Kindle Techniques

Microsoft to end support to Windows XP from April 8 in India, ATMs running on XP OS yet to upgrade

2014-03-24T02:30:00.000-07:00

Several financial services firms are now considering migrating their fleets of ATMs from Windows XP to the open operating system Linux. They think that doing so would give them better grasp over their own software and hardware cycles.
Even today, 95% of all ATMs around the world runs on Windows XP OS. Windows XP is three generations behind the latest operating system Windows 8 that was launched in October 2012.
"The numbers of ATMs left on Windows XP are higher than PCs as a percentage. Many more ATMs, probably higher than the 35 per cent computers in banks and financial institutions that are still to be upgraded and these (ATMs) are not included in those 4 million computers," Microsoft India GM (Windows business) Amrish Goyal told PTI.

Some ATM operators have already moved to Windows 7 and some are in the process of migration. But a significant number of those financial services firms are also considering taking Linux as an alternative or replacement.
Indian Banks Association (IBA) chief executive MV Tanksale, however, said only old ATMs may face some problem as all the newer machines run on newer platforms.
Tanksale said he does not have the data of such machines which are still running on Windows XP.

Apart from being a threat, this is an opportunity for the ATM equipment industry, given the need to replace so many legacy ATMs. A new ATM costs upwards of $3,000, or approximately Rs 1.8 lakh. Banks and ATM vendors may also explore rental models rather than outright sales.

UFO enthusiasts admit the truth may not be out there after all

2012-11-07T20:46:00.003-08:00

Declining numbers of “flying saucer” sightings and failure to establish proof of alien existence has led UFO enthusiasts to admit they might not exist after all.

Dozens of groups interested in unidentified flying objects
have closed due to lack of interest Photo: ALAMY

For decades, they have been scanning the skies for signs of alien activity.

But having failed to establish any evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life, Britain’s UFO watchers are reaching the conclusion that the truth might not be out there after all.

Enthusiasts admit that a continued failure to provide proof and a decline in the number of “flying saucer” sightings suggests that aliens do not exist after all and could mean the end of “Ufology” – the study of UFOs – within the next decade.

Dozens of groups interested in the flying saucers and other unidentified craft have already closed because of lack of interest and next week one of the country’s foremost organisations involved in UFO research is holding a conference to discuss whether the subject has any future.

Dave Wood, chairman of the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (Assap), said the meeting had been called to address the crisis in the subject and see if UFOs were a thing of the past.

“It is certainly a possibility that in ten years time, it will be a dead subject,” he added.

“We look at these things on the balance of probabilities and this area of study has been ongoing for many decades.

“The lack of compelling evidence beyond the pure anecdotal suggests that on the balance of probabilities that nothing is out there.

“I think that any UFO researcher would tell you that 98 per cent of sightings that happen are very easily explainable. One of the conclusions to draw from that is that perhaps there isn’t anything there. The days of compelling eyewitness sightings seem to be over.”

He said that far from leading to an increase in UFO sightings and research, the advent of the internet had coincided with a decline.

Assap’s UFO cases have dropped by 96 per cent since 1988, while the number of other groups involved in UFO research has fallen from well over 100 in the 1990s to around 30 now.

Among those to have closed are the British Flying Saucer Bureau, the Northern UFO Network, and the Northern Anomalies Research Organisation.

As well as a fall in sightings and lack of proof, Mr Wood said the lack of new developments meant that the main focus for the dwindling numbers of enthusiasts was supposed UFO encounters that took place several decades ago and conspiracy theories that surround them.

In particular, he cited the Roswell incident, in 1947 when an alien spaceship is said to have crashed in New Mexico, and the Rendlesham incident in 1980, often described as the British equivalent, when airmen from a US airbase in Suffolk reported a spaceship landing.

Mr Wood added: “When you go to UFO conferences it is mainly people going over these old cases, rather than bringing new ones to the fore.

“There is a trend where a large proportion of UFO studies are tending towards conspiracy theories, which I don’t think is particularly helpful.”

The issue is to be debated at a summit at the University of Worcester on November 17 and the conclusions reported in the next edition of the association’s journal, Anomaly.

The organisation, which describes itself as an education and research charity, was established in 1981. Its first president was Michael Bentine, the comedian and member of the Goons.

It contains both sceptics and believers in UFOs and has been involved in several notable sightings and theories over the years.

Its current president Lionel Fanthorpe has claimed in its journal that King Arthur was an alien who came to Earth to save humans from invading extraterrestrials.

The summit follows the emergence earlier this year of the news that the Ministry of Defence was no longer investigating UFO sightings after ruling there is “no evidence” they pose a threat to the UK.

David Clark, a Sheffield Hallam University academic and the UFO adviser to the National Archives, said: “The subject is dead in that no one is seeing anything

evidential.

“Look at all the people who now have personal cameras. If there was something flying around that was a structured object from somewhere else, you would have thought that someone would have come up with some convincing footage by now – but they haven’t.

“The reason why nothing is going on is because of the internet. If something happens now, the internet is there to help people get to the bottom of it and find an explanation.

“Before then, you had to send letters to people, who wouldn’t respond and you got this element of mystery and secrecy that means things were not explained.

“The classic cases like Roswell and Rendlesham are only classic cases because they were not investigated properly at the time.”

But Nick Pope, who ran the MoD’s UFO desk from 1991 to 1994 and now researches UFO sightings privately, said there was a future for the subject: “There’s a quantity versus quality issue here.

“So many UFO sightings these days are attributable to Chinese lanterns that more interesting sightings are sometimes overlooked.

“The same is true with photos and videos. There are so many fakes on YouTube and elsewhere, it would be easy to dismiss the whole subject out of hand.

“The danger is that we throw out the baby with the bathwater. And as I used to say at the MoD, the believers only have to be right once.”

Bram Stoker books the subject of latest Google doodle

2012-11-07T20:42:00.000-08:00

Bram Stoker's 165th birthday is being marked by a Google doodle.

Bram Stoker, born Abraham Stoker, was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 novel Dracula.

Stoker wrote his first novel, The Primrose Path, in 1875. It appeared in five issues of The Shamrock (Dublin) with the first instalment appearing on February 6, 1875 and the last on March 6, 1875. The novel was accompanied by five unsigned illustrations that depicted scenes from the story.

His second novel was The Snake's Pass, published in 1890. It centred on the troubled romance between an English tourist and a local Irish peasant. The Snake's Pass was set in his native Ireland - his only novel to do so. Bram Stoker wrote two more books (The Watter's Mou' and The Shoulder of Shasta) before writing the book he's best remembered for even today.

Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent considerable time researching European folklore and mythological stories of vampires. Dracula was an epistolary novel, written as a collection of realistic, but completely fictional, diary entries, telegrams, letters, ship's logs, and newspaper clippings, all of which added a level of detailed realism to the story, a skill Stoker developed as a newspaper writer.

The response to Dracula at the time was rather average - it wasn't until after Stoker's death that the novel became very popular.

Bram Stoker wrote seven other novels after Dracula, but none that became as popular.

Stoker died on 20 April 1912 at age 64 in London, England

Cheapest Asus tablet with Jelly Bean coming in Jan

2012-11-07T20:39:00.000-08:00

Asus had yesterday launched Vivo Tab RT & a notebook-tablet hybrid 'Taichi', running on Windows RT OS in India.

Asus will make its entry into the affordable tablet segment by launching a 7 inch tablet in India in next two months.

Alex Huang, managing director, system business group, Asus India said to The Mobile Indian, "Asus will launch a sub Rs 15,000 Android Jelly Bean based 7 inch tablet for India in January."

He further added, "Till now we didn't have a tablet catering to the entry level buyers in the country, which is quite a huge market, but with the launch of 7 inch tab in January, Asus will address this issue."

Asus had yesterday launched Vivo Tab RT and a notebook-tablet hybrid, called Taichi, running on Windows RT operating system in India.

Vivo Tab RT has been priced at Rs 61,999 while Taichi has a price tag of Rs 1,39,999. Both the devices will be available in the market from December onwards.

The Asus Vivo Tab RT features a 10.1 inch Super IPS+ panel with 178 degree viewing angle. Asus has packed a quad core Nvidia Tegra 3 mobile processor for ultra fast performance. This tablet also comes with an optional keyboard dock with a built-in battery to provide extended battery life to the tablet but its price is not yet known extra.

Besides, the tablet has 64 GB of storage space, 8 megapixel autofocus rear camera with LED flash, 2 megapixel front camera, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and quad-speakers with SonicMaster audio technology.

On the other hand, Asus Taichi comes with Windows 8 operating system along with Intel i7 processor. It actually comes with two sided displays with a keyboard. When the lid is closed, it works like a tablet with its upper display and when opened, it acts like a notebook with its lower display and keyboard.

Both the displays are of 11.6 inch with 10 fingers touch support. This 1.25 kg weighing device has also WiFi, Bluetooth, HDMI port, 2 USB port, and one mini VGA port. This tablet of this hybrid device has also a 5 megapixel autofocus camera while the netbook part sports a HD camera.

People love talking about the election on Facebook

2012-11-07T20:35:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama posted this image on his Facebook page Tuesday night.
(CNN) -- Facebook, where people love to discuss politics and complain about other people discussing politics, saw a huge surge in Election Day chatter on Tuesday.

