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 Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Clash of the Titans
  The big day has arrived. Everyone knew that Australia will
surely make it into semis, so will South Africa. It was not as easier for South
Africa as for Australia. Today is the day when Australia takes on South Africa.
No cricket fan can forget the semi final match of
South Africa Vs Australia. It was one of the best semifinals I have ever seen.
I am sure today's match is going as exciting as the 1999 match.
Both sides have mighty batsman and bowlers who can turn around the whole
match. Australia has Mathew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist. South Africa has
Herschelle Gibbs and Graeme Smith. When it comes to handle the pressure innings
with care Australia has Ricky Ponting, south Africa has Jack Kallis.
I expect this match to be the best match of the whole tournament.
Let the best team win. Ofcourse whoever wins will have to face the mighty bowlers of Sri Lanka like Chaminda Vaas, Mallinga, Muralidharan. After watching the semifinal of Sri Lanka and Newzealand its seems its very difficult to beat Sri Lanka. Their mission seems to be very clear. Its "World Cup".
Transcend Releases 32GB 2.5-inch IDE SSD
 Memory devices keep increasing in capacity and decreasing in size. Transcent released its 32 GB Solid State Drive (SSD) which is compatible with most mainstream PC and notebook computers. The 2.5 inch IDE interface SSD has a tough outer metal case, enormous capacities, high reliabilty, low power consumption and anti-shock features that make it ideal to replace Hark Disk Drives. Since its a solid state memory with no moving parts therefore its not susceptible to mechanial failure as a result of vibrations. It is available in capacities of 8, 16 and 32 GB. It is compact in size with thickness of only 7.4mm which makes it easier to intstall in PCs and notebooks.
This 2.5-inch IDE SSD has built in ECC(Error Correction Code) functionality that ensures reliable data transfer and increases systems energy efficiency.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
“Orcas” Beta 1 is now available
 Microsoft this week released a beta version of the next version of Visual Studio, code-named "Orcas" and the next version of the Microsoft .NET Framework, version 3.5. Beta 2 of Orcas is expected to release later this year. The final version may be released to manufacturing by the end of 2007.
Friday, April 20, 2007
HTC Shift - Available in the second half of 2007
In article “HTC Shift to use Intel’s New Ultra Mobile Platform” Matthew Miller tells us about HTC Shift. At the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, HTC announced that the HTC Shift new mobile computer would use Intel’s new Ultra Mobile platform 2007. This platform is comprised of the Intel A110 processor, Intel 945GU Express Chipset and intel ICH7U I/O controller hub. This new Intel architecture is designed to significantly extend the battery life of small form factor computers.  As mentioned on the HTC website HTC-Shift uses the power of Windows Vista with hyper-fast 3G connectivity, it delivers extraordinary functional clout in a sleek, light-weight design. Key features include: 7-inch widescreen display, 30GB Hard drive, QWERTY keyboard, Microsoft Vista Business OS, Windows Media Player 11, Tri-Band UMTS/HSDPA, Quad-Band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 HTC Shift is expected to ship in second half of 2007.
Microsoft bridging the Digital Divide
 Microsoft began with a dream of a PC on everydesk and in every home. Thirty years ago this seemed impossible. Today it has reached more than one billion people. Now it aims to reach next 5 billion people under the Microsoft Unlimited Potential program.  As reported by News.com, in Beijing Bill Gates unveiled a new low-cost bundle of Office and Windows. Microsoft will offer the $3 Student Innovation Suite to governments that agree to directly purchase PCs for students to use in their schoolwork and at home. The collection of software, which starts shipping in the second half of this year includes Windows Xp Started Edition, Office Home and Student 2007, Windows Live Mail Desktop and several educational products. The $3 price includes the software license. In order to be eligible, governments must pick up at least half of the tab for the PC, though the software can also be used on refurbished computers, which can cost as little as $50. Microsoft is expecting these programs and others will help it reach more than 5 billion people who have yet to benefit from the PC revolution. Microsoft is also announcing several other projects. It will nearly double to 200, the number of local innovation centers it has over the next two years. Microsoft will also set up an employability portal aimed at helping more of India’s technology workers find jobs. It is working with the Asian Development Bank to help build additional technology capacity.
