Office 2010 editions
There are three main SKUs of Office 2010 Beta that end users can download and test drive, all offered by Microsoft directly. Ahead of grabbing the actual bits, participants in the Office 2010 Beta testing program will need to sign up with the Redmond-based company. They will be able to do so via the Office 2010 Beta website. The signup process is key to running the Beta development milestone as it provides testers with the product key necessary to activate the product. This is valid for Office Home and Business 2010, Office Professional 2010 and Office Professional Plus 2010.
Of course, the software giant’s Stock Keeping Unit strategy (SKU) in relation to Office 2010 is much more complex than the three editions offered for Beta testing. According to the Redmond-based company, “Microsoft Office Home and Business 2010 is the essential software suite for managing small businesses and working from home. Office Professional 2010 combines everything you need to create, edit, and share documents from virtually anywhere. You get top-of-the-line tools to run your business and projects efficiently.”
In addition to Office 2010 Home and Business, Microsoft will also deliver the Office 2010 Home and Student edition, essentially containing the same core components such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote with the last lacking Outlook 2010. As far as the Office System is concerned, Professional is the equivalent of the Ultimate SKU for Windows. Offerings such as Office 2010 Professional and Office 2010 Professional Plus come to the table with the entire range of applications that make up the suite.
While there are editions of Office 2010 that customers will be able to purchase at retail, there are also exceptions. Office 2010 Standard and Office 2010 Professional Plus will only be available to volume licensing customers. At the same time, Microsoft will work closely with original equipment manufacturers in order to pre-install Office 2010 Starter on new OEM computers. Starter is the free, ad-supported version of Office 2010, which will offer only basic functionality to end users, but will streamline upgrading if customers decide they need a higher grade SKU of the productivity suite.
Office 2010, the evolution
“A new look - The Microsoft Office brand will sport a new look next year, reflecting technology innovations in Office 2010. The re-design includes an updated Office logo, a new orange color palette for the Microsoft Office brand, and updated icons for Office 2010 applications that make it easier to quickly identify the Office products you work in,” Microsoft explained.
As you can see from the pictures accompanying this article, including the screenshots below, Office 2010 comes with an overhauled logo, which is designed to be more natural and cleaner compared to the visual identities of Office 2007 and Office 2003. Along with the new logo, the actual icons for the Office 2010 components have been redesigned. An important aspect in this regard is that Microsoft has already tailored the icon-related user experience to operating systems such as Windows Vista and Windows 7, which allow for such items to become oversized when users hold Ctrl and then scroll up with the mouse wheel on the desktop. Of course that scrolling down will dwarf the size of the icons, essentially allowing users to choose the proportions best suited for them.
Just as it was the case for the Technical Preview release, Office 2010 Beta applications come with a launch screen, personalized in accordance with each component. The screens, much in the same manner as for Adobe CS4 applications, will launch ahead of the actual program, only to die immediately after the specific Office 2010 component comes to life.
Changes on the surface of Office 2010 don’t stop with the new logo and icons, but continue with the graphical user interface. The Ribbon/Fluent UI has also evolved, not just from Office 2007 but also from Office 2010 Technical Preview. One of the most important changes is that in the top left hand side corner, the first item on the Ribbon menu is no longer marked through an icon of the respective application. Instead, users will now be able to access File from the Office 2010 Ribbon.
As far as the Ribbon is concerned, users will be happy to know that the GUI is now fully customizable. Accessing File, Options and then Customize Ribbon, customers will be able to personalize the Office 2010 GUI according to their liking. The degree of flexibility is simply excellent, with Microsoft allowing for the customization of Office 2010’s Ribbon not only on a per-tabs basis, but also down to actual commands.
An excellent addition to Office 2010 apps is the Paste Options pop-up menu that allows users to customize the way they want a certain piece of text to be inserted into a document. The default options involve keeping only the text, merging formats, or maintaining the same formatting as for the source.