In a stunning nod to the power of social media in this election, Obama's first public acknowledgment of victory was a post shared on Twitter and Facebook. It read "Four more years" and included a photo of Barack and Michelle Obama hugging.

That single post was the most retweeted in the history of Twitter (more than 700,000 times), and on Facebook it raked in an astounding 3.5 million likes and almost 500,000 people shared it on their own Timelines.

Over the course of the day, there were more than 71.7 million election related posts and comments on Facebook in the United States and 88.7 million around the world.

According to Facebook's internal Talk Meter, which measures how much buzz events get on the network, the election was the most talked about event in 2012. It was especially popular among 25- to 34-year-olds and in D.C., Mississippi and Virginia. It was also a huge topic internationally. Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia were the top countries posting about the election.

Obama was mentioned 10 million times on Facebook during Election Day. In just one hour, from 11 p.m. to 12 a.m., he was mentioned 4.1 million times on Facebook -- more than Romney's 4 million total for the entire day.

Not everyone appreciates having political posts fill their Facebook feed. Heightened emotions have let to angry fights in comment threads, interfamily drama and unfriendings. The negativity has even caused some to declare they are leaving the social network for a while.

Quitting Facebook isn't the only way to cut out the politics. You also can install tools that remove political posts automatically, such as the browser extensions Social Fixer or Noppl. Unpolitic.me will not only block the offending posts, it will replace them with the ultimate bipartisian animal, cats.

Top Election Day terms on Facebook:

1. Obama

2. Vote / Voted

3. Romney

4. Election

5. President

6. Country

7. Win / Wins

8. Line

9. Four More Years / 4 More Years

10. Ohio

In Web Search, Be Efficient in the Terms You Use

2012-10-25T21:55:00.003-07:00

By this point in the Internet era, everyone should know how to find information on the Web with a search engine like Google or Bing.

Easy, right? Just type what you are looking for in the little box.

There are even easier ways. Google and Bing have built right into their search boxes tools like calculators, currency converters and dictionaries. They developed a host of tricks you can use to slice through clutter to reach the information you need. In some cases the results appear right away; you don’t need to touch the enter key. Many of the shortcuts work with the Web browsers on smartphones and tablets.

“We really try to make Bing a place where you can go to get stuff done in the real world,” said Stefan Weitz, senior director of Bing, Microsoft’s search engine and chief rival to Google. “People expect search now to actually do a better job connecting them to the ultimate destination.” If you need any additional help, Google also offers online tutorials.

TRAVEL TOOLS A fast way to find driving directions with Google is to type your query directly in the search box, using the following format: from 1380 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA to 815 Boylston Street, Boston. The result is a map along with driving distance, trip time and a link to directions.

If you are planning air travel, you can track fares and be directed to sites for ticket purchases. In the Google search box, type airport codes in the following way: BOS to ABQ. An initial listing of flights appears, along with drop-down calendars to select departure and return dates.

If you click on the “Flights from Boston to Albuquerque” link, you arrive at a more extensive tool for finding flight information, including a lowest fares calculator, available by clicking the small graph-shaped button, or an interactive map, by clicking the balloon button, where you can choose among different departure or destination cities.

Bing’s tool for air travel can be found using the same format of entering airport codes in the search box, and when you drill down further you have choices of buying tickets through sources like Travelocity, Priceline and Expedia.

With either Bing or Google, you can quickly check flight status using the following format: Delta flight status 1512.

Also useful for travelers are language translation tools. In either Bing or Google, use the following format: translate coffee to Turkish. The result, kahve, appears, and if you click the first link you can find tools for translating words into dozens of languages.

Converting currencies is also available by using the following format in either search engine: 100 U.S. dollars in Indian rupees.

In both search engines, to book reservations at restaurants, the search results for a restaurant in a major city will often include a link to OpenTable, a provider of restaurant reservations. (You may need to add a ZIP code or a city name for common names.) The right-hand column might also have other information like reviews and maps.

SOCIAL NETWORKS Both Google and Microsoft have been trying to figure out how best to interact with the trove of information locked away in social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Microsoft has entered into partnerships with Facebook and others allowing Bing users to connect with people who may know something about their search query. You can log into a Facebook account from the Bing home page, and while you search in Bing, a sidebar appears along the right side of the results page that may display Facebook friends who have some relationship to your search.

If your query is “Mexican restaurants in San Antonio,” and you hover over the image of a friend, you may see a Facebook comment or photo of their favorite place for good mole.

Google has its own social networking service, Google Plus, which enables users to share their favorite search results with friends also on the service.

SPECIALIZED SEARCHES Much has changed since the early days of search engines, and given the vastness of data now available online, knowing a few simple yet powerful shortcuts can pinpoint information more relevant to your search.

You can dig through the Web for specific kinds of files, for example PowerPoint files related to the Affordable Care Act. In Google use the format filetype:ppt the affordable care act. (The ppt part of the query is the extension for PowerPoint files.) Other popular extensions are docx, xlsx and pdf, for Word, Excel and PDF files. Bing flips the search format — type the affordable care act filetype:ppt.

Another very useful way to dig for information is to use the prefix site: to search within a site. For example, type site:washingtonpost.com Mitt Romney to get links to articles, blog posts and other references to Mitt Romney that appeared in The Washington Post. Bing reverses the format — type Mitt Romney site:washingtonpost.com.

To save time, in some instances you can preview information in search results. To preview videos without having to click on them, in the results page of Bing hover over the image of a video and in many cases it will play. And in Google you can see previews of Web pages by moving the cursor to the right of a search result and hovering over a small image of double arrows.

FINDING FACTS If you need a calculator, both Google and Bing can calculate some pretty fancy math queries by entering them in the search box, but Google goes further. Type 4 * 24 in Google and the answer appears as you finish typing, and below that emerges an in-browser calculator with scientific functions. You can also turn Google’s search box into a trigonometric graphing calculator; type, for example, cos(x) + cos(y) and a rotating three-dimensional graph is displayed. From there you can size the graph or grab it to view it from different angles.

Converting measurements is easy using the following format in either search engine: pints in a gallon; centimeters in a foot.

Stock prices are available in either Google or Bing by entering a stock symbol — followed by “stock” if there is any ambiguity. For example aapl stock or sbux stock, pulls up prices of Apple or Starbucks. In Google, using a company name works: Whole Foods stock.

Dictionaries are available as well by using the following format: define perspicacity.

Weather forecasts are quickly at hand by entering a ZIP code or city name, in either Google or Bing, as in weather Denver.

Likewise, to find movies playing in your area, all you need is your ZIP code: movies 10018. (Type in an actor or director followed by the word movies to see what else he or she did.)

But, if you are looking for someone to take out to a movie and impress with all your newfound knowledge, there is no search algorithm just yet. For that, you are still on your own.

Mayer Strikes First Deal at Yahoo With Acquisition of Stamped

2012-10-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

Marissa Mayer, chief of Yahoo.

Marissa Mayer promised earlier this week that Yahoo‘s deal-making was likely to revolve around smaller add-on acquisitions. On Thursday, she proved that she meant what she said.

The Internet company announced that it had purchased Stamped, a start-up focused on mobile products, for an undisclosed amount. The deal amounts to an “acqui-hire,” Silicon Valley’s term for buying a start-up for its talent.

The Stamped deal fits into two major initiatives that Ms. Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive, mentioned on the company’s earnings call on Monday. One was a focus on smaller deals, none of which were likely to be blockbuster size.

“Many acquisitions and most acquisitions, a vast majority, are less than $100 million,” she told analysts on the call. “And so we’re looking for smaller-scale acquisitions that align well overall with our businesses.”

The other is a race to build up Yahoo’s mobile offerings, an area that she described as lacking at the company.

“While we’ve made progress, Yahoo hasn’t capitalized on the mobile opportunity,” she said. “We haven’t effectively optimized our Web sites, we’ve underinvested in our mobile front-end development and we’ve splintered our brands.”

Buying Stamped is intended to help address those issues. The company produced an app that centered on recommendations of restaurants, music and other entertainment by users. Its investors included Bain capital Ventures and Google Ventures, and its advisers included Mario Batali and the Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom.

“Their experience building fun, useful, personalized mobile products aligns well with Yahoo!’s vision to create the best everyday mobile experience for our users,” Adam Cahan, a Yahoo senior vice president of emerging products and technology, wrote ina blog post on Thursday. “They will be a great asset as we expand Yahoo’s mobile efforts and build a world-class mobile development organization.”

For its part, Stamped’s team — composed in large part of former employees ofGoogle, like Ms. Mayer — wrote in their own blog post: “As entrepreneurs, it’s never easy to walk away from something you built from the ground up, but the folks we met with at Yahoo! are simply top-notch and we’re thrilled to be joining them!”

Apple Store down ahead of iPad Mini midnight preorders

2012-10-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

Apple's online marketplace is offline, presumably as it retools to prep for consumers ordering the smaller version of its iPad tablet.

With three hours to go before the iPad Mini officially goes on sale, Apple's online store is down.

In what has become standard operating procedure for Apple before a new release, the online marketplace has gone offline, replaced with the familiar message that assures shoppers that the store will "be back" soon.

