microsoftNOW » Windows 7

Partners: Earn up to 30% incentive with Microsoft solutions

Shijaz Abdulla — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:19:02 +0000

The Solution Incentives reward partners for driving sales of specific Microsoft solutions, chosen for their growth and market potential. The program creates opportunities for partners to build new sustainable revenue streams and increase their value to customers.

What partner types can participate?
Solution incentives are customer segment and partner-type agnostic. Partners need to meet eligibility requirements and each opportunity being registered needs to meet the eligibility criteria described in the Program Guide, to be eligible for incentives.

What if the Solution Partner also transacts the order?
Whether the Partner is only advising the customer, or advising and transacting, there will be no difference in the solution incentives calculation and payment.

For more information, check out the following documents:

Management and Virtualization

Windows 7

Application Platform (Microsoft SQL Server)

Microsoft Lync

New to PSX? Check out the PSX resources here.

How to add an Internet Explorer 9 Jump List to your website

Shijaz Abdulla — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 20:09:17 +0000

One of the most exciting new features in Internet Explorer 9 is the ability to “pin” your favorite websites to your Windows 7 taskbar. I just added a jumplist to my blog today!

Try it out – If you’re running IE9, drag and drop the browser tab showing this page on to your taskbar and see what happens.

Not only can your visitors pin your website, you can also add Tasks (or links) when your visitors right click on their pinned website.

Pinning is really cool because:

Your visitors can pin their favorite website to their taskbar
The pinned website icon is always displayed on the taskbar and the probability of the visitor returning back to your website is very high. This helps you retain your visitors.
Plus, they don’t have to remember the URL
You can add common areas of your website as a menu when they right click on the icon of your pinned website, giving them instant, one click access to all areas of your website.

Here are some interesting examples of IE9 jumplists in Action – Amazon, Facebook, Bing and ebay. There are plenty more websites out there already making use of this handy feature.

So, just how easy is it to add a jumplist to your website? It’s as simple as adding a few tags.

As an example, to display the jumplist that I added to my blog, here’s the code:

http://www.microsoftnow.com">

For more information, check out the Pinned Sites Cookbook on MSDN.

WikiLeaks crisis: Why is BitLocker important?

Shijaz Abdulla — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 17:25:47 +0000

I read with interest news articles on MSNBC and Yahoo about Bank of America’s shares falling on WikiLeaks fears.

[A spokesman for the Bank of America] said that the bank was aware that Wikileaks claimed to have the computer hard drive of a Bank of America executive more than a year ago. "Aside from the claims themselves we have no evidence that supports this assertion," he said.

In an October 9, 2009 interview, Assange told Computerworld that WikiLeaks had obtained five gigabytes of data from a Bank of America executive’s hard drive.

"Now how do we present that? It’s a difficult problem. We could just dump it all into one giant Zip file, but we know for a fact that has limited impact. To have impact, it needs to be easy for people to dive in and search it and get something out of it," Assange told Computerworld.

Why is Windows 7 BitLocker important? BitLocker Drive Encryption is a full disk encryption feature included with the Ultimate and Enterprise editions of Microsoft’s Windows Vista and Windows 7. It is designed to protect data by providing encryption for entire volumes.

If a hard disk protected by BitLocker is lost or stolen, there is NO way for the data to be retrieved by an unauthorized person.

For more information on how BitLocker can help you organization protect its information assets, please speak to your Microsoft representative or a Microsoft partner.

HP Slate 500 is officially released

Shijaz Abdulla — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 13:18:07 +0000

The HP Slate 500, running Windows 7 Professional (32 bit) has been officially released yesterday.

The HP Slate, priced at $799 in the US, is powered with an Intel® Atom™ Processor Z540 (1.86 GHz, 512 KB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB), 2 GB of RAM (maximum, non upgradeable), a solid state flash module for storage, and an 8.9” wide-angle touch screen. The unit is shipped with a cradle and a carry case included in the box.

An HP Slate digital pen is also included as an additional input device. The HP slate features two cameras, one for video conferencing and the other to be used for still photography at 3MP.

The HP slate’s dimensions are 9.21 x 0.58 x 5.91 in (23.40 x 1.47 x 15.00 cm). Average battery life is 5+ hours.

I saw some really interesting close-up pictures of the product on Engadget this morning.

iPad vs. HP Slate

Unlike the iPad, the HP Slate is primarily targeted at the business user rather than a mere collectible for the consumer.

Display: The HP Slate features an 8.9” display at 16:9 ratio. The iPad has a 9.7” display with only a 4:3 ratio. Both devices support a maximum resolution of 1024 x 768. The HP Slate supports 1080p video playback, while the iPad can only do 720p.
Camera: The HP Slate has two, the iPad has none!
USB port: The HP Slate has one, the iPad has none!
Processor: iPad has a 1 GHz Apple A4 processor, Slate runs on a 1.86GHz Intel Atom processor.
Memory: the Slate comes with 2GB of memory, that’s 8 times more memory than the iPad.
Weight: Despite all the extra features on the HP Slate, both devices weigh the same (1.5 pounds)
Adobe Flash support: iPad doesn’t support Flash. HP Slate (Windows 7) does. And that makes a big difference.
OS: The iPad runs Apple’s iPhone OS 3.2 operating system, which was designed for a phone. The HP Slate 500 runs Windows 7, a “serious” operating system that can run Microsoft Office and a hell of a lot of applications. If it runs on Windows 7, it will most likely run on your Slate.
Storage: iPad comes in “flavours” of 16GB, 32GB and 64 GB. HP Slate comes with a 64GB solid state drive and expandable via SD, SDHC and SDXC.

