Archive for February, 2008
February 29, 2008 at 3:38 am ·
Filed under PR, Technology, Releases
I’ve done a few demos about the product already on a Circle of Media last year in October, and a few times as a speaker on some seminars and events in the weeks after that - when I was still carrying around the first samples available in Europe. The Belgian crowd has been waiting for it for a few months already, but as of now RoundTable has been made available in the local market! It’s still earlier as expected, since it was scheduled to be released in Q4, which is late Spring/early Summer, but they managed to squeeze off a few months and threw it into the wild.
From the release notes:
RoundTable can be used with Office Communications Server 2007 or Office Live Meeting 2007. The estimated retail price is $3,000 (US) and they can be purchased through a direct Microsoft order process and, shortly, via authorized resellers. Of course RoundTable is not only a great addition to existing customers, but can also help generate excitement, differentiation and demand for the overall Microsoft conferencing solution.
Belgium and Portugal were the last two countries to be added to the list of the Western European region, so now the device is available anywhere overhere, even though prices might differ from country to country (although the advized rate is the equivalent of $3K in the local value)
On February 1st, the RoundTable had already been released in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
Related: Product Specs
February 29, 2008 at 2:58 am ·
Filed under Community, Digital Life
The UK sub has launched a pretty trendy Silverlight section to their site to demo a range of Microsoft products that fit in ‘the digital life’ in a fashionable way. As my fellow UK EEs pointed out, this is a really cool piece of work that shows you the possibilities to maximize the full potential of the tools you have at hand. Check it out, you might find some nifty things to play around with and impress your friends/coworkers with.
Select one of the four journeys and find out how ‘our’ products can fit seamlessly into your life. I dare you :)
The Canadians made a lot of work of their Microsoft Home Magazine too, and they list a bunch of tips, tricks and tools to help you maximize your everyday products. don’t forget to check out the template gallery, it list some very nifty DIY tutorials that show you how to do cool things in a just a few easy steps.
In Belgium, we’ve got the WoW Factory. Basically it’s the same concept but it differs from the others in the fact that consumers are invited to upload and share their ‘recipes for fun’ with the rest of the world. The best recipes are rewarded with a cool webcam. I love the way the old classic product pages are being replaced with modern approaches that add value to the products we have out there on the market. Things like this make it interesting for consumers to explore, and (in my opinion) it invites them to connect on a more emotional level with Microsoft as a company.
February 29, 2008 at 2:34 am ·
Filed under PR, Releases
(This is for a few friends of who I know follow this blog, even though they’re out of my audience - you know who you are, geeks) About 2 hours ago I saw this floating by in my inbox: we JUST shipped the Web Client Software Factory.
The Web Client Software Factory (WCSF) provides a set of guidance for architects and developers building enterprise Web applications. The factory includes samples, reusable code and a guidance package which automates key development tasks from within Visual Studio.
Using the Web Client Software Factory assets, developers can create Composite Web applications composed of independently developed and deployed modules. These modules are dynamically brought together at runtime into a common shell. Additionally the factory includes support for ASP.NET AJAX thus providing users with a richer and more responsive user experience.
New In This Release
The February 2008 release of the Web Client Software Factory has the following improvements to the June 2007 release.
- Full support for Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5
- Added ASP.NET AJAX extenders for Context Sensitive Autocomplete, AJAX Validation, and Real Time Search that can be used in existing ASP.NET sites and ASP.NET sites built using the Composite Web Application Block.
- Added UI Composition capability through extending our dependency injection mechanism to support Pages, User Controls and Master Pages.
- Added Dependency Injection on ASMX Web Services and JSON services.
- Added a new set of Quickstarts and How-To topics on MVP, Modularity and the new AJAX extenders
- Added a new Order Entry Reference application that demonstrates all of the new functionality.
