All About Software | Hardware | Phones | Cloud | Virtualization

2013-04-07T12:56:00.001+03:00

All About Software.. to be fully re-designed!
HTML5 / CSS3

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HTC HD3 | Windows Phone 7 Device from HTC !

2010-08-05T08:08:00.002+03:00

HTC is to release the HTC HD3 according to sources on the Internet as its Windows Phone 7 Series handset.

Although still in the "concept drawing" stage compared to the real life working model a la the Samsung Slate and LG panther handsets, leaked details out of the Far East suggest that HTC's offering will be the follow up to the HTC HD2 - the HTC HD3.

According to our tipster, who also happens to run his own website, the HTC HD3 will come with a massive 4.5-inch AMOLED screen with 1280 × 800 resolution, 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 1080p HD video playback, 720p HD video recording, 8-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G connectivity, 4G connectivity for blisteringly fast downloads that are over ten times as fast as today’s HSDPA phones, 1GB onboard RAM, 32GB external memory, 3.5-inch headphone jack, and HDMI output for connecting to your HDTV or monitor.

While the inclusion of all those specs for us is a bit over the top, some, if not most of them, could be possible.

Qualcomm has confirmed in earlier conversations with Pocket-lint that a 1.5Ghz Snapdragon is possible and on the cards by the end of the year. However it would be the first time HTC rolls out an 8-megapixel camera, instead preferring to opt for 5 megpixels on the latest HTC Legend and HTC Desire. Windows Phone 7 Series minimum is 5-megapixels.

The phone is expected in time for the launch of Windows Phone 7 Series later this year.

I'll keep you posted.

Windows Phone 7 | Full Detailed Review | InFeatures

2010-08-05T08:00:00.002+03:00

First look at Windows Phone 7

In the Internet one can find not only official development tools for the recently announced Windows Phone OS 7 but the hacked firmware image making it possible to get acquainted with the basic functions. It should be mentioned that at the moment Microsoft is undertaking much effort to improve the OS functionality adding it with a greater number of new features while the basic principles remain the same. Therefore, first look at the OS is useful practically-wise for the understanding of what we are to get at the end of the year.

Menu organization principle

Standby screen is occupied by shortcuts to main applications, in the right corner you can see an arrow, clicking on that brings you to the list of the device functions. Main screen shortcuts are made interactive, for example, should there be a number events for the day in a calendar, the shortcut displays the latest or the most relevant one. The user is free to shuffle the shortcuts to his liking as well as to add new ones, such as a contact for instance. But on that the screen setting capabilities are over.

The main menu can boast no wall-papers, which is offset by an ability to set your picture in any sub-menu. In standby mode it will be possible to install the screen saver that will be your screen saver proper which compensates for the absence of the layer when using the main screen. This organization seems quite logic as the saver is important and needed only when you're not working with the menu.

In the submenu of separate functions and apps you can see the lists of functions that are brought up by using corresponding icons. To edit settings you should just press the icon with three dots. The interface gives the impression of somewhat light, unobtrusive and well-arranged.

Phonebook

The way the phone book is organized resembles that of the majority of modern handsets, you are at liberty to enter the first name and second name, specify several phone numbers with the ability to choose the type, enter several e-mail addresses, add other fields, personalize the contact with a ring tone or assign a call picture. Unusual feature is the ability to combine two contacts, for example, choose Eldar Murtazin and join it to the contact Lescha Mironov. In this case viewing the contact you will see the details for both. There is a little practical sense in the feature, unless you like to double contacts, or manage your personal phone book along with the corporate one. At that you do not want personal contacts to be stored on the corporate server. Actually, on that specific features are over. We failed to find ways of contacts archive creation but we hope that they will appear. Any contact can be drawn on the screen in standby mode.
Quick search for contacts is made by moving of the letters from the list on the screen or by typing letters or digits. Phone searches for the letters or digits in names and numbers.

Messaging

Messages are presented in the chat form, contact's name can be chosen from the phone book or entered manually. The app is extremely unsophisticated, there is nothing special about it. You are free to add the message with contacts, pictures and so on, which changes the message type to the MMS. Predictive text input allows choosing the words when you are typing on the on-screen keyboard.

Search

The Windows Phone search makes use of Bingo. When you first launch the device you are asked whether it is allowed using your coordinates for a better contextual search bound with places. Search can be carried out either via text typing or voice commands.

Calender

Here you can find a usual calendar displaying all daily, weekly or monthly events. You can highlight events in the calendar with various colors. You are free to create a number of calendars at once. When creating events you can specify the participants, both obligatory and desirable. With such a minimum of functions offered there is no possibility of customizing anything else.

Browser

Mobile version of Internet Explorer has nothing outstanding to boast. Pages are loaded quickly, you are at liberty to watch them in any orientation, add bookmarks, open up to 6 pages. Double click on the page magnifies it while the content is adjusted to the screen size. To go back to the previous page use menu. To save the picture you should just click on it a bit longer, should you do the same action with the link it will be opened in a new window. The browser cannot be referred to as impressive one, everything is quite simple without any extra features.

Games

There are no games in the emulator up to date, you can learn, however, how to purchase them in Marketplace, view the price, description, snapshots and comments. In one word everything is pretty simple.

Maps

It is impossible to assess maps using the emulator.

Music

Player is a twin to that of the Zune. There is a podcasts cover, lists of songs and so on available. The level of integration with music shop is a maximum one. Radio interface is simple, but do you need something else? There is a built-in capability of synchronizing the music via WiFi.

