Microsoft Announces New Zune HD Portable Media Player

Microsoft Corp. today announced the evolution of Zune, “Zune HD”.

finally Microsoft came up with something which I can compare with I-pod, I am using Zune almost more than one n half years now, and I am very happy with its experience but still I always feel that there are many things missing in my Zune, and i feel this strongly when 2-3 months back my friend Vikram(VB) came back from US and I saw his i-pod with all these touch features, so many applications installed in it, wi-fi, browser, contacts list etc. I was always thinking that Microsoft should add all these things in Zune and Today my dream came in reality, Microsoft announced its New Zune  called “Zune HD”, along with Premium Zune digital entertainment service via XBox Live.

 

Zune HD is the first portable media player that combines a built-in HD Radio receiver, high-definition (HD) video output capabilities, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) touch screen, Wi-Fi and an Internet browser.

some New Features -

Touch screen :The bright OLED touch screen interface allows users to flip through music, movies and other content with ease, and the 16:9 widescreen format display (480x272 resolution) offers a premium viewing experience on the go.

HD Radio: Zune HD comes with a built-in HD Radio receiver so users can listen to higher-quality sound than traditional radio on the go. Users also will have access to the additional song and artist data broadcast by HD Radio stations as well as additional channels from their favorite stations multicasting in HD. If you don’t like the song playing on your station’s HD channel, switch to its HD2 or HD3 channels for additional programming.

HD Video Out:The HD-compatible output lets Zune HD customers playback supported HD video files from the device through a premium high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) audiovisual docking station (sold separately) direct to an HD TV in 720p

Wireless: Zune HD is Wi-Fi enabled, allowing for instant streaming to the device from the more than 5 million-track Zune music store.

Web-browser: Zune HD will include a full-screen Internet browser optimized for multitouch functionality.

 

these are some key features announced by Microsoft, hope Zune HD will come up with more and more features inside it.

Reference links :

 http://www.zune.net/ZuneHD

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2009/may09/05-26ZuneHDPR.mspx

ASP.NET MVC is not included in Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1

finally i installed VSTS 2010 beta 1 on my machine, i decided to install that on my Windows 7 RC partition and i installed it successfully. my installation experience is pretty good and surly it took very less time for installation compare to earlier versions…

mean while i got a call from one client for some MVC work, so i just thought to check MVC in VSTS 2010 beta 1before i reboot and switch to vista and i was shocked there is no MVC templates included in VSTS 2010 beta 1. after checking on ASP.NET site here i found something that ASP.NET MVC is not included in Beta 1…

as mentioned by Phil Haack on his blog-

ASP.NET MVC is not included in Beta 1. The reason for this is that Beta 1 started locking down before MVC 1.0 shipped. ASP.NET MVC will be included as part of the package in VS10 Beta 2.

Tech.Ed India 2009, Summary of Community activities

  From Sanjay Shetty’s Live Space

Quote

TechEd India 2009, Summary of Community activities

To summarize: In my 10+ years of community engagement, I would say, TechEd India 2009 was the most successful in terms of community involvement. As beautiful as the famous Charminar of Hyderabad. (see picture on left).

Organizations like INETA APAC, Culminis, PASS and Microsoft India, jointly engaged in bringing all user group leaders together, promoting the respective user groups and enabling great networking opportunities between the leaders and attendees of TechEd India.

 

Background:

About 1 month before TechEd volunteers from INETA APAC, Culminis, PASS, Microsoft India team, and Microsoft UGSS, formed the India Community Council(ICC),  an initiative spearheaded by Microsoft User Group Support Services(UGSS). The objective was to align the efforts of the various organizations in a country and to explore areas of synergy. TechEd was the perfect ground to see the power of the ICC. And they definitely proved their mettle. Further invaluable help was provided by Ashwin Kini, the Culminis APAC chair.

 

A plan was made to engage the community along the ideas stated in the left column below:

1. Encourage community participation pre-TechEd	1.With Microsoft India’s help, a discount of 25% was negotiated for all User group members wishing to attend TechEd. 1.1. A template was made available to leaders via which they could announce this benefit to members. 1.2. Members interested in the offer were given a survey url to indicate their interest. A day before TechEd volunteers provided this list to TechEd event agency to ensure at time of payment, members got 25% discount. (Despite the severe recession 65 community members took advantage of this offer). 2. ICC members were given free entry. 3. INETA APAC(facebook, Spaces), Culminis blogs, sites announced benefits for the community, and mailers + phone calls were made to all UG leaders.
2. Promote all User Groups of (INETA APAC, Culminis & PASS), create awareness of these organizations, MVP Program and Microsoft UGSS, ensure all attendees are aware of the above.	1. A Community Booklet was created, containing details of all user groups in India, via efforts of ICC + other volunteers. A professional company was engaged(Printo), their help was invaluable. Community booklet was included in the attendee kits, ensuring all are aware of the various user groups across India. In addition, UG leaders were provided Community booklets, so that they could distribute it to their group members.
3. Engage TechEd Attendees, Promote leaders and groups, create buzz and encourage at least 10% of TechEd audience.	1. Two contests were organized. 1.1 Culminis, INETA APAC, PASS, Leader Hunt Contest for TechEd India 2009. Enabled attendee interaction with all leaders(Culminis, INETA APAC, PASS) who are present at TechEd. Approximately 300 attendees participated. 1.2 INETA APAC True or False Contest. Enabled attendees to be aware of INETA APAC benefits and sign up as volunteers.  Approximately 300 attendees participated. 1.3 There was also a dart game where a lots of goodies(Stress balls, T-shirts, Caps) were given to attendees. The queue at the dart game counter was just amazing. (The Xbox guys helped by providing part of their booth to enable this.)
4. Networking opportunity for speakers, attendees, UG leaders, volunteers.	An exclusive Community Evening was organized, primary sponsor was Microsoft UGSS, Culminis and INETA APAC also partly sponsored the same.  Networking, free beer and munchies. It was an evening attended by close to 100 people (consisting of leaders, members, speakers and Microsoft personnel). The ICC members were formally introduced to the attendees. The entrance to this exclusive event was guarded by our enthusiastic leaders/volunteers Nauzad, Surendra Mishra and Pinalkumar Dave followed by turns by other volunteers.
5. Involve 3rd party speakers, Microsoft Regional Directors, other valuable speakers etc.	Pre-TechEd, behind the scenes I was involved in getting 3rd party speakers, such as Sanjay Vyas, Dr. Nitin Paranjpe, Raj Chaudhuri, Meena K and Ranganathan S. In addition, Microsoft RD’s like Praveen Srivatsa, Venkatarangan TNC, also delivered some fantastic sessions.
6. Leader Summit	One of the things local Microsoft encouraged was to engage leaders much more, and in order to help with that, they offered free entry to TechEd for all leaders of groups in India. The ICC capitalized this wonderful opportunity and informed all leaders, in addition, INETA APAC and Culminis sponsored leader accommodation at TechEd, since quite a few leaders were attending this proved to be hugely beneficial, about 14 leaders attended this special summit, along with leading MVP’s. It was held on day 2 of TechEd for about 2 hours. INTEA APAC, Culminis and PASS shared their plans for FY10 with leaders. Additionally, Culminis, INETA APAC, PASS representatives, respectively met up with their group leaders in separate meetings.
7. Upcoming mini-UG TechEd’s in 8 cities.	Microsoft announced their support to Community, UG led, mini-TechEd’s in 8 cities. These will be targeting both IT Pro’s and Developers. Topics that are being delivered are:  IT Pro: Win Server 2008 R2; Virtualization; Exchange server Developer: WIN 7; IE 8 /SL3 & Visual Studio 2010 Microsoft would enable UG leaders to get content from TechEd on the above + leaders are encouraged to have local speakers for whom virtual training could be provided. INETA APAC, Culminis, and UGSS could support funding of these Community TechEd’s.
8. Special Session for UG leaders	Concept Visuals – presentation by Sanjay Vyas was an exclusive introduction to leaders on how Concept Visuals helps in easy learning + presenting of any information. The best comment after the session which I heard from a leader was “I was doing Windows programming for 6 years and now I finally understand what’s happening”. It was an eye opener for all.
9. New User Groups support	Hyderabad – Soni Somarajan and Srinivas B.N. were two new potential leaders who stepped up to help with Hyderabad UG. Patna – Monika Jha(encouraged by UG leader Surendra Mishra) has decided to start the Patna User Group, focused on UI/Designing Agra – Similarly, INETA APAC volunteer Mahesh Mitkari, is working with a potential new leader in Agra.
10. Goodies for UG leaders and their members	On the last day, UG leaders were given giveaways to take back to their user group communities, which they could utilize at the upcoming mini-TechEd’s. ICC members and volunteers, put their hands together to coordinate these efforts.
11. UG content in localized languages	Microsoft is helping encourage submission of information in localised languages, so far I believe, there are volunteers for Gujarati, Kannada, Hindi and hopefully the upcoming mini-UG TechEd’s will bring many more languages to the fore. These video recordings would be promoted across the country.

Download of VS2010 / .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 1

VS2010 (Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1) and .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 1 are now publicly available, it was released to MSDN subscribers on Monday and now  today Microsoft announced availability to all users.

you can download it  from following links..

this time VSTS packages are available in two different formats to download, either you can download full ISO image or you can go for web installer-

• Visual Studio 2010 Shell (Integrated) Beta 1 Redistributable Package
• Visual Studio 2010 Shell (Isolated) Beta 1 Redistributable Package
• Visual Studio 2010 Professional Beta 1 – Web Installer
• Visual Studio 2010 Professional Beta 1 – ISO
• Visual Studio Team System 2010 Team Suite Beta 1 – Web Installer
• Visual Studio Team System 2010 Team Suite Beta 1 – ISO
• Visual Studio Team System 2010 Test Load Agent Beta 1 – DTEA
• Visual Studio Team System 2010 Test Load Agent Beta 1 – DTEC
• Visual Studio Team System 2010 Team Foundation Server Beta 1
• Microsoft Visual Studio Lab Management 2010 Beta 1
• Visual Studio Team System 2010 Lab Agent Beta 1
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 1 – x86
•  Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 1 – IA64
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 1 – x64
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 Client Profile Beta 1 – x86
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 Client Profile Beta 1 – x64
• Visual Studio 2010 SDK Beta 1
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Remote Debugger (Beta 1) – x86
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Remote Debugger (Beta 1) – x64

you can also visit Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 1 site.  for all other download details.