The message appears in anticipation of the iPad Mini -- 7.9-inch version of the 10-inch iPadtablet -- going on sale at midnight Pacific time. The device, which was unveiled yesterday at an event in San Jose, Calif., is expected to ship to consumers on November 2.

The iPad Mini comes in six pricing configurations. In addition to the 16GB tablet with Wi-Fi at $329, the 32GB tablet with Wi-Fi is $429, and the 64BG version is $529. For devices with Wi-Fi and 4G cellular connections, the 16GB tablet is $459, the 32GB is $559, and the 64GB is $659. These devices are shipping two weeks after their Wi-Fi-only counterparts.

Microsoft launches Windows 8 in India; upgrade for Rs 1,999

2012-10-25T21:42:00.001-07:00

New Delhi: Microsoft has announced the availability of its Windows 8 operating system for its customers in India and around the world. Starting Friday, October 26, consumers worldwide will have access to the latest Microsoft OS on a wide range of Windows 8 PCs, ultrabooks, tablets and hybrid devices.

Windows 8 PCs and tablets will be available in India from 14 manufacturers – Acer, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu, HCL, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Lenovo, RP Infosystems, Sai Info System, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, Wipro and Zenith Computers. In India, over 250 Windows 8 enabled devices, including 23 completely new SKUs of Windows 8 PCs will be available across 100 cities and more than 2500 retail stores.

Besides new Windows 8 devices, consumers can also upgrade their existing PCs to Windows 8. Those who have bought Windows 7 PCs running Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 since June 2, 2012 can buy Windows 8 Pro for Rs 699. The offer applies to Windows 7 PCs sold until January 31, and the upgrade must be claimed by February 28. To claim the offer, register the machine at https://windowsupgradeoffer.com . You'll get an email with a promo code, which you can use to get the Windows 8 upgrade online.

Microsoft released its latest operating system Windows 8 in what is the biggest ever overhaul of the operating system. Here's a trip into what Windows 8 looks like.

But, those consumers, who bought Windows PCs before June 2, are qualified to download Windows 8 Pro for an estimated retail price of Rs 1,999. Those who prefer buying a DVD to upgrade will have to pay Rs 3,499.

Windows 8 will be available in two versions at retail - Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro. And for business customers, Windows 8 Enterprise offers new features like Windows To Go, DirectAccess, and BranchCache, as well as enhanced end-to-end security with features including BitLocker and AppLocker.

Also, the company launched Windows RT for ARM based tablets, which will be available pre-installed on new devices. With the windows 8 launch, the Windows Store is now open for consumers to download apps. In India, a range of free and paid apps that can be downloaded include Bharat Matrimony, BigFlix, BookMyShow, Bookyourtable, Burrp, Dhingana, Fastrack Tees, Flyte MP3, Gaana, Goibibo, ICICI Bank iMobile, ICICIDirect, JustEat, MakeMyTrip Explore, MapmyIndia, my airtel, PVR Cinemas, Tarla Dalal, Yahoo Cricket and Zovi.

Windows 8 comes with a new start screen that shows live colorful tiles that update in real time. Windows 8 is natively cloud-connected so you can access your data on any other Windows 8 PC. Microsoft says Windows 8 to be seamlessly synced across multiple devices. Windows 8 also comes with a new browser - Internet Explorer 10.

Asked about the launch of Microsoft's Surface tablet in India, Amrish Goyal, director, Windows Business Group, said, "The Surface tablet will be initially launched in eight countries and India is one of them," adding "we will launch it soon." However, he refused to share any rollout plans.

The company has not yet announced the phone version i.e., Windows Phone 8. Microsoft has an event on it Monday and may announce more details then. Nokia, HTC and Samsung have already unveiled their Windows phone 8 handsets.

Windows 8 hit the market today

2012-10-25T21:33:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK — Microsoft will be releasing its own tablet computer for the first time when the new version of Windows comes out today, as the software company tries to challenge Apple Inc. and its dominant iPad.

Because the initial version of Surface will run Windows RT, a modified version of Windows 8, which was unveiled Thursday, Surface won't run standard Windows programs; it will run only apps designed for it and obtained through Microsoft's new online store.

The device will start at $499, the same as the most recent, full-size iPads. The display is 10.6 inches diagonally, slightly larger than the iPad's.

The Surface goes on sale today, though Microsoft was set to sell it at its store in New York's Times Square late Thursday.

In San Antonio, consumers can go to the pop-up Microsoft kiosk at North Star Mall. The earliest shipment for new online orders is now one to two weeks away.

A Surface with Windows 8 Pro and the ability to run regular Windows programs will come a few months later. Microsoft hasn't disclosed the price.

Panos Panay, general manager of the Surface team, demonstrated watching movies and listening to music on the Surface itself, as well as streamed to a nearby Xbox.

The Surface has a kickstand, and its back camera is angled so it shoots straight out, not toward the table, allowing users to take notes and record video at the same time.

Thursday's launch event also marked the debut of Windows 8, a radical redesign that introduces a touch-enabled interface that attempts to bridge the gap between personal computers and mobile devices.

“What you have seen and heard should leave no doubt that Windows 8 will shatter the perceptions about what a PC really is,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer crowed at a New York launching event.

Another version of Windows 8 will be released next week for smartphones, which overwhelmingly are dominated by Apple Inc. and Google Inc.'s Android software.

“This is the biggest gamble they've ever made,” said analyst Richard Doherty of the Envisioneering Group. “Does (Windows 8) do more things? Yes ... but it's not that easy to use.”

Apple set to unwrap mini-iPad to take on Amazon, Google

2012-10-23T06:59:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO: Apple Inc is expected to make its biggest product move on Tuesday since debuting the iPad two years ago, launching a smaller, cheaper tablet into a market staked out by Amazon.com Inc and Google Inc.

Apple hopes to beat back their charge onto its home turf of consumer electronics hardware, while safeguarding its lead in the larger 10-inch tablet space that even deep-pocketed rivals like Samsung Electronics have found tough to penetrate.

Amazon's Kindle and Google's Nexus 7 have grabbed a chunk of the lower end of the tablet market and proved demand for a pocket-sized slate exists, helping force Apple into a space it has avoided and at times derided, analysts say.

Apple's invitation-only event, where it is expected to unveil the tablet, gets

underway at 10 am PT (1700 GMT) in San Jose.

Check out the Apple iPhone 5 page

A smaller tablet would mark the first device to be added to Apple's compact portfolio under Chief Executive Tim Cook, who took over from co-founder Steve Jobs just before his death.

"Apple sensed early that they had a real winner with the iPad and that has proven to be correct," said Lars Albright, co-founder of mobile advertising startup SessionM and a former Apple ad executive. "They have a large market share, and to protect that market share they have got to be innovative," he said.

Wall Street analysts have said for months that Apple was planning a less expensive version of the iPad to take on cheaper competing devices, a move they say might hurt its margins, but prevent its rivals from dominating an increasingly important segment.

The chief rival is Amazon, which proved a 7-inch tablet at around $200 has consumer appeal. The Kindle Fire, released last year for $199, was one of the hottest-selling holiday gadgets. It pressured Amazon's margins but gave it potentially millions of new high-spending customers.

Amazon sold more than a million Kindles a week during December, paving the way for others like Google with its Nexus 7 to try and beat Apple in a market the company created. The Internet retailer has now put its second-generation Kindle Fire HD in the market, which it says is the "best-selling product across all of Amazon worldwide", based on undisclosed USsales figures and international preorders.

Google's Nexus 7 tablet, built by Asian manufacturer Asustek, quickly ran out of stock after its July launch.

SharePoint 2010: Brand your SharePoint sites

2012-10-22T02:20:00.000-07:00

SharePoint 2010 comes with sufficient branding features to help you apply your corporate branding standards to any type of SharePoint site.

Steve Wright and Corey Erkes

Adapted from “Pro SharePoint 2010 Governance” (Apress, 2012)

Before starting a branding initiative with a new SharePoint environment, it’s important to understand the needs of the business and its requirements around branding. As with any other project, gathering and analyzing requirements is essential.

It’s important to involve stakeholders up front in the process, especially those who could potentially influence the project in the later stages. This will decrease the chance for those painful, costly changes late in the game that can cause larger issues.

Most companies have branding standards. These typically consist of guidelines on the colors, fonts and logos the company uses. Obtain these guidelines as early in the process as possible. Not following them from the start could require some rework down the road.

A common approach to determining branding needs is to create a wireframe of the homepage, and any supporting page within the environment that doesn’t follow a typical SharePoint layout page. The goal of these exercises is to determine what level of SharePoint branding is needed. Determining these needs up front might save lots of unneeded customizations to master pages or CSS files later on.

Multilingual support

In today’s global world, sites within your farm may have to support the local language at the farm’s location. SharePoint 2010 uses language packs for both SharePoint Foundation 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010.

Every Web front end in your farm will need the appropriate language packs installed. Installing language packs lets you create new sites in a local language, as well as translate the existing site’s interface based on the language the user chooses as the default. After installing the language packs, the Multilingual User Interface appears with a language settings option in the site settings menu of each site.

If multilingual support is a requirement within the environment, it’s important to plan for it accordingly. Ask the following questions:

What languages need to be supported?
What variations will you need?
What elements will require language pack support?

Supporting multiple languages in SharePoint 2010 isn’t complicated, but proper planning and determining the level of language pack integration are necessary for successful implementation.