Early adopters that have already played with Office 2010 Technical Preview will notice immediately that the Backstage View has been revamped completely. It is clear that Microsoft has been hammering away at the next iteration of its productivity suite in order to get it ready for general availability the coming year. In this sense, changes such as the Ribbon and the Backstage indicate an evolutionary development process for Office 2010, and early testers won’t get to see major changes.
One exception is without a doubt the new activation mechanism built into Office 2010. Testers are required to enter a product key and to activate the Beta Build 14.0.4536.1000 ahead of starting to use it, or learn to deal with an extremely annoying message in the Office 2010 components’ top bar. The Redmond-based company will have to fine tune the activation experience for end users, because the message that activation has failed doesn’t disappear after the product is successfully activated, but only after a restart of the Office 2010 application from which activation was given green light.
The x64 flavor of Office 2007’s successor is bound to resonate with some customers, especially those that want to take advantage of additional system memory. “Running Office 2010 64-bit provides the following advantages: Ability to utilize additional memory. Excel 2010 can load much larger workbooks. Excel 2010 made updates to use 64-bit memory addressing to break out of the 2-GB addressable memory boundary that limits 32-bit applications. Microsoft Project 2010 provides improved capacity, especially when you are dealing with many subprojects to a large project. Enhanced default security protections through Hardware Data Execution Prevention (DEP),” Microsoft noted.
“The final release of Office 2010 will debut next year, but we’re excited to allow everyone to start using the new features and tools that will help you collaborate, connect and work better together with others across the PC, mobile phone and browser,” the Office team representative added.
Office 2010 Beta 14.0.4536.1000 is available for download
Download here
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
.NET Framework 4.0
“The .NET Micro Framework,a development and execution environment for resource-constrained devices, was initially developed inside the Microsoft Startup Business Accelerator, but recently moved to the Developer Division so as to be more closely aligned with the overall direction of Microsoft development efforts,” revealed Peter Galli, the Open Source Community manager for Microsoft's Platform Strategy Group. “The result of this is that the .NET Micro Framework has become a seamless development experience, bringing a single programming model and tool chain for the breadth of developer solutions, all the way from small intelligent devices, to servers and the cloud.”
While making good on the promise of open sourcing the .NET Micro Framework, Microsoft was forced to keep a few bits of closed source. Developers that will leverage version 4.0 will also be permitted access to the Base Class Libraries for .NET Micro Framework and the CLR code. What devs won’t be able to get their hands on are the TCP/IP stack and the Cryptography libraries.
The explanation for this is rather simple. Microsoft itself licenses the TCP/IP stack from a third-party, namely EBSNet, which does not offer the Redmond company the rights to distribute the source code under an open source license. Microsoft explained that, in addition to the TCP/IP stack, it did not consider the Cryptography libraries as an integral part of .NET Micro Framework.
.NET Microsoft Framework Program Manager Colin Miller revealed that Microsoft would continue to remain an active contributor to the project. “We are planning on establishing a core technology team that is made up of both Microsoft and non-Microsoft contributors that continues the goals of producing a high quality product for very small devices. This group will act as the gateway to community contributions while, at the same time, Microsoft Developers will continue add functionality and coordinate with the overall .NET team," Miller noted.
While making good on the promise of open sourcing the .NET Micro Framework, Microsoft was forced to keep a few bits of closed source. Developers that will leverage version 4.0 will also be permitted access to the Base Class Libraries for .NET Micro Framework and the CLR code. What devs won’t be able to get their hands on are the TCP/IP stack and the Cryptography libraries.
The explanation for this is rather simple. Microsoft itself licenses the TCP/IP stack from a third-party, namely EBSNet, which does not offer the Redmond company the rights to distribute the source code under an open source license. Microsoft explained that, in addition to the TCP/IP stack, it did not consider the Cryptography libraries as an integral part of .NET Micro Framework.
