Bill Crounse, a medical doctor who works at Microsoft, as the global healthcare industry manager, invited us over to see Kent Hargrave, CIO at Overlake Hospital Medical Center. I had an opportunity recently to spend a week in the hospital while my wife had surgery. I noticed that the hospital had wifi almost everywhere (which I greatly appreciated, by the way). But, in this interview we learned a lot more about the role of technology in hospitals.

Michael Rys, a program manager on SQL Server's engine team, talks with us all about XML in the upcoming SQL Server 2005.

In this episode John Canning, Charlie Owen, and Michael Creasy share some details about Windows XP Media Center Edition and how it provides an integrated home audio and video experience.

Chris Sells interviews Rick Brewster, Tom Jackson, and Craig Taylor about their project, Paint.NET v2.1. Paint.NET is a full-featured, professional-grade graphics application built on the .NET Framework as a senior design project at Washington State University.

“Hopefully, by now you’ve seen from our posts that there are a lot of new features and work going into IE 7. As part of this update, we’re refreshing our icon and logotype. We considered more radical departures from our current logo, but blue “e” with the ring is very recognizable and familiar to users, so we elected instead to make more subtle changes.

As you can see, the new “e” has more modern look, and the edges are a bit darker so the icon stands out better against different backgrounds. We liked the gold ring too since it brings in new energy and helps the icon pop a bit more than the old one."

As said by Tony Chor a member of the IE Team.

View Logo: Internet Explorer 7 New Logo

Microsoft is not a name normally associated with the open source community, much less the community’s signature gathering, but attendees at the 2005 LinuxWorld Conference & Expo today heard Bill Hilf, open source industry veteran and former IBM Linux deployment specialist, talk about his experience running Microsoft’s Linux/OSS Lab.

While Microsoft’s presence at the conference may raise some eyebrows in the open source community — the last Microsoft executive to speak at the event jokingly wore a flack jacket — Hilf’s focus is on building bridges. Today, he led a session at the conference titled “Managing Linux in a Mixed Environment ... at Microsoft?” To learn more about Microsoft’s position on OSS and the purpose of the company’s Linux/OSS Lab, PressPass spoke with Hilf, who is Microsoft’s director of platform technology strategy.

Opinion: It's late, it's lame and installing it won't be cheap, so now is the perfect time for Linux desktop vendors to make a charge at Microsoft. My friend Mary Jo Foley wants Microsoft to come clean about what will be in Vista. I just want Microsoft to fess up to how they will make it worth having two different versions of the Windows client OS. Microsoft recently said that the company was working on two different Vistas: one for everyone, which I'll call Vista Vanilla, and the other for enterprises, which I'll name Vista Pro. The boys from Redmond are also working on two versions of Office 12, but that's a story for another day. So why two versions? Do you get 10 percent more security in Vista Pro? From where I sit, better security is the only virtue I see left that Microsoft can put in Vista.

Imagine if your next Mac cost you only $300, and ran faster than any G4 or G5 you've ever used.

That future may already be unfolding: Hackers have found a way to bypass a chip designed to prevent the Mac OS from running on non-Apple PCs, which are often cheaper than Macs.

Some of the hackers are running the tweaked version of the operating system on their PCs natively. Others are using the system with VMware, which allows the Mac OS to support more PC hardware.

Hackers and curious computer users this week have been downloading the tweaked Mac OS X for PCs, nicknamed "OSx86," from several websites connected to the BitTorrent file-distribution system.

OSx86 is designed to run on Apple Computer's next generation of hardware, which some call "MacIntels" and others "MacTels" because the machines will run on Intel microprocessors rather than the PowerPC processor used in current Macs. The hacked version of OSx86 is based on pirated software, which came from copies of the operating system sent to participants in the Apple Developer Connection. The ADC participants also received MacIntel computers for testing and development.

Now the hacked version of OSx86 is running on Dell laptops and other PCs with Intel and AMD microprocessors.

For the first time in five years, Intel will make a major change in the plumbing of its chips by switching to a new design that promises better performance and lower power consumption than today's Pentium 4.

The world's largest chip maker will announce the architecture this month at a conference in San Francisco, spokesman Bill Calder said Thursday. Chips based on the new architecture are expected to debut in the second half of 2006.

The technology will replace the Netburst architecture that appeared in late 2000 with the Pentium 4 and enabled a path to higher processing frequencies. At the time, Intel hoped that it could boost performance by ratcheting up the speed of the chips.

But Netburst hit a roadblock last year as jumps in frequency failed to produce the expected improvements in overall performance. In addition, the chips required more power and thus generated considerably more heat.

The first episode of “Barbershop: The Series,” a new show that premieres this Sunday, Aug. 14 at 10 p.m. EDT and PDT on SHOWTIME, will be available for streaming in its entirety on MSN® Video simultaneously with the series debut.