Publishing and branding

When you’re considering your organization’s branding needs, it’s important to know which version of SharePoint with which you’re working. SharePoint Server 2010 includes the Publishing feature, which is helpful for branding projects for the following reasons:

Publishing lets you create templates for page content known as page layouts. Content authors and designers can edit page layouts.
Publishing gives you better control over the navigational structures, especially if you wish to change them from the SharePoint UI.
Publishing lets you easily change the master page.
Publishing give you more flexibility with themes, even letting you apply the theme to a site and all sub-sites at the same time.

Even if you don’t wish to use the Publishing feature throughout the entire site, it’s a good idea to create the top-level site collection using the publishing site template. This allows for easier manipulation of the master page and supporting CSS.

Publishing also lets you delegate work. For instance, if you have a SharePoint developer working on the master page while an interface developer works on the CSS, they can do this work independently and later have it pulled together and published through an approval workflow. The workflow could include key members from the marketing team and those necessary to ensure you’re meeting company brand standards.

Types of SharePoint sites

You typically deploy SharePoint in one of three types of Web sites: public-facing Internet sites, internal-facing intranet sites or a combination of the two (an extranet). The use of each site varies, and therefore the branding of each type of site will also differ.

Internet sites: These sites are typically driven by marketing and often tightly controlled. Very few users are allowed to publish content. Because they’re public-facing, they display a strong company brand and follow strict publishing guidelines. Site administrators can’t control the type of browser or the screen resolution that will be used to visit the site.
Intranet sites: These are typically geared toward internal employees to help them collaborate and work more efficiently. Intranet sites typically have less corporate branding but more content publishers. Because these sites are internal, the company controls the browser and sometimes the screen resolution of the users accessing the site.
Extranet sites: These sites are hybrids of Internet and intranet sites. They typically have a separate area into which an external user will need to authenticate. Depending on the need, the extranet may be branded to cater to the company with which your company is doing business. However, these types of sites are typically used more for collaboration, so extensive branding might not be needed.

Types of browsers

Another important decision you’ll need to make is to determine which browsers will be hitting your SharePoint site. While this might be easy if you’re administering an intranet site, it’s obviously more difficult for an Internet or extranet site. The popularity of browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari changes monthly, so before undertaking a branding effort, we recommend that you visit asite that publishes browser statistics.

SharePoint 2010 doesn’t support older browsers such as Internet Explorer 6. If you’re supporting an internal SharePoint site and determine that users are still hitting your site with Internet Explorer 6, it might be helpful to display a message stating that their browser isn’t supported and it’s time to upgrade.

Work with your internal infrastructure team to ensure that browsers supporting SharePoint 2010 are standard, or will be available to those users that interact with SharePoint 2010. For a complete list of features supported within each version of Internet Explorer, visit the Microsoft article on planning browser support.

Branding trends

While developing the brand and layout of a new site, it’s important to be aware of trends with other popular public-facing sites. While your brand might be unique, the layout and structure of the page should be familiar to users that visit other popular sites. These companies have spent time to understand branding trends and to research how the users view the different sections of a page when it first appears.

For instance, take Facebook.com or Bing.com. Notice how the user sign-in information is in the upper-right corner. Notice how the logo appears in the upper-left corner. These are common trends across public-facing Web sites, and your users will expect the same from internal sites as well.

Review the sites you visit often and see if this holds true for those sites as well. To get a better idea of how some trends are being utilized in SharePoint sites, check out these examples of SharePoint 2010 public-facing sites. You’ll notice that these Web sites follow the common layout patterns as described earlier.

Branding breakdown

Given the different elements involved in a SharePoint effort, it’s important to understand all the options for creating a branded SharePoint site. Typically, you can break down SharePoint branding into three major approaches, ranging from simple to complex. As the branding scope increases, so do the skill sets needed to complete the branding effort. Let’s take a look at a breakdown of the three branding approaches:

Low effort: This approach uses out-of-the-box SharePoint master pages, CSS files and themes to create a simple SharePoint branded site. SharePoint 2010 provides 20 out-of-the-box themes and two master pages to provide limited branding. This approach won’t require any additional skill sets or resources outside of the SharePoint administrator to apply the theme or master page. This approach is typically used within intranet deployments where collaboration is the main focus and you don’t need to spend time enhancing the look and feel.
Medium effort: This approach utilizes the out-of-the-box SharePoint master pages, but also custom or alternative CSS files to provide a more customized brand. This effort might also include custom theme development, which is much easier to create in SharePoint 2010 than it was in SharePoint 2007. This approach is common for intranet sites that require a more customized look and feel. For those larger deployments that focus on content publishing, this level of branding effort might be considered high. It will require a person with Web design experience, or at least experience with CSS files, to create the custom CSS files needed.
High effort: This approach includes custom master pages, custom CSS files and potentially custom page layouts. This approach is common for public-facing sites or those internal sites that require a more polished and directed look and feel. This effort will require someone with traditional Web design skills or knowledge of how master pages work in ASP.NET.

Using themes

Now that we’ve talked about the different levels of effort depending on the branding need, we’ll discuss each of these topics in more detail to get a better feel for the needed branding approach. SharePoint themes are by far the easiest option for creating light branding on a SharePoint site. Themes let you apply 12 colors and two fonts to any SharePoint site. Microsoft completely revamped how themes work in SharePoint 2010, making theme creation much easier than it was in SharePoint 2007.

Unlike in SharePoint 2007, where theme-related CSS files would be added after the core CSS, SharePoint 2010 actually looks for a special type of CSS comment. Then it injects the CSS into the core CSS, so the browser only has to load one file. SharePoint 2010 themes don’t have the ability to define an image, in contrast with SharePoint 2007 themes.

SharePoint 2010 simplifies the theme-creation process by letting you create themes directly within SharePoint. You can use Word 2007, Word 2010, PowerPoint 2007 or PowerPoint 2010 to generate a Microsoft Office THMX file. These applications provide the 12 colors and two fonts as well, which are then packaged up in the THMX file, uploaded into SharePoint and applied to any site.

After you’ve created the theme, simply navigate to the Theme Gallery at the site-collection level and upload the newly created theme. After uploading and saving the theme, it will appear in the Site Theme menu as an available theme you can apply to any site.

SharePoint 2010 gives you a number of themes out of the box. While you might find one that exactly fits your needs, it’s more likely that one or more of these will come close without being an exact fit. It’s possible to take an existing theme and change any of the 12 colors or two predefined fonts.

Similar to how master pages work, if you create a site with a publishing template, you can apply the theme at the site level. You can also reset all sub-sites with this new theme as well. Themes within SharePoint 2010 are self-service, meaning someone with the appropriate permissions could apply a new theme or make changes to the current theme. While this may seem like a good idea, letting users modify themes can cause a branding disconnect between sites and raise issues in terms of not following corporate standards.

Themes are clearly an effective and straightforward way to apply branding to your SharePoint sites. Determine the corporate standards and work within those standards, and the SharePoint branding features can help you give your sites a clean and consistent brand.

Windows 7: Take control of system security

2012-10-22T02:17:00.000-07:00

The Control Panel in Windows 7 provides a number of options for securing your system, configuring backups, adjusting firewall settings and so on.

Jorge Orchilles

Adapted from “Microsoft Windows 7 Administrator’s Reference” (Syngress, an imprint of Elsevier)

Windows 7 comes with a variety of security and system management tools. There are tools for managing the local system, managing hardware and devices, and managing disks and file systems. The Control Panel is one of the most commonly used ones. The Control Panel has long been a central place to go to configure your Windows system. The look has changed over the years, but the tools have remained similar. We’ll take a closer look at the system and security aspects and functions of the Control Panel.

The System and Security category contains applets to help you secure, fine-tune and optimize your system. The subcategories under the System and Security category are Action Center, Windows Firewall, System, Windows Update, Power Options, Backup and Restore, BitLocker Drive Encryption and Administrative Tools. Here’s a brief overview.

Action Center

The Action Center helps you resolve basic system issues. It can help troubleshoot security, maintenance and performance issues. In the Action Center, you have four options: Review your computer’s status and solve issues, Change User Account Control (UAC) settings, Troubleshoot common computer problems, and Restore your computer to an earlier time.

If you choose Review your computer’s status and solve issues, the Action Center will display any issues that your system has detected. These could be issues with security, Windows Update, Windows Backup or a host of other issues.

If you choose Change User Account Control settings, the UAC Settings window will open. UAC is used to control whether programs can make changes to your system. This is important because you don’t want malicious programs to be able to make system changes.

The UAC Settings window includes four options:

Always notify: The user will always be notified when either the user or a program attempts to make changes to the system.
Notify me only when programs attempt to make changes to my desktop: The desktop will be dimmed when these attempts are made. This is the default option.
Notify me only when programs attempt to make changes to my desktop (do not dim my desktop): The desktop will not be dimmed when these attempts are made.
Never notify: The user is never notified when either the user or programs attempt to make changes to the system.

If you choose Troubleshoot common computer problems, the troubleshooting applet will open. The troubleshooting applet helps you troubleshoot issues with programs, hardware, Internet connections, appearance, personalization and security.