.NET Microsoft Framework Program Manager Colin Miller revealed that Microsoft would continue to remain an active contributor to the project. “We are planning on establishing a core technology team that is made up of both Microsoft and non-Microsoft contributors that continues the goals of producing a high quality product for very small devices. This group will act as the gateway to community contributions while, at the same time, Microsoft Developers will continue add functionality and coordinate with the overall .NET team," Miller noted.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Windows 7 Free Themes Branding Opportunities
According to the software giant, advertisers can not only leverage the Windows 7 desktop in order to bring their brands to the user, but can also take advantage of an additional brand opportunity channel, namely Internet browsing via the Windows Theme Experience. At this point in time, Microsoft is running tests for both the Windows Theme Experience and the Windows Personalization Gallery for Windows 7 in pilot program that is scheduled to run until October 2010.
"The new Windows Theme Experience and Windows Personalization Gallery in Windows 7 allow consumers to customize their technology to reflect the things in life they are most passionate about," noted Darren Huston, corporate vice president of the Consumer & Online organization at Microsoft. "These are great examples of Microsoft innovation and technology coming together to enable top global brands to reach audiences in new and interesting ways."
Users that have visited or will have a look at the content on the Windows Personalization Gallery will be able to see the brands that already use Windows 7 as an avenue for advertising. Microsoft is offering free themes for download from Ducati, Infiniti, Porsche, and Twentieth Century Fox, but also from Xbox "Gears of War"; Zune: Characters, Elements and Zodiac; and Bing’s Best and Lugares Coloridos. Advertisers interested in getting their brands on Windows 7 desktops worldwide via the pilot program from the Redmond company need only contact their local Microsoft Advertising sales representative.
"The new Windows Theme Experience and Windows Personalization Gallery in Windows 7 allow consumers to customize their technology to reflect the things in life they are most passionate about," noted Darren Huston, corporate vice president of the Consumer & Online organization at Microsoft. "These are great examples of Microsoft innovation and technology coming together to enable top global brands to reach audiences in new and interesting ways."
Users that have visited or will have a look at the content on the Windows Personalization Gallery will be able to see the brands that already use Windows 7 as an avenue for advertising. Microsoft is offering free themes for download from Ducati, Infiniti, Porsche, and Twentieth Century Fox, but also from Xbox "Gears of War"; Zune: Characters, Elements and Zodiac; and Bing’s Best and Lugares Coloridos. Advertisers interested in getting their brands on Windows 7 desktops worldwide via the pilot program from the Redmond company need only contact their local Microsoft Advertising sales representative.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Windows 8, and So It Begins
Back in early 2007, after Windows Vista shipped to customers worldwide, Microsoft shifted its focus on what was at the time referred to as Windows codename Vienna, and which ended up as Windows 7. The company delivered a taste of early plans, noting that it was aiming for a release ahead of 2009, but nothing more after that. In fact, it wasn’t until August 2008 that Sinofsky started sharing crumbs from the development process of Windows 7, at a time when the operating system was between the Milestone 2 and Milestone 3 development stages.
In this regard, it is interesting to understand just how early Microsoft actually started building the successor of Windows Vista. According to Larry Osterman, Microsoft Principal SDE, the Windows team was hard at work coding for Windows 7 within 4-5 months after the general availability of Vista. “In June of 2007, we started working on actual feature planning – the planning team had come up with a set of tentative features for Win7 and we started the actual design for the features – figuring out the user experience for the features, the internal implementation details, etc.,” Osterman noted.
With Windows 7 wrapped up, Sinofsky was upgraded to the President position from senior vice president of the Windows and Windows Live engineering group, but just as it was the case for Windows 7, Windows 8 will be developed in accordance with his vision. With Sinofsky at the helm of the Windows 8 project, Osterman could even expect the same development experience as for Windows 7.
“The remarkable thing about Win7 development was that it was almost friction free. During the Vista development process (and in every other product I’ve worked on) development was marked by a constant stream of new issues which were a constant drain on time an energy. It felt like we moved from one crisis to another crisis,” Osterman recalled. “For Win7 it was different. I think it was some time during the second milestone that I realized that Win7 was ‘special’. The newer development process that was deployed for Win7 was clearly paying off and my life was far less stressed. In fact I don’t think I worked late or came in on weekends once during the entire 3 years that Win7 was under development – this was a HUGE change. Every other product I’ve ever worked on has required late nights and weekends (sometime it required all-nighters). But for Win7 it just didn’t happen. Instead we set a set of goals that were reasonable with achievable schedules and we executed on those goals and delivered the features we promised.”