In addition, this release of WCSF has the following community issues and fixes:
- 42 Workitems closed including the top-voted items on CodePlex
- Add ASP.NET AJAX Support (97 votes)
- Web Client Software Factory Support for Enterprise Library 3.1 (62 votes)
- Services through configuration (32 votes)
- Support for using the Validation Application Block (16 votes)
- Recipe support for Visual Basic .NET (20 votes)
- Added Presenter support for Master Pages (11 votes)
Get your goodies at http://msdn.microsoft.com/practices/
February 29, 2008 at 2:14 am ·
Filed under PR, Buzz, Music, Mix Event
We already knew that Ice Cube is one hell of a cool guy. I’ve been listening to his rhymes from way back when I was still skating around and ‘chillin wit teh homies’. Ice Cube was starting a very cool Silverlight based website back in November. And apparently that worked out super fine for him. He liked it that much that he’s actually going to give a live concert, which will be streamed in Silverlight on his very own TV Network: UVNTV.
From the announcement:
On March 15th, 6 PM PST, 9PM EST, Ice Cube will do a free live concert at South by Southwest (SxSW) and that concert will be streamed live to the UVNTV.com site (Ice Cube and DJ Pooh’s new site for TV-on-the-Web) and presented via Silverlight.
Here’s the old interview with Ice Cube where he had his team working on the creation of the website:
Video: Ice Cube's UVNTV.com goes live with Microsoft Silverlight
February 29, 2008 at 1:50 am ·
Filed under Technology, Releases, WoW
Straight out of MSR comes the (already rumored and anticipated) launch of he WorldWide Telescope (WWT), which is a rich visualization environment that functions as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space telescopes in the world for a seamless, guided exploration of the universe. WorldWide Telescope, created with Microsoft’s high-performance Visual Experience Engine™, enables seamless panning and zooming across the night sky blending terabytes of images, data, and stories from multiple sources over the Internet into a media-rich, immersive experience.
This beauty was announced while I was in Madrid, and I didn’t had time to pre-schedule a blogpost, but you can tune in to the announcement talk at TED if you want to know all about it. It will be made available to the public in Spring 2008. Start the countdown :)
Find it at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/
Download the clip at the TED site (HiRes)
February 29, 2008 at 1:32 am ·
Filed under PR, Releases, Mix Event, Live Services
Windows Live Quick Applications provide customizable out-of-the box solutions for specific Web scenarios. Each Quick App is built on Windows Live services and is offered as a source code download for you to use today. The 6.0 version of the Windows Live Platform Quick Applications was just released, with 178 work items done there is 1 new Quick Application and 2 major enhancements and 1 localization achievement (into Chinese).
Tafiti Search visualization has had a major addition. U sing the Windows Live Messenger Library and Script# we turned Tafiti from being a killer search slick UI to being a social search application. You can now perform searches, save your results and share that experience with your Windows Live Messenger friends. Research has never been so fun – try it | watch it | get it
Visit Planner (new Quick App) which is fictitious hotel providing a differentiated experience for their customers. Contoso Hotel guests can use this online concierge to plan their trip to multiple cities. The application consists of a Silverlight 1.1 canvas which integrates with Microsoft Virtual Earth, Windows Live Messenger, Live Search and the Windows Live Contacts control - try it | watch it | get it
Adventure Works Resorts has also had some renovations done – the Windows Live Photo API CTP is being used to provide its members with the ability to import photos from Windows Live Spaces and two-way sync . We use LiveNet for the development and in the near future we will integrate the Photo API CTP refresh.
February 29, 2008 at 1:16 am ·
Filed under PR, Technology, Releases, Mix Event, Live Services
The Windows Live Contacts API allows people to use their Windows Live contact information (including Hotmail, Messenger, and Mobile contacts) with third party websites —while keeping complete control of their data.
The Windows Live™ Contacts API is an HTTP-based service that enables developers to programmatically submit queries to, and retrieve results from, the Windows Live Contacts Address Book database service.
In addition to a full CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete) interface for a Windows Live user’s address book, the Windows Live Contacts API provides a view to a subset of the Contact data for the purposes of sending Invitations.
