SAN FRANCISCO — Nov. 17, 2008 — Today, at a launch event in San Francisco, Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division at Microsoft Corp., was joined by customers and partners to announce the availability of Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft SharePoint Online for businesses of all sizes in the United States. These subscription services offer businesses a new way to purchase, deploy and manage the industry-leading e-mail and calendaring solution, and the industry-leading solution for portals and collaboration.

“Customers are embracing Microsoft’s software and services strategy en masse because of the choice and flexibility it gives them,” Elop said. “Today, we bring business-class communications and collaboration technologies to the cloud, and we are committed to delivering more capabilities in the months ahead. No one has done what we are doing at this scale, and I’m certain that our customers will continue to take on these solutions as our offerings grow.”

Full Article – http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/nov08/11-17ExchangeSharePointOnlinePR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Nov. 17, 2008 — At the RoboDevelopment Conference and Expo in Santa Clara, Calif., Microsoft Corp. today announced the general availability of Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 (Microsoft RDS), the newest version of its robotics programming platform. Microsoft RDS includes a simple programming model to support building asynchronous applications, a set of visual authoring and simulation tools to aid in application development, and tutorials and sample code to help developers get started.

This is Microsoft’s third major release of Microsoft RDS and builds upon its previous versions, which have received support throughout the robotics community, from students to researchers and commercial developers. More than 250,000 copies of Microsoft RDS have been downloaded and more than 60 hardware and software companies support or use the platform as a part of their products.

Full Article – http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/nov08/11-17RoboDevelopmentPR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases

One of the most compelling features of the Windows Home Server is the automated image backup to the network share. However if you find a home server a little too much (or expensive) like I do, then you’d be glad to know Windows 7 will make the job of making “Windows Complete PC Backups” at least half as easy by allowing you to backup straight to a network share.

Whereas in Vista you could only do a complete backup to hard disk or DVDs (with files you could backup to network share), taking it one step further to the network share makes it much easier to do backups especially since you can’t backup to the same drive as the operating system. And I don’t think anyone will juggle 71 DVDs to backup their 500GB hard drive. I guess now’s as good a time as any to buy a NAS device.

If your a student and you haven’t seen Microsoft Dreamspark, your missing out on some great offers. Simply signup, verify your student status, and receive FREE Microsoft software.

http://channel8.msdn.com

Right on the heels of VS 2008 SP1 the VS 2010 CTP is available for download as a Virtual PC 2007 image (so it is HUGE – best to use a tool to download the image).

Check out the new WPF based XML Editor (basically building on top of the new WPF Text Editor) as well as the brand new XML Schema Designer (more of a viewer currently though) which adds to the XML Schema Explorer in Orcas SP1 and add multiple designer views such as a Graph View and a Content Model View to make working with XML Schemas really easy and intuitive.

Here are some screenshots of the improvements that we shipped in this CTP. We would love to hear your feedback about any of these tools.

As you can see from the screenshots below, the process of installing Windows 7 using the interactive Setup application is very similar to that of Windows Vista. There are some differences, however. Windows 7 Setup is even more streamlined than that of Vista, and there are some interesting additions, including a Join a Wireless Network wizard (that occurs only when Setup detects wireless networking hardware) and the Setup Homegroup screen. Note, too, that the PC performance step occurs much more quickly than it does in Vista.

Full Article – http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_m3_install.asp

If you share your PC with many users, some of whom may be messy users with a habit of littering files and changing settings, or you might just be a privacy nut who doesn’t like to leave any traces behind, either way, a new and previously unannounced feature in Windows 7 called “PC Safeguard” might just be what you’re after.

First noticed by the enthusiasts at JCXP.net, “PC Safeguard”, as it is called in the Windows 7 user account settings, prevents specified standard user accounts (cannot be applied to admin accounts) from making permanent and unwanted changes by removing all changes and files saved after the user logs off.

Full Article – http://www.istartedsomething.com/20081104/sandbox-users-with-windows-7-pc-safeguard/

One feature of the Windows 7 user experience that wasn’t demoed or even talked about last week at PDC 2008 is called “Aero Shake” – the same feature that led Rafael on an epic journey to unravel the secrets of build 6801 superbar. What Aero Shake does is allows you to shake your application windows furiously, to quickly minimize all other windows, at the same time experiencing a seizure in your hand.