Revolutionary vs. evolutionary
When it moved forward from Windows Vista (version 6.0) and Longhorn (Windows Server 2008) to Windows 7 (v6.1) and Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft chose the path of evolution rather than build a revolutionary OS. Another legitimate question about Windows 8 is whether the platform will continue to evolve, or whether Microsoft is ready for a revolution in Windows, even though the memory of what revolutionary meant for Vista is still fresh for customers. While only time will tell whichever way Microsoft will take Windows 8, one thing is clear, the Redmond-based company started planning for the next generation of Windows long before Windows 7 was finalized.
In addition, the software giant is also hiring people to start coding for Windows 8. If the development process described by Osterman still applies, Microsoft will begin building Windows 8 early in 2010, if not even earlier. However, just as is the case with all Windows platforms, the successor of Windows 7 will too have to go through a planning phase, where coding is left in the background, and the priority is putting together the actual feature set for the operating system. Still, don’t expect Microsoft to start talking Windows 8 until well into 2010, if not even 2011. After all, it took over a year since the Windows 7 coding had started for Sinofsky to share the first details on the engineering process of the project.
Just in October, Microsoft mentioned Windows 8 in a number of job posts:
- “IIS team is looking for an experienced PM to join our core platform team. Your role will span across driving key features into Windows 8 as well as owning several out-of-band modules, including web analytics that will bring business intelligence for the customers that host applications and contents on IIS. Your work will help differentiate IIS and Smooth Streaming from Apache and Flash. You should also be ready to work in a fast-paced environment and have a strong desire for quality, security, and performance. Your feature will be used by millions of customers,” for the position of Senior Program Manager.
- “The Windows Live Mail team is looking for a seasoned Lead Program Manager to drive our next generation Mail client, and manage five stellar PMs. Our client has over 40M users world-wide, and serves as a key component of our Windows Live “light up Windows” strategy. Our current release is centered on hot new consumer features & better synergies with Hotmail & Windows 7, and our future releases will likely be tightly designed to work best with new Windows 8 platform technologies. We will also work closely with the Outlook team on ways to bring Windows Live to Outlook,” for the position of Principal Lead Program Manager.
- “The TAG team provides the foundation services and infrastructure to support a unified test and dev workflow. This team’s charter includes - developing and running a unified test submission and execution system for Windows 8, Automating Test pass scheduling & execution, results analysis & automated triage, Windows code coverage services, Developing and running the eBVT quality gate, supporting WinSE’s Windows 7 sustained engineering test needs,” for the position of Test Lead 2.
In this regard, it is interesting to understand just how early Microsoft actually started building the successor of Windows Vista. According to Larry Osterman, Microsoft Principal SDE, the Windows team was hard at work coding for Windows 7 within 4-5 months after the general availability of Vista. “In June of 2007, we started working on actual feature planning – the planning team had come up with a set of tentative features for Win7 and we started the actual design for the features – figuring out the user experience for the features, the internal implementation details, etc.,” Osterman noted.
With Windows 7 wrapped up, Sinofsky was upgraded to the President position from senior vice president of the Windows and Windows Live engineering group, but just as it was the case for Windows 7, Windows 8 will be developed in accordance with his vision. With Sinofsky at the helm of the Windows 8 project, Osterman could even expect the same development experience as for Windows 7.
“The remarkable thing about Win7 development was that it was almost friction free. During the Vista development process (and in every other product I’ve worked on) development was marked by a constant stream of new issues which were a constant drain on time an energy. It felt like we moved from one crisis to another crisis,” Osterman recalled. “For Win7 it was different. I think it was some time during the second milestone that I realized that Win7 was ‘special’. The newer development process that was deployed for Win7 was clearly paying off and my life was far less stressed. In fact I don’t think I worked late or came in on weekends once during the entire 3 years that Win7 was under development – this was a HUGE change. Every other product I’ve ever worked on has required late nights and weekends (sometime it required all-nighters). But for Win7 it just didn’t happen. Instead we set a set of goals that were reasonable with achievable schedules and we executed on those goals and delivered the features we promised.”