Mobile office

The office is presented by OneNote, Word, Excel, PowerPoint using which you are free to edit files or just view them.

Gallery

The pictures are displayed as miniatures that can be zoomed by double-clicking on them. You are free to edit photos and add them to Favorites as well as to enjoy built-in slide-show feature.

Settings

As for the new features we can mention an opportunity to create archives on a server remote from Microsoft.
The phone has a built-in ability to search the device in case it has been lost, as well as the capability of remote data deletion.
I think it doesn’t make sense to describe in detail other applications, such as an alarm clock or Bluetooth as everything is standard there.

Brief conclusions

The system makes the impression of somewhat incomplete, if being not in the initial stage of development it is clearly not in the alpha version, not to mention the beta one. Till the end of 2010 the developers have still enough time to make a lot of improvements in the OS. While what we see now, does not make any impression. Everything is too ascetic, too easy and too familiar. Perhaps this is caused by emulator’s shortcoming. But judging by what was shown at the Mobile World Congress that is the current state of affairs. Therefore it would be a mistake to expect the Windows Phone to make a lasting impression at the time it will appear. This is a return to the market that starts from the very beginning, i.e., from scratch. And it must be understood. New Windows Phone 7 does not have anything to do with Windows Mobile. Should we compare the capabilities of the two OS directly the Windows Mobile is greatly superior functionality-wise but not in terms of interface. I believe that those strategic decisions that have been laid in Windows Phone 7 would be winning, but with time. Initially the system will disappoint. And what an impression it made on you? Let's discuss this in the forum.

Windows Phone 7 vs. iOS 4 vs. Android 2.2

2010-08-05T07:43:00.001+03:00

[Via RedmondPie]

Google today has unveiled the much awaited Android 2.2 OS at the I/O 2010 conference held in San Francisco. Since this release has brought lots of new features to Android platform, we decided to put it up against the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0 and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 to see which one comes out on top.

The result as you can see, is as follows. For some reason, Android 2.2 for me edges out both iPhone OS 4 and Windows Phone 7. Though both iPhone OS 4 and WP7 are still in Beta stages and will probably add more features before they are released.

So, which one is your pick of the lot?

Microsoft WebMatrix | Part 5 : Learn More !

2010-08-04T20:21:00.001+03:00

Easy Deployment

Once we are done building our custom site, we can deploy it just like we did with BlogEngine.NET. All we need to do is click the “Publish” button within WebMatrix, select a remote hosting provider, and our simple application will be live on the Internet.

Open in Visual Studio

Projects created with WebMatrix can also be opened within Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express (which is free). These tools provide an even richer set of features for web development, and a work environment more focused on professional development. WebMatrix projects can be opened within Visual Studio simply by clicking the “Visual Studio” icon on the top-right of Ribbon UI:

This will launch VS 2010 or Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, and open it to edit the current Web site that is open within WebMatrix. We’ll be shipping an update to VS 2010/VWD 2010 in the future that adds editor and project-system support for IIS Express, SQL CE, and the new Razor syntax.

How to Learn More

Click here to learn more about WebMatrix. An early beta of WebMatrix can now be downloaded here.
You can read online tutorials and watch videos about WebMatrix by visiting the www.asp.net web-site. Today’s beta is a first preview of a lot of this technology, and so the documentation and samples will continue to be refined in the weeks and months ahead. We will also obviously be refining the feature-set based on your feedback and input.

Microsoft WebMatrix | Part 4 : Working with Data

2010-08-04T20:19:00.001+03:00

Working with Data

Pretty basic so far. Let’s now convert this page to use a database, and make the movie listing dynamic instead of having it just be a static list.

Create a Database

We’ll start by clicking the “Databases” tab within the left-hand navigation bar of WebMatrix. This will bring up a simple database editor:

SQL Server Compact Edition ships with WebMatrix – and so is always available to use within projects. Because it can be embedded within an application, it can also be easily copied and used in a remote hosting environment (no extra deployment or setup steps required – just publish up the database file with FTP or Web Deploy and you are good to go).

Note: In addition to supporting SQL CE, the WebMatrix database tools below also work against SQL Express, SQL Server, as well as with MySQL.

We can create a new SQL CE database by clicking the “Add a Database to your site” link (either in the center of the screen or by using the “New Database” icon at the top in the ribbon). This will add a “FirstSite.sdf” database file under an \App_Data directory within our application directory.

We can then click the “New Table” icon within the Ribbon to create a new table to store our movie data. We can use the “New Column” button in the Ribbon to add three columns to the table – Id, Name and Year.

Note: for the first beta you have to use the property grid editor at the bottom of the screen to configure the columns – a richer database editing experience will show up in the next beta.

We’ll make Id the primary key by setting the “Is Primary Key” property to true:

We’ll then hit “save” and name the table “Movies”. Once we do this it will show up under our Tables node on the left hand side.
Let’s then click the “Data” icon on the ribbon to edit the data in the table we just created, and add a few rows of movie data to it:

And now we have a database, with a table, with some movie data we can use in it.