The first episode of the half-hour comedy series, which focuses on the interplay between an eclectic staff of haircutters and their customers at a Chicago barbershop, also can be viewed free at http://www.msnvideo.com. The “Barbershop” pilot will be available on MSN for eight consecutive days starting Aug. 14. In addition, MSN Video will feature behind-the-scenes content and clips from each of the series episodes throughout the season for free.

“We’re thrilled to be working with SHOWTIME, a member of MSN Video since our launch of the service in January 2004, to introduce this edgy and inventive series to our extensive network of unique users,” said Mike Conte, general manager of MSN Marketplaces and Digital Media at Microsoft Corp. “Consumers can expect to see even more examples of original programming on MSN Video, which continues to attract high-quality content, exceptional advertising support and fast-growing viewership.”

A senior Palm executive says his company could benefit from building a mobile computing device that runs on the Windows operating system made by once-bitter rival Microsoft. In an interview, Palm Chief Financial Officer Andrew Brown said that building a Treo that runs on the mobile version of Windows might help the company woo corporate customers who have been reticent to buy its Palm OS-based gadgets. "CIOs don't get fired for using Microsoft products," Brown said, though he did not say whether Palm has such a product in the works

Find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions concerning Windows Vista and WinFX Basics. The Windows Vista Developer FAQ is designed to put a wealth of answers at your fingertips. From setup and hardware issues to questions about future plans and about what it all means, this FAQ is an excellent companion to the WinFX newsgroups.

In this chapter from his upcoming book, Programming Indigo, David Pallmann discusses how service, data, and message contracts are created in order to build interoperable services.

This article highlights the Beta 1 release of the Windows Presentation Foundation ("Avalon"), the next-generation Windows presentation graphics subsystem. It provides a brief overview of the platform and explores new features added in this release from previous releases.

The MSXML 3 SDK includes documentation for server-safe HTTP access, XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations)/XPath (XML Path Language), and SAX2 (Simple API for XML).

The Microsoft® XML Parser (MSXML) 3.0 SP7 release offers a number of bug fixes and security fixes over the previous MSXML 3.0 SP releases.

Release Highlights:

• Support for GeForce 7800 GT
• SLI support for GeForce 6600 and GeForce 6600 LE
• New SLI rendering mode (SLI Antialiasing) for increased antialiasing performance
• Broader SLI optimizations and validation for the latest games
• Resolved SLI Antialiasing issues with some applications and generating screen shots. For a full list of other issues resolved, please view the driver release notes.
• Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0c and OpenGL® 2.0 support

XP/2000 drivers linked in the headline. x64 drivers available here.

Central Scotland Police has signed a three-year deal with Microsoft that will see the force standardise on Microsoft Server 2003 and Windows XP (SP2). The deal was struck under the Office of Government Commerce's (OGC) agreement with Microsoft to offer preferential rates for public sector organisations, and will cost the force less than £60,000 per year. Previously, Central Scotland was the sole non-Microsoft force in the country, having chosen instead to use Linux and StarOffice. But a review of the systems in 2004 found that officers were struggling to file reports from remote locations, and often had to come back to their own desks to complete paperwork. The head of IT, David Stirling, noted that the review also identified "disproportionate" support costs associated with the open source kit: "An estimated 25 percent of additional staff time was routinely required to install and maintain open source-based systems," he said.

Today when I came in to the office, I was made aware of an issue which stated that a Microsoft Representative was quoted as saying Windows AntiSpyware would no longer be available for free. The statement quoted in many forums is not true. As we have been saying since day one, Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware will be available at no charge to licensed users of Windows. Users who validate their Windows install through WGA will be allowed to download the AntiSpyware beta, as well as the full standalone version of AntiSpyware when it releases to the web.

Once again, a major industry case involving Microsoft is getting dirty as investigators rifle trashcans. Only this time, it's the trashcan in Windows. A document recovered from the Recycle Bin of ex-Microsoft vice president Kai Fu-Lee's PC has apparently revealed a belief that Microsoft could sue over Google's decision to hire Lee.

Signaling a new addition to the list of browser-specific Web sites, the U.S. Copyright Office solicited opinions on a planned Internet Explorer-only zone. The office, a division of the Library of Congress, invited comments through Aug. 22 on an upcoming Web service for prospective copyright owners that may launch with support for only limited browsers.

According to papers filed with a Washington state court by the software giant, a document that describes terms of an apparent agreement between Google and Lee was "recovered from the 'Recycle Bin' of one of Dr. Lee's computers." The document indicates Google foresaw possible litigation in hiring Lee to head its China operations. It could bolster the software titan's claim that by taking his new job, Lee would be breaking a contract signed with Microsoft, and that Google has been encouraging Lee to violate that contract.

101 Samples, in both Visual Basic and C#, featuring many of the new features available with Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0. For more samples using Visual Studio 2003 .NET, see this download.

Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1) enables customers to leverage the latest Windows Server System software, utilize the latest hardware based on the x64 platform, better understand their OML license utilization, and includes many customer requested enhancements. This Service Pack applies to Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Workgroup Edition.

MSN Weather Add-in for MSN Search Toolbar keeps the local three-day weather forecast at your fingertips and take advantage of these innovative features: Easy to use: Your three-day forecast and current conditions for your favorite city. Search: Find and change location directly from the Weather Add-in. Consistency: Your favorite location is shared between MSN® Weather and the Weather Add-in.

We have posted up a number of screenshots from Microsoft's newly released Student 2006 suite that arrived here the other day. It comes with a number of features for those still in school and also comes with Encarta 2006 DVD edition.

So here is what we cranked out today. You can find all the details on the bulletins here:

Also we re-released two other bulletins MS05-023 and MS05-032.

Stewart has posted his "Administrator's Preview" of Windows Vista Beta 1, which covers the beta from an admin standpoint. Here is an excerpt:

Windows Vista is actually quite interesting for an administrator. When I first saw it on MSDN, I thought, “Over 2 Gig’s. What could they have done for it to be that large without the drastic new UI?” Well, I have been looking at this thing for about a week now and I uncover more and more each time that I look into it. I just decided that it was time for me to stop digging or this review would never get out of the door. Microsoft has several press releases and other supporting documentation that really showcase the predominant features of Windows Vista.

This update contains the following new language locales for Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2):Bosnian (Cyrillic, Bosnia and Herzegovina), Filipino (Philippines), Frisian (Netherlands), Inuktitut (Latin, Canada), Irish (Ireland), Luxembourgish (Luxembourg), Mapudungun (Chile), Mohawk (Mohawk), Nepali (Nepal), Pashto (Afghanistan)m Romansh (Switzerland).

Word Viewer 2003 lets you open Word 2003 documents and documents created with all previous versions of Microsoft Word for Windows® and Microsoft Word for Macintosh. In addition to Word document files (.doc), you can also open files saved in other (including Wordperfect) formats. With Word Viewer 2003, you can view, print, and copy document contents to another program. However, you cannot edit an open document, save a document, or create a new document. This download is a replacement for Word 97 Viewer and all previous Word Viewer versions.

The "Internationalized Domain Names Mitigation APIs" download includes several API functions to convert an IDN to different representations, as well as several API functions specifically intended to allow applications to mitigate some of the security risks presented by this technology. The functions IdnToAscii, IdnToUnicode, and IdnToNameprepUnicode each convert an IDN string to a particular form. The functions DownlevelGetLocaleScripts, DownlevelGetStringScripts, and DownlevelVerifyScripts allow applications to verify that the characters in a given IDN are drawn entirely from the scripts associated with a particular locale or locales. However, these functions are only helpers; applications have still to perform comprehensive threat modeling and create appropriate mitigation for these threats. Also included are the Unicode normalization APIs IsNormalizedString and NormalizeString, which are used by the mitigation APIs.

The Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) Standard Edition is best-practice guidance for desktop deployment using limited tools and requiring basic infrastructure. The Standard Edition is targeted at companies with 250 or more PCs that want to reduce deployment time and effort by increasing the level of automation. It allows administrators to deploy desktops with Lite Touch interaction at the target PCs. This solution also helps organizations to move to a managed environment with standardized desktop images.

We have updated our list of 2005 Security Bulletins to include August 2005's six newest bulletins. If you think you have missed one of the 43 released, take a look to check and make sure you are all up to date.

A public interest lawyer who is also intending to run as a Republican in the 2006 Illinois gubernatorial race is taking his fight to Microsoft in hopes of preventing the company from releasing what he calls "bad code." Andy Martin of The Committee to Fight Microsoft on Tuesday announced his intentions to block Microsoft from releasing its Windows Vista operating system. Martin intends to ask Microsoft for an unconditional warranty that the operating system is free of bugs that could result in security vulnerabilities.

Microsoft on Monday signed off on the Windows Vista SDK, or software development kit, which will enable developers to create applications for the next-generation Windows release. The SDK, complete with code samples, tools and documentation will be available via MSDN and distributed at next month's PDC conference in LA.

The kit will simply be dubbed "Windows SDK" upon release, as it includes both WinFX and Vista-specific documentation.

The Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly known by the codename "Avalon") provides an integrated platform for building highly immersive, visually differentiated applications. In this white paper, we review the background and context to this new technology, take a look at the major new features that are delivered in the Beta 1 timeframe, and highlight some of the most significant breaking changes that will affect applications ported forward from previous releases.

