available in Windows Mobile 6.5.

The widget manifest is an XML file that describes the corresponding widget in detail so that Windows Mobile can actually do something with it. This is the first file we look at when the widget is being installed or executed so, even though it is simple, it is extremely important.

For Windows Mobile 6.5 we implemented widgets based on the W3C Widgets 1.0: Packaging and Configuration standard dated Dec-22-08. While the standard continues to evolve, our implementation remains backwards compatible with very few exceptions notable exceptions will be called out in this blog series. To save you some W3C reading time, in summary, the widget manifest has to be called config.xml and its presence is required in order for the widget to be considered valid. Technically you could provide an empty widget manifest and thus get something installed, since all elements inside config.xml are optional. That said, I recommend that at the very least you define the elements that are present in the following example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<widget xmlns="http://www.w3.org/ns/widgets"

version="1.0"

id="http://someSite.com/MyUniqueWidgetID">

<name>My first widget</name>

This is my first widget,

it won't make a lot of money on the

marketplace but at least is cute!

</description>

<author href="http://www.windowsphone.com/blog"

email="jorgeperaza@hotmail.com">Jorge Peraza</author>

Example license (based on MIT License)

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS

OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF

MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.

IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY

CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,

INSULT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE

SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

</license>

</widget>

The Widget Element: What Makes Me Me?

The first element I would like to cover in detail is the <widget> element, the father of all other widget configuration elements. The document can have only one and, from the many attributes that can be specified, we only honor the following two in the current release:

version="1.0" This attribute specifies the widget version number, we use this to check if, when trying to install a new widget with the same id it should be allowed as an upgrade or not.
id ="http://someSite.com/MyUniqueWidgetID" This attribute is actually extremely important, this is the unique per widget ID that the framework uses to identify installed widgets. This has to be a well-formed URI but it does not have to be valid.

Some of the child elements like <name>, <description>, <author> and<license> are self-explanatory so I wont bore you with details for them. See? Im nice sometimes :-).

Now, lets talk about one of the most important child elements which happens to be <contentsrc="widget.htm" type="text/html" />. This element tells the widget framework which source file to load to execute the widget. You might also notice that the MIME type is also specified here however on WM 6.5 we only support "text/html" so dont get any ideas!!

The next group of interesting child elements are the set of <icon src="icon.png"/> which allow you to specify one or more icons for your widget. Icons are very important because they give your widget their unique personality. Now, there are some important limitations widget writes should be aware of. Windows Mobile Professional (touch screen) supports both PNGs and JPGs as image file formats to be used as widget icons, however, Windows Mobile Standard only supports ICOs (Please, dont ask :-)) Soooo, in order for your widget to show best on both platforms I recommend having both and listing the PNG or JPG first.

Last but not least lets talk about <access network="true" />. This is an optional element that is required to be true if your widget accesses network resources, otherwise you can leave it out (but all cellular network calls will fail).

I went to all the effort for defining all fields in the manifest can I at least access them from my widget?

Glad you asked, and the answer is of course! You can do this by using the widget metadata API available to you courtesy of the widget javascript object. Below are the relevant properties that you can use to get information out of the manifest:

widget.version
widget.identifier
widget.name
widget.description
widget.authorEmail
widget.authorName
widget.authorURL
widget.height
widget.width
widget.locale

Thats it for now. Please stay tuned for more information and happy widget writing!

Comfort of Web Development with Aptana Studio for Linux, Mac or Windows

2009-08-16T18:25:00.001-07:00

Aptana Studio is free, open source Ajax development environment. With over a million downloads, developers all over the world are discovering why Aptana Studio is the leading choice of web professionals everywhere. Studio offers free plug-ins for PHP, Ruby on Rails, Adobe AIR, and even Apple iPhone development. Get unrivaled support for popular libraries including jQuery, Prototype, YUI, dojo, Ext JS, MooTools, and others.

Of course Studio also includes rich support for development of Jaxer-based Ajax applications. In fact, as of Studio 1.1, Jaxer is fully integrated so that development of end-to-end Ajax applications requires no further installations or server setup. Just create a new HTML document and you can build fully realized client/server applications rich with database access, network access, and much more.

Download Aptana Studio for Windows, Mac, or Linux. Both the standalone and Eclipse plug-in distributions are free, open source software.

Link: www.aptana.com

Windows tip: How to Load Internet Explorer Faster with Windows

2009-08-16T18:24:00.000-07:00

Internet Explorer plug-ins spent too much time to start, and this, no doubt slow down the overall performance of the entire browser. In IE8 in Windows, the user can see which browser plug-ins was started, and can disable the the slowest.

