We Need Wireless Power

New Hampshire was hit by a major ice storm last Thursday night. The power at my house went out initially around 7:30PM but my UPS system kept the Internet modem and Wi-Fi access point up for a while. The power came back briefly around 10PM but went out for good at midnight. This time the storm took out the cable so there was no Internet. After almost 36 total hours without power or heat (it dropped to 20F or –6C outside) the power finally came back Saturday morning. Now on Monday there is still no cable or high speed Internet at home. I was able...

Read More

Microsoft, Michigan Department of Education and Michigan Virtual University offer CareerForward to help students prepare for a 21st-century workplace.

SEATTLE — Dec. 2, 2008 — With financial support and assistance from Microsoft Corp.’s U.S. Partners in Learning, students across the nation now have access to CareerForward, a powerful, free online course covering globalization, career planning, financial literacy and entrepreneurship. CareerForward empowers students at any grade level in middle and high school to take charge of their own education, career path and future prosperity. Global education leaders from more than 30 nations are learning how to implement this program in their home countries...

Read More

Free Online Career Development Course Now Available to 16 Million Students Nationwide

Do you know students who are wondering “What do I want to be when I grow up?” It’s a hard question and students look in all directions for answers. Recently Microsoft and the Michigan Virtual University released an online “course” for students to use to do some self evaluation to try to help answer that question. The course covers a number of topics that includes things like globalization, career planning, financial literacy and entrepreneurship. I don’t usually copy complete announcements but I did today. Check out CareerForward tod...

Read More

Teacher Tech Tuesdays January 2009

The Teacher Tech Tuesday program (last blogged about here) is dedicated to helping teachers and academic administrators get more out of Microsoft products. The goal is to help bring technology in to classrooms as a tool to teach other subject and not just to teach technology for the sake of technology. I just received the schedule for Teach Tech Tuesdays for January 2009 and they look interesting. Podcasting in history class, getting more dynamic content using MS Office, increasing collaboration using OneNote and using Microsoft Math in math classes....

Read More

Free EBooks From Microsoft Learning

I was checking the Microsoft Learning blog the other day and saw this announcement of some free eBooks as Microsoft Press continues its 25th Anniversary eBook giveaway. The books below are only available until December 24th so grab them now if they look interesting. I’ve grabbed a copy of Writing Secure Code for Vista myself. Writing secure code is something I think is very important and something that I think students should at least discuss from their earliest programming experiences.Understanding IPv6, by Joseph Davies Writing Secure Code for...

Read More

3Leaf Systems to Demo Silicon Enabled Server Virtualization Technology at Supercomputing 08

3Leaf Systems (www.3leafsystems.com), a provider of next-generation virtualization solutions for enterprise data centers, today announced that the company will showcase new silicon enabled virtualization technology enabling dynamic resource utilization using commodity servers from Super Micro Computer Inc. 3Leaf will demo the solution at Supermicro’s Booth# 1033 at SC08 being held in the Austin Convention Center, Austin, Texas from November 15-21. Virtualization within high performance computing (HPC) environments presents particular challenges...

Read More

rPath's Billy Marshall Interviewed on how Enterprises can Virtualize Applications as a Precursor to Cloud Computing

Billy Marshall, founder and chief strategy officer of rPath, recently spoke with Dana Gardner to find out more about how enterprises should begin moving to application-level virtualization that serves as an onramp to cloud benefits.Many enterprises are factoring how to bring more applications into a virtual development and deployment environment to save on operating costs and to take advantage of service oriented architectures (SOA) and cloud computing models.Finding proven deployment methods and governance for managing virtualized applications...

Read More

Intel Core i7 chip launches in Tokyo

Irasshaimase! Stores in Tokyo districts such as Akihabara have launched sales of Intel's Core i7 processor, due to be officially rolled out at U.S. resellers on Monday. Computerworld reported that "several hundred people crowded stores" that opened around 10 p.m. Saturday. The top-of-the-line 965 chip sold out, according to one retailer. Sofmap store in Akihabara is selling boxed Core i7 processors(Credit: Sofmap)The Core i7 represents the vanguard...

Read More

Where is Google voice-powered search?

Reporters were put into a frenzy this week when Google announced it was set to launch version two of its mobile search application for the iPhone that included the addition of voice-powered search, allowing you skip the keyboard altogether. But now the question is, where is it? My colleague Josh Lowensohn reported on the application on Thursday, and duly noted on Friday afternoon that it still wasn't available in Apple's App Store. But as of Saturday...

Read More

Adobe wants to bridge gap between PCs and cloud

Adobe Systems wants to have it both ways. Microsoft's power with programmers is tethered to desktops and laptops, the vast majority of which run Windows. Google is trying to dominate what it believes is the new frontier, cloud computing, where applications run on the Web. Adobe, though, is trying to run down the middle with a strategy that touches on both domains. "It's a balance of the client and cloud together that makes for the most effective...

Read More

Revived Fervor for Smart Monitors Linked to a Server

SAN FRANCISCO — Instead of having a big, loud and complex computer on your desk, what if you could have a quiet, thin machine that rarely needed an upgrade or a fix?Skip to next paragraph Hewlett-Packard’s version of a so-called thin client and monitor, top, and the Hot-E device from ThinLinX, above. Enlarge This Image JetBlue AirwaysEmployees of JetBlue at Kennedy Airport using thin clients connected to remote servers that handle the processing of data. That has been the goal of many technology companies over the last 15 or so years. They have...

Read More

Tech Tips for the Basic Computer User

“One of these days, I’m going to write a book called, ‘The Basics.’ It’s going to be a compendium of the essential tech bits that you just assume everyone knows–but you’re wrong.“(I’ll never forget watching a book editor at a publishing house painstakingly drag across a word in a word processor to select it. After 10 minutes of this, I couldn’t stand it. ‘Why don’t you just double-click the word?’ She had no clue you could do that!)”Many readers chimed in with other “basics” that they assumed every computer user knew–but soon discovered that what’s...