Choosing Restore your computer to an earlier time will open the Recovery window. In the Recovery window, you can open the System Restore wizard. System Restore lets you restore system files and settings without losing your personal files and data. You can select a restore point, and Windows 7 will restore your system to the state it was when the restore point was created.

The Recovery window also has an option for Advanced Recovery Methods. These will restore your system, but everything will be replaced, including your personal files and data. You can restore your system using a previously created image. You can also choose to reinstall Windows 7 using the original installation media. If you choose either of these methods, you’ll be able to back up your important files and data.

Windows Firewall

The Windows Firewall protects your Windows system from network-based threats. You can control who has access to your system and what level of access they have. The Windows Firewall applet lets you configure these firewall settings.

You have two options in the Windows Firewall section of the Control Panel: Check firewall status and Allow a program through Windows Firewall. Check firewall status will bring up the Windows Firewall window. This option lets you see if the Windows Firewall is enabled or disabled on your system. You can also see Windows Firewall settings for incoming connections and notifications.

Allow a program through Windows Firewall will bring up the Allowed Programs window. Here you can see what programs the Windows Firewall allows. If you want to change these settings, you must choose the Change settings option. Then you can select a program to allow and specify the networks with which the program is allowed to communicate.

The Details option will show you the path to the executable for the allowed application. If you want to allow a program not listed, you can choose the Allow another program option. You can then specify the location of another program you want to allow through the firewall.

System

The System section of the Control Panel lets you view and configure basic system settings. This section has five options: View amount of RAM and processor speed, Check the Windows Experience Index, Allow remote access, See the name of the computer and Device Manager. View amount of RAM and processor speed will launch the System window. Here you can view basic system information. You can see the processor speed, the amount of RAM in the system, the system type, computer name and other important information.

Check the Windows Experience Index will launch the Performance Information and Tools window. You can see your system’s Windows Experience Index. The Windows Experience Index is a number between 1.0 and 7.9 that represents the overall performance of your system.

Your index is based on five components: processor, memory, graphics, gaming graphics and primary hard disk. Each of these components is given a rating. Your index is based on the lowest individual score for the components. You can rerun the assessment any time you wish. This will help you determine if changes made to the system increased or decreased overall performance.

The Allow Remote Access option brings up the Remote tab of the System Properties window. You can use this tab to enable or disable Remote Assistance. You can also use it to enable or disable Remote Desktop.

Selecting See the name of this computer will launch the System window. You can view the name and description of the computer. In addition, you can view the workgroup or domain in which the computer resides. You can also use this window to change the name of the computer or change the system’s workgroup or domain.

You can use the Device Manager to manage the hardware devices in your system. You can install, disable and uninstall devices. You can update drivers. You can also use Device Manager to determine when there’s a problem with one of your hardware devices and when one of your devices isn’t functioning properly.

Windows Update

Windows Update keeps your system up-to-date with the latest updates and patches. Windows Update can automatically download and install device drivers, OS patches and application patches. There are three options in this section: Turn automatic updating on or off, Check for updates and View installed updates. The option named Turn Automatic Updating on or off will bring up the Windows Update Change Settings window.

You can enable or disable Windows Update on your system. You can also control how updates are handled. You can set whether updates are automatically downloaded and installed, or whether user intervention is necessary.

The Check for updates option brings up the Windows Update window. Windows Update will check and see what updates are available for your system. It will also let you know when your system was last updated. Selecting View installed updates will bring up the Installed Updates window.

The Installed Updates window will list all the updates installed on your system. You can see OS updates, application updates and security updates. The Installed Updates window also lets you uninstall updates from your system.

Power Options

The Power Options section includes the following options: Change battery settings, Require a password when the computer wakes, Change what the power buttons do and Change when the computer sleeps.

The Change battery settings option brings up the Power Options window. This is where you choose a power plan. Power plans determine how your system will manage energy consumption, especially when running on battery power. A good power plan will help extend the amount of time your system can run on battery power.

Choosing Require a password when the computer wakes brings up the Power Options System Settings window. This lets you configure whether a user has to enter a password when the system comes out of sleep mode. Take note that in order to make changes to this setting, you have to first select the Change settings that are currently unavailable option. Choosing Change what the power buttons do also brings up the Power Options System Settings window. You can configure what your system does when you press the power or sleep buttons. You can also configure what happens when you close the lid on your laptop.

Change when the computer sleeps launches the Edit Plan Setting window. This lets you change the settings for your current power plan. You can control when the display will dim or turn off. You can configure when the system will enter sleep mode. You can also adjust the screen brightness.

Backup and Restore

The Backup and Restore section of the Control Panel includes two options: Back up your computer and Restore files from a backup. The Back up your computer option will launch the Backup and Restore window. You can use the Backup and Restore window to create a system image, create a system repair or perform a backup of your system.

Back up now starts a new system backup. The backup will use your current backup device and location. Turn on schedule lets you set up periodic backups of your system. You should schedule these backups for a time when the system will be online, but not in use. The Change settings option will allow you to change the default settings for your backups. For example, you can use this to change the default backup location.

The Restore files from a backup option will bring up the Backup and Restore window. At the bottom of the window, there’s a Restore section. The Select another backup to restore files from option will bring up the Restore Files wizard. The Restore Files wizard will walk you through the process of doing a restore. You’ll have to specify the location of the backup to restore from, the files you want to restore and what you want to do with the restored files.

Administrative Tools

The Administrative Tools section includes the following options: Free up disk space, Defragment your hard drive, Create and format hard disk partitions, View event logs and Schedule tasks. Choosing Free up disk space launches the Disk Cleanup applet. This will scan your system and determine what can be done to free up space on your disks. You can delete Downloaded Program Files, Temporary Internet Files, Offline Web pages, files in the Recycle Bin, Setup Log Files, Temporary Files, Thumbnails, Per-user archived Windows Error Reports and System-archived Windows Error Reports.

The Disk Cleanup applet also includes an option to Clean up system files. This opens the Disk Cleanup applet with a tab called More Options. On the More Options tab, you have the option to remove programs you don’t use. You also have to option to remove older system restore points.

Choosing Free up disk space will bring up the Disk Defragmenter. This can help improve performance of your drives. Fragmentation occurs when files split all over your disks. When this happens, your disk has to do more work to access files. The Disk Defragmenter will move your files to a contiguous location. This will speed disk-access performance.

Create and format hard disk partitions will bring up the Disk Management console. You can use the Disk Management console to manage your hard disks and disk partitions. You can create partitions and format partitions. You can also configure fault tolerance for your disks.

Choose View event logs to open the Windows Event Viewer. You can view the Windows logs Application, Security, Setup and System. You can also view individual logs for certain Windows applications and Windows services. You can use Event Viewer to view logs on the local system or a remote system.

Schedule tasks launches Task Scheduler. Use this to schedule tasks to run at specified times. This is great for administrative and maintenance tasks that must be run on a regular basis. Task Scheduler offers great flexibility. You can use the Create Basic Task wizard or manually create a task.

You can schedule tasks to run once, daily, weekly, monthly, when the computer starts, when a user logs on or when a specific event is logged. The task can be to run a program or script, send an e-mail or display a message. Task Scheduler also lets you import and export tasks. This is useful if you want to run the same task on multiple systems.

I’ll cover other aspects of the Control Panel features and functions—such as the myriad options for network and hardware settings, personalization, establishing credentials and so on—in future articles.

Cloud Computing: Developing unique cloud solutions

2012-10-22T02:12:00.000-07:00

When developing cloud solutions for specialized organizations such as government agencies, there are a number of areas to consider, including security, mobility and interoperability.

Niten Malik

Developing enterprise-class cloud computing solutions for unique functions such as supporting government agencies is a challenge. While traditional strategies have involved custom development or modifying off-the-shelf enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, using a stable development platform based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SharePoint gives you significant flexibility and scalability.

Last month, I looked at the higher-level considerations for developing customized cloud solutions for specific purposes. Here I’ll examine some of the specific areas you have to keep in mind, such as mobility, security and interoperability.

Mobility management

Users have increasing expectations for access to systems and information through any type of device, whether it’s their desktop PC, laptop, tablet or phone. They require anytime, anywhere access to data, applications and people.

Through a platform like Dynamics CRM Mobile, users can have access to the full breadth of Microsoft Dynamics CRM functionality, including its dashboard capabilities. And they can do so on the mobile device of their choice. There’s no need to load multiple apps onto their device. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile provides a single, consistent application experience.

It provides device-specific application experiences that are natural and intuitive across a range of platforms and targeted UXs. Because it’s based on HTML5, it can structure and present content on different Web browsers. The solution adapts so the look and feel is optimized for different hardware platforms.

You centrally manage Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile. You can configure record types, forms, views, offline synchronization rules and navigation structure for the mobile application. You only have to publish these configurations once, regardless of the range of devices that users employ. This simplifies and streamlines mobile CRM management.

To cater to your users’ different needs, you can establish multiple profiles that expose role-specific data and functionality. The result is a mobile experience tailored and optimized for every type of user, whether their job function is sales, marketing or finance, for example. You can also remotely wipe devices of CRM data should a device be lost or stolen, or if an employee leaves the company.

Platform adoption

Having consistent and familiar UIs across multiple, widely used Microsoft applications such as SharePoint, Office and Outlook results in high user adoption rates for a Dynamics CRM-based line-of-business (LOB) application. These friendly and intuitive UIs boost user-adoption rates, which in turn improves data quality.