Messenger for Mac 5.0 makes it easy to take advantage of the full power of instant messaging. Messenger for Mac offers two types of communication services- a personal account and a corporate account. A personal account works with the MSN® Messenger service on the Microsoft Passport Network. Contacts that you add to your personal account will include friends and family members. A corporate account uses the Microsoft Office Live Communications Server service and can include contacts who use other instant messaging services, such as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo Messenger, and iChat users who are signed in with AOL accounts.

According to hardware.silicon.com, Microsoft revealed Longhorn Server (Windows Server 2007?) to 5000 people this week. Microsoft confirmed the release that these people will receive a beta for the next-generation OS. The Longhorn Server is not available for public download. There is no date schedule for when a beta may or may not be made available to the general public. As a recent certification graduate for Windows Server 2003, I am interested in the release, and would not mind having my hands on it. Windows Server 2003 (W2K3) features many new improvements from Windows 2000 Server, such as improved IIS tools, a poor-man's email server, more adjustments to the OS without requiring a restart of the server (this one is big!), and a host of other features. The OS has definately grown up since the days of NT!

MICROSOFT WILL BE re-releasing the Update Rollup 1 for Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 because of problems users are encountering with the current version, it was confirmed Monday. Microsoft said on its web site that some users are having trouble making connections to servers running Citrix, as well as compatibility problems with third party security software. Peter Houston, senior director of servicing strategy at Microsoft, said that the problems affect only "a small fraction of the downloads."

In an age of spam, spyware and viruses, concerns remain. 439 Macworld Online voters (42 per cent of the sample group) expect such significant Windows disasters will, "bring more market share for Mac". Just 53 people (5 per cent) anticipate Windows Vista will "bring clarity", the majority (546 voters, 53 per cent) expect new bugs will debut as the new OS finally lands in late 2006. 1,038 readers voted in the poll. Despite Window's history of security vulnerabilities, Apple will still face a fight, some readers warn, Microsoft is likely to flex its marketing muscle to ensure sales, one reader wrote: "Microsoft will use its advertising and marketing power to smack Apple hard, and Apple had better respond with more than oh-so-clever advertising of very few products (seen many Mac mini ads on the TV? Thought not.) or an over-reliance on the so-called 'halo' effect." Another warned: "I think that Vista will be a real challenge to Mac OS X"

Microsoft Corp. and Scott Richter today announced they reached a full settlement of Microsoft’s claims against Mr. Richter and his company OptInRealBig.com LLC. As part of its effort to fight spam, Microsoft filed a lawsuit against Mr. Richter and his company in December 2003, when he was ranked one of the top spammers in the world. In July 2005, Mr. Richter was removed from the Register of Known Spam Operators maintained by the Spamhaus Project, a leading anti-spam and consumer advocacy organization.

The settlement is conditioned upon dismissal of the bankruptcy cases filed in March by Mr. Richter and OptInRealBig at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Denver. Mr. Richter and OptInRealBig plan to file today a motion to dismiss these cases.

As part of the settlement, Mr. Richter and his company agreed to pay $7 million to Microsoft. The settlement also stipulates that Mr. Richter, his company and his affiliates will continue to comply fully with all federal and state anti-spam laws, including the U.S. CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act, and will not send spam to any person who has not confirmed a willingness to receive the e-mail.

This week, as a result of legal action by Microsoft and the New York Attorney General against one of the world’s most prolific spammers, Microsoft is expanding its successful partnership with government and law-enforcement authorities against illegal practices on the Internet.

Self-proclaimed “Spam King” Scott Richter has agreed to pay over $7 million in damages, pending approval by the court.

After covering our legal expenses for the case, Microsoft will then reinvest every penny from this settlement. We’ll dedicate $5 million dollars to increase our Internet enforcement efforts and expand technical and investigative support to help law enforcement address computer-related crimes.

As this case demonstrates, a strong partnership between the public and private sectors is vital to taking effective action against spam and other Internet problems. By reinvesting these settlement proceeds, we’ll help to make that partnership even stronger.

In appreciation of the role of the New York Attorney General, another $1 million of this settlement money will be directed to New York state through Microsoft Unlimited Potential donations, which help community centers to expand computer-related skills training for youths and adults.

At this week's LinuxWorld conference, Microsoft officials are slated to talk up the Services for Unix features that the company is integrating into the Windows Server 2003 R2. At this week's LinuxWorld conference, Microsoft officials are planning to play up the Windows-Unix interoperability and cross-platform application-portability strategies that will be enabled Microsoft's pending Windows Server 2003 R2 operating system release. Bill Hilf, the head of Microsoft's Linux lab, is planning to talk up during his LinuxWorld session on Wednesday the elements of Microsoft's Services for Unix subsystem that the company is integrating into R2. Hilf tipped his hand during a Q&A; with Slashdot readers posted to the Slashdot Web site on Monday

The Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WinFX Beta 1 provides developers with support for building WinFX applications using Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2005. This support includes XAML Intellisense support through schema extensions for the editor, project templates for the Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly known as “Avalon”) and the Windows Communication Foundation (formerly known as “Indigo”), and WinFX SDK documentation integration. It does not include a graphical design surface for either the Windows Presentation Foundation or the Windows Communication Foundation. There is more information about these WinFX technologies below.