Revolutionary vs. evolutionary
When it moved forward from Windows Vista (version 6.0) and Longhorn (Windows Server 2008) to Windows 7 (v6.1) and Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft chose the path of evolution rather than build a revolutionary OS. Another legitimate question about Windows 8 is whether the platform will continue to evolve, or whether Microsoft is ready for a revolution in Windows, even though the memory of what revolutionary meant for Vista is still fresh for customers. While only time will tell whichever way Microsoft will take Windows 8, one thing is clear, the Redmond-based company started planning for the next generation of Windows long before Windows 7 was finalized.
In addition, the software giant is also hiring people to start coding for Windows 8. If the development process described by Osterman still applies, Microsoft will begin building Windows 8 early in 2010, if not even earlier. However, just as is the case with all Windows platforms, the successor of Windows 7 will too have to go through a planning phase, where coding is left in the background, and the priority is putting together the actual feature set for the operating system. Still, don’t expect Microsoft to start talking Windows 8 until well into 2010, if not even 2011. After all, it took over a year since the Windows 7 coding had started for Sinofsky to share the first details on the engineering process of the project.
Just in October, Microsoft mentioned Windows 8 in a number of job posts:
- “IIS team is looking for an experienced PM to join our core platform team. Your role will span across driving key features into Windows 8 as well as owning several out-of-band modules, including web analytics that will bring business intelligence for the customers that host applications and contents on IIS. Your work will help differentiate IIS and Smooth Streaming from Apache and Flash. You should also be ready to work in a fast-paced environment and have a strong desire for quality, security, and performance. Your feature will be used by millions of customers,” for the position of Senior Program Manager.
- “The Windows Live Mail team is looking for a seasoned Lead Program Manager to drive our next generation Mail client, and manage five stellar PMs. Our client has over 40M users world-wide, and serves as a key component of our Windows Live “light up Windows” strategy. Our current release is centered on hot new consumer features & better synergies with Hotmail & Windows 7, and our future releases will likely be tightly designed to work best with new Windows 8 platform technologies. We will also work closely with the Outlook team on ways to bring Windows Live to Outlook,” for the position of Principal Lead Program Manager.
- “The TAG team provides the foundation services and infrastructure to support a unified test and dev workflow. This team’s charter includes - developing and running a unified test submission and execution system for Windows 8, Automating Test pass scheduling & execution, results analysis & automated triage, Windows code coverage services, Developing and running the eBVT quality gate, supporting WinSE’s Windows 7 sustained engineering test needs,” for the position of Test Lead 2.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Gigabyte Also Own USB 3.0, SATA 6.0Gbps Boards
Aside from the P55A-UD4, which has been leaked on the Internet earlier this month, the Taiwanese motherboard maker is also preparing to roll out the P55A-UD6 model, expected to provide users with support for the new connectivity options, as
additions to the traditional USB 2.0 and SATA 3.0 Gbps.
According to a recent news-article on Tech Connect, the upcoming board will be featured with a 24-phase power design and will most likely address the requirements of today's high-end users. Additional design features include 2oz copper, support for LGA 1156 processors, four DDR3 memory slots, four PCI-Express x16 slots with support for SLI and CrossFireX multi-GPU technologies, 7.1 channel audio, dual-Gigabit Ethernet and two eSATA ports.
The board also comes with a debut LED and a FireWire connector. According to the aforementioned website, the new Gigabyte board should also feature at least two more USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gbps ports, in addition to the traditional USB and SATA ports you get on all of today's motherboards. The board will deliver support for Intel's latest Core i7 and Core i5 processors, built on Intel's new LGA 1156 socket.