Using our Database within an ASP.NET Web Page
ASP.NET Web Pages can use any .NET API or VB/C# language feature. This means you can use the full power of .NET within any Web site or application built with it. WebMatrix also includes some additional .NET libraries and helpers that you can optionally take advantage of for common tasks.
One of these helpers is a simple database API that allows you to write SQL code against a database. Let’s use it within our page to query our new Movies table and retrieve and display all of the movies within it. To-do this we’ll go back to the Files tab in WebMatrix, and add the below code to our Index.cshtml file:

As you can see – the page is conceptually pretty simple (and doesn’t require understanding any deep object-oriented concepts). We have two lines of code at the top of the file.
The first line of code opens the database. Database.Open() first looks to see if there is a connection-string named “FirstSite” in a web.config file – and if so will connect and use that as the database (note: right now we do not have any web.config file at all). Alternatively, it looks in the \App_Data folder for a SQL Express database file named “FirstSite.mdf” or a SQL Compact database file name “FirstSite.sdf”. If it finds either it will open it. The second line of code performs a query against the database and retrieves all of the Movies within it. Database.Query() returns back an dynamic list – where each dynamic object in the list is shaped based on the SQL query performed.
We then have a foreach loop within our <ul> statement, which simply iterates over the movies collection, and outputs each name as a <li> element. Because movies is a collection of dynamic objects, we can write @movies.Name instead of having to write movies[“Name”].
When we re-run the page (or just hit refresh on it in the browser) and do a “view source” on the HTML returned to the client, we’ll see the following:

The list of movies above is now coming out of our database and is dynamic.

Adding a Simple Filter Clause
One last step we can do to make our application a little more dynamic is to add simple support to filter the list of movies based on a querystring parameter that is passed in.
We can do this by updating our Index.cshtml file to have a little extra code:

Above we added a line of code to retrieve a “year” querystring parameter from the Request object. We are taking advantage of a new “AsInt()” extension helper method that comes with WebMatrix. This helper returns either the value as an integer, or if it is null returns zero. We then modified our SELECT query to take a WHERE parameter as an argument. The syntax we are using ensures that we cannot be hit with a SQL injection attack.
Lastly, we added an if statement inside our <h1> which will append a (post 1975) message to the <h1> if a year filter is specified. And now when we run the page again we will see all movies by default:

And we can optionally pass a “year” querystring parameter to show only those movies after that date:

Other Useful Web Helpers

I used the Database helper library that ships with WebMatrix in my simple movie listing sample above.
WebMatrix also ships with other useful web helpers that you can take advantage of. We’ll support these helpers not just within ASP.NET Web Pages – but also within ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET Web Forms applications. For example, to embed a live twitter search panel within your application you can write code like below to search tweets:

This will then display a live twitter feed of tweets that mention “scottgu”:

Other useful built-in helpers include ones to integrate with Facebook and Google Analytics, Create and Integrate Captchas and Gravitars, perform server-side dynamic charts (using the new Chart capabilities built-into ASP.NET 4), and more.
All of these helpers will be available for use not only within ASP.NET Web Pages, but also in ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC applications.

Microsoft WebMatrix | Part 3 : Creating ASP.Net Site

2010-08-04T20:17:00.001+03:00

Create a Custom Web Site with Code

I’ve walked through how to create a new Web site using an open source application within the web gallery. Let’s now look at how we can alternatively use WebMatrix to do some development of a custom site.
The two right-most icons on the WebMatrix home-screen provide an easy way to create a new site that is either based on a simple template of pages, or an empty site with no content:

Let’s click the “Site From Template” icon and create a new site based on a template. We’ll select the “Empty Site” template and name the site we want to create with it “FirstSite”:

When we click the “ok” button WebMatrix will load a site for us, and display a site overview page that contains links to common tasks:

Let’s click either the “Files” icon in the left-hand navigation bar or the “Browse your Files” link in the middle overview-screen. Selecting either of these will show us the file explorer. The “Empty Site” template actually does have one file in it by default – a file named Index.cshtml. We can double-click it to open it within the WebMatrix text editor:

Files with a .cshtml or .vbhtml extension are ones that use the new “Razor” template syntax that I blogged about last week. You can use Razor files either as the view files for an ASP.NET MVC based application, or alternatively you can also use them as standalone pages within an ASP.NET Web site. We are referring to these pages as simply “ASP.NET Web Pages” – and you can add them to both new projects as well as optionally drop them into existing ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC based applications.

Why ASP.NET Web Pages?

ASP.NET Web Pages built using Razor provide a simple, low concept count, way to do web development. Many people will likely argue that they are not as powerful, nor have as many features, as an ASP.NET Web Forms or ASP.NET MVC based application. This is true - they don’t have as many features, nor do they expose as rich a programming model.
But they are conceptually very easy to understand, are lightweight to get started with, and for many audiences provide the easiest way to learn programming and begin to understand the basics of .NET development with VB or C#. ASP.NET Web Pages are also convenient to use when all you need is some basic server scripting and data display/manipulation behavior, and you want to quickly put a site together.

Building our First Simple ASP.NET Web Page

Let’s build a simple page that lists out some content we are storing in a database.

If you are a professional developer who has spent years with .NET you will likely look at the below steps and think – this scenario is so basic - you need to understand so much more than just this to build a “real” application. What about encapsulated business logic, data access layers, ORMs, etc? Well, if you are building a critical business application that you want to be maintainable for years then you do need to understand and think about these scenarios.
Imagine, though, that you are trying to teach a friend or one of your children how to build their first simple application – and they are new to programming. Variables, if-statements, loops, and plain old HTML are still concepts they are likely grappling with. Classes and objects are concepts they haven’t even heard of yet. Helping them get a scenario like below up and running quickly (without requiring them to master lots of new concepts and steps) will make it much more likely that they’ll be successful – and hopefully cause them to want to continue to learn more.
One of the things we are trying to-do with WebMatrix is reach an audience who might eventually be able to be advanced VS/.NET developers – but who find the first learning step today too daunting, and who struggle to get started.