We have posted 16 new screenshots of Microsoft Longhorn Server Beta 1. The shots include all aspects of the OS, including some new features, check it out!

Learning Essentials includes curriculum-based templates and toolbars for Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office PowerPoint presentation graphics program, and Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet software, plus academic tutorials from leading education publishers. Learning Essentials helps students get started, stay organized, and successfully complete high-quality assignments. And for educators, Learning Essentials can help them easily create effective instructional resources, complete administrative tasks, and implement new teaching strategies.

We have posted up a number of screenshots from Microsoft's newly released Encarta 2006 that arrived in the post today. Tomorrow we will also have shots from Microsoft Student 2006 which also arrived here today.

I had a chance two weeks ago to sit down and interview Wendy Apperson, Product Manager for Microsoft Hardware about two of the new Microsoft hardware products released this summer. Here is an excerpt:

ActiveWin.com: What would you say the overall goal is for the Microsoft Remote Keyboard for Windows XP Media Center Edition?

Apperson: I would say one of the main goals is to simplify and improve the user's overall media and entertainment experience as a whole in the living room. We entered the Media Center market last year with the Media Center remote which has been pretty sucessful, but now we are expanding in that market by building on where the remote has left off. We now understand better how people are using the remote and MCE in the living room and have a clearer picture of the general user scenario and what can be added or improved upon. We are finding entertainment is more of an interactive and community based activity with MCE then only using the Internet before.

We have sixteen new high resolution screenshots that were submitted to us which show Microsoft Windows Beta 1 screenshots for your browsing! Check them out!

You can also combine X10 technologies with your computer and custom applications written with Microsoft Visual Basic Express or Microsoft Visual C# Express. With logic provided by custom your custom application, you can make some stunning upgrades to your home.

With this Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 Add-In, you can use IBM Lotus Notes to perform Live Meeting tasks, such as scheduling meetings without logging into the Conference Center.

The Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Calendar Views Add-in makes it easy for you to view your Outlook Calendar appointments through a filter that is based on Outlook labels and categories. For example, you can create a view that shows you only the appointments on your calendar that are labeled Must Attend, or are categorized as Important. You add filters by using the Calendar Views toolbar, which opens in your Outlook Calendar after you install the add-in.

The WMI Code Creator tool generates code that uses WMI to obtain management information or perform management tasks. You can use the tool to learn how to manage computers using WMI scripting and WMI .NET. The tool generates code that runs on the local computer, a remote computer, or a group of remote computers based on your selection from the Target Computer menu on the tool. You can also execute the generated code directly from the tool. The tool is meant to help IT Professionals quickly create management scripts and to help developers learn WMI scripting and WMI .NET. The tool helps take the complexity out of writing code that uses WMI and helps developers and IT Professionals understand how powerful and useful WMI can be for managing computers.

Jamie MacLennan shows some of the advanced data mining technology in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services. See examples of data mining-powered applications, plus an overview of how to use the tools provided with SQL Server 2005 to create and explore the data mining models used by those applications.

But Monad is not expected to be part of Vista when it ships and was not included in the Vista Beta 1 bits distributed by the company late last month. "These potential viruses do not affect Windows Vista or any other version of Windows if 'Monad' has not been installed on the system. We have not yet announced a specific delivery vehicle for "Monad" in the Microsoft Windows operating system," said a spokeswoman for Microsoft's security team.

Longhorn is so chock-full of code-names that it's difficult, if not impossible, to figure out what's what. WinFX, Indigo and Avalon all sound terribly important, but they don't give you a clue as to what they will do. Until we get a look at Longhorn's first public beta (expected later this summer), though, those code-names are all we've got. Bill Gates says most of Longhorn's new features are still secret, and that the beta release will be the first time they're previewed. I'll take a longer look in my Beta Man column shortly after the beta ships. Microsoft's oft-postponed final release of the next iteration of Windows is now due in late 2006 (Vegas is taking bets for 2007).

Microsoft is set to release six patches on Tuesday for its Windows operating system. The company said in a security bulletin that at least one of the patches is rated 'critical', and that users will have to restart their systems after applying the patches.

Virus writers are targeting a new Microsoft tool that will be part of Windows and is set to ship as part of the next Exchange e-mail server release.

A virus writer has published the first examples of malicious code that targets Microsoft's upcoming command-line shell, code-named Monad, according to Finnish antivirus maker F-Secure. If the technology is included in Windows Vista, these could be one of the first viruses to target the new operating system formerly known as Longhorn, F-Secure said Thursday. Monad, also known as MSH, is the replacement for the simple command shell in the current versions of Windows. A shell, also called a command line interface, allows a user to give a computer textual commands either from a keyboard or from a script. Monad has much more functionality, similar to shells in competing products such as Bash in Unix. However, by adding the ability to run more-complex scripts, Microsoft could possibly open another door to attackers.