Intel Delivers its fastest Quad-Core Processor
  Intel introduced its Core TM 2 Extreme processor QX6800, the company’s twelfth quad-core processor. Running at 2.93 GHz, the fastest native clock speed yet reached with the Intel Core TM microarchitecture for the quad-core desktop. This addition to Intel’s innovative processor family sets new standards for desktop PC performance. The Intel Core 2 Extreme processor QX6800 is ideal for those gamers, digital design professionals and enthusiasts who crave the highest performing computers they can get their hands on. As the name suggests QX6800 uses four processor core where each core is running at 2.93GHz, The processor has a total of 8 MB L2 cache, just like its predecessor.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Winners of MIX07 Remix contest announced
Microsoft Unveils Silverlight
 Microsoft unveils Silverlight (previously called Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere ( WPF/E)). It’s a new cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications (RIAs) for the web. Silverlight offers consistent experiences to both Macintosh and Windows users on a variety of browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. Leading media companies and solution providers have announced support for silverlight including Akamai Technologies, Brighcove, Eyeblaster, Limelight Networks, Major League Baseball, NaviSite Inc., Netflix, Pinnacle Systems Inc., Rhozet Corp., Skinkers, Sonic Solutions, Tarari Inc., Telestream Inc. and Winnov. All have indicated plans to deliver Silverlight-based experiences for their viewers and customers.
Microsoft Expands Reach of .NET FrameworkBased on the Microsoft .NET Framework, Silverlight enables developers and designers to easily use existing skills and tools to deliver media experiences and RIAs for the Web with role-specific tools: for designers, Microsoft Expression® Studio, and for developers, Visual Studio®. New tool and server investments for media professionals include the following: • Expression Media Encoder. Microsoft Expression Media Encoder, which will be a feature of Microsoft Expression Media, enables rapid import, compression and Web publishing of digital video imported from a variety of popular formats, including AVI and QuickTime, into WMV. Capable of running on the desktop or Windows Server®, Expression Media Encoder is a template-driven system that integrates seamlessly into existing Web publishing workflows for both live and on-demand content delivery. Expression Media Encoder will be a free download for customers of Expression Media when it is shipped later this year. • Hardware-accelerated video publishing. When paired with a Tarari Encoder Accelerator, Expression Media Encoder reduces encode times by up to 15 times over software alone, a significant capabilities and cost advantage for publishing Web video today. • Even greater scalability with Windows Server, code-named “Longhorn.” Building on the industry-leading streaming and Web server platform, Windows Server “Longhorn” will enable customers to experience up to twice the scalability on the same hardware when compared with Windows Server 2003. Also being announced today is the Internet Information Services 7 (IIS7) Media Pack, which adds new cost-saving features such as bit-rate throttling and other advanced features designed to help further reduce the cost of media distribution. The IIS7 Media Pack will be a free download for customers of Windows Server “Longhorn” when it ships. Tim Sneath in his article shares with us top ten list of reasons why you might want to use Silverlight. .
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
WPF Vs Apollo/Flex
  I have observed that in this IT field many people like to criticise Microsoft. People hate Microsoft, as if its their hobby. They will use Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office Suite and most the the Microsoft products but then also keep criticizing it.
Lets look back at history. Windows has become a standard and majority of people use it. one myth that is common among people is that "Apple OS is good for designers". I do not know whats the reason behind this myth but I find it really wierd when Apple is considered good for designers. Windows platform has much more tools than any other platform for designers. With emerging technologies like WPF Windows is the best platform for designing and development.
 Linux desktop have copied each and every feature of Windows and the open source community keep on copying Microsoft Office Suite in the name of Open Office. Open Office is such a wierd product that most of the time you will use it hoping that it doesn't crash. I am now wondering how open source community will copy Office 2007. But I am sure there are many copy cats who can easily do it.
