Archive for: microsoft

How To Add Your Site to Bing Search Engine

How to Add Website/ blog to Bing:

1. Navigate to this URL if you want to submit your website to Bing. You will need to sign in with your Windows Live ID to access the webmaster center.

2. Enter the website URL and also sitemap URL (sitemap is not mandatory, but it is highly recommended to add one).

3. Next step is to verify your website and this can be done either with XML verification or HTML meta tag verification. You can get more details from the help center.

4. Once your website or blog is validated, you can see the complete details of the website submitted like number of URLs indexed, any issues with the crawling etc.

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Microsoft Has Launched Bing

Bing is the new search engine by Microsoft which was due to launch on the 3rd of June, but for some reason it has launched today!

After using the service for the last ten minutes or so there seems to be do real major difference between Live.com and Bing.com. Search results are still terrible and it is really only the interface that has improved and only slightly.

I cant see Bing in its current form taking any search share from Google. In fact I think in its current form it is probably going to do the opposite and give Google more share of the market. Im amazed that Microsoft cant get a good search algorhythm and that Google are just so far ahead in actually providing quality results.

Microsoft really seems to just lack originality when it comes to search and the majority of their online products. MSN has never really done too much, Windows media player is completely outdated and hotmail needs a revamp but never seems to change much, now bing is the search engine that couldnt.

It would be great to hear your thoughts on the new Bing search engine. The best example of the results is that I searched ‘Crenk’ and the our own website came up 9th! Terrible!

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Try New Bing Search Engine from Microsoft Before Launch

There has been a lot of hype around Microsofts new search engine Bing. However, the site isnt supposed to launch until June 3rd, but I thought I would let everyone use it now!

Type in the URL: http://www.reddit.com/tb/8ot6z

Its as simple as that!

Update: Bing was due to launch on the 3rd of June by Microsoft, but it seems because of the leaks they have no just launched the site today!

Microsoft CEO Summit 2009

ceologoMicrosoft, since 1997, annually presents a very exclusive summit dedicated only to the most important CEOs around the planet, “Microsoft CEO Summit“. This year’s topic were dedicated, of course, about the recession and global crisis, and how those are impacting on technologies and companies.

The event took place a few days ago, May 19 – 21, at Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond. But if you are thinking that an event for around 100 people (over 105 attended) it shouldn’t sound like a big deal, well it is. Not only over 100 of the most important decisions-makers around the planet were there, they talk and discuss about their next strategies and even Bill Gates appeared in the sessions.

You won’t find much information about the event, that is completely closed for media or public. But you will find some short videos about what they’ve been discussing. Steve Ballmer talked about the state of innovation in technology and the future of IT industry, Bill Gates about the economic impact and some of the work that the “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation” is doing.

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And they gave a clear message about this crisis and technology, they all feel “optimistic” about what’s coming.

I sure hope they are right.

Microsoft Vision of the Future: Parody

microsoft_vision_on_future_healthcareI’m sure you’ve seen it (or at least you received the video link). Microsoft released their vision about the future of technology. As they predicted, we will have millions of gadgets and cool stuff floating around the air and everywhere you look.

Of course, the Microsoft idea it’s related about all technologies that is currently using or investigating, like: Microsoft Surface, Seadragon and Second Light. And when is this faboulous future will be here? 2019. Yep, around 10 years from now we are all going to use these things, again, according to Microsoft.

It didn’t take long for some to be totally skeptic about this. So here’s a very funny video that was prepared using the same images from the original, enjoy:

Oh and in case you haven’t seen the original one, here it is. Enjoy it as well:

My opinion? They are always optimistics about these type of things, so we’ll be lucky if we can start testing around in some special places and special situations technologies like Microsoft Surface in about 5 to 7 years.

Visual Studio 10 Beta Free Download

microsoft-visual-2010Microsoft has announced the availability of Visual Studio 2010 beta for public download. VS 2010 was made available to MSDN and TechNet users few days back and its now available for public download. Both MSDN/TechNet subscribers and the public are able to test VS 2010 Professional, Team Suite, Team Foundation Server and the .Net Framework 4.

Currently there has been no announcement of the shipping date of the final version but it will probably be int he final quarter of this year. Visual Studio 2010 ships in with lots of new features and changes. You can check out the complete list of changes here. VS 2010 also features better support for Silverlight and the Windows Presentation Foundation.

If you are interested in testing the new VS 2010 and .Net framework 4, then you can download them here.

Microsoft MyPhone Syncs Your Phone and Computer for Free

microsoft-myphoneIf you are currently using a smartphone and running Windows Mobile 6 or higher, then it is time to head over to MyPhone. MyPhone is Microsoft’s new OTA backup system and it is now open in beta. You receive 200MB worth of free storage, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but it should be fine for emails, contact and calendars.

If your phone is already synced with an Exchange server then MyPhone isnt going to be able to work for you. Unlike most Microsoft products the price is free so why not head over and test it out!

Office 2010 Images Leaked: So, What’s New?

office2010logo So, as for most of Windows 7 unofficial builds, the Office 2010 Technical Preview has leaked through the web and hit several BitTorrent sites; available for the first time in x86 and x64 platforms.