The seamless integration between Dynamics CRM and other Microsoft Office products further increases adoption. For example, you can add a Dynamics CRM-based solution as a widget within Outlook. This eliminates the need to switch back and forth between applications.

Integration with Word provides an easy mail-merge capability. Excel offers powerful, self-service visualization and analysis tools for enterprise data. Multiple-device support enables access to information through the Web or through mobile devices, further expanding the usability of Dynamics CRM-based solutions.

Collaborative operations

Optimizing operations with the seamless out-of-the-box integration between Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SharePoint with Outlook, Lync and Office can fundamentally change how you work. Optimized business process operations can deliver a significant productivity improvement.

Consider these potential scenarios. In a typical credential-management use case, adjudicators often need to consult on eligibility questions or documentation provided by the customer. This consultation typically involves creating escalation and problem solving via e-mail or a meeting. This creates unpredictable delay in case resolution.

On a factory floor, if a high-speed, highly automated machine is followed by a machine that involves a lot of manual intervention, the factory’s overall productivity and output will suffer. When manual intervention is impossible to avoid, a collaborative process is required to solve problems more efficiently.

One example may be designing operations to leverage integration between SharePoint and Dynamics CRM, such that an adjudicator has easy access to expertise on SharePoint My Site or can use embedded search to find a relevant blog. The presence of the individual expert is automatically synchronized with his Outlook calendar.

You can have the adjudicator connected to an expert within SharePoint or a CRM workflow via Lync and be actively collaborating within minutes. The Lync platform facilitates collaboration in multiple ways, from instant messaging and video conferencing to desktop sharing and in-browser co-editing of documents.

Development considerations

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM development platform offers many features to rapidly deploy LOB applications. These capabilities include:

Data Model: The Dynamics CRM framework includes an extensive list of predefined data entities common to many business applications. Common processes won’t require that you build these entities from scratch. You can easily customize most entities or define completely custom entities.

UI: Dynamics CRM provides HTML-based pages to browse and manage data. You can easily customize the form content, layout and site navigation. You can integrate external UIs and applications as part of the navigation embedded within CRM forms.

Workflows: The Windows Workflow Foundation is integrated with the Dynamics CRM framework to implement business process automation as a single step or complex series of steps, checks, waits and rules. You can execute workflows manually or automatically when records or a data value changes. You can also use workflows to create activities, update records, create alerts, send e-mail on a user’s behalf or implement other custom tasks.

Your users can easily create new workflows and edit parameters using an intuitive interface to control how they work and when they run. They can define workflows at the organizational level to apply to everyone, or to apply to individuals as personal workflows.

Security: At its most basic level, the security model maintains access control over data and services. It allows user profiles and rules for each piece of data to secure sensitive information and meet data privacy requirements.

For single sign-on, authentication and authorization, the framework leverages Microsoft Active Directory. This lets a user enter and exit multiple tenants to which they’ve been granted access without having to log in multiple times. When the user is within a certain tenant, they won’t be able to view information in another tenant even if they have access to that tenant. They’ll need to exit and reenter the other tenant to access that data. This is how the framework guarantees data won’t be improperly combined. Once user access has been granted, the per-tenant security model provides a highly efficient means of establishing and changing security privileges to ensure users always have appropriate access.

Role-based security defines privileges based on business roles within each tenant, rather than on individual users. Users can have one or many roles associated with them, with additive privileges across roles. They can perform many roles within a tenant and the system will automatically recognize the correct security privileges.

Business units group users together and grant authorization based on roles. Business unit design can mirror or help facilitate company structure within the security model. Each business unit defines roles inherited from the organizational hierarchy or specific to it’s the unit’s needs. Each user is then allocated to a single business unit, and assigned one or more security roles within that unit.

Security for reports is just as important, but can typically be more challenging to implement. Microsoft Dynamics CRM uses a concept called filtered database views to provide consistency for the security model. Framework metadata creates and maintains filtered views for each built-in and custom entity defined in the data model. Filtered views incorporate security roles, business unit design and record ownership to enforce access control. You control the reports using the framework security model to determine who can see, run and modify each report.

Social media

Emerging social technologies provide people-centric experiences that can fundamentally impact how people and organizations communicate and collaborate both internally and externally. Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook provide a micro-blogging UX to post information, ask questions and find expertise. About 82 percent of the Facebook users in the 18-to-24 age group check Facebook more than once a day. Content is distributed in many social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. It doesn’t follow any set standard.

Social intelligence, based on data patterns and streams, enhances customer service and decision-making. Micro-blogging in Dynamics CRM encompasses activity feeds, status updates and notifications regarding business events and actions. Business activity feeds deliver configurable real-time notifications regarding important relationships and business events.

Social media enables continuous engagement, which is often the end goal of social outreach and collaboration. It provides social sites and other forums such as blogs to share experiences and interests. Social media engages stakeholders in an ongoing dialog to solicit suggestions and address issues. Specific social media strategies will continue to evolve over time.

By itself, SharePoint won’t address the complexity inherent in developing digital outreach tactics. However, it will enable a cost-effective platform to implement social outreach strategies as they evolve. SharePoint has social media connectors, as well as predefined components from which you can launch social sites, wikis and blogs.

Interoperability

The success of any program or initiative depends on the reliability and speed at which you can analyze data from multiple systems and subsequently identify potential risks. Solutions need to be centered on a service-oriented architecture, Web services and an enterprise service bus to quickly and reliably pull together relevant information.

Dynamics CRM is designed to work seamlessly with these and other systems. It natively integrates with any application that can expose and consume Web services. It provides a dynamic Web service interface for applications to access and manipulate data, as well as interact with other framework services. The Web services are interoperable with non-Microsoft platforms.

Dynamics CRM also has out-of-the-box integration with Outlook, which lets you exchange Outlook e-mail, contact, appointment and task objects. You can automatically incorporate CRM content into Microsoft Word documents. Dynamics CRM includes integration with SharePoint, so your users can store unstructured content in a SharePoint workspace. The SharePoint information will appear within the CRM data form. Dynamics CRM lets you add iframes to a CRM form to integrate Web-based applications in-line and use scripting to pass data via URL strings.

Hybrid cloud

You can use Windows Azure to develop new applications or services in the cloud that don’t depend on a specific platform and are widely available. Windows Azure also delivers cloud-based application development tools for testing, deploying, hosting and maintaining applications. The architecture comes with concurrency management, scalability, failover and security. Its open architecture supports integration with legacy applications and interoperability with other systems.

The Windows Azure platform can provide Infrastructure as a Service or on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, build and manage applications. On-demand storage and compute provisioning helps optimize infrastructure costs during non-peak usage.

You can also use this platform to provide different levels of data security. There are numerous security considerations such as location, access and what other data resides in the same environment. Because data security requirements differ, one way to optimize costs while managing security is to operate applications on a hybrid cloud infrastructure consisting of public cloud, government cloud, and private cloud or on-premises infrastructure.

You could host some solution components on a public cloud while having your data reside on the government community cloud and private cloud. By distributing data and solution components across public, government and private cloud, you can optimize storage and compute costs. Solution components hosted in the government cloud have fewer users and a lower infrastructure cost. The government cloud will optimize those costs to a lesser extent compared to the public cloud.

Applying the same logic, you could explore an on-premises or private cloud infrastructure for components and data with the highest security requirement. Because of the smaller user base, these functions have the lowest infrastructure cost to begin with and are appropriate for a private cloud-hosting model.

Any cloud solution should come with enterprise-level tools, such as the ability to designate files as confidential or encrypt messages to avoid add-ons that increase complexity and cost. Solutions built or originated as consumer cloud solutions often lack enterprise-level tools that are standard in government cloud solutions.

Many cloud offerings don’t effectively manage data integrity as data moves between on-premises and the cloud data repository. For example, documents should maintain a consistent format and all key features, such as watermarks. All data retention, management and archival regulations must be followed in the public or government cloud as if those cloud environments are on-premises.

A solution that enables real-time collaboration between officials and customers will result in a responsive program, leading to a rich and impactful ongoing customer relationship. Reliable and robust information exchange with other departments and agencies, combined with actionable analytics that draw insight from contextual data, will increase mission reliability.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010: High availability strategies

2012-10-22T02:08:00.000-07:00

The strategies Microsoft offers for creating highly available Microsoft Exchange mailboxes have evolved over the years.

Jaap Wesselius

Ever since Exchange Server 5.5, Microsoft has offered Windows Clustering as an option for creating a highly available Exchange mailbox environment. There are two server nodes available in a typical shared-storage cluster environment. Both are running Exchange Server and both servers are connected to a shared storage solution.

In the early days, this shared storage was built on a shared SCSI bus. Later on, it typically used storage-area networks (SANs) with a Fibre Channel or iSCSI network connection. The important part was the shared storage where the Exchange Server databases were located.

Only one server node is the “owner” of this shared data. This node provides the client services. It’s also known as the active node. The other node isn’t able to access this data, and is therefore the passive node. A private network between the two server nodes is used for intra-cluster communications, such as a heartbeat signal. This lets both nodes determine the cluster state and ensure the other nodes are still alive.

