Archive for April, 2008
April 29, 2008 at 2:14 pm ·
Filed under Video, Community
Hah! Here’s something I didn’t know yet. Apparently we have an online Office community! All you need to do to start using it, is have a Windows Live ID. Plain and simple. So what exactly is this? Well, there’s a site called Office Labs and that’s a proving ground for ideas that come from regular employees and interns who work anywhere in Microsoft. Most of the code prototypes are developed by the Office Labs team in partnership with the teams that make the products. After all, they produce most of the ideas. Some of the things you find here will be web-based, others are downloads. Some will be a combination, something we call “software + services.”
So, one of those projects is Community Clips, a portal for viewing, sharing, and discussing informal “how-to” videos (screencasts) on Microsoft Office products. It also includes a client application for easy recording of screen views and voice. Think of it as a dedicated MSN Video for Office tips and tricks. I’ve been checking out some of the clips and already I’ve learned some small things that make me master the Office products even better.
Here’s an overview of how Community Clips works:
Check out the tutorials and how-to’s
April 26, 2008 at 10:47 am ·
Filed under Video, Fun
I stumbled upon this very old commercial that announced Windows95. Hah! I remember the day my dad got rid of our 3.11 and I was really pissed about it. Then we got a new computer with 95 on it, and all of the sudden I was exchanging PC games with my class mates, in a time where viruses were still something you wrote yourself starting with ‘echo on’, and the baddest thing to do was adding a line of text that said: deleting all files, then when they pressed a key it would read ‘ha ha fooled you’ :) Those were the days. Long story short: here is an old school commercial:
April 26, 2008 at 10:03 am ·
Filed under Releases, Live Services
MSN launched the A-List page, a page where you can find one hot topic per day. The related queries at the top and below are other popular searches and headlines including the top web searches, the top people searches, the top videos, the top MSN.com headlines, the top movies and DVD rentals, the top five in Sports, the top Deals, the top health stories, the top tech stories, and more. Really nice to have an updated list page like this that shows you in a glance what’s happening on the MSN pages.
Check it out
April 26, 2008 at 9:45 am ·
Filed under Releases, Vista
It’s taken ages, at least to me, since the last special updates had been pushed for Vista Ultimate. But finally and at last, they rolled out the Extras just a few days ago. If you’re running Vista Ultimate, two new Ultimate Extras should show up on Windows Update when you connect. The first one is Windows Sound Schemes, a pack of 2 new sound schemes for Windows Vista: Glass and Pearl. For more details on the Windows Sound Schemes - click here. The second one is Windows DreamScene Content Pack #3, which brings you 3 new DreamScenes for your Windows Vista desktop. For more information on Windows DreamScene - click here.
So, I’m going to download and install these babies to include them in my next demo. It’s always fun to have some new stuff to show, even if it is ‘just’ a dreamscene. Here’s a still shot of the one I’m adding right now:
Pretty pure and not too intrusive. I like it that way. If you want to stay up to date with all the goodies they push out for Ultimate users, please keep an eye on either the Windows Vista Blog, or the UltimatePC website, your home for the latest releases and updated features.
April 26, 2008 at 1:54 am ·
Filed under Releases, Vista
The Speech Components Group just announced the initial public availability of Windows Speech Recognition Macros. WSR Macros combines the ease of Windows Speech Recognition with the power of an XML-based scripting language. It makes it easy to create speech interfaces to applications and perform otherwise tedious tasks with simple spoken commands.
This tool is the brainchild of Rob Chambers and has been in development for quite a long time. Once in SCG, Rob and Onur Domanic worked on refining the functionality, fixing issues and getting the code in shape to ship. Aziz El Ouaqid ran the test effort.
Download it now
More info on the team blog
The Windows Speech Recognition Macros tool (aka WSRMacros) extends the usefulness of the speech recognition capabilities already included in Windows Vista. Users can now create powerful macros that are triggered by spoken commands. These macros can perform a single task, or a series of tasks. Macros can be as simple as inserting your mailing address to as complex as providing a completely different speech interaction utilizing a number of built in capabilities or utilizing custom JScript/VBScript actions.
XML Code samples for WSR Macro commands:
<speechMacros>
<command>
<listenFor>What are macros</listenFor>
<setTextFeedback>Macros are cool!</setTextFeedback>
<speak>W S R Macros extends the power of my voice</speak>
</command>
<!– Play Artist Command –>
<command>
<listenFor>play ?the ?artist [Artists]</listenFor>
<listenFor>play ?the band [Artists]</listenFor>
<listenFor>play ?the group [Artists]</listenFor> <disambiguate title=”Which artist do you want to play?” prompt=”Choose an Artist” timeout=”25″ propname=”Artist”/>
<wmpMediaControl command=”pause”/>
<speak>Playing Artist {[Artist]}</speak>
<wmpMediaPlay attrname=”WM/AlbumArtist” attrvalue=”{[Artist]}”/>
</command></speechMacros>
April 25, 2008 at 11:15 am ·
Filed under Releases, Live Services
It’s still limited in access, a closed beta so to speak, but it’s out there to play with and I’m sure they’re working really hard to make it scale and stable. So pretty soon, it’s ready to be tested on a larger audience. What is it? Well, Live Mesh of course! Live Mesh puts you at the center of your digital world, seamlessly connecting you to the people, devices, programs, and information you care about— available wherever you happen to be. With Live Mesh you can synchronize folders across any or all of the devices in your ‘mesh’. You can connect to your home PC from work, manage all your devices from the web. With your Live Desktop, you get free online storage to make it easy to sync and access folders from the web. You can also connect to remote PCs. It’s very easy to add and share folders, with quick access to the latest updates across your mesh. For shared folders, you can see who’s changed what when, post messages or chat instantly with others who are active in a folder.
