Microsoft Communities

TechWare Labs- Thinking Outside the Cube

Posted By: Laura Foy | Jun 25th @ 10:41 AM
Which motherboard should you buy? Where do you get the sweetest case mods? How will you decide which speakers are best for you??? These decisions can be quite daunting without the help of TechWare Labs. Ok, yes- there are tons of different product review sites out there but these guys really approach their editorials with passion and humor. It's a fun site to click around on and they are a REALLY fun group of journalists. I sat down with the team to find out why I should listen to them, how they got such a sweet gig and, of course, do they get to keep the stuff???
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Bill Gates on Channel 9

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Jun 23rd @ 11:08 AM
Bill Gates and Charles Torre got together at TechEd to talk about his transition into the future and the changes in his goals as he goes from driving Microsoft to driving the Gates Foundation.

This is a good opportunity to see some of the gears turning behind decisions like putting Ray Ozzie in the CSA seat, how we address competitors, increasing agility while growing, and what developers should be paying attention to this decade and next.

You can see the Channel 9 thread here.
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Print Your Own Camera

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Jun 19th @ 12:45 PM
The folks at Corbis are hosting a number of pinhole cameras that you can print out and construct in your spare time. You'll want to use some thick paper if you take this on, and probably use some black (electrical or duct) tape on the inside to seal the film from light.

Check the FAQ for more details.
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Zune 4/8 Case Roundup

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Jun 19th @ 12:40 PM
Over on Channel 8, Max has gotten hold of some of Cesar's cases out of the Zune group. He takes a look at them along with some pros and cons on each. Also making an appearance is arm-model Laura Foy.
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Get Free Alternative to Adobe Illustrator

Posted By: Sarah Perez | Jun 18th @ 2:59 PM
If you’ve ever needed to create vector graphics, but your pocketbook came up a little short on the cash needed to purchase Adobe Illustrator, you now have another alternative: Creative Docs .NET. This completely free tool (for personal use) offers a lot of features that will help you make professional documents like manuals, posters, brochures, schemas, charts, and more. (You can see some samples of what you can make here). All you need is a Windows machine running 2000, XP, Server 2003, or Vista. The PC should also have a 1 GHz processor, 1 GB memory, and a 1024x768 graphics card (or better). As you may have guessed by the name, Creative Docs .NET requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, which will be automatically downloaded if you don’t already have it installed on your computer. Don’t you just love free stuff? (Thanks to CyberNet!)
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The Microsoft 216 Megapixel Camera

Posted By: Larry Larsen | May 29th @ 12:41 PM
Did you know that Microsoft makes a 216 Megapixel camera? I didn't know either until I read it on Mark Brown's Virtual Earth blog, but it turns out that this is the photobeastie behind the orthogonal imagery on Virtual Earth. The UltraCams are also used to create the 3D models you see on Virtual Earth through photogrammetric processing.

The UltraCam snaps an impressive 14,430 x 9,420 pixel image using 13 CCD's, sending them through 14 CPU's. The camera captures data at 3Gbits/sec, which led them to use two Infiniband cables rather than 14 firewire cables. Look for more info in a future episode of ShutterSpeed.
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Multi-Touch in Windows 7

Posted By: Larry Larsen | May 28th @ 1:13 AM
The cat's out of the bag now, Windows 7 is going to have Multi-touch support. A transcript from All Things Digital is here, there are two highlight videos here and here. Check out The Windows Vista Blog, also check out Engadget, Mary Jo for an I told you so, the latest from TechCrunch, and the bad boys of technology; Gizmodo.

Mary Jo says she doesn't want touch on her Windows notebook. I'd like to hear what you think. I'm really looking forward to it. I can't tell you how many times I've used World Wide Telescope, DeepZoom, or Live Maps on a portable and wished I could interact with the content in a more natural way.
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Latest Updates to SkyDrive are Live

Posted By: Larry Larsen | May 22nd @ 2:52 PM
The Windows Live SkyDrive team blog gives us the latest on new updates to SkyDrive that launched today. SkyDrive is now available in 24 additional locations, with support for a total of 62 countries. You can now leave comments on any SkyDrive file. You can add captions to photos, there is a click control to quickly move through files in the folder, and the photo previews are larger.
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CSI: NY Fights Crime with Virtual Earth

Posted By: Larry Larsen | May 15th @ 4:20 PM
Mark Brown's Virtual Earth Blog points out that MS has completed the trifecta of crime fighting with an appearance on CSI:NY. The detectives start by zooming in from space, where crime is relatively low, right into a custom 3D model, where evidently crime is somewhat higher. To see it for yourself (as well as some UI elements I hope never make it into Virtual Earth), jump on over to CBS and slide it up to 36:40.
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PCWorld Tells You How To Do Everything Faster

Posted By: Sarah Perez | May 12th @ 2:05 PM

A new article over at PCWorld.com offers up 22 tips on more efficient ways to perform common tech tasks - things like reinstalling Windows, backing up your data, creating a podcast, making a web site, sharing photos, and more. Here are a few sample tips from the article:

Add a Folder to Your Favorites: Drag the beloved folder from Windows Explorer to the Start button, and from there to the Favorites menu. In Windows XP, you also have the option of opening the folder and then clicking Favorites, Add to Favorites from inside the Explorer window.