Now a days people are creating hype about Apollo and Flex. When I had a look at what these two products are, I found that Apollo and Flex is just the replica of .NET Framework. They are talking so loud about Flash and Flex. Guys Flash is just an animation software which was made with the intention of being a preloader. It cannot take place of programming Language. Apollo people are giving counts of Apollo runtime downloads. Dot NET Framework is downloaded four times more than their Apollo runtime.
WPF technology and .NET Framework 3.0 brings in the years of experience of Microsoft in programming field. WPF is really a revolution. The combination of WPF/Expression Suite with the programming capabilities of Visual Studio makes it the best Programming Suite ever available.
One day I was just trying to open a file in Flash, would you believe Actionscript is such a wierd language that simple task like writing/reading file looks almost difficult, infact I don't count any of the Adobe's new product as programming language products, they are only desperate ways of competing with Microsoft.
Let this year of 2007 come to an end then we will see where this Apollo and Flex stand :D
I would like to apologize for my comments. Since I am passionate about some technology doesn't mean I should have written what I have.
I know I have hurt a lot of people and I sincerely apologize for it.
I made a mistake and I wish that I wasn't sober while writing that. I will do my best to learn from it.
Nukeation.com updated - Version 14 is now live
Dax is on DotNetRocks
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Indian Cricket at its worst
 In any sport win or loss is normal part and parcel of it. The matter is not that why India lost against Bangaladesh or Sri Lanka in the World Cup 2007, the matter is totally different. Its the matter of player's attitude and the management of BCCI. I was trying to resist myself from writing this article but could not stop myself.
 Biggest annoyance I feel is that politicians like pawar lead the cricket board of India. Because of his private rivalry with Dalmiya he slashed all the supporters who where with Dalmiya. Saurav was thrown out of team and removed from captainship as he was Dalmiya's favourite. One question that keeps on hitting my mind is what knowledge does Pawar has of cricket. Second wierd thing about board is the zonal selection team. Players are selected based on the region they belong to instead of their ability. We have seen players selected based on selector's and capatain's biases. Laxman was dropped from world cup squad when he was in form, whereas Sehwag was selected irrespective of his wierd form.
When India was out of the race for world cup Chappel said that what could he have done if players did not play. He was right but then he should not take any credit for any win india has registered his being coach.
All board people call up all the old captains and other cricket people to do a postmortem of Indian cricket. They sit for two days. As usual Chappel gives a wonderful presentation (for which he is famous), pawar is again impressed irrespective of the bad performance of the team. Pawar accused media in the loss of Indian team. How is media responsible for it, Was media playing cricket for India? :D.
Indian cricket should learn that we should stop fighting amongst ourselves then only we can play with other teams. In our team Sachin, Yuvraj like players think themselves to be God. Dravid seems to be a person never in control. I never see India dominating any team. There is no positive attitude in team. Players play with their insecurites. Gangualy once he returned was under presssure to perform hence he wasted many balls to just score runs. Sachin on the other hand does not make a single run in two crucial matches and gives interivew to media which shows that there is no unity in our team.
BCCI instead of counting money should sort out these differences and should take measures which TRULY improve indian cricket, instead of wierd rules passed by the board. people have short memory, and they will forget this loss in World Cup and the story will again continue. Now Ravi Shastri is made the manager. I see that once india looses more series he too would be blamed and thrown our of the team.
 We should watch Australia and South African Circket team. The commitment they show on field and the unity they have. The commitment of captain the the positive attitude of whole team is so contagious. Chappel rightly said "if we want to become like Australian cricket team we should not play like Zimbabve".
To help solve this problem Zee group came up with a plan to start a league which will help Indian Cricket team. But the insecure BCCI rejected to support this league.
Lets wait and watch what happens in days to come.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Invisibility will soon be a reality?
 We have all seen invisibility used in science fiction movies. The spies use invisible car to flee away from the location. Well, now scientists are working to make this a reality.
An article in Popular science magazine shows us how it can be a reality and what are the theories of the scientists . The trick is to use metamaterial, a complex hybrid structure of metal and insulator that makes light move around an object like air flowing over an airplane wing.