Besides the two nodes, it creates an “Exchange Virtual Server” as a cluster resource. This has nothing to do with virtual machines. This is the resource to which Outlook clients connect in order to access their mailboxes. When the active node fails, the passive node takes over the Exchange Virtual Server, which then continues to run. Although users will notice a short downtime during the failover, it’s an otherwise seamless experience. No action is required from the user.

Although this solution offers redundancy, there’s still a single point of failure—the shared database of the Exchange server. In a typical environment, this database is stored on a SAN. By its very nature, a SAN is a highly available environment. When something does happen to the database, though, such as a logical failure, the database is unavailable for both nodes. This results in total unavailability.

Exchange database replication

With Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft offered a new solution for creating highly available Exchange environments: database replication. Database replication creates a copy of a database, resulting in database redundancy. This technology was available in three flavors:

Local Continuous Replication (LCR): This approach creates a copy of the database on the same server.
Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR): This creates a copy of the database on another node in a Windows failover cluster (there can only be two nodes in a CCR cluster).
Standby Continuous Replication (SCR): This came with Exchange Server 2007 SP1. It creates a copy of a database on any other Exchange Server (not necessarily in the cluster). This isn’t meant for high availability (HA); it’s more for disaster recovery.

This is how database replication works in a CCR clustered environment. Exchange Server 2007 is installed on a Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 failover cluster. There’s no shared storage in use within the cluster. Each node has its own storage. This can be either on a SAN (Fibre Channel or iSCSI) or direct-attached storage (DAS)—local physical disks.

The active node in the cluster services client requests, and Exchange Server uses the standard database technology with a database, log files and a checkpoint file. When Exchange Server is finished with a log file, it’s immediately sent to the cluster’s passive node. This can either be via a normal network connection or via a dedicated replication network.

The passive node receives the log file and checks it for errors. If it finds none, the data in the log file is relayed to the passive copy of the database. This is an asynchronous process, meaning the passive copy is always a couple of log files behind the active copy, so information is “missing” in the passive copy.

In this environment, all messages—even internal messages—are sent via a Hub Transport server. The Hub Transport server keeps track of these messages in a CCR environment. It can therefore send missing information (that the passive node actually requests) to the passive copy of the cluster in case of a cluster failover. This is called the “Transport Dumpster” in a Hub Transport server.

This kind of replication works very well. CCR replication is quite reliable, but there are a couple of potential drawbacks:

An Exchange Server 2007 CCR environment runs on Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 clustering. For many, this adds too much complexity to the environment.
Windows Server 2003 clustering in a multi-subnet environment is nearly impossible, although this has improved (but still isn’t perfect) in Windows Server 2008 failover clustering.
Site resilience isn’t seamless.
CCR clustering is only possible in a two-node environment.
All three kinds of replication (LCR, CCR and SCR) are managed differently.

To overcome these issues, Microsoft dramatically improved the replication technology. It also reduced the administrative overhead. It achieved this by completely hiding the cluster components behind the implementation of Exchange Server 2010. The cluster components are still there, but the administration is done entirely with the Exchange Management Console (EMC) or the Exchange Management Shell (EMS).

DAG continuous replication

In Exchange Server 2010, Microsoft introduced the concept of a database availability group (DAG). This is a logical unit of Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox Servers. All Mailbox Servers within a DAG can replicate databases to each other. A single DAG can hold up to 16 Mailbox Servers and up to 16 copies of a database.

The idea of multiple database copies in one Exchange organization is called Exchange Mobility. There is one database on multiple servers, each instance of which is 100 percent identical and thus has the same GUID.

With a DAG in place, clients connect to an active database. This is the database where all data was stored initially. New SMTP messages, either from outside or inside the organization, are stored in this database first.

When the Exchange Server has finished processing information in the database’s log file, it replicates the file to other servers. You can assign the servers that receive a copy of the database. The log file is inspected upon receipt and if everything is all right, the information in the log file is dropped into the local copy of the database.

In Exchange Server 2010, all clients connect to the Client Access Server, including all Messaging Application Programming Interface, or MAPI, clients such as Microsoft Outlook. Supported Outlook clients in Exchange Server 2010 include Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010.

So the Outlook client connects to the Client Access Server, which then connects to the mailbox in the active copy of the database. Unfortunately, this is only true for mailbox databases. When an Outlook client needs to access a public folder database, the client still accesses the mailbox server directly.

When the active copy of a database or its server fails, one of the passive copies of the database becomes active. You can configure the failover order during the database copy configuration process. The Client Access Server automatically notices the failover and starts using the new active database. Because the Outlook client is connected to the Client Access Server and not directly to the database, a database failover is fully transparent. Messages such as, “The connection to the server was lost,” and, “The connection to the server is restored,” simply don’t appear anymore.

When building a highly available mailbox server environment in a DAG, there’s no need to build a failover cluster in advance. You can add additional mailbox servers to the DAG on the fly. However, for the DAG to function properly, you’re still using some failover clustering components. These are installed during the DAG configuration. You do all DAG and database copy management via the EMC or the EMS. You no longer have to use the Windows Cluster Manager.

The DAG with database copies is the only HA technology Exchange Server 2010 uses. Older technologies such as SCR, CCR and SCR are no longer available. The traditional single-copy cluster with shared storage is no longer supported, either.

Configuring a DAG is no longer limited to a server holding just the mailbox server role. It’s possible to create a two-server situation with the Hub Transport, Client Access and Mailbox Server roles on both servers, and then create a DAG and configure database copies.

However, it isn’t an HA configuration for the Client Access or Hub Transport servers unless you’ve put load balancers in front of them. You can’t use the default Windows Network Load Balancing in combination with the failover clustering components. Nevertheless, this is a great improvement for smaller deployments of Exchange Server 2010 where HA is still required.

Jaap Wesselius is the founder of DM Consultants, a company with a strong focus on messaging and collaboration solutions. After working at Microsoft for eight years, Wesselius decided to commit more of his time to the Exchange community in the Netherlands, resulting in an Exchange Server MVP award in 2007. He’s also a regular contributor at the Dutch Unified Communications User Group and a regular author for Simple-Talk.

The Real Saina Nehwal has emerged

2012-10-21T23:41:00.002-07:00

Former India badminton player Sanjay Sharma raises a toast to Saina after Denmark Open triumph

Saina Nehwal is only 22! But, she has broken enough records in Indian sport to be called a living legend. On a typical cold Sunday evening in Copenhagen, Saina cat-walked her way to yet another honour. She became the only Indian after Prakash Padukone (in 1980) to win a Danish Open Superseries title. And that too, without dropping a single game in the tournament.

Her 21-17, 21-8 victory in the final over Juliane Schenk of Germany was as emphatic as it was cruelly one-sided. An elated Pullela Gopichand, who has coached and nurtured Saina since she was 13, said after the final: “Saina was sharp, exceedingly efficient and explosive when it mattered. This was a drubbing and she was comfortable almost throughout, especially in the second game which was one-sided.”

Saina Nehwal poses with the Denmark Open Superseries trophy in
Copenhagen yesterday. Pic/AFP

This is her sixth Superseries title — a premier event in the sport — and like the Indonesian Open earlier in the year, this one too has cemented her place among the legends of world badminton. The Denmark Open was a huge field with three of the top-most Chinese stars competing.

The star-studded line-up included World No 1 and London Olympics silver medallist Wang Yihan, whom Saina had never beaten in their last six clashes. The heart-wrenching losses included a one-sided win for Wang in the semi-finals at London.

In Copenhagen though, Saina was in a different zone. The Hyderabadi hammered Wang 21-12, 12-7 in the semis before the lanky Chinese retired. The final frontier was thus conquered, and the fabled Chinese wall was demolished.

Saina has well and truly arrived! There is no one among the top players who she has not defeated. All the best names of her generation have now bitten the dust.

“It is all due to her work ethic. She is a glutton for hard work. She never says no for any sort of training schedule. And what is most mind-boggling for me, is that I can feel that her best is yet to come.

“Saina is just 22, still learning a few things. But what is important is that the more she wins, the more she wants to learn,” said Gopi.

I never expected to win here: Saina

Olympic bronze-medallist Saina Nehwal was not expecting to win the Denmark Open due to a slight niggle in her right knee. But she battled through the pain to triumph here and that to without dropping a set.

The 22-year-old defeated sixth seed German Juliane Schenk 21-17 21-8 in 35 minutes. Saina, who had beaten World No 1 Yihan Wang in the semi-finals, said: "I never expected to win this tournament. There were a lot of things which I did after Olympics which made me fresh but every tournament is tough. My right knee was not really in perfect shape but I thank god for giving me the energy to win the title.”

Asia's biggest Apple store opens in Beijing

2012-10-21T23:32:00.002-07:00

Apple's largest store in Asia opened in Beijing Saturday.

The store, located in the city's commercial street of Wangfujing, is Apple Inc.'s third in Beijing, reported Xinhua.

John Browett, Apple's senior vice president of retail, had previously said that the new store is the company's largest store in Asia, with an area of 2,300 square meters and more than 300 employees.

A full range of accessories for Apple products is available in the store, according to Browett.

Hundreds of Apple fans waited in line before the store opened at 9 a.m.

"We will bite the 'Apple'," said one customer.

Apple currently has 390 retail stores around the world, and the company is stepping up its efforts to expand its presence in China.