To be fair to the iPad, the only iPad features that I can think of that the Slate doesn’t have are:

3G support
Apple talks about 10 hours battery life, while HP Slate gives 5+ hours.

Call me biased, but the HP Slate is the clear winner in the modern tablet era, based on the facts above. I just can’t wait to get one for myself!

Windows 7: നിങ്ങളുടെ Potential, നമ്മുടെ Passion!

Shijaz Abdulla — Wed, 05 May 2010 14:06:08 +0000

Malayalam language pack for Windows 7 is now available for download.

As part of the Microsoft Local Language Program, Windows Language Packs are being developed on most local languages, including a large number of Indian languages including Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Urdu, Kannada, Tamil, Marathi, Oriya, Nepali, Konkani, Telugu, etc.

For downloading Language Interface Packs for Indian languages, be sure to visit the Microsoft Bhasha Project website.

Browser selection screen in European versions of Windows 7

Shijaz Abdulla — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:37:46 +0000

In case you’re wondering how it looks like.

The order in which the browsers are listed is random.

Source: "Microsoft On The Issues" blog

Establishing an SSTP connection using the Windows VPN client

Shijaz Abdulla — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:25:00 +0000

I was chatting with Tom Shinder this evening when he started an interesting discussion on setting up a Windows VPN connection to use SSTP to connect to the corporate network via Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG). This would allow Windows 7 users to connect via SSTP without having to log in to the UAG portal.

So far, we’ve seen it only being done on the UAG Portal – where the user has to log in to the UAG portal and open the Remote Network Access application.

So I fired up my UAG lab VMs to see if this is do-able – and we were successful in getting it to work! Here’s how we did it.

Open the user’s properties in Active Directory Users & Computers. On the Dial-in tab, choose Allow Access under Network Access Permission. Alternatively, you can configure the NPS Network policy accordingly.
On the Windows 7 client machine, create a new VPN connection. (Hint: Network & Sharing Centre –> Set up a new connection or network –> Connect to workplace)
For the newly created connection, set the connection properties as below. The host name will be the same that’s configured on your UAG trunk.
On the Security tab of the VPN connection properties, set the Type of VPN as Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP). Select the option to automatically use te Windows logon name and password.
You’re good to go. Make that connection!

Computer reseller opts for out-of-court settlement with Microsoft

Shijaz Abdulla — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:19:18 +0000

Source: ITP.net

Dubai-based reseller Storm Computers has pledged to sell only genuine Microsoft licences in future after settling allegations that it pirated the software vendor’s products out of court.

Microsoft raided Storm’s premises a few months back and said in a statement that it was "purportedly" found to be selling PCs loaded with pirated versions of its software.

Pirated CDs were also seized during the operation and two Storm employees were arrested, according to the vendor.

Under the terms of a civil settlement between the pair, Storm will only sell and distribute genuine Microsoft software to its customers in future. Both parties also agreed to an undisclosed amount of damages.

Mustafa Ali Khan, manager of Storm Computers, said: "We are highly appreciative of Microsoft’s approach to our case. After talks with the company, we have come to fully understand the value of genuine software and the risks associated with distributing pirated software, both to ourselves and to our valued customers."

Microsoft claims it is making ground in its bid to reduce channel piracy, pointing to recent settlements it has made as evidence that resellers are turning their back on the illegal software trade.

"We expect 2010 to carry over this trend and usher in greater cooperation from resellers," said Jawad Al Redha, IPR manager at Microsoft Gulf. "Although local authorities have gained ground in reducing the incidences of piracy across the Emirates via a combination of awareness campaigns and enforcement activities, they still need more help from the software sector and the public to combat copyright violations."

XP mode and MED-V no longer require hardware virtualization

Shijaz Abdulla — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:55:00 +0000

I’d like to share some exciting news about Windows XP Mode and Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization. The team is removing the virtualization processor requirement for Windows XP Mode on Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate systems. Windows XP Mode continues to use hardware virtualization such as Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel® VT) or the AMD-V™ chipset when available but it no longer requires them.

Microsoft has released an update that enables PCs without hardware virtualization to also take advantage of Windows XP Mode. This change simplifies the customer experience and makes this benefit accessible to many more PCs.

Enterprise customers should consider using Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V), part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance. MED-V provides deployment and manageability features which are designed to address the needs of enterprise customers.

When will this happen?

The removal of this requirement has been publicly announced today, March 18^th 2010 with the update available on the Windows XP Mode download page at the same time.

How does this impact MED-V?

MED-V 1.0 SP1 builds on Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 to help enterprises with their upgrade to Windows Vista and Windows 7 when applications are not yet compatible.

MED-V 1.0 SP1 does not require hardware virtualization.

The user experience provided by MED-V is similar to “Windows XP mode” – even though a different virtualization technology is used.

MED-V 2.0 will leverage Windows Virtual PC and will benefit from the update above. Availability date for MED-V 2.0 is yet to be announced.

[ Read the press release ]

Presenting Windows 7 to the press

Shijaz Abdulla — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:57:16 +0000

For the first time in my life, I was given an opportunity to speak to the local press about Windows 7. I had a discussion on Windows 7 with editors from the local English dailies.

I had a good time, and demonstrated some of the Windows 7 features that let users do more in less time and with less effort, make their computer work the way that they want, and also how enterprises can leverage Windows 7 features to ensure a secure, reliable and productive system to their employees.

Microsoft Qatar country manager Mohammad Hammoudi also addressed the gathering.

Tariq AbuDayeh from EBLA Consulting, spoke to members of the Arabic press and also ran the same set of demos.

Read the article in Peninsula | Qatar Tribune |