Each view and set of abilities is controlled by the owner of the data, namely the Windows Live user who maintains the address book through products and applications in Windows Live, such as Windows Live Hotmail® and Windows Live Messenger.
Value Propositions:
End User:
Access your Windows Live social relationships (Messenger contacts / Windows Live Hotmail address book) ANYWHERE safely and securely.
Website owner:
- Allow visitors to your website to invite their contacts, organically growing your reach.
- Provide a personalized experience for your website visitors, driving user engagement.
- More predictable, secure and reliable method of accessing Windows Live Contacts.
Links:
You can code against the Windows Live Contacts API with any language and platform that supports the HTTP/1.1 protocol.
Download the Windows Live Quick Applications at http://dev.live.com/quickapps. The Quick Applications provide customizable out-of-the box solutions for specific Web scenarios. Each Quick App is built on Windows Live services and is offered as a source code download for you to use today.
February 29, 2008 at 1:05 am ·
Filed under PR, Releases, Mix Event, Live Services
The Windows Live Messenger network is the premier service from Windows Live. 300million+ people keep in touch with their friends and family using our client on Windows/Mac (and some use rogue web based clients).
The Windows Live Messenger Library allows third parties to securely provide web based instant messaging to their users. The WLML is a JavaScript client library, thirdparty.com has full control over the user experience. The library exposes the core text-based messaging functionality, contact list and presence management. WLML works cross browser and cross platform on Windows and Macs.
- End Users can now interact and share experiences with their Messenger contacts in more places (more securely than other libraries).
- ThirdParty.com can increase stickiness by delivering immersive, differentiated experiences and can increase reach by leveraging their user’s social relationships from Windows Live Messenger.
- Developers can use JavaScript (which they already know) or C# (via Script#) to fully define the messaging experience cross-browser without needing to develop their own messaging platform.
What Messenger features does the Windows Live Messenger Library provide?
- Applications built with the Windows Live Messenger
- Library can access all of the primary Windows Live Messenger features, including
- Text-based messaging conversations, one-on-one or with up to 20 participants
- Setting user status (Online, Away, etc.)
- Personal status messages
- Display pictures
- Contact list management, including adding/blocking contacts and creating contact groups
The Windows Live Messenger Library is licensed under the common Windows Live Platform terms of use. For more information see http://dev.live.com/terms/.
Links:
Windows Live Messenger Library SDK
Messenger Programmability home page
Tafiti Search Visualization sample application (try it | demo video | get the code)
iBloks VideoMessenger
Samples:
Hello World application
Lightweight sample
February 28, 2008 at 10:55 pm ·
Filed under PR, Technology, Releases, Mix Event, Live Services
This is the first of quite a few posts about the new release wave of Live products. Stay tuned for more!
At MIX07 they announced a delegation framework in Alpha, that was called Windows Live Data (aka Cumulus). Over the past year the Live ID team (Identity Services) have developed a new cross-Windows Live delegated authentication which today is being released as a 1.0 final (watch this space).
Windows Live ID Delegated Authentication provides a platform-neutral way for Web applications to access customers’ information from Windows Live services while the customers remain in firm control of their own data. This is a big step in delivering real, user-centric data portability—giving Windows Live customers explicit control over sharing their information from Windows Live services. Windows Live ID Delegated Authentication is an end to end solution for offer provisioning, token exchange, token format and token renewal. Consumers are able to grant and revoke permission via a web interface.
Technical breakdown after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
February 26, 2008 at 10:31 am ·
Filed under Video, Fun
Barb, my fellow EE, just sent me this super cute extended commercial for Microsoft Office 2007. Who said Microsoft was dull and liveless? :) You just gotta check this out! I love how this movie proves that Office 2007 is so easy to use that even rabbits can have a go at it. Sit back for this one, you’ll enjoy the ride. Warning: Pinkness overload :)
Also check out the other clips for Office2007 :)
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