Browett said a store in the south China city of Shenzhen is also about to open and there will be more stores across China in the future.

Eight days with Microsoft Windows 8

2012-10-21T23:30:00.002-07:00

(According to Microsoft,…)

Windows 8 is coming on October 26. But it is not just any other update to Windows, the most widely used operating system (OS) in the world. According to Microsoft, Windows 8 is re-imagining of the 25-years-old OS.

Windows 8 is publicly available as a Release Preview. I downloaded the 64-bit version, installed it onto a laptop and used it to see what sort of changes it brings for the end users. There are interesting and significant ways in which this Windows is different from its predecessors. All of them affect the way people use computers. Some in a good way and some in bad. Dive in to know how Windows 8 fared on my laptop...

Facebook offering Rs. 50 talk time to new signups via mobile

2012-10-17T05:43:00.001-07:00

Facebook India is currently running a promotion in the country, under which every new signup from social network's mobile website will get Rs. 50 talk-time. The social giant is also offering the same talk time if anyone signs up via your referral.

The promotion, which seems to have gone live around ten days ago, does not seem like a potent strategy and will only add to more fake profiles on the social network.

On one hand, the company seems to be worried about fake profiles and had recently reported the number to be as high as 83 million and on the other hand, it is launching offers which are likely to bring in more fake users rather than genuine ones.

New users will have to go to this link to signup and get the free talk time, which will be credited to their account in three days, notes Facebook on the signup page. The free talk time offer is not valid for existing users.

New users don't even need email address to register a new account, and will only need a mobile number that is not already associated with any other Facebook account.

Though details aren't available, Facebook would have likely tied up with a recharge service to provide the talk time to new users.

The social giant had recently crossed 1 billion monthly active users mark and is now focussing on developing countries like Brazil, India, and Mexico to get more users, as it struggles to get viable revenue sources in post-IPO era.

Apple sends invite for 'iPad mini launch'

2012-10-17T05:40:00.003-07:00

The invite, sent to reporters Tuesday, doesn't hint at what will be revealed, beyond saying that "We've got a little more to show you." The event will be held in San Jose, California.

NEW YORK: Apple has sent out invites for an event next Tuesday, where it's expected to announce the release of a smaller iPad.

The invite, sent to reporters Tuesday, doesn't hint at what will be revealed, beyond saying that "We've got a little more to show you." The event will be held in San Jose, California.

Media and analysts have said for months that Apple has an " iPad mini" in the works. The tablet is thought to be about half the size of the regular iPad and to start at $249 or $299. The regular iPad starts at $499 for the most recent models.

Apple founder Steve Jobs derided the idea of a smaller tablet two years ago, but Amazon.comhas had some success with its Kindle Fire, which is about half the size of the iPad and starts at $159. Analysts believe Apple wants to tackle that competition with its own similarly sized tablet.

Reports suggest that the smaller iPad would have a screen that's 7.8 inches on the diagonal, a bit more than the Kindle Fire or Google's Nexus, with their 7-inch screens. The full-size iPad has a 9.7-inch screen, giving it about twice the display area as the 7-inch units.

Apple typically starts selling a new phone or iPad a week or two after announcing it. But it could treat the new iPad as a minor product update, in which case it could start selling it right after the announcement.

Apple shares rose $14.02, or 2.2 per cent, to $648.78 in midday trading Tuesday. The shares are off their all-time high of $705.07, hit September 21 when the iPhone 5 went on sale in stores.

- Kirshna Kishore

1 hour of watching TV shortens your life by 22 mins

2012-10-16T02:15:00.002-07:00

Sitting on the couch and staring at the idiot box could be taking years off your life - 4.8 years to be exact, scientists have warned.

Australian researchers have found that for every hour of television viewed by a person over the age of 25, their life expectancy is reduced by 22 minutes, News.com.au reported.

The study was based on an average six hours viewing per day, compared to a person who watches no television.

Using data from the National Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study, the researchers generated life-expectancy tables based on the viewing habits of average Australians.

The results were alarming.

“TV viewing time may be associated with a loss of life that is comparable to other major chronic disease risk factors such as physical inactivity, smoking and obesity,” the study found.

“These findings suggest that substantial loss of life may be associated with prolonged TV viewing time among Australian adults.”

The research also revealed that in 2008, Australians aged 25 and older watched a total of 9.8 billion hours of TV that year alone.

Recent studies in the US also concluded that the average American spent 35.5 hours a week watching TV.

The study is the first of it’s kind to analyse the impact of television viewing on life expectancy, and has called for a public health case to warn adults of the risks of watching too much television.

Apple’s iPad mini out on 23 Oct: Rumour round up

2012-10-16T02:14:00.001-07:00

Apple is hosting an event on 23 October where it is widely expected that the 7-inch version of the iPad, already christened the ‘Mini’ by the media, is due to be launched. As always, the rumour mills are buzzing ahead of the launch. From price to versions of the iPad mini, here’s a look at what the tech sites are saying.

Price and Versions:

Mobile Geeks, already has a screengrab of the prices and the versions of the new device. According to their report, the device will have an 8 GB version, along with the regular, 16, 32 and 64 GB versions. Also it won’t be as cheap as the $199 Google Nexus or Amazon Kindle. The report states that the 8 GB version with just Wi-FI will be € 249 or a whopping $322.

TechCrunch has a detailed piece where they’ve broken down the cost of the iPad mini to reveal that it will be priced according to Apple’s profit margins.

The iPad mini is coming soon. AP

Big Orders: Is Apple expecting big sales for the iPad Mini? It would certainly seem so. According to the Wall Street Journal, component suppliers in Asia have say they have received orders to make more than 10 million units of the smaller tablets in the fourth quarter.

Design: According toAllThingsD, Apple will not sacrifice design aesthetics in the new iPad Mini. The report quotes analyst Brian White, who states that the Mini may even be slicker than the new iPad.

Battery: The battery size has also been leaked, if images on the tech site MacRumors are to be believed. According to this the iPad Mini will have a battery running at 3.72 volts, offering 16.7 Whr of energy on 4490 mAh of charge. This would put it the iPad mini’s battery in the range of Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD, which have a 16 watt-hour and 16.43 watt-hour unit, respectively.

Bonus launch

New MacBook Pro:According to 9to5Mac, Apple will also launch a a new 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Retina Display. This will be a thinner version of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display that was launched in June.

The report also states that a new Mac Mini is on its way as well.

Overall it looks like Apple’s 23 October event will have a lot to offer.

Apple poaches Samsung chip designer Jim Mergard: Report

2012-10-12T04:12:00.000-07:00

Apple has reportedly swooped in to sign chip designer Jim Mergard from Samsung. The move comes in the backdrop of the bitterApple vs Samsung battle that has played out in courtrooms and markets all across the world.

Jim Mergard, a former AMD employee, joins Apple months after Jim Keller, a director in the platform architecture group and considered to be one of the key men behind Apple's A4 and A5 chips, left the company in August to make a return to AMD.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report Mergard's move:

The gadget maker (Apple) has hired Jim Mergard, a 16-year veteran of Advanced Micro Devices AMD who was a vice president and chief engineer there before he left for Samsung. He is known for playing a leading role in the development of a high-profile AMD chip that carried the code name Brazos and was designed for low-end portable computers.

The obvious thing for Mergard to do would be to join Apple's system-on-a-chip (SoC) design effort that has seen plenty of progress since the company first ventured in the territory with the Apple A4. More recently, the iPhone 5 is powered by Apple's A6 chip that is said to have twice as much CPU and GPU power compared to its predecessor.

WSJ also speculates if Mergard would design a custom-processor for use in Apple's Mac line. The report quotes Patrick Moorhead, a former AMD executive who now leads the research firm Moor Insights & Strategy, as saying that "He (Mergard) would be very capable of pulling together internal and external resources to do a PC processor for Apple."

While it's certainly possible for Apple to design a custom processor for use in its laptops and desktops, it's hard to see the company putting in a major effort towards that end considering Intel processors do a great job at the moment. More importantly, with a fundamental shift away from traditional computers already underway, and Apple at the forefront of that shift, any potential gains from having a custom chip in the Mac line, would be of minimum value at best.

Gmail 4.2 app for Android leaks; shows pinch-to-zoom, swipe support

2012-10-12T03:49:00.003-07:00

While core Android operating system might have had pinch-to-zoom support for a long time now, the official Gmail app has been lacking the same. But that seems set to change. A new version of Official Gmail Android app has appeared online and it shows pinch-to-zoom as well as swipe support.

According to a report in Android Police, Gmail Android app version number 4.2 is going to bring both these features to Android devices. This version will also allow users to mark mails as "phishing".

Similar to what Android users do in maps or browser, you can easily pinch-to-zoom in the mail text or image to view it clearly. The swipe support is also same as we have seen in notification bar; you can simple swipe an email message away to trash or archive now and if you accidentally do this, there is small undo button also present to save from any mishaps.

The swipe functionality will also be configurable, so you set it to archive, delete or just remove the existing label from an email.

There is no word on when we are going to see this app version rolled-out in Google Play. There is no official evidence either to support what Android Police is saying.

We will have to wait to see if Google really brings the pinch-to-zoom and swipe support to Gmail Android app.

watch video here..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=00xUH86sJV0

Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini hands on english

2012-10-12T02:19:00.000-07:00