Microsoft breaks silence on Windows 7; No new kernel

Microsoft officially broke the silence on Windows 7 today on its official Windows Vista Team Blog by publishing information on the changes in the kernel, compatibility and why they had stayed silent all this time.

Chris Flores stated that the silence on Windows 7 was very much intentional and will be the new approach to publishing information on products in development as they believe this will improve the quality of the product. Also it guards the innovation in its products.

The article also says that Windows 7 will very much be compatible with software and hardware that works for Vista. System requirements will not go up. Microsoft still believes Windows 7 is a major release despite the unchanged requirements. However, Microsoft will not be shipping Windows 7 with a brand new kernel (the speculated MinWin kernel). However they are refine the componentized approach of the Vista kernel and are making more and more refinements to the current kernel.

Continue at source

MSDN and TechNET on Hyper-V now

For a prospect customer there's nothing better than a real-world implementation to realize the potential or a certain technology. And this is very true in an almost unexplored technology like virtualization.

Microsoft, which eats its own dog food since the Virtual Server 2005 era, just announced the complete migration of both MSDN and TechNet, two of the most popular web sites in the world, on virtual machines.

Microsoft kept the back-end database on physical boxes, but moved 100% of its IIS7 frond-ends on Hyper-V RC0 VMs with 4 virtual CPUs and 10GB RAM.

The virtualization hosts (no mention of the brand obviously) are powered by 2 Intel quad-core CPUs and 32GB RAM (2GB are reserved for the Windows Server 2008 parent partition).

Continue at Virtualization

SkyDrive's hot updates

SkyDrive has been updated, Here's a quick rundown of what's included:

• More places. We're now live in 24 additional locations, bringing our grand total to 62 countries and regions! We're happy to welcome Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Thailand, Ukraine, Venezuela, Serbia, Indonesia, Pakistan and Malaysia.
• Comments. You can leave comments on any file in SkyDrive and see all of the recent comments people have left for you.
• Captions. A picture's worth a thousand words, but sometimes you need a few more. Now you can add captions and descriptions to your files and photos:

Browsing widget. When you click on any file, you can speed through all the files in the folder.

Larger photo previews - we've made the photo previews even bigger.

For more features, visit here.

PTA in action against balance theft

PTA has come up with the new strategy against those who are involved in making obnoxious calls, SMS and balance theft. PTA has sent a strict message to mobile operators and directed them to take action against the offender(s), which includes jamming of SIMS and handsets, without any delay.

PTA has also set-up complaint centers which works 24/7 and forward the complains to respective mobile companies. You also can register your complaints at their toll free number 080055055 or 051-9225329-31 ext 155 or email at complaint@pta.gov.pk.

The PTA has made it obligatory on the subscriber to provide IMEI number while making a complaint. It may be recalled that IMEI system yielded good results.

Facebook's real reason for blocking Google's Friend Connect

Last week or before when Facebook, MySpace and Google announced their plans to share user information with other sites. They all wanted to keep their users information and activities within one wall. In order to accomplish this task, they have no choice but to work together.

Facebook's Charlie Cheever stated in a blog that Google's Friend Connect redistributes users personal information from Facebook to other developers without their knowledge, and that such a practice "doesn't respect the privacy standards our users have... and is a violation of our terms of service."

So he stated that Facebook had no choice but to ban Friend Connect.

However, Google employees described how Friend Connect works. It says, "We behave like any other caller of the Facebook API. (See the Facebook developer API documentation for details.) When a user links their Facebook account with Google Friend Connect they must consent to this on Facebook itself..." and goes on to detail the steps to completing info share.

Continue at Beta News

NASA's toys on Mars

NASA has successfully landed five robots on Mars over the past three decades. Its latest spacecraft, Phoenix Mars, will touch down in the Martian arctic region on Sunday. Here's why NASA is going again.

For further interview, please visit this link

Source: Google News

Firefox RC1 to the public

Mozilla's Firefox release candidate (RC) 1 has been released for public testing. This newer version is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform and offers few more features that would make Firefox more secured, friendly and personal.


You can download it from here for testing purposes so that it can collect feedback from different web developers and the Firefox testing community.

Please check out the link for detailed review.