Nic got a chance to hook up with the team and released this pretty nice preview:
April 25, 2008 at 9:16 am ·
Filed under Video, Technology, Releases
On April 21st, Microsoft unveiled RoboChamps (www.robochamps.com), a simulated robotics league that is open to academics, hobbyists and developers from around the world, that demonstrates the power of the Microsoft platform to enable a broad range of developers to explore new ways to use .NET for robotics programming.
RoboChamps is built on top of the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio(MSRDS) 2008 CTP, and uses that product’s robust, physics enabled simulation environment to remove the barriers of entry that exist for many today. This simulated league provides individuals with immersive 3-d environments, simulated versions of robots, and compelling scenario-specific challenges where they can win real robots.
The site also generates its own API keys so developers can compete and have their code tie into the site’s services, provides community with ‘robocards- rich SilverLight cards that are exposed to be readily consumable on blogs, websites or third-party networks like Facebook. Advertising also plays a big role with sponsorship, ‘in world’ ads with Massive, and Silverlight Streaming for the video podcast.
Check out Tina’s cool video:
April 25, 2008 at 12:14 am ·
Filed under MicroLife, Community, Mix Event
Ah! A joyful day it was. Steve Ballmer came to Belgium. I got up around 7 this morning and hopped in my car with my camera and flaptops. Drove aaaaall the way to the other side of the language border in my country and joined the local DPE team in helping to deliver a pretty sweet combo of events, hosted by Microsoft. I invited a bunch of bloggers and put them on the list of the Press so they could attend a press conference with SteveB and ask him some questions in a Q&A. As soon as I arrived, I helped out on the Silverlight demo a little by taking pictures and uploading them to Flickr so they could be pulled in live within the demo. I had 15 minutes to take pictures, upload them to Flickr and tag them so the API could fetch them. Sucked some bandwith uploading the 30 pictures (I added more later on), and saw the demo work juuust fine.
A little bit through the demo, I got the message that the press conference was about to start. I pulled some sleeves with the bloggers I saw in the keynote room, and we went to the press mezzanine. During the announcements, one of the bloggers asked Steve about social networks, and that ended up in coverage on valleywag! Talk about the power of blogging :) I bet if Steve would have burped, we’d get coverage on CollegeHumor and trillions of hits on YouTube. But let’s not drift away. Here’s the clip, courtesy of another blogger who recorded it:
In the mean time, another blogger was streaming the entire event, because as promised, there was wi-fi, and so the press conference has been broadcasted and recorded in full at the same time. Live streaming from the press conference of Ballmer, some Belgian politicians and the general manager of MSFT Belux. The news couldn’t have been hotter on a blog. Other bloggers in the room (they move in flocks) sat back and watched the scene.
The rest of the day, everyone could enjoy some sessions from the Remix event, the Beyond Hypertext or Digital Marketing track. Hundreds of attendees ate chunks of code, enjoyed exploring the tracks or sat aside in the lobby to network and discuss. Some even found their way to the sunny outdoors at the border of the lake. I loved it.
Quote SteveB: “Whooosh, and there it is.
Ballmer closed the day with a pretty interesting keynote, followed by a funny Q&A. I’m currently converting and compressing the session, and it’ll be online tomorrow. Then I drove home, got changed and was right on time for my Tai Chi lessons. I’m happy. High-Five ! Yeah!
Quote SteveB: “Bam!”
My impressions of the day: here on Flickr
Picture above: copyright by Bart Claeys
Pictures 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
April 22, 2008 at 1:22 pm ·
Filed under PR, Community, Releases
Climate change is a problem that affects everyone on our planet. As is often the case with problems of this magnitude, it’s hard to feel like one person can make a difference. In reality however, every little bit helps. Carbon Grove can help you make your small contribution to fixing things and hopefully also help you show others that you care.
The Internet Explorer team at Microsoft helped to launch this site. They were eager to create a special experience for their IE users as well as show one small piece of their commitment to the environment. Not only is Internet Explorer the exclusive way to take advantage of Carbon Grove, but Microsoft’s Silverlight technology has made browsing the three forests a breeze.
Check it out :)
So, I took the test and it said I need to cut back on driving to work and take a bike or go on foot for shorter trips. I’ll keep that in mind. :) I planted a tree too, it’s in the Rain Forest and it’s a coconut tree. You can see it grow below :)
Thanks for the pointer, Barb!
April 17, 2008 at 10:44 am ·
Filed under Community, Mix Event
I’m helping out a little bit on the Mix Essentials event at the Louvain La Neuve campus on the 24th of April. What’s going to be presented isn’t anything new if you are up to speed with what’s been announced at Mix08 in Vegas, but if you weren’t able to make it to Vegas and still want to get a hands-on experience, this event is your place to be.
There are two tracks to follow: Interactive Web Developers technical track and the Web Designers & Business strategists track. Each have their own breakout sessions with presentations and deep dives into the latest releases of our products.
Steve Ballmer is going to be present for the closing keynote, and I’ve managed to get a Q&A slot for the key bloggers who’ve attended our previous events or joined influencer programs in the past year.
Sign up for Mix Essentials on the dedicated site, and mark the date :)
Next entries »