This brand new suite will be available in 2010 and not before, so don’t get all that excited on having a final version hitting the market at Christmas, like Windows 7 will. But those two boys will have, indeed, a lot in common considering the images that leaked from the web. Let’s take a quick look.

Installation process: nothing new, the same procedure. Side note: Total space required for a default installation 1.8GB.

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Word 2010 starting up. Hmmm… not sure about those colors being the right choice.

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Word 2010. Yep, the same thing as Office 2007 at first glance.

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That’s new. A left pane as a quick access for common places.

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All products have the same usability, the same ribbons used in Office 2007 (including Outlook, that now does include the same ribbon) and with the left quick access new.

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But, here’s an important thing that I’ve found. Outlook 2007 has a glitch when you are using it with Windows 7 taskbar, they are not fully compatible. Also, if you have any add-on for Outlook 2007 like Xobni (or even Microsoft’s Outlook Connector), and if you minimize the Window, you’ll see that the add-on feature from the bar disappears. With this version, you’ll have a nice Taskbar integration.

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Seems that’s new Office will also bring the Web version of this suite. Microsoft is planning to ship “Office Web” at the same time, that will include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote “in the clouds”.

So, you were expecting big changes in this version? Not me. The transition that some users made (and some of them are still struggling) from Office 2003 to Office 2007 was huge, there is no need to add more complexity when you also want to settle a fresh new operating system in the same year.

Do you remember the code name for Office 2007? Office 12. And this one is called Office 14. So, where’s the Office 13?… the number says it all.

Hotmail POP3 Access Available Worldwide

Hotmail has now made its POP3 email feature available worldwide to all Hotmail accounts. POP3 also called Post Office Protocol version 3 is an Internet standard protocol used by local e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a remote server over a TCP/IP connection.

Enabling POP3 access from Hotmail allows you to easily access your emails using the e-mail software on your computer (like Thunderbird, Outlook) or mobile devices such as a Windows Mobile phone, iPhone, or BlackBerry.

Here are the email client settings you need for starting POP3

POP server: pop3.live.com (Port 995)
POP SSL required? Yes
User name: Your Windows Live ID (full email address)
Password: Hotmail or Windows Live password
SMTP server: smtp.live.com (Port 25 or 587)
Authentication required? Yes (same POP username and password)
TLS/SSL required? Yes

Download Free Windows Vista E-Book from Microsoft

Microsoft it offering a free download of the E-book “Windows Vista Resource Kit” written by Mitch Tulloch, Tony Northrup, and Jerry Honeycutt with the Windows Vista Team. Microsoft Press Books is celebrating its 25th Anniversary of with this “Free E-book of the Month” offer. For downloading you need to sign in with your Windows Live ID and register with Microsoft Learning.

Windows Vista Resource Kit Cover

Some of the core areas covered in this book are exploit new Group Policy features, settings, and ADMX templates, administer disks, file systems, file sharing, search, and Internet Explorer, manage IPsec, IPv6, wireless, and remote connectivity.

Download Windows Vista Free E-Book

Microsoft Songsmith Provides Musical Mockeries!

In the words of John Cougar Mellencamp, both the commerical for Microsoft Songsmith and the number of parody tunes that have been released “hurt so good.”

The Songsmith commercial caused a ripple of laughter when the painful commercial made its rounds on the internet. Viewers lamented on the lack of acting as well as the blatent use of an Apple laptop throughout the entire promotion. You can vew the entire promotion here.

Recently, several Songsmith parodies of popular songs have been released using the Songsmith application.Both TechCrunch and This Week in Tech (TWiT) covered these interesting adaptions that almost appear to come from a bizarro world.

Here is “Roxanne” by The Police via Songsmith.

If you’d like to see other tunes mutilated by this Microsoft inception, visit the the article posted over on TechCrunch. Prepare to laugh, cry, or a mixture of both!

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SnappyFingers: Question and Answer Search Engine With a lot of Potential

SnappyFingers is a new question and answer search engine that is slowly making waves in the search space. SnappyFingers currently has over 10 million questions in their database and has recently partnered with Kosmix in which you can see Snappy’s results within their searches.

SnappyFingers is a great place to come if you are looking to find the answers to the most basic of questions. Their search box is simple to use and users can just type in a question as if they were saying it out loud. This reminds me a little of Powerset in which was purchased by Microsoft for $100m about six months ago.

In terms of downside I mainly think that all comes from design. The design of SnappyFingers needs a huge amount of work. Currently the SnappyFingers seems to be set onto a fixed width, in which it really needs to be fluid. Additionally, the questions are actually quite hard to read and if the results were show in the same kind of way as Powerset or Google, then it would be much easier to scan the page looking for the answers you require. Finally the sidebar they are using is complete the wrong size for this type of site. A 300px sidebar is not needed, I’m sure 160px would be more than adequate.

I think SnappyFingers has a lot of potential, but I’m really not keen on the design and if I owned the company that would be the first thing I changed. Additionally, I’m not really sure where this company is going and what market they are trying to enter, because I know they are a question and answer search engine, but why would I use SnappyFingers over Yahoo Answers for example?