What’s new in Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch

November 26, 2010 Leave a comment

I don’t think there would be anything new, other than new cool UI. Need to find out. I’m getting the beta, will update later.

Categories: microsoft

Google provides all new AdSense

November 3, 2010 Leave a comment

No wonder why Google are just making it all possible. Like every others in the domain including Microsoft and Apple, Google are also making some real progress, specially with the segments where they currently excel. Google being one of the biggest web ad service provider by its flagship service Google AdSense.

Just recently Google has release all new interface of Google AdSense with a boat load of interactive features. You can try the beta. This new interface brings in lots of cool new handy features that will surely help its users a great deal with ads and of course the revenue. Here are some of the headlines of the new features.

More Insights: Actionable data helps you better understand your performance and make more informed business decisions. Learn more »

More Control: Easier to use, richer controls help you protect your brand – all in one place. Learn more »

Greater Efficiency: Redesigned interface helps you find what you’re looking for and complete tasks quickly and easily. Learn more »

I haven’t used all the new features till yet. Will post updates as I start finding some important ticks. Till then, have your say!

Windows Calculator Bug

November 2, 2010 Leave a comment

Well, Microsoft has been releasing Windows for over 15 years now, and with almost every release there is a new calculator interface you see. Probably they are just changing the UX of the windows and not the apps actually. There is bug in windows calculator that has been around since ever.

Just try it on:

Step 1: Take square root of 4 (press 4, then press sqrt)

It will surely give you 2, which is correct so far, no doubt at all about that. Now try step 2.

Step 2: On the same screen, subtract 2 from the result of above. (on the same screen, press – and then press 2). Guess what, you see this.

-8.1648465955514287168521180122928e-39 instead of 0.

image

You can check it yourself now 🙂

In the clouds: Microsoft and the New York City

October 23, 2010 Leave a comment

New York City, perhaps with one of the biggest customer base with over 100,000 city employees certainly catches the eye when its Mayor Bloomberg wants to make an announcement with Microsoft, CEO Steve Ballmer. At City Hall, they both have announced a new five-year deal which will turn up dozens of separate city contracts with Microsoft into one master agreement and is projected to save the city an amount of $50 million. The value of the deal itself is about $100 million, or $20 million a year.

These savings will not only come from different contracts’ consolidation, but also by shifting some of the software needs of the New York City to the Cloud. The first phase of the deal impacts 30,000 city employees, and will include Microsoft Windows 7, Office, SharePoint, Exchange, Live Meetings, Azure, Windows Server, development tools, and database products. (also, when Office 365 becomes available that too could be show up as the part of the agreement).

City workers will fall into one of three buckets: occasional users, basic users, and power users. The city employs a lot of desk-less workers who are out on the streets. Giving them access to Office, email, and collaboration tools in the cloud makes more sense than giving them desktop versions of Office. Power users, on the other hand, will require both desktop and cloud versions. The more software that Microsoft hosts on its own servers, the more the city saves on hardware and IT costs.

Why I hate IE9 (Internet Explorer 9)

October 14, 2010 Leave a comment

I underlined a few Hate Points as a reason for why do I or anyone would hate Internet Explorer 9 and still I’m using it. Can’t you figure this out?

It’s all about: SQL – The SQL Pass Summit 2010

October 12, 2010 Leave a comment

2010 Pass Summit is perhaps the biggest event in the course of SQL history. Make no mistake, this is going to be another exciting event in the line of Microsoft’s continuing strategy. With Microsoft Dynamics AX Technical Conference being held at Redmond on January next year, this is also being noted as another mega event from Microsoft. While MS acquires Dundas Virtualization, and Microsoft + WordPress decisions are making it clear that Microsoft are not going to take anything for granted, it is clear that SQL Pass Summit will bring in something extraordinary too.

Don’t miss the world’s largest conference for SQL Server and BI technical education and business networking. Meet the top industry experts and authors in the world. Learn about best practices, effective troubleshooting, how to prevent issues, save money, and build a better SQL Server environment for your company or clients. Roll up your sleeves and get hands-on. Get face-to-face answers and advice from Microsoft CSS and SQLCAT experts. All only at PASS Summit 2010.

Check out the 2010 Content line-up or Register now.

Microsoft .NET MSChart support for AX6 client

October 12, 2010 Leave a comment

AX2009 allowed developers to create charts and graphs on their AX forms using a third party charting control. This third party control was based on COM technology which is no longer updated by the vendor themselves. Thus, limiting the ability to introduce support for additional languages, get key bug fixes and essential security changes. Therefore, Microsoft are replacing the COM control with Microsoft .NET MSChart for Dynamics AX.

Among others, some of the key benefits of using the MSChart control:

– Moving from older COM Control to new .NET based Chart control.

– Increased security.

– Instead of support for 6 languages, we’ll be adding support for ALL AX languages.

– Users may now save their charts to disk in 7 different file formats.

– Standardize on Microsoft .NET Charting

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Documentation Updates

October 7, 2010 Leave a comment

Microsoft has released a list of changes to the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Help documentation since the product RTM. Available for download here.

Here is the list of Dynamics AX List of Best Practice Error and Warning messages.

Download Facebook Information

October 6, 2010 2 comments

It is here now. Yes you can download your Facebook information.

As Huffington Post releases an update Facebook Event where a new dashboard has been unveiled which will provide Facebook users to download their information. As TechCrunch quotes announcement of Mark Zuckerberg:

“People own and have control over all info they put into Facebook and “Download Your Information” enables people to take stuff with them.”

With Facebook equipped with a couple of bugs and the the Facebook God Mode itself, is this really a good move?

Stay tuned for more information yet to arrive …

Microsoft acquires Dundas Visualizations

October 5, 2010 1 comment

For many years, Dundas Data Visualization, Inc. has been known for producing industry standard data visualization components. They have also been producing for Microsoft technologies since ever. Microsoft acquired the codebase for these components, back in 2007, in order to deliver data visualization directly within products of Microsoft.

Microsoft also enabled Dundas to continue to sell, enhance, update and support the components for a specified duration as a service to their existing customers which was a part of an agreement that will expire on October 31, 2010.

As Dundas communicated this information directly to their customer base, the purpose of this post is to answer any questions related to the components/capabilities that have been released as part of the Microsoft Product Roadmap and how you can get access to them. Here is a FAQ site on SQL Server Reporting Services Team Blog that describes Frequently Asked Questions regarding Dundas Visualizations being acquired by Microsoft.

As Microsoft continues to acquire industry champs in relevant technologies, along with releasing other connectors and migration tools, this certainly can be computed in that sense as well.