The board is expected to be launched in the upcoming weeks, probably at the same time ASUS plans to launch its updated X58 and P55-based motherboards, which will both be featured with the aforementioned SATA 6 Gbps and USB 3.0 ports. Unfortunately we have no details on the pricing of the new model, but we should know more by the time these new boards will make their market debut. Until that time comes, you can take a closer look at the board, which has been showcased in this YouTube video from the fellows over at TweakTown.
additions to the traditional USB 2.0 and SATA 3.0 Gbps.
According to a recent news-article on Tech Connect, the upcoming board will be featured with a 24-phase power design and will most likely address the requirements of today's high-end users. Additional design features include 2oz copper, support for LGA 1156 processors, four DDR3 memory slots, four PCI-Express x16 slots with support for SLI and CrossFireX multi-GPU technologies, 7.1 channel audio, dual-Gigabit Ethernet and two eSATA ports.
The board also comes with a debut LED and a FireWire connector. According to the aforementioned website, the new Gigabyte board should also feature at least two more USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gbps ports, in addition to the traditional USB and SATA ports you get on all of today's motherboards. The board will deliver support for Intel's latest Core i7 and Core i5 processors, built on Intel's new LGA 1156 socket.
The board is expected to be launched in the upcoming weeks, probably at the same time ASUS plans to launch its updated X58 and P55-based motherboards, which will both be featured with the aforementioned SATA 6 Gbps and USB 3.0 ports. Unfortunately we have no details on the pricing of the new model, but we should know more by the time these new boards will make their market debut. Until that time comes, you can take a closer look at the board, which has been showcased in this YouTube video from the fellows over at TweakTown.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Forget 128bit OS Windows 8, Windows 7 64bit yet to get all love
Forget Windows 8 128bit, the next iteration of the Windows operating system planned for 2011 – 2012 getting support for 128-bit processor architectures. Fact is that the translation to 64-bit CPUs is still in full swing, and Windows 7 is yet to get all the love. While 64-bit is the future, 32-bit computers continue to indicate strong resilience. And it is clear that customers continuing to run machines with x86 processors are not necessarily in a hurry to throw their old computers out and buy x64 PCs. The initial hurdles that have managed to plague x64 Windows platforms, including the lack of driver and hardware support and application-compatibility problems, continue to reverberate from the past even after the majority of issues have been dealt with.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Link NFS Shift
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492655/520e8fe/NFS.Shift__psp786.part01.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492656/e6d3299/NFS.Shift__psp786.part02.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492657/3e5273b/NFS.Shift__psp786.part03.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492658/29acc76/NFS.Shift__psp786.part04.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492659/5455322/NFS.Shift__psp786.part05.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492660/7a99286/NFS.Shift__psp786.part06.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492661/0f07bab/NFS.Shift__psp786.part07.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492662/c3471ea/NFS.Shift__psp786.part08.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492663/6715ef2/NFS.Shift__psp786.part09.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492664/3fcd846/NFS.Shift__psp786.part10.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492565/4fb3497/NFS.Shift__psp786.part11.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492666/bcaa13b/NFS.Shift__psp786.part12.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492667/e9e7820/NFS.Shift__psp786.part13.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492668/bad79fe/NFS.Shift__psp786.part14.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492656/e6d3299/NFS.Shift__psp786.part02.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492657/3e5273b/NFS.Shift__psp786.part03.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492658/29acc76/NFS.Shift__psp786.part04.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492659/5455322/NFS.Shift__psp786.part05.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492660/7a99286/NFS.Shift__psp786.part06.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492661/0f07bab/NFS.Shift__psp786.part07.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492662/c3471ea/NFS.Shift__psp786.part08.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492663/6715ef2/NFS.Shift__psp786.part09.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492664/3fcd846/NFS.Shift__psp786.part10.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492565/4fb3497/NFS.Shift__psp786.part11.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492666/bcaa13b/NFS.Shift__psp786.part12.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492667/e9e7820/NFS.Shift__psp786.part13.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/14492668/bad79fe/NFS.Shift__psp786.part14.rar.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