It’s a pretty cool feature that I can see some practical use for it, but I think they need to work on the sensitivity so users don’t wear out their desk.

Full Article – http://www.istartedsomething.com/20081103/shake-up-your-windows-7-with-aero-shake/

Many of you are in the midst of an IT migration or upgrade planning but do not know with 100% certainty what computers are in your IT environment or what applications have been deployed. The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 3.2 makes it easier for customers and partners like you to quickly identify what servers, workstations, and network devices are in your IT environment. MAP also provides specific and actionable IT proposals and reports to help you get the most value out of Microsoft products and infrastructure.

Full article – http://blogs.technet.com/mapblog/archive/2008/11/03/rtm-news-microsoft-assessment-and-planning-toolkit-3-2-now-available.aspx

Curious as to what else was under Microsoft’s elaborate lock, key, and duct-tape protection scheme mentioned earlier, I had my friend Chris Holmes run a scan of his 7 system, as I’m still babying my laptop’s SSD drive. What we found were ties into system files littered across the entire operating system. Post-analysis revealed another feature tucked away in the corner – Say hello to (what I think should be called) Desktop Slideshow. If your memory is sharp, you’ll remember Long Zheng found mention of this very feature on MSDN first, of which was quickly sanitized by Sinofsky’s secret police.

Full article- http://www.withinwindows.com/2008/11/03/windows-7-to-let-users-create-a-desktop-slideshow-from-files-rss-feeds/

The Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 CTP is now available, featuring Parallel Extensions to .NET! Parallel Extensions has been introduced before, but what sets this CTP apart from the previous two is that it’s not a CTP of Parallel Extensions alone but of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0. And excitingly, the Task Parallel Library, PLINQ, and Coordination Data Structures have made their way deep into the heart of the Framework.

Full article – http://blogs.msdn.com/pfxteam/archive/2008/10/31/9026988.aspx

I’ve gotten the chance to play around with the Windows 7 pre-beta build and I feel like a kid in a candy store. There are many new features that I personally am excited about that I hope to blog about over time. To kick things off I wanted to discuss the several new features in Windows 7 that make managing and sharing your files on your home network a much easier experience than ever before. Using Windows 7’s Libraries along with its HomeGroup network sharing feature, I was able to share content with other PC users on my home network. I’m going to go into detail on my experience with Libraries and setting up a HomeGroup on my network with Windows 7 to illustrate these new features for you. And believe it or not… it all starts with the relatively minor changes made to the naming of folders within User Profiles in Windows 7.

Full Article – http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowsexperience/archive/2008/10/28/how-libraries-amp-homegroup-work-together-in-windows-7.aspx

I’ve gotten the chance to play around with the Windows 7 pre-beta build and I feel like a kid in a candy store. There are many new features that I personally am excited about that I hope to blog about over time. To kick things off I wanted to discuss the several new features in Windows 7 that make managing and sharing your files on your home network a much easier experience than ever before. Using Windows 7’s Libraries along with its HomeGroup network sharing feature, I was able to share content with other PC users on my home network. I’m going to go into detail on my experience with Libraries and setting up a HomeGroup on my network with Windows 7 to illustrate these new features for you. And believe it or not… it all starts with the relatively minor changes made to the naming of folders within User Profiles in Windows 7.

Full Article – http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowsexperience/archive/2008/10/28/how-libraries-amp-homegroup-work-together-in-windows-7.aspx

On Tuesday, Microsoft will unveil details about its next office productivity offering, Office 14. Among other things, the Office 14 wave of products will include the oft-rumored Web versions of certain Office applications, giving customers a way to both view and edit rich Office documents in the Web. For this first version of Office Web Applications–which may or may not be the final name–Microsoft is providing Web-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

Full Article – http://www.winsupersite.com/office/office14_web_preview.asp

LOS ANGELES–After years of questioning the value of Net-based productivity applications, Microsoft confirmed Tuesday that it will offer new versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint that can run from within a standard Web browser.

As first reported by CNET News last week, Microsoft will use its Professional Developer Conference here to show off browser-based versions of its Office programs.

In an interview, Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop said that the browser-based editing capabilities are being developed in conjunction with the next version of Office, known as Office 14. Microsoft won’t say when that version will arrive, but Elop said that a technology preview of the browser-based products will come later this year and that a beta version will be released in 2009.

Full Article – http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10076883-75.html?tag=mncol;posts