We’ll start by adding some HTML content to our page. ASP.NET Web Pages typically start as just HTML files. For this sample we’ll just add a static list to the page:

Just like with our previous scenario, IIS Express has been automatically configured to run the project we are editing – and we do not need to configure or setup anything for our web-server to run our site.
We can press “F12” or use the “Run” button in the Ribbon toolbar to launch it in the browser. As you’d expect, this will bring up a simple static page of our movies:

Microsoft WebMatrix | Part 2 : Deploying your site to a host

2010-08-04T20:13:00.002+03:00

Deploying a Site to a Hoster

WebMatrix provides a lightweight, integrated work environment that allows us to run and tweak sites locally. After we’ve finished customizing it, and have added some default content to the database, we’ll want to publish it to a hosting provider so that others can access our blog on the Internet.
WebMatrix includes built-in publishing support that makes it easy to deploy Web sites and Web applications to remote hosters. WebMatrix supports using both FTP and FTP/SSL as well as the Microsoft Web Deploy (aka MSDeploy) infrastructure to easily deploy sites to both low-cost shared hosting providers, as well as virtual dedicated/dedicated hosting providers.
To publish a site using WebMatrix, simply expand the “Publish” icon within the top-level ribbon UI:

When we select the “Configure” option it will bring up the following UI that allows us to configure where we want to deploy our site:

If you don’t already have a hosting provider, you can click the “find web hosting” link at the top of the publish dialog to bring up a list of available hosting providers to choose from:

Hosting providers are now offering Windows hosting plans that include ASP.NET + SQL Server for as cheap as $3.50/month (and these inexpensive offers include support for ASP.NET 4, ASP.NET MVC 2, Web Deploy, URL Rewrite and other features).
The “find web hosting” link this week includes a bunch of hosting providers who are also offering special free accounts that you can use with WebMatrix – enabling you to try it out at no cost (they also have everything setup to work well on the server-side with WebMatrix and are testing their offers with the WebMatrix publishing tools).
Once you sign-up for a hosting provider, you can then choose from a variety of ways to publish your site to it:

FTP and FTP/SSL enable you to easily publish the local files of your site over to a remote server.
The “Web Deploy” option supports publishing both your site files and the database content – and is the recommended deployment option if your hoster supports it. When the “Web Deploy” option is selected, WebMatrix will list all of the local databases within your project and provide you with the option to specify the connection-string at the remote hosting provider where your database should be deployed for production:

Note: By default BlogEngine.NET uses XML files to store content and settings (and doesn’t require a database). With the current BlogEngine.NET on the web gallery you can just enter
"Data Source=empty;database=empty;uid=empty;pwd=empty" as the remote database connection string in order to publish the site without needing to setup a database.

When you click “Publish”, WebMatrix will display a preview of the deployment changes:

Note: because BlogEngine.NET doesn’t need a database we’ll keep the database deployment checkbox unchecked. If we did want to transfer a database we could select it in the publishing preview wizard and WebMatrix will automatically transfer both the site files and the database schema+data to the remote host, deploy the database to the hosting server, and then update your published web.config connection-string to point to the production location.
Once we click “continue” WebMatrix will start the publishing process for our site, and after it completes our site will then be live on the Internet. No extra steps are required.
Site Updates
In addition to initial deployments, WebMatrix also supports incremental file updates on subsequent publishes. Make a change to a local file, click the Publish button again, and WebMatrix will calculate the differences between your local site and your published one and only transfer the files that have been modified (notice that the database by default will not be redeployed to avoid overwriting any data on the remote host):

Clicking the “continue” button above will only transfer the one modified file. This makes updating even large sites easy and fast.

Microsoft WebMatrix | Part 1 : Introduction

2010-08-04T20:11:00.001+03:00

What is in WebMatrix?

WebMatrix is a 15MB download (50MB if you don’t have .NET 4 installed) and is quick to install.
The 15MB download includes a lightweight development tool, IIS Express, SQL Compact Edition, and a set of ASP.NET extensions that enable you to build standalone ASP.NET Pages using the new Razor syntax, as well as a set of easy to use database and HTML helpers for performing common web-tasks. WebMatrix can be installed side-by-side with Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express.
Note: Razor support within ASP.NET MVC applications is not included in this first beta of WebMatrix – it will instead show up later this month in a separate ASP.NET MVC Preview - which will also include Visual Studio tooling support for it.

Getting Started with WebMatrix

WebMatrix is a task-focused tool that is designed to make it really easy to get started with web development. It minimizes the number of concepts someone needs to learn in order to get simple things done, and includes and integrates all of the pieces necessary to quickly build Web sites.
When you run WebMatrix it starts by displaying a screen like below. The three icons on the right-hand side provide the ability to create new Web sites – either using an existing open-source application from a web application gallery, from site templates that contain some default pages you can start from, or from an empty folder on disk:

Create a Web Site using an Existing Open Source Application in the Web Gallery

Let’s create a new Web site. Instead of writing the site entirely ourselves, let’s use the Web Gallery and take advantage of the work others have done already.
We’ll begin by clicking the “Site from Web Gallery” link on the WebMatrix home-screen. This will launch the below UI – which allows us to browse an online gallery of popular open-source applications that we can easily start from, tweak/customize, and then deploy using WebMatrix. The applications within the gallery includes both ASP.NET and PHP applications:

We can filter by category (Blog, CMS, eCommerce, etc) or simply scroll through the entire list. For this first site let’s create a blog. We’ll build it using the popular BlogEngine.NET open source project:

When we select BlogEngine.NET and click “Next”, WebMatrix will identify (and offer to download) the required components that need to be installed on my local development machine in order for BlogEngine.NET to run.
IIS Express is included with WebMatrix, so I already have a web-server (and don’t need to-do anything in order to configure it). SQL Compact Edition is also included with WebMatrix, so I also have a light-weight database (and don’t need to-do anything in order to configure it). Because SQL Compact is brand new, most projects in the Web Gallery don’t support it yet. We expect most projects in the Web Gallery will add it as an option though in the future. If a project requires either SQL Express or MySQL as a database, and you don’t have them installed, they will show up in the dependencies list below, and WebMatrix will offer to automatically download, install, and configure them for you.
PHP applications in the web gallery (like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and SugarCRM – all of which are there) will download and install both PHP and MySQL.
Because I already have SQL Express installed on my machine, the only thing in my download list is BlogEngine.NET itself:

When I click the “I Accept” button, WebMatrix will download everything we need and install it on our machine:

When we click the “OK” button, WebMatrix will open up our new BlogEngine.NET project and display a site overview page for us:

This view within WebMatrix provides an overview of the project, and some quick links to-do common things with it (we’ll look at these more in a bit).
To start – we’ll click the “Run” button in the Ribbon bar at the top. Clicking the “Run” button will launch the site using the default browser you have configured on your system. Alternatively, you can click to expand the list and pick which installed browser you want to run the site with. Clicking the “Open in All Browsers” option will launch multiple browsers for you at once:

IIS Express is included as part of WebMatrix – and WebMatrix automatically configures IIS Express to run the project when it is opened within the tool (no extra steps or configuration required).
Running BlogEngine.NET will launch a browser and bring up the default page for the application (see below). BlogEngine.NET by default ships with a home page that includes instructions on how to customize the site:

If you read the text it describes how the default adminsitrator password is “admin”/”admin”, and how you can login and customize the look and feel and content of the site. Let’s login, then use the online admin tool to customize some of the basic settings of the site (the name, about the author, etc) and post two quick blog posts to get the site started:

The beauty is that I didn’t have to write any code (nor see any code for that matter) and was able to get the basics of our site up and running in only a few minutes. This experience is a pretty consistent with all of the other applications within the web gallery. They are all designed such that you can quickly install them using WebMatrix, run them locally, and then use their built-in admin tools to tweak/customize their core content and structure.
Customizing the Code and Content Further
Now that we’ve configured the basics of our blogging site, let’s now look at how we can customize it even further. To-do that let’s go back to WebMatrix and click on the “Files” node within the left-hand navigation bar of the tool:

This will open a file-system explorer view on the left-hand side of the tool, and allow us to browse the site, and open/edit/add/delete its files.
Most of the applications within the web gallery support a concept of “themes” and enable developers to tweak/customize the layout, styling and UI of the application. Above I’ve drilled into BlogEngine.NET’s “themes” folder and opened the Site.Master file to customize the “standard” theme’s master layout. We could tweak/customize it, hit save, and then run the site again to see our changes applied (note: pressing F12 is the keyboard short-cut to re-run the application).

Windows Phone 7 : Device Un-Boxing | Initial Startup | User Interface

2010-07-30T10:20:00.000+03:00

Have you ever dreamed about having a Windows Phone 7 device in your hands?
Have you ever imagined how will be the box, the entire device, the battery, the accessories, etc.?
Have you ever searched for the OS and its capabilities?
Have you ever seen the User Interface [Metro UI] live?

All these stuff are brought to you here, so watch these videos carefully.

1. Unboxing the device:

2. Initial Startup:

3. The Metro UI:

Really, it's a totally new smart phone.

Windows Phone 7 | Reality Comes In Your Hands

2010-07-29T07:16:00.000+03:00

Windows Phone 7 is the next version of the Windows Phone operating system developed by Microsoft, planned for release by October 2010. Microsoft's goal is to create a compelling and predictable user experience by redesigning the user interface, disallowing partners to modify or replace it, integrating the operating system with other services, and strictly controlling the hardware it runs on. Microsoft officially unveiled Windows Phone 7 during Mobile World Congress 2010 (February 15) in Barcelona and revealed additional details at MIX 2010. Microsoft released a technical preview version of Windows Phone 7 on 18 July 2010.

It a Cloud-Service enabled smart device, where your and your friends statuses on social networks are interactively changed by second. Also the Outlook message counter, it increment as any message received, and the missed calls also. It's all about online services delivered not only to the PC, but also for the cell phone on-the-go.

Minimum Hardware requirements

Microsoft has said that it is issuing "tough, but fair" hardware requirements to manufacturers. All Windows Phone 7 devices, at minimum, must include the following.

Capacitive, 4-point multitouch screen.
ARM v7 [1GHz] "Cortex/Scorpion" or better processor.
DirectX9 rendering-capable GPU.
256MB of RAM with at least 8GB of Flash memory.
Accelerometer with compass, light, proximity sensor and Assisted GPS.
5-megapixel camera or better with flash.
Secondary VGA camera for video calling.
FM radio tuner.
6 dedicated hardware buttons - back, Start, search, camera, power/sleep and Volume Up and Down.

