Entries tagged with downloads - Channel 10

Microsoft Web Platform Launched

sarahintampa — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:42:00 GMT

The Microsoft Web Platform has just been launched and is available for download now from www.microsoft.com/web – the same site we recently featured here not too long ago. In addition to articles about web development and design, the website now also features a “Downloads” section, which is where you can find the Microsoft Web Platform download.

So what is the Microsoft Web Platform? Basically, it’s a bundled download of all the Microsoft developer technologies from the .NET Framework 3.5 to ASP.NET to Silverlight and more. It provides a single package for installing and configuring Microsoft's entire Web Platform, which includes IIS7, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and, of course, the .NET Framework.

The bundle has two main parts to it: 1) the Microsoft Web Platform Installer (WebPI), and 2) the Microsoft Web Application Installer (WebAI). The “Web Platform Installer” is a download manager that simplifies the download and installation process for the Microsoft technologies. However, it’s the “Web Application Installer” which is especially interesting. This piece of the WPI is a gallery that manages the setup, configuration, and acquisition of a number of technologies that run on top of Windows. This includes applications like popular ASP.NET and PHP web apps and even includes some that are open source. Some of the apps you're able to install with this platform are DotNetNuke, Drupal, Gallery, Graffiti, osCommerce, PHPBB, and Wordpress.

The Web Platform Installer Tool will also help developers by providing hands-on guidance to developers who are building cloud applications with these tools. The download is free and runs on Vista and Server 2008.

Making Engaging Digital Presentations With Freepath

sarahintampa — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:42:00 GMT

Freepath 2.0 is a new application that lets you create presentations that are mashups of web content and content from your PC. So, instead of a traditional PowerPoint, for example, your Freepath presentation could combine a PowerPoint file with images, videos, music, PDFs, Word, and Excel documents and play them as a seamless digital presentation. You can integrate web content like YouTube videos, slideshow’s from slide.com, music from Pandora, images from flickr or photobucket, and more alongside files saved on your PC like those from Office documents, PDFs, Quicktime videos, or Flash files.

The Freepath 2.0 software offers three different viewing modes: a preview mode which shows you digital assets on the right but also makes the playlist and playlist library accessible, a full screen mode (like what PowerPoint offers), and a dual screen mode which shows the presentation both on your screen and that of an external monitor. This dual monitor mode is also compatible with WebEx, GoToMeeting, Live Meeting, and Intercall.

If you’re more comfortable creating presentations in PowerPoint and are hesitant to try a new tool like this, you can actually prepare your slides in PowerPoint itself and then drag them into FreePath’s downloadable software to take advantage of the other tools that it provides.

When complete, your presentations can be shared with the Freepath community on myFreepath.com, which is similar to how Slideshare operates. All beta users receive 100 MB of free storage space in this community.

Essential Downloads for Vista

sarahintampa — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:41:00 GMT

The MakeUseOf blog has recently put up a nice article listing the essential downloads for Windows Vista. These are the things which they think everyone should go and download after purchasing a new Vista computer or upgrading to Vista for the first time. It’s a great list and it includes many of the items we’ve mentioned here on Channel 10. I highly recommend checking out their article for more detailed explanations and more links to resources; but to sum up, they recommend the following:

Windows Live – the Windows Live Suite upgrades Vista’s built-in programs like Photo Gallery and Mail to give you the newer versions – Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Mail. It also included Windows Live Writer, Live Messenger, and Family Safety. You can pick and choose which of these you want after downloading the installer.
Vista Codec Pack – lets you play nearly any video or audio file you come across.
Windows Search 4.0 – upgrades Vista’s built-in search with the latest version for faster and more accurate results.
Windows Steady State – Lets you easily restore your computer back to its same condition before someone (like your kids) mucked around with it.
5 recommended add-ons for IE7 – this page has five of the best add-ons to enhance Internet Explorer.
Windows Gallery – the Windows Gallery itself isn’t a download, but is where you can find tons of downloads for your desktop and sidebar.

Olympics Are Coming To Media Center

sarahintampa — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:16:00 GMT

The 2008 Beijing Olympics are nearly here and along with the Silverlight-powered NBCOlympics website, the Microsoft/NBC partnership will also bring us video from the Olympic Games right to our Media Center PCs. These videos will be made available as clips on Vista Media Center and organized into channels based on event (e.g. swimming, gymnastics, track & field, etc.) The service, called "Olympics On the Go," won't be offering live coverage, but will be providing "up-to-HD quality" automatic downloads with help from digital content provider, Wavexpress's TVTonic. Because the content is downloaded instead of streamed, the footage can be watched whether you're online or not. And since Media Center extenders like the Xbox 360 let you view content on other devices besides a PC, you can watch the Olympics events you want to see from any room in your home. Best of all, this service will be completely free!