Fix a Photo's Exposure: Microsoft's Windows Live Photo Gallery app improves on Vista's Photo Gallery program. Select Fix, Adjust Exposure In Windows Live Photo Gallery (which runs in both Vista and XP), and you'll get both Highlights and Shadows sliders and a histogram, as well as the familiar old Brightness and Contrast options.

Read the News: A number of free services can send you RSS feeds over e-mail. My favorite is SendMeRSS.com, which is so easy that you don't even have to register with the site, although doing so will make adding feeds simpler. Just enter the URL for the RSS feed you want, type in your e-mail address, and click Feed. From then on, new items will automatically appear in your inbox.

Email Large Files: My rule of thumb: Never e-mail more than 1MB of content without the express permission of the recipient. As an alternative, try YouSendIt, a brain-dead-simple take on the FTP transfer. The service is free for any file under 100MB, and individual files can be downloaded up to 100 times. You don't even have to sign up and enter a password (though the service offers additional features if you do, and even more if you pay). Just enter both e-mail addresses, point to the file, and click the Send button.

There are eighteen other great tips like those above, so you're sure to discover some tip, idea, or software app to use that you didn't already know about before.

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DeepZooming into (US) Tax Dollars

Posted By: Larry Larsen | May 8th @ 3:25 PM
DeepZoom really shines in showing a large amount of information. To get a sense of this, check out Jess Bachman's Death and Taxes poster. This ginormous infographic shows you where much of the US Federal budget will go in 2009. By using a mouse with a scrollwheel, you can fluidly move in and out of the graphic, digging around through branches and departments of the government.

Jess stopped by recently and told us about how it started, how long it takes to make, his 800-layer Photoshop file, and his Martha Stewart appearance. You can explore the poster in Silverlight here and get the print poster at WallStats.com.
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How to Put Games On Your Zune!

Posted By: Larry Larsen | May 8th @ 10:09 AM
Can't wait to play games on your Zune? Here's what you need to get started. Jump over to ZuneBoards.com and see instructions from a forum member who gives you the step by step guidelines to get started.

They point to two games to get you started, Galactic Wars 3 and Alien Aggressors (if you know of any others, leave them in the comments here.) The first reply in the comments on the ZuneBoards site says "More complicated than I hoped." Keep in mind you're in the land of early adopting here. :)
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Zune 2.5 Spring Update podcast with Q and A - unedited

Posted By: Tina Wood | May 7th @ 1:12 PM
Today is a new day Zuners....you get your spring update 2.5 style at Zune.net. Yesterday we spent the day chatting with the Zune team and tossing them questions about the new update and the future of zune software, hardware, the social and web experience.  This is an unedited podcast and the Zune team was thrown some tough questions and you may be suprised with exactly how they responded. 

What do the guts of a zune look like? 
What about a walk-through ?
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Popfly Game Creator: Meet the Team, Make a Game

Posted By: Larry Larsen | May 2nd @ 1:14 PM
For more on Popfly Game Creator don't miss This Week on Channel 9. Jacqueline Russel, Lead Project Manager for Popfly, talks about Popfly Game Creator and Adam Nathan from the Popfly team goes over building a 2D side scroller.

I played around with it this morning and it's really simple - so if you're not a dev, don't worry about it - give it a try. There is a function to upload pictures to Popfly, but I was referencing photos I uploaded to Skydrive with no problem. Remember, if you use PNGs for your images you can have transparent backgrounds.

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Free Windows Mobile Remote Admin App

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Apr 30th @ 10:43 AM
This is a cool little freeware app for your Windows Mobile phone that will let you connect with your desktop machine to your phone to control it using a window and your keyboard and mouse.  You can also capture the phone screen, drag and drop files to your phone, and connect over IP (although I haven't got that one working yet on my phone.) I can confirm that even the mouse scrollwheel works on phone apps, though it doesn't appear to pass-through video display.

But this is a great little utility for doing lots of text entry on your phone, to see the phone more clearly on your computer (you can view x 200-300%), or to troubleshoot phone problems by remoting into the computer connected to it.

(Thanks, Loke)
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Download Iron Man Demo for Free

Posted By: Sarah Perez | Apr 25th @ 5:44 PM
If you're like a bunch of people I know, you're pretty darned excited for the upcoming Iron Man movie. As you may know, there will also be an accompanying Iron Man video game for Xbox. Both game and movie will arrive on May 2nd, but you can sample the game now, for free, via the demo available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. According to the description on Major Nelson's site, the game lets you: "Immerse yourself in hardcore shooting action and explosive combat from the film as well as exclusive content created just for the game. Customize your Iron Man suit and battle against armies of fighter jets, tanks, armored Super Villains and more. You are a One Man Army. "  (via Xbox 360 Fanboy)
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