Below are some videos that discuss more about Windows Phone 7 features, I hope you'll love as I do.

Some of vendors that will ship Windows Phone 7 devices are listed below:

Latest Software Innovations from Microsoft!

2010-07-29T04:33:00.002+03:00

Microsoft today delivered a ton of new capabilities and features in its software solutions. It is really a dramatic challenge that Microsoft promised to do from 2005 when the word 'Cloud' began to get to the speech. Cloud computing is a vibrating challenge that was hidden the last decade and it has never been active or enabled for all customers except when Microsoft got 'in.' and said We're all in.

Individual customers, even small businesses has never thought of the cloud as a solution to their IT department, from the prospective of management, security, availability and performance. Today Microsoft introduces the cloud environment as a platform for both IT pros and IT developers. The recent post I wrote about Visual Studio 2010, I mentioned that cloud computing development is available through this product. Yes, it is, you can write down your application, then deliver it to the cloud for all subscribers so that they try and buy it. So, you benefit from the cloud, and the cloud understand your application and gives you a way for enhancing your product, and this is the main key. As you gives the cloud; you can benefit from it.

Cloud platform delivered from Microsoft can be described as a bunch of huge containers that contains a lot of datacenters, which are totally managed by Microsoft itself with its products (Windows, SQL, Server, SharePoint, Office, Exchange, CRM, OCS). And these products are renamed to suit the new efficiency, so below are the new codenamed products of Microsoft Online Products.

Windows Azure		SQL Azure		SharePoint Online
Office Online		Exchange Online		Office WebApps

So what the cloud is all about is that all Microsoft products will not be installed locally on companies desktops and there will be no need for servers installations, management and securing. Just all of these products will be delivered as subscribed SERVICES not purchased products. If you're interested in learning more about the Cloud with Microsoft, please visit these sites below:

Windows Azure [Wikipedia] | [Microsoft]
SQL Azure [Wikipedia] | [Microsoft]
Cloud Computing [Wikipedia].

For learning resources, please visit Download Windows Azure Training Kit & SDK for beginning to develop.

'Who is' Series

2010-07-29T03:16:00.000+03:00

'Who is' Series is a bio series talking about the people that mostly affected the world in technology field.
The technology field is nowadays the spoken matter between all of us. Cloud computing and the innovations presented in it, Virtualization and its advancing progression and other bunch of new technologies had been delivered to the IT field. We have to take a back-step and ask about the starting and the starters.

Computing world in 1950s till 1980s was incremented very slow and with hard and difficult ways, and of course it was a highly cost thing that you think of it. But when Bill Gates said that 'Microsoft PC on every desk and in every home', that was not a dream, that was a real investment that he thought in his mind, and he really do it. But in reality, Bill Gates was not the only guy that was opening the door to a tremendous technology, there were others that who didn't act as Bill done, may be_some of them_did more and others did less.

With 'Who is' series, I'm delivering the real truth about these hero guys who changed our life to a digital and highly interactive one. So, keep up!

Silverlight 4 | Imagination Never Ends !

2010-07-26T02:19:00.001+03:00

Silverlight 4 delivers a full suite of powerful capabilities to business application developers, bringing the best-of-breed .NET platform to browser-based experiences. Silverlight provides an ideal platform for developing and deploying modern business applications for both customer facing and staff-facing applications.

Silverlight is a powerful development platform for creating engaging, interactive applications for many screens across the Web, desktop, and mobile devices.

Business Application Development

Silverlight 4 consolidates its position as the natural choice for building business applications on the Web:

New Features for Application Developers

Comprehensive printing support enabling hardcopy reports and documents as well as a virtual print view, independent of screen content.
A full set of forms controls with over 60 customizable, styleable components. New controls include RichTextbox with hyperlinks, images, in-line controls, and editing. Enhanced controls include DataGrid with sortable/resizeable columns and copy/paste rows.
WCF RIA Services introduces enterprise class networking and data access for building n-tier applications including transactions, paging of data, WCF and HTTP enhancements.
Localization enhancements with Bi-Directional text, Right-to-Left support and complex scripts such as Arabic, Hebrew and 31 new languages including Vietnamese and Indic support.
The .NET Common Runtime (CLR) now enables the same compiled code to be run on the desktop and Silverlight without change.
Enhanced databinding support increases flexibility and productivity through data grouping/editing and string formatting within bindings.
Managed Extensibility Framework supports building large composite applications.
Exclusive tooling support for Silverlight, new in Visual Studio 2010. Including a full editable design surface, drag & drop data-binding, automatically bound controls, datasource selection, integration with Expression Blend styling resources, Silverlight project support and full IntelliSense.

Developer tools

Fully editable design surface for drawing out controls and layouts.
Rich property grid and new editors for values
Drag and drop support for databinding and automatically creating bound controls such as listbox, datagrid. New datasources window and picker.
Easy to pick styles and resources to make a good looking application based on designer resources built in Expression Blend.
Built in project support for Silverlight applications
Editor with full intellisense for XAML and C# and VB languages.