Microsoft Corp. documents concerning a former executive who went to rival Google Inc. can't be sealed but deserve protection because they contain trade secrets, a judge ruled yesterday. King County Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez edited two documents that Microsoft regards as confidential, then released them in a much-abbreviated form. "The court has determined, after weighing the public's right to access against Microsoft's right to protect trade secrets, that sealing (the documents) in their entirety is not the least restrictive alternative," Gonzalez wrote.

With this Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 Add-In, you can use IBM Lotus Notes to perform Live Meeting tasks, such as scheduling meetings without logging into the Conference Center.

By using the Live Meeting Lotus Notes Add-In Pack, you can:

• Schedule a Live Meeting from Lotus Notes.
• Identify individual meeting participants as attendees or presenters.
• Send separate invitations for attendees and for presenters.
• Specify default meeting options and override those defaults for specific meetings.

Powerpoint presentations for many of the Meltdown 2005 sessions are now available.

The Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WinFX Beta 1 provides developers with support for building WinFX applications using Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2005. This support includes XAML Intellisense support through schema extensions for the editor, project templates for the Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly known as “Avalon”) and the Windows Communication Foundation (formerly known as “Indigo”), and WinFX SDK documentation integration. It does not include a graphical design surface for either the Windows Presentation Foundation or the Windows Communication Foundation.

Senior Product Manager B.J. Holtgrewe discusses Visual Studio Tools for Office 2005 and how Microsoft is positioning the Office System platform as a strategic platform for .NET development. He also discusses Click-Once deployment of VSTO applications as well as server based development using Office documents and VSTO.

The August CTP of the VSSDK which works with VS2005 Beta2 is now available.

There are two new samples in this version that are considered to be "reference" implementations. The first is a simple package that contains support for Help About, Splash Screen and a Package Load Key. The second is a MenuAndCommands package that shows how to create some commands: simple, dynamic text, dynamic visibility and also how to place a command group on a pre-existing toolbar or context menu.

We hope you'll like the new samples. Take a look at the comprehensive commenting and the overviews. In the future we hope to make the overviews even more readable. We have more reference samples on the way so please continue to watch for monthly updates.

This video series is designed specifically for individuals who are interested in learning the basics of how to create applications using Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition and Visual C# 2005 Express Edition. This includes over 10 hours of video-based instruction that walks from creating your first "Hello World" application to a fully functioning RSS Reader application. Learn how to write your first application today!!

Cell phones are starting to become really powerful computing devices. They are getting high res cameras, GPS's, better screens, more APIs, and even hard drives. To find out what's the latest we visited the Windows Mobile group and found Ford Davidson (he's a product manager on the Windows Mobile team) and he gives you a tour of the team and talks about the latest in cell phones (you meet Eric Engineer and Peter Bernard).

Come celebrate the 20-year anniversary of C++! Bjarne Stroustrup, the designer of C++, Scott Meyers, Herb Sutter, Andrei Alexandrescu, and Stan Lippman are in the stellar line-up of expert speakers.

Hey folks - Mike Reavey here. Next Tuesday is the 2nd Tuesday of the Month and I wanted to outline what bulletins we expect to release. At the moment we have 6 security bulletins planned for release, the highest severity rating of these is Critical. We're also continuing to release our Malicious Software Removal tool with updates for additional malware families. Finally, we have one non-security release that will be High-Priority on Microsoft and Windows Update. This non-security release is important for stability reasons, but is not directly related to the security releases for this month.

Russell Minchew, an Alabama telecommunications network manager, is always looking for new ways to turn irate callers into satisfied customers and grow more confident in his role. New Jersey human-resources business partner Diane Litchko craves opportunities to further enhance her professional skills and hear exceptional business leaders talk about what makes them successful.

Both of these busy professionals devote several hours a week to participating in the Microsoft Office Live Meeting Leadership Forum, a series of presentations led by some of the world’s most respected motivational speakers, executive coaches and business management experts – without spending any money on travel or even leaving their desks. Peppered with inspirational messages, practical advice and interactive discussions on a diverse range of topics, the series has attracted tens of thousands of participants over its three-year history. Participants need only the hosted Microsoft Live Meeting service, a phone and a PC with an Internet connection.

“The value I gain from that hour on my computer is just incredible,” says Litchko, who has participated in more than 45 Leadership Forum seminars over the past year. “Every session has given me the chance to tap into fresh ideas, connect with other professionals, and get exposed to different business approaches and cultural attitudes that I might never have the time or budget to pursue through in-person seminars.”

ONE OF the 'features' touted on the new Microsoft Vista (nee Longhorn) operating system is the Protected Video Path - Output Protection Management (PVP-OPM). Nick Farrell does an excellent job outlining it here.