Steps:

Start Internet Explorer.
Click on Tools (tools)> Manage Add-ons (Manage Add-ons).
On the right side of the list shows the operation of plug-ins and their load times.
Mouse right-click on the slowest plug-ins and click Disable.

New Talking About Windows Videos

2009-08-14T21:28:00.001-07:00

Meet Kevin Sullivan, Hes a Principal Program Manager here at Microsoft. Kevin shares his thoughts on Group Policy and how this innovative solution can provide flexibility, customization, and ease of adaptation for IT professionals and end users alike.

Also live is our Making of Windows 7 video. Meet some of the many people who helped make Windows 7 a reality. Listen as Mark Russinovitch, Sandeep Singdal, Jon Devaan, and others share their stories about building app compat, saving IT pros time, and more

Talking About Windows.com is your chance to hear what Microsoft Engineers and IT pros like you have to say and gives you a chance to interact with them.

Hear what they have to say and get heard. Join the conversation. www.talkingaboutwindows.com

Springboard Series Virtual Roundtable Windows 7 Application Compatibility Part 2: Virtualization

2009-08-13T21:27:00.001-07:00

Springboard Series Virtual Roundtable
Windows 7 Application Compatibility Part 2: Virtualization

Date: Thursday, September 24
Time: 9:00am Pacific Time

https://ms.istreamplanet.com/springboard

Hear from a panel of experts how virtualization tools can help you with application compatibility concerns whether youre migrating from Windows Vista or Windows XP. Join us to discuss how presentation virtualization, desktop virtualization and application virtualization can reduce testing times, expedite deployment and ultimately help you streamline PC management.

Well cover the latest desktop virtualization technologies from Microsoft, including App-V, MED-V and XP Mode for Windows 7. Plus we share tips and tricks and demonstrate free tools to analyze and fix applications while answering your questions live during the event. Join live on Thursday, September 24^th, 2009, 9:00am Pacific Time. Missed Part 1? Watch the replay.

For IT Pro tips, tricks and resources for Windows 7, visit the Springboard Series.

As part of the virtual experience, you may submit your questions about Windows 7 Application Compatibility to the panel live during the eventor submit questions in advance to vrtable@microsoft.com.

6 Free Windows Explorer Alternatives

2009-08-13T13:31:00.001-07:00

A Windows explorer alternative is just a program to replace Windows explorer, which runs a user-interface allowing users to do all file operations such as creating, opening, editing, viewing or renaming a file.

It can also lets you see the properties, permissions and attributes of a file. Here are some best free Windows explorer alternatives. Oh yeah, you need these alternatives, because Windows explorer stinks!

Free Commander

Free Commander is a free alternative for Windows explorer with two pane views. It supports the handling of compressed files like Zip, Cab and Rar with its integrated archive. An internal file viewer also allows users to view files in hex, binary, text and image formats. It also supports folder operations like comparison and synchronization, search, filtering and folder size calculation. Access to space left in the hard drive is quick, and images can be edited within the software.

A43

A43 is a free file explorer for Windows 2000/XP. It has an extremely low footprint, especially when compared to the default Windows explorer. It gives fast access to file operations like renaming or moving of files. A43 is very useful for making Zip files, since we can make a zip file just by a dragging and dropping. Not only is A43 nice to your RAM, it is also very small in size. this means you can take it around with you anywhere you want.

A43 also features a quick search to find all the lost files around your computer, a quick launch to execute programs which will be used frequently, internal text editor with unlimited size, no installation required and easy and fast file management.

Cubic Explorer

Cubic Explorer is a flexible Windows explorer alternative with a tab based user-interface. It comes with an integrated text editor that can can support storage of text, html, and web page address, which can be viewed in the tab interface. It has a feature of showing html code rather than showing web pages when selected, which is very useful.

Other features of Cubic Explorer include bookmarks for web pages with tab browsing and various search options. Even though this explorer has fewer features compared to other managers ,this is worth a look for the tabbed view which really sets it apart from the other alternatives.

Explorer XP

Explorer XP is a free advanced tab view Windows explorer replacement, which supports running on a USB drive using an MI3 launcher. It can support configuring keyboard shortcuts, groups and multiple renames. Its user interface is similar to the default Windows explorer. Renaming of multiple files at a time, fast folder size calculations can be done using Folder Size Cache.

Explorer XP also supports Unicode, copying or moving of files and folders, cleaning of files with given list of extensions and keyboard shortcuts can be configured using this explorer.