Empowering richer, more interactive experiences

Silverlight is already in use as a comprehensive platform for building rich experiences both for application and pure media scenarios including HD quality, interactive video through Smooth Streaming. Silverlight 4 introduces additional capabilities to enable creation of ever more rich, appealing high-performance interactive experiences and innovative media experiences:

Fluid interface enhancements advance application usability through animation effects.
Webcam and microphone to allow capture of audio and video on the client.
Bring data in to your application with features such as copy and paste or drag and drop.
Long lists can now be scrolled effortlessly with the mouse wheel.
Support conventional desktop interaction models through new features such as right-click context menu.
Support for Google’s Chrome browser.
Performance optimizations mean Silverlight 4 applications start quicker and run 200% faster than the equivalent Silverlight 3 application.
Multi-touch support enables a range of gestures and touch interactions to be integrated into user experiences.
Multicast networking, enabling Enterprises to lower the cost of streaming broadcast events such as company meetings and training, interoperating seamlessly with existing Windows Media Server streaming infrastructure.
Content protection for H.264 media through Silverlight DRM powered by PlayReady.
Output protection for audio/video streams allowing content owners or distributors to ensure protected content is only viewed through a secure video connection.

Resources: Videos | Hands-On Labs | Books | Code Samples

Expression Web 4 | Easy & Simple | Design & Develop

2010-07-26T01:06:00.002+03:00

Web development is a broad term for the work involved in developing a web site for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). This can include web design, web content development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, web server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development. However, among web professionals, "web development" usually refers to the main non-design aspects of building web sites: writing markup and coding. Web development can range from developing the simplest static single page of plain text to the most complex web-based internet applications, electronic businesses, or social network services.

Web development is indispensable matter nowadays, and with the new capabilities introduced in the major developing languages such as HTML, CSS, ASP.Net, AJAX, Javascript and PHP, there is only one place where you can create your website using a combination of these languages together without any conflict, and that is Microsoft Expression Web 4.

Microsoft Expression Web, code-named Quartz, is an HTML editor and general web design program by Microsoft. It is part of the Expression Studio suite. It is not considered by Microsoft to be a WYSIWYG editor[1], nor is it touted as such. The EW community FAQ describes EW as an HTML editor that "is designed to make quality, standards-compliant websites that display properly on all browsers.

Expression Web can design and develop web pages using XML, CSS 2.1, ASP.NET or ASP.NET AJAX, XHTML, XSLT, PHP and JavaScript. EW4 requires the .NET Framework 4.0 and Silverlight 4.0 to install and run.[2]. Microsoft SharePoint Designer provides related Microsoft technology. It offers Visual Studio support for ASP.NET applications. It has some legacy support for classic ASP. Expression Web uses its own standards-based rendering engine which is different from Internet Explorer's Trident engine.

Microsoft Expression Web provides the ability to install add-ons from third-party developers, extending its capabilities.

What Microsoft said about this product:

Expression Web 4

Create standards-based Web sites faster & easier.
Professional code editor & design surface.
Make your site stand out with rich graphics support.
Work with leading industry-standard technologies.

System Requirements:

To use Microsoft Expression Web 4, you need:

Microsoft^® Windows^® XP with Service Pack 3,Windows Vista™, Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 operating system
PC with 1 GHz or faster processor
1 GB of RAM or more
2 GB or more of available hard-disk space
.NET Framework 4.0
Silverlight 4.0
Support for Microsoft DirectX^® 9.0 graphics with Windows Vista Display Driver Model (WDDM) Driver, 128 MB of graphics RAM or more, Pixel Shader 3.0 in hardware, 32-bits per pixel
DVD compatible drive
1024 x 768 or higher resolution monitor with 24-bit color
Internet functionality requires Internet access (additional fees may apply)
Actual requirements and product functionality may vary based on your system configuration and operating system.
Some product features require FireFox 3.0 or later, and Internet Explorer 8

Download Now:
Try it, it's awesome.

Expression_Web_4.0_60days_trial.exe

Other Resources: Learn Expression Web Fundamentals in 5 Days [Microsoft]

All FREE Anti [virus-spyware-adware-malware] available for Download!

2010-07-25T01:52:00.000+03:00

Here's a list of a totally free antivirus, spyware apps with a One-Click download.

1. Avira AntiVir | 42.53 MB | Offline Installation

2. PC Tools Antivirus | 33.58 MB | Offline Installation

3. avast! Antivirus | 52.29 MB | Offline Installation

4. AVG Antivirus | 2.03 MB | Online Installation

Enjoy!

Earn Money Online For Free with Greenhouse

iPhone 4 - Fake Network Signals & Death hand-hold!

2010-07-20T14:51:00.000+03:00

Apple has finally issued a public statement regarding numerous reports of reception problems on the iPhone 4, saying that the problem is simply software related and a fix will soon be available that will "make your signal bars more accurate." According to the company's statement:

"Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place."

"To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see."

"We will issue a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. Since this mistake has been present since the original iPhone, this software update will also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G."

"We have gone back to our labs and retested everything, and the results are the same— the iPhone 4’s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. For the vast majority of users who have not been troubled by this issue, this software update will only make your bars more accurate. For those who have had concerns, we apologize for any anxiety we may have caused."

Finally, Apple also notes that if you are not fully satisfied with the iPhone 4, "you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund."

Service Pack 1 [Beta] for Windows 7 & Server 2008 R2

2010-07-18T04:08:00.002+03:00

WOW!

OK, that's here before any one, you can download the beta edition of the first service pack for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, without registration @ Microsoft.

It's approx. 1.2 GB ISO file. It includes both 32 bit & 64 bit updates.

You can follow the photo-guided instructions below to help you set up this update without any problems.

1. Download the Service Pack.

Right Click, and Save As.. OR use your favorite download manager.