In a nutshell, unless you have a display device that is equipped with specific technology intended to foil recording, the operating system will degrade the image quality so bit for bit copies cannot be made. Sounds good, right? Well, considering that almost NO monitors are currently shipping with this technology, it means that if you want to view a movie off a HD-DVD as it is encoded, or stream HD content from a Blue-Ray disk to a display, the operating system will kill the video outputs and give you nothing. If you are lucky enough, like me, to have a projector that can handle RGB signals or DVI inputs, you can get a signal but it will be run through a downscaler then an upscaler to reduce the quality.

On Tuesday, Microsoft quietly rolled out 30 free, downloadable applications that build on top of the company's SharePoint Services collaboration/workflow technology that is built into Windows Server. Among the plethora new applications are horizontal and vertical applets both. Schedule-management, consumer-financing, employee-training, event-management, travel-request, classroom-management, campaign-management and other similar types of offerings are available immediately.ADVERTISEMENT

So I've just done what practically everybody, including Microsoft, recommends against: I've installed the beta of Windows Vista (nee Longhorn) as my only OS on my primary work machine. From this day on, I'm a WinVista user--at least when I'm using this desktop, and assuming that nothing goes so show-stoppingly wrong that I decide to wipe my hard drive and start over with XP. I'm still getting back up and running with my core applications. So far, there haven't been huge surprises pro or con. The biggest problem I've encountered is a mundane-but-annoying carryover from XP: To get back on our corporate network, I had to change some settings which live in System in the Control Panel. That's a counterintuitive place to put them--whenever I need to get a machine on a network, I always think they're going to be somewhere in the network settings, and waste time looking for them there.

If you don't want to try the new Windows Vista Beta 1 on your system, but you'd like your Windows XP desktop to have a nice-looking Longhorn/Vista theme, here's something you might want to try. This is something I did on my machine tonight and I like the results, so for those of you who haven't tried it yet, follow these steps. Note, this is done at your own risk:

James has updated our long outdated list of Microsoft's upcoming webcasts. The chats are sorted by date, skill level, and topic.

The Live Meeting Add-In Pack consists of three distinct add-ins: the Live Meeting Add-in for Outlook, the Office Collaboration Add-in, and the Live Meeting add-in for Instant Messaging, each which offer unique features.

Fixes Exchange attributes in Active Directory after using the Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003 domain rename tool.

The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) is a new service in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. It is essentially a framework facilitating communication between applications, storage subsystems, and storage management applications (including backup applications) in order to define, persist and exploit point-in-time copies of storage data.

Byron has posted his review of the Crucial ATI 850XT 256 MB graphics card. Here is an excerpt:

The Crucial RADEON X850 XT sets the newest standard in graphics performance and visual realism. With 16 parallel pixel pipelines, faster frame rates, higher clock speeds, power-throttling, expanded monitor support, and breakthrough image quality, the X850 XT card provides performance, multitasking, and stability. The crown jewel of the Crucial graphics card lineup, the X850 XT is as good as it gets for hard core gaming enthusiasts! Top-of-the-line PCI Express card designed for the Serious Gamer/3-D Modeling user category.

A detailed study of the warranty processing system used by the global automotive industry has pinpointed a lack of standardization in the way warranties are handled by dealers, suppliers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), which leads to unnecessary costs and inaccurate information. Moreover, new challenges from the surge of in-vehicle electronics, strategies by OEMs to shift more warranty costs to suppliers, and less-developed warranty processes in emerging nations all will present significant challenges to the industry in the near future.

The findings are detailed in a 25-page report, “The Warranty Process Flow Within the Automotive Industry,” developed by the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) and Microsoft Corp. as the first in a series of studies on automotive industry practices. This initial study aims to improve product quality and help the industry understand how warranty data may be used to improve business operations and future products. The full report is available online at http://www.microsoft.com/automotive.

The research, carried out by Ann Arbor, Mich.-based CAR and sponsored by Microsoft’s Automotive and Industrial Equipment Industry Solution Group in Southfield, Mich., gathered in-depth information from a highly targeted group of industry thought leaders, including executives from dealerships, suppliers and OEMs. The research uncovered the highly variable ways of collecting and reporting data on warranty repairs that not only were inconsistent among various manufacturers and dealers, but also resulted in internal systems that were guarded as competitive advantages. The report suggested the end results, however, likely were higher costs for warranty repairs and a failure to capitalize fully on information obtained from these repairs to prevent component failures in the future.

It’s pointedly not a compliance test (from the Test Guide: “Acid2 does not guarantee conformance with any specification”). As a wish list, it is really important and useful to my team, but it isn’t even intended, in my understanding, as our priority list for IE7.