Read More

Top 5 High Tech Infantry Guns

Five of the best and most innovative weapons which could be made available to our foot soldiers.When the Pentagon announced that it adjusted its future Combat Systems Initiative, the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates voiced his concerns regarding the slow pace of fielding weapons to infantrymen who needed them now.When the Pentagon recently tweaked its Future Combat Systems initiative, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made noise about fielding...

Read More

101 Google Tips, Tricks

1. The best way to begin searching harder with Google is by clicking the Advanced Search link.2. This lets you search for exact phrases, "all these words", or one of the specified keywords by entering search terms into the appropriate box.3. You can also define how many results you want on the page, what language and what file type you're looking for, all with menus.4. Advanced Search lets you type in a Top Level Domain (like .co.uk) in the "Search within site of domain" box to restrict results.5. And you can click the "Date, usage rights, numeric...

Read More

Hack Available to Download Windows XP SP3 RC from Microsoft

That's right! Now you can get your hands on the first Release Candidate for Windows XP Service Pack 3! And all it will take is the implementation of a simple registry hack designed to allow Windows XP users to access, download and install Service Pack 3 Release Candidate straight from Microsoft.You are not one of the 15,000 testers that have been so far permitted access to the RC build? No problem. And on top of that, there is no need to wait for a public version of one of the upcoming development milestones of XP SP3. If you really can't wait...

Read More

How To Get Your Blog Ranked High on Google

1. Select Your Keywords and Keyword PhrasesChoose the keywords and keyword phrases you want your blog post to rank high for on the Google search engine results page. For example, I want my blog post to rank high for the term, "blog ranked high on Google." Currently there are approximately 286,000 pages using this term so I'll have to do everything in my power to compete with these web pages to get my blog post on the first page of the Google results page for that term.My keyword phrase also includes other keyword phrases like, "ranked high on Google"...

Read More

Concurrent Computer posts $301K profit

Concurrent Computer Corp. was in the black in the third quarter of fiscal 2008, and it reported plans for a reverse stock split.The Duluth, Ga.-based provider of real-time Linux software and technology for commercial and government markets (NASDAQ: CCUR) had net income of $301,000 on $19.4 million in revenue. This compares with a net loss of $3.1 million on $16.1 million in revenue in the third quarter of 2007.Concurrent has break-even earnings in the third quarter, compared with a loss per share of 4 cents in the same period last year.The Company...

Read More

Google Chrome...is Windows inside, which may be a strategic error

In a fascinating post, Scott Hanselman pulls apart the Google Chrome browser to discover Windows inside or, rather, Windows Template Library (WTL). WTL was open sourced by Microsoft back in 2004 and went somewhat silent until now, when it popped up in Google's open-source browser.Hanselman calls out the reason for WTL's inclusion: Chrome uses abstraction libraries to draw the GUI on other non-Windows platforms, but for now, what sits underneath part of ChromeViews is good ol' WTL. Makes sense, too. Why not use a native library to get native...

Read More

Top 5 List On How To Pick The Right Motherboard

I decided to make a top five list on motherboards because, in building a computer, it’s the hardest component to pick. It’s pretty much the nervous system of the PC, so proper selection is crucial to ensure your new computer performs as well or better than expected. Anyway, on with the top five! 1. Make Sure you pick the right size motherboard for the case you have chosen to use. If you have a micro at ATX case then your motherboard cannot be an ATX. Larger cases sometimes allow you to have smaller motherboards. Check the specs on the case before...

Read More

Strong Passwords, Passphrases, and Keys

Internet Fixes has an article this week about using passphrases instead of passwords. That would involve using Windows’ ability to utilize 127 character passwords, and using a random phrase instead of using a random password.Example: My Aunt Nellie eats cat food!Here we have 29 characters, including spaces, three capitalized letters and a punctuation mark. This is a pretty strong passphrase. In theory, it would require a supercomputer working for millions of years to solve a random key involving 29 units. Of course, that isn’t really a random...

Read More

Top Five Tips On How To Use An Old Computer

1. Fix it up. If the computer’s not too old, you should be able to buy some new RAM and some more hard drive space to extend its life. Before you buy a hard drive, just make sure you know the right connections. If you have enough money, buy a new processor (at least a Pentium 3 or higher). 2. Turn it into a sub-woofer! I know you’re like Coolio. Well I did it by using this PC World article. I found it quite interesting. 3. Donate it or recycle it. Yeah not the coolest thing, but it’s pretty obvious. 4. Turn it into a home server. As long...

Read More

The Weekly Source Code 33 - Microsoft Open Source inside Google Chrome

First, let me remind you that in my new ongoing quest to read source code to be a better developer, Dear Reader, I present to you thirty-third in a infinite number of posts of "The Weekly Source Code."That said, what does Microsoft Code have to do with Google Chrome, the new browser from Google? Take a look at the Terms and Conditions for the "Chromium" project up on Google Code. There are 24 different bits of third party software involved in making Chrome work, and one of them is WTL, the Windows Template Library, which was released as Open Source...

Read More

11 Top Tips for a Successful Technical Presentation

Over five years ago I posted Tips for a Successful MSFT Presentation. Yesterday I watched the video of my Mix Presentation all the way through. It's always very painful to hear one's own voice but it's even worse to watch yourself. I never listen to my podcast and I avoid watching myself. It's like watching a person in parallel universe and it inspires self-loathing. However, if you are someone who values continuous improvement - and I am - you need to do the uncomfortable. Here's my five-years-later Updated Tips for a Successful Technical Presentation.1....

Read More