Gyula’s Navigator

Gyula’s Navigator is a free file explorer which is a clone for Windows from Norton Commander which runs on all Windows platforms. Unlike other file managers, it’s a command-style file explorer and occupies very little memory on install. The user interface has easily understandable icons available on toolbar. The technical support for this explorer is extensive, and you can find new updates and help in the application’s forum.

Gyula’s navigator features text file search, drag and drop, customized user interface, local network handling, archive, file operations, context menu, view or edit folders history, text file search and an integrated file viewer to view text and images. It has support for clipboard, and the main advantage of this explorer is the command line and Unicode support.

Unreal Commander

Unreal Commander is a Windows explorer alternative with features to support Unicode, file search and archive support, directories synchronization, internal FTP client, tab-styled folders, network support and fast access to view plug-ins. It has a dual panel interface with command style environment. Unique features of Unreal Commander are that the user can add background screens.

Let us know about your favorite alternative in the comments.

How to Use iPhone and X10 for Home Remote Control

2009-08-13T13:30:00.001-07:00

With today’s technology it is becoming easier and easier to remain connected to our home computers. But what if we want to extend our reach from beyond the computer to actual control of our homes? Well, that, too, is becoming easier all the time, and here I will give a few tips on how to do exactly that.

As a matter of fact, we will focus on controlling your home from the comfort of your iPhone while you are out and about.

The purpose of the article is to show a way of accomplishing this, and I want to make it as simple as possible. For that reason we will focus on easy to obtain and economical hardware, and perhaps nothing in the home control market is more well known than the X10 family of controllers.

To start with, we will have a requirement - there must be a home computer left on 24 hours a day that will serve as our control point and link to the outside world.

This computer does need its local monitor to stay on when unattended - so set the screen saver and/or power settings to auto power it off after an extended period time.

This will save a little on the power bill and prolong the lifetime of the monitor. The computer itself needs only to be a standard computer… but it does need to have an available USB connector (as well as an internet connection, naturally).

To make the link from the control computer to your house power circuit you will need a USB control interface.

A quick check online shows that the X10 CM15A USB interface is available at a very reasonable price, and this will fit our needs quite well. As a matter of fact, we found the interface, controlling software, and more for under $50.

To set up the interface, you would install the included home control software and connect the CM15A to an available USB port with the provided cable after plugging it into a nearby outlet.

Once you have the interface, it is now a question of asking yourself, “What is it you want to control?”

There are separate control modules in the X10 family for a variety of situations, ranging from appliance and lamp controls to dimming wall switch replacements and HVAC controls. Of course, there are also “professional” modules that are more durable if the situation calls for it, but most homeowners will find that the standard units work okay for their needs.

Now, after you make a basic list of what items you want to control, shop online for a package deal that gives you the modules needed. By looking around for a package deal (check x10.com or ebay) you will be able to buy the modules at a very substantial savings.

Once you have the desired modules installed, it is a simple matter to set a common house code and unit ID for them.

Then you can add the modules to the home control software through its simple graphical interface, and if desired you can even set up virtual rooms for easier control. The overall control setup can be as simple or complex as you wish, but I would caution that you should start slow to see if it works for you as expected.

A nice thing about the system is that it makes life easier for you not only for the sake of remote control, but it also works great when you are at home thanks to readily available X10 remote controls and software that can schedule events automatically or event driven (such as turning on the lights throughout the house when you pull into the driveway - with the addition of an economical sensor).

Now that we have our home control system in place (at least conceptually), we need to talk about how we are going to control it via our iPhone.

This is where I feel that the simple approach really shines. I have used such systems with other mobile devices in the past (Windows Mobile, for example).

Unfortunately, Murphy’s Law loves to tinker with anything cool, and remote home control is not impervious. Instead of custom (and/or expensive) software, using a remote PC software such as LogMeIn Ignition on the iPhone allows you to not use the installed control software on the home computer, it will also show any warnings or issues that may be of immediate interest.

Plus it gives you access to said home computer for any files or email, and provides for a single point of access when you need to check on things back at the ranch.

By using generic remote software you can also stop and restart any misbehaving control programs from the iPhone, and if needed reboot the control PC to correct a communications problem with the power interface (rare, but it happens).

Now that you have everything in place, you should be able to whip out the iPhone and turn on the porch lights and dim the living room lights.

While you’re at it, you can set up a schedule to kick on tomorrow night (when you will be hiking on the trails out of tower reach). Or even check on the pics from the web cam, noting that all looks as you expect.

It’s the next best thing to being there.