2. Mount the ISO file using a virtual CD App (Power ISO, Magic ISO, Ultra ISO) [PowerISO is used in this guide].

3. Open the virtual CD/DVD, and select "setup.exe"

4. Accept the license agreement.

5. Your Computer is now being prepared for setup.

You can remove the check box on "Automatically restart Windows" if you're planning for manual restart.

6. Wait until the setup finishes, and click "Restart".

7. Your computer will restarts approx. 4 times till the Service Pack installation ends [It takes almost 1:30 hour], then when you log on, this message appears confirming the success of installation.

8. Notice the difference, go ahead and type "winver" from the instant search,

then press () to view System properties and you'll see the difference as follows:

BeforeAfter

Windows 8 ! New Right-Click Menu Options

2010-07-18T03:47:00.000+03:00

Windows 8, where all people can't imagine how it could be? What can Microsoft delivers in it after the extreme success of Windows 7? When it'll be alpha or pre-alpha released? What about the GUI, Security, Performance, Fastness, etc?

There some fake websites talking about Windows 8 as follows:

http://www.windows8news.com/
http://www.windows8center.com/

And what I've done that I the imagination takes place in my time for thinking about a simple change in the Right-Click menu when pointing to a folder or a file. Imagine with me, what if it was like this, will it be wonderful?

How it looks? May be more easy in certain options.
OK, it's just an idea.

Windows Summit 2010 - Device Track downloads!

2010-07-18T03:29:00.000+03:00

Device Track Opening

At this overview, you will hear a welcome keynote from our partner engagement leadership team, be introduced to the Windows Partner Engagement team, and see an outline of the information that will be covered in the Device track.

Windows Summit 2010 (Virtual Event) - Overview

2010-07-18T03:24:00.000+03:00

Welcome

Windows Summit 2010 was created to share with you the latest information and tools to build great solutions with Windows 7 and Internet Explorer. Delivered by professionals in the Windows business, presentations provide guidance, best practices, and tips on implementing Windows technologies in your devices, PCs, and software. Once posted, all sessions will remain available for you to refer to as you develop your products.

Three themes span this event: Innovation with Windows, focus on Fundamentals, and engaging with Microsoft. I'll share a few examples of innovations built on Device Stage and Windows Touch, and share insight into how Fundamentals has a major impact on early customer perceptions. I'll also share my thoughts on the value to your business of engaging with Microsoft through the Windows Logo Program. So, sit back and enjoy the show!

Device technical implementer

Discover the rich customization features in Windows 7 that enables partners to create a custom user experience for the PC or device. Targeted at software and device firmware engineers, this track will provide you with the direction and technical information to unlock the power of Windows 7 to create a great device experience.

System technical implementer

Understand the features of Windows 7 that you can leverage to create and deliver the best system possible. You'll see how implementing a few fundamental techniques can dramatically improve overall system quality and key user experiences.

Software technical implementer

The Windows 7 platform makes it easy for developers to create engaging, user-friendly applications by providing familiar tools and rich development features that allow them to take advantage of the latest PC capabilities. The sessions in this track will guide you through the key developer advances in fundamentals, richer application experiences, and the best of Windows and the Web.

Why Visual Studio 2010?

2010-07-17T13:21:00.000+03:00

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 is a very powerful tool for developing rich applications using a variety of programming languages such as C++, C#, Visual Basic, F#, and other dev tools. It also includes web development, desktop development (Windows Forms & WPF Forms), Data-driven apps (ADO.Net, SQL, Linq, Oracle DB), also Cloud development (Windows Azure, SQL Azure).

Using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 – Ultimate edition you can gain access of multiple platform environments’ development such as 32-bit, 64-bit, and Itanium (IA 64) architectures.

Web developing with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 has never been easier than it is today, where Silverlight has played a big role in rich media integration, microphones and webcam control inside your web app, high-resolution 3d ‘gif’ animations, as well as Out-of-browser (OOB) applications.

“Facebook Client App”is a pretty application developed by Microsoft Corp. as a sample of the OOB app with a data-driven control, try it; it’s very cool and fully FREE.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 has a 30-days trial period, and you can extend it for more 60 days, i.e: It’s a 90 days trial application, where this period is enough for you taking a decision for which edition is suitable for your needs and your team or company needs.

There are 3 major editions of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010:

Also, a simple comparison may be helpful for selecting the suitable edition for you.

http://www.microsoft.com/australia/visualstudio/products

Of course the MSDN library is also included where this library contains a full-code-support for each single idea in your mind, each control, each item and with all programming languages support.

All Visual Studio editions are available for download FREE with 30 days trial (can be extended for more 60 days using this key BMJJC-MR3JJ-PH49G-9VB2Q-6FBQ)

Here are the direct links; VS_Ultimate_2010_Trial.iso // VS_Premuim_2010_Trial.iso // VS_Professional_2010_Trial.iso

Really, Microsoft took them a lot of efforts to make such a powerful IDE tool easy to use for all developers’ levels, with linking to Microsoft Resources for each simple category. This why Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate edition costs approx. $11,899 and $3,999 for upgrading from Visual Studio 2008 SP1. It’s really not considered that expensive when it comes for you_as a developer_creating applications and publishing it on your website or blog or even @ Microsoft Marketplace, that will indeed worth your profit.

Please follow me for updates in this blog, where I'll talk and discuss every single feature in Visual Studio 2010, step-by-step, with video and eBook guides to ease the mission for beginners and to advance the pros.