In a process called refraction, these materials interact with light in such a way that it travels faster through the metamaterial than it does through a vacuum, the famed c in Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Properly tuned, the light emerges from the shield as if there were no object present.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Dax talks about WPF and UX at DotNetRocks
 Last week Dax recorded .NET Rocks show with Carl and Richard. He talked about WPF and UX. He also talked about IndiMix and the meeting with Steve Ballmer. Read about this on Blogpost by Dax .  This show will be published on April 10,2007 as per the DNR calender (snapshot of the calender is attached at the right for your reference). Download the show, I promise its going to be a great show. I am eagerly waiting for April 10th.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Win a copy of Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition
If you want to improve your existing development skills to become more versatile and productive attend Visual Basic 2005 Labcast series. These labcasts make it easy to check out Visual Basic 2005 in a convenient and virtual environment. Get in-depth training and one-on-one real-time assistance from Visual Basic exprets.
 Learn how to- Modernize and simplify installation of Visual Basic 6.0 applications
- Add new data-bound forms to Visual Basic 6.0 applications
- Introduce simple background threading to Visual Basic 6.0 applications
- View and edit SQL Server™ data
- Create data-centric Web applications with your Visual Basic desktop development skill
- Keep Microsoft Word documents in sync with your database
What more when you attend two Visual Basic 2005 Labcasts and submit the evaluation form for each session, you will be eligible for a complimentary copy of Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition from Microsoft. Click here to go to the Registration Page to register for a Labcast.
Mobile PC Development Webcast
 Windows Vista development team has put together a series of webcasts
starting today 2nd April and continuing weekly through June. These
online-only Live Meetings are mainly for the developer crowd who's
currently (or looking to be) building applications that run on mobile
PCs.
Topics center on getting the
most out of Windows Vista's mobility features from
creating SideShow Gadgets to ink-enabling an application to creating
applications that are network- and battery-aware.
You
can join any of these webcasts by just clicking on the title link no
later than 15 minutes before the event begins on the day of the event.
If you happen to miss one, each webcast will be recorded and posted online.
Man Behind Windows Vista Wallpapers
 Windows Vista is one of the best thing to happen to PC world. I just love working in Vista. I like the cool wallpapers that ships with Vista. Do you know who is the man behind the photographs in Windows Vista Wallpaper? It is Hamad Darwish, a Kuwaiti Healthcare professional, with a passion for
photography. He is one of the photographers commissioned by Microsoft in
2005 to shoot photos to be used in Windows Vista's Wallpaper
Collection.  To know more about his work with Microsoft read this interview by Long Zheng from
www.istartedsomething.com.You can watch his full photograph gallery at http://www.hamadpictures.com . You can also have a look at his flickr profile. He has taken some of the most splendid photographs I have ever seen.
Top Ten list of Apple's Flop products
 Newlaunches.com has published a list of Top 10 Apple products that flopped. People know Apple for its series of products starting with supersticious "i" like ipod, imac etc. but many of you might not be knowing about the products developed by Apple that flopped badly. This list by Newlanches.com gives us an idea of the top 10 flop products of Apple.
 This kind of lists are always debatable and many of you might think otherwise, but I had fun going through this list. This list of flop includes the "Apple Cyberdog" product that Apple released to compete with Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.
Another such product was "Apple Pippin" which was the technology of multimedia player marketed by Apple, they were able to sell only 42000 units.
Have a look at the whole list on Newlaunces.com.
Microsoft Unveils Xbox 360™ Elite
 Microsoft Corp. announces the new addition to Xbox family. Name of this new upcoming member is Xbox 360™ Elite. One of the biggest feature of this upcoming model is that it comes with a huge 120 GB hard disk. It also comes with High-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) cable and cool looking premium black finish.
Elite console is powered with three powerful core processors, full surround sound and DVD playback. Availability of a big hard drive will allow its users to save games and store television shows, movies, music, pictures, extra game levels and any other content that is available from Xbox Live Marketplace.
The Black wireless controller and black Xbox Live® headset jells well with the black console. Wireless controller has a range of upto 30 feet and a battery life of 30 hours on two AA batteries.
Estimated retail price of this product is $479.99 (US). Details of Xbox 360 Elite can be found on the Microsoft Newsflash about Xbox 360™ Elite.
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