Impulse Brings Software and Games Straight to the Desktop

sarahintampa — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:17:00 GMT

Stardock, the company behind Windows skinning software like WindowBlinds and Object Desktop, have just released a new product called Impulse. This new tool is a platform for digital distribution that lets you quickly and easily download games and other software to your PC’s desktop. Via Impulse, you can get access to all sorts of games from casual games to first-person shooters to RPGs to puzzles and a lot more. In addition to the games, Impulse can also distribute the company’s other popular products like like WindowBlinds, ObjectDock, CursorFX, TweakVista, DeskScapes, SkinStudio, MyColors, as well as 3rd party software like AVG anti-virus or Corel Office. Impulse is a free download, but the programs themselves are not.

Office Live Add-In Updated

sarahintampa — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:34:00 GMT

If you've been using the Office Live Workspace (Beta) which allows you to save and share your Office documents from an online collaborative workspace on the web, then you probably also installed the Office Live Add-in which gave you access to open and save files to or from the workspace right from within your Office program. Now, that add-in has been updated and re-branded as Office Live Update. With this new version, there are also several improvements including 1) performance updates which make using it faster, 2) direct access to your workspaces from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and 3) a Multiple Document Upload Tool, which lets you drag and drop files directly from your desktop.

Office Labs is Live

sarahintampa — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:58:00 GMT

A new web site called Office Labs has just gone live. Here, you will find all sorts of projects, prototypes, proof-of-concepts, downloads, and more, all of which are centered around productivity. The site features tools for the Microsoft Office system and SharePoint, too. To get the launch started with a bang, Office Labs is already offering a bunch of cool projects you'll want to check out, including the following:

Community Clips - Community Clips is a place where you can find "how to" videos made by other users like yourself; you can also easily create your own.
Search Commands - This is quite possibly the hottest of the current Office Labs offerings, considering how strong user demand was for just this sort of tool. Search Commands is an experiment designed to see if search is an effective way for you to find commands in complex software applications. You can download the Search Commands add-in into your Microsoft Office 2007 installation and begin using it today to help you find the command you need.
InkSeine - A tool for Tablet PC users, InkSeine offers an innovative new interface for pen input
Task Market - This is an online marketplace that can help you find freelancers skilled in graphic design, writing, editing, translation, and more.
SharePointPedia - SharePointPedia is social community application that can help you find useful info about SharePoint technologies, tools, tips and tricks.

To stay up-to-date on all the latest news from Office Labs, you can follow the new Office Labs blog, available here.

Great new games coming your way from XBOX Live arcade

Laura — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:55:00 GMT

You may not have heard of them, but Chair Entertainment has been bringing you great games for years now. Perhaps you've played Undertow on XBOX Live arcade? If not, you should- especially since it was just named XBLA Game of the Year by Official Xbox Magazine. And there's more good news! The expansion pack, "Path of the Elect" was just released. The BIG NEWS though, is about Chair Entertainment's next big thing: Empire. They decided to kick off their franchise by commissioning a book, Empire, written by Orson Scott Card. If you're not convinced yet that Chair is a company that should be on your radar, then watch this clip to learn about them also acquiring the interactive rights to Orson Scott Card's : Enders Game. And a few other juicy surprises as well.....

Microsoft's BitTorrent?

sarahintampa — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 17:10:00 GMT

Recently, Microsoft released a new downloading technology that sounds very similar to bittorrent. The technology, called Microsoft Secure Content Downloader (MSCD), is touted as “a peer-assisted download manager” that's capable of securely downloading specific files. MSCD is intended for consumers who are downloading from a home PC or business users whose computers are not behind a corporate firewall. The main feature of the technology is its peer-assisted nature. Each client downloads content by exchanging parts of the file they're interested in with other clients, in addition to downloading parts from a content server. This makes MSCD sound like a hybrid of peer-to-peer and server-based downloading, which would allow for greater performance without having to worry whether or not enough people are currently sharing the file you need.

Another feature of this new technology is the secure content description, meaning that it ensures that the content you download is exactly what the publisher created. MSCD is currently a Community Technology Preview, and will only allow you to obtain Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2. A Community Technology Preview means that information related to MSCD’s performance and network transactions, including your machine name and IP addresses, may be logged to help evaluate and improve MSCD performance.