In that vein, I’ve seen a lot of comments asking if we will pass the Acid2 browser test published by the Web Standards Project when IE7 ships. I’ll go ahead and relieve the suspense by saying we will not pass this test when IE7 ships. The original Acid Test tested only the CSS 1 box model, and actually became part of the W3C CSS1 Test Suite since it was a fairly narrow test – but the Acid 2 Test covers a wide set of functionality and standards, not just from CSS2.1 and HTML 4.01, selected by the authors as a “wish list” of features they’d like to have. It’s pointedly not a compliance test (from the Test Guide: “Acid2 does not guarantee conformance with any specification”). As a wish list, it is really important and useful to my team, but it isn’t even intended, in my understanding, as our priority list for IE7.

We fully recognize that IE is behind the game today in CSS support. We’ve dug through the Acid 2 Test and analyzed IE’s problems with the test in some great detail, and we’ve made sure the bugs and features are on our list - however, there are some fairly large and difficult features to implement, and they will not all sort to the top of the stack in IE7. I believe we are doing a much better service to web developers out there in IE7 by fixing our known bang-your-head-on-the-desk bugs and usability problems first, and prioritizing the most commonly-requested features based on all the feedback we've had.

MSN Filter is your one-stop shop for the inside scoop on what's happening across the Web, according to the people who know the most ... YOU! Whether it's music, sports, TV, style or technology, our team of bloggers will filter the best stories, photographs, links and other interesting tidbits that you've sent in, as well as items that they've dug up.

Microsoft plans to add support for cascading style sheets in the upcoming Internet Explorer 7, but other standards will take a back seat to critical bug fixes.

Microsoft Corp. plans to add support for cascading style sheets in the upcoming Internet Explorer 7, but other standards will take a back seat to fixing the worst bugs reported by web developers. In Microsoft's IEBlog, development team leader Chris Wilson said the company's intent is to build "a platform that fully complies with the appropriate web standards, in particular CSS 2." Nevertheless, bug fixes, and security, were the top priorities in IE 7, which is currently in beta 1 and in limited release. Beta 2, which is set for release this year, is expected to be generally available.

Once mired in a stagnant market, IBM's Lotus division will use industry standards to loosen Microsoft's grip on desktop software, according to the outgoing Lotus general manager.

The Lotus division, which includes IBM's Notes, WebSphere Portal and Workplace products, turned in a 17 percent year-over-year revenue increase in the second quarter--the third consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. That financial performance, highlighted by CEO Samuel Palmisano's quarterly review to employees, demonstrates that IBM's Lotus division has successfully reinvented itself and the market it competes in, Lotus General Manager Ambuj Goyal said last week in an interview with CNET News.com.

The speech recognition technologies Microsoft is developing around Microsoft Speech Server will be integrated into a future version of Microsoft Exchange Server, the company announced Tuesday at a speech technology conference in New York. Microsoft portrays the logical move as part of a continued effort to make speech mainstream. By moving the technology into Exchange, Microsoft will shepherd speech technology into the horizontal market of unified messaging. Currently, Microsoft's speech technology efforts have been largely vertical, focusing on call centers and interactive voice response markets.

MSN has just released a new build 7.5.0244 to testers this morning. No word yet on any changes, aside from common bug fixes.

As you convert your ASP.NET 1.x applications to the new ASP.NET 2.0 framework, you may encounter issues related to the changes introduced by the 2.0 framework. In this article, we will look at both the conversion process and some of the common issues you may encounter during a conversion.

Windows Vista™ (formerly Windows code name "Longhorn") is a substantial advance in Windows, with significant innovations in the developer platform. Windows Vista makes it easier than ever before to build applications that are more secure, reliable, and manageable. Windows Vista also enables developers and designers to create user-experience breakthroughs that improve usability and enable greater relevance to the work users do. Finally, Windows Vista makes it easy to connect to information, systems, people, and devices though a number of innovative integration technologies.

Increasingly, computer users are using different folders, drives, and even different computers (such as a laptop and a desktop) to store and retrieve files. There are new sources of files coming from every direction: digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops. Yet managing hundreds or thousands of files is still largely a manual operation. In some cases it is necessary to move files from one place to another; in other cases there is a need to keep two storage locations exactly in sync. Some users manage files manually, dragging and dropping from one place to another and keeping a mental card catalog in their heads. Others use one or more applications of one sort or another to provide this functionality for them.

Redaction is the careful editing of a document to remove confidential information. The Microsoft Office Word 2003 Redaction Add-in makes it easy for you to mark sections of a document for redaction. You can then redact the document so that the sections you specified are blacked out. You can either print the redacted document or use it electronically. Sensitive government documents, confidential legal documents, insurance contracts, and other sensitive documents are often redacted before being made available to the public. With the Word 2003 Redaction Add-in, users of Microsoft Office Word 2003 now have an effective, user-friendly tool to help them redact confidential text in Word documents.