Source: ChannelWeb

Google Phone unveiled

One of the long-awaited wireless product has been announced by the Search Giant, Google Phone, is an open-source package that would help making cell phones cheaper and with full web browsing technology. This software will also power thousands of different phone models.


This new platform has been supported by number of comapnies including Samsung, Motorola, LG and HTC, pushing new alliance with mobile phone industry. HTC will be releasing new phones on this platform this month.

It will also allow users to build their own mobile cell phones.

Source: Gameshout

Microsoft launches video on Messenger

Computer Giant has launched a video sharing service called Messenger TV in 20 countries which would allow users to watch video and chat simultaneously.

The new service offers a range of clips on MSN Video, MTV Shows and others.

Microsoft believes that this new step will create another social experience.

"Online video has exploded in popularity over the last year, but to date it has been something people watch on their own. Messenger TV is set to change all that," said John Mangelaars, the vice-president, EMEA, of consumer and online for Microsoft.

Source: Reuters

Google to launch Friend Connect

Google has announced that it will launch Friend Connect, which will be a set of APIs for Open Social participants to pull profile information from social networks into third party websites.

MySpace has also launched competing product named Data Availability while on 8th May, 08, we also heard about the Facebook Connect, another similar product.

The best thing about Google is that this service will turn the internet itself into one humongous social networking platform which can be used by anyone, with no charge.

“Google Friend Connect is like giving Webmasters a salt shaker full of ’social’ that they can sprinkle on their sites to add social capabilities,” David Glazer, a director of engineering at Google told a conference call of reporters Monday.

Wherever you go on the web, your friends will be there. Google is hoping that this changes everything.

BlackBerry Bold 9000 into the market!

Solid device with a fake leather back and metal accents. At 4.5 by 2.6 by 0.55 inches and 4.7 oz, it's wider, longer, and heavier but slightly slimmer than the BlackBerry Curve.

It's keyboard is better than 8800's, because of space between the rows.

It has got an excellent viewing angle and few of its elements use 3D effects and translucency which feels faster. You can easily record 480-320 videos, geotag photos with your GPS location. Bold doesn't support touch screen.

More at PC Mag

50 Windows XP and Vista Tips & Tricks

Over the years, Microsoft's operating system has become easier to use but theres always room for improvement, so in this package top 50 tips and tricks have been compiled.

For those who don't want to install any additional software's and want their OS to work easier and faster, should go for it!

Source: Neowin

HTC Touch Diamond Features and Specificatons

HTC Touch Diamond brings breakthroughs in size, style connectivity and overall user experience, leaves compromise at the door. It is the first ever phone which is fully controllable through touch gestures even though it runs on Windows Mobile which is not considered a very touch-friendly OS.

Its specificatons are:

• Size: 102 x 51 x 11.33mmWeight: 110 g
• Connectivity: WCDMA / HSPA: 900/2100MHz. HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA
• Operating system: Windows Mobile® 6.1
• ProfessionalDisplay: 2.8-inch VGA touch screen
• Camera: 3.2MP, with video calling
• Internal memory: 4 GB Internal Storage, 256 MB flash, 192 MB RAM,
• Bluetooth: 2.0 with EDR
• Wireless: WiFi 802.11b/gGPS: GPS/AGPS
• Interface: HTC ExtUSB™ (mini-USB and audio jack in one; USB 2.0 High-Speed)
• Battery: 900 mAh
• Talk time: GSM: up to 4 hours
• Standby time: GSM: up to 300 hours/100 hours with push email
• Chipset: Qualcomm® MSM 7201A™ 528MHz

Today we mark a new era in mobile phone evolution, an era where beauty and size integrate with uncompromising innovation at broadband speeds," said Peter Chou, president and CEO, HTC Corp. "The HTC Touch Diamond will make browsing the Web and using Web-enabled applications just as practical and easy to use as making calls."

HTC Diamond will give Sony Xperia a tough time in the market as they both are powered by Windows Mobile.

Visit this link to check out HTC Diamond's launching video.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 available for Network Installation

This installation package of 316.4 MB is intended for IT professionals and developers downloading and installing on multiple computers on a network

A smaller, more appropriate download is now available on Windows Update. The best way to ensure you get Windows XP Service Pack 3 is by turning on the Automatic Updates feature in Windows XP.

Additionally, Microsoft also put in a x86 ISO image of Windows XP SP3 standalone update CD. As of now, there is no SP3 update for Windows XP 64 bit edition due to kernel update time-line. You can refer to release notes for both Vista SP1 and XP SP3 here.

Download: Windows XP SP3 Network Install (x86) | 316.4 MB
Download: Windows XP SP3 Update ISO Image (x86) | 544.9 MB (Updates XP to SP3 only)

Google wins from end of Microsoft-Yahoo affair

Microsoft announced that it had given up its quest for Yahoo! which reject the Microsoft's offer of 46 billion dollars.

The announcement ended three months of overtures by the computer giant, which wanted to merge with Yahoo to gain ground on Google.

Meanwhile, Google was involved in multiplying its innovations and has also announced its advanced image search technology.

According to the new analysts, Microsoft-Yahoo talks have benefited Google.

"Microsoft did the smart thing -- they walked," said Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle. "Yahoo's stock price is going to come down like a rock on Monday."

Continue at AFP Google

Microsoft Backpedals on Windows Updates

Microsoft has withdrawn Vista SP1 from automatic delivery in the wake of news that XP SP3 can cause data corruption in business applications due to incompatibility issues with retail management software, 'Microsoft Dynamics'.

According to Microsoft representatives, changes introduced in Vista SP1 affect how Microsoft's SQL Server database behaves in certain situations, potentially resulting in data loss or corruption. But the bright side was that, Microsoft was able to put on the brakes before the same problems started affecting XP customers, as well.

Theres no news on when the bugs will be patched and how many applications will be affected by these incompatibilities.

If thats the case then I would be very careful while installing Vista SP1 or XP SP3 to any server running an application with a SQL Server backend.

Source: PC World

Facebook serious privacy flaw

The BBC technology program 'Click' unveiled a security flaw in a social networking portal Facebook which could compromise privacy.

Using a simple malicious application could open up yourself and your friends (who do not need to install the application) to ID fraud. The BBC has shot a video to demonstrate the flaw and if you are an avid Facebook user I suggest you watch it and take note. The techniques described in the video are still vague but if one of your friends only has to add the application and this opens your Facebook profile up this is a serious flaw.

Watch out the video here.

Source: BBC News

Microsoft launches Pro Photo tools for free

Microsoft plans to release a free new utility for the professional photographers to keep them united with Windows.


Basically the Pro Photo tools is developed mainly for enthusiasts of photography and it has got some remarkable features such as geotag, it allows you to add geographical information showing where the picture was taken. Nowadays, geotagging is a wedded feature with latest technologies and camera makers are trying to embed it into the cameras.

Source: CNet

XP SP3 vs. Vista SP1 - Which is fastest?

Comparison is done on Phenom 9700 for benchmarking both of the operating systems using PassMark PerformanceTest 6.1. Throughout the testing the hardware platform has remained unchanged.


How ever the benchmark scores of Passmark don't translate well into real world performance but it will somehow, give you an idea.

Source: ZDNet blogs

Heroes Happen at {Bahria University}

Yesterday, we organized an event that took place at Bahria University, Karachi Campus. The community launch leaders of BIMCSdotNET (Usergroup, INETA) held presentations on all the three newly launched products (Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008) of Microsoft. The event also included a giveaway session in which attendees were given free copies of all the 3 products along with the TechNet subscriptions, free exam vouchers with 40% discount and many more.

Event Details: http://www.heroescommunitylaunch.com/EventDetails.aspx?eid=f3eed949-fc72-4fa2-8504-d11914b0c810

Windows XP SP3 released through Windows Update

Eventually, Service Pack 3 is available for everybody, which includes all previously released updates for the operating system. This update also includes few new functionalities, which won't change the customer's familiarity with the OS.

This new package is easily available to those who use Windows Update and those, who prefer to download it explicitly so theres a direct link for them.

Further more, this paper summarizes what new features are included in Windows XP SP3.

Known issues:
On some hardware configurations, you may encounter the Windows XP SP3 BSoD Endless Reboot Loop with Stop c0000139 on GDI32.dll Error, follow this guide to repair your XP installation.

Source: Neowin