Microsoft Tech.Ed India 2009 – Day I

Microsoft Tech.Ed India 2009 started with a keynote speech delivered by Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive, Microsoft Corporation.

around 10:00 am Agni started performing Tech.Ed Song, while they were ending Tech.Ed song SteveB entered on the stage with his super energetic aura.

some key points of his speech

he started he talk with talking about the economy.

he mentioned that every person in IT should tell himself every night that he made right choice by selected IT as his carrier.

Pharma, Energy Science all evolving with innovation in Information Technology.

IT Departments have been under pressure with "Do more, with less". Customers can Save money by deploying new tech, moving to more RAD Platform. Dynamic IT is more about "Do more, with less optimization".

Windows 7  and Win Server 2008 R2 to be available by Christmas Win Vista was most "talked" about OS  :) Win Mobile 6.5 to debut this year.

SharePoint is becoming Microsoft’s most revenue generating product.

during QA session SteveB steps down from the stage into the audience to take questions.

there was a question for dates of Windows Azure release dates – no direct answer from SteavB but a big hint towards PDC 2009. while answering another question about Silvelright on mobile phone SteaveB mention that Silverlight Mobile being developed from Microsoft's India Dev Center at Hyderabad .

SteveB mentioned that India is the place where most of people get trained on Computer Science  Technology and after Redmond Hyderabad development Center is words 2nd largest center for Microsoft, while answering one Question “why he choose India Tech.Ed and not US Tech.Ed this time.

that's all from SteavB key note

after that we moved to Community Zone, lots of fun there at Community Zone, all My MVP friends, UG Leads few Ms Employees were there 4 unconferance session in a day, nice sessions by my friends Vikram on sliverlight, Pinal, Amit and Jacob on SQL Server.

we also recorded small session in regional languages where we talked about Microsoft technology in our languages like Telagu, Marathi, Gujrathi etc, this will carry on tomorrow also.

mean while I got chance to attend very nice session on my favorite BizTalk RFID, a session was going on in Technology tent and fortunately I was just going by that way so I come to know about session, as this session was not printed on agenda paper, don't know why ?, but really nice discussion with BizTalk RFID Team from IDC also got some secret info about BizTalk Mobile is working with Web services and MSMQ on Mobile platform. its NDA info so cant post here… but very interesting…  tomorrow there is a session on BizTalk RFID 2009 and SharePoint, am going to attend them for sure…

We got very nice response at Community Zone, where we hosted  a Quiz and Hunt leader contest. we distributed lots of goodies like INETA/Culminis/PASS pens, t-shirts, caps, stress bolls etc.

rush at Community Zone…

there were lots of very nice session at Tech.Ed but unfortunately i was able to attend only one Technical session, but tomorrow for sure i will attend more…

and our day 1 ended with nice bear party “ Mobile Developer night”

Unconferance Sessions at Microsoft Tech.Ed India 2009

Tech.ED India is starting Tomorrow.. the UnConference is already popular place to be at...

Here are some of the sessions that have been decided by popular voting:

Wednesday, May 13

1:00 - 2:00 Groove is the best medicine for difficult times - Ashok Hingorani

3:00 - 4:00 Silverlight 2 & 3 Core CLR - Vikram Pendse

4:00 - 5:00 SQL Server 2008 Management Studio New Features - Pinal Dave

5:00 - 6:00 XML Support in SQL Server 2008 - Jacob Sebastin

6:00 - 7:00 Policy Based Management in SQL Server 2008 - Amit Bansal

Thursday, May 14

1:00 - 2:00 What's New in Silverlight 3 - Vikram Pendse

2:00 - 3:00 Developing using Silverlight3 Controls - Chaitra Nagraj

3:00 - 4:00 Data Services - Chaitra Nagraj

4:00 - 5:00 Improving Application Installation UX in Windows 7 - Vijay Raj

5:00 - 6:00 SQL Server 2008 Beyond Relational - Arun Balachandran

Friday, May 15

12:00 - 1:00 Getting started with Oslo - Mehfuz Hossain

1:00 - 2:00 Using Office 2007 effectively - Top 10 issues - Nitin Paranjpe

3:00 - 4:00 IIS 7 for Devs and Admins - Mohd Abdul Muqeet Khan 4:00 - 5:00 High Availability in SQL Server 2008 – Satya

5:00 - 6:00 Upgrading To SQL Server 2005 & 2008: Notes & Best Practices - Satya

Apart from these sessions, TechEd Attendees will get an opportunity to present as well. If you want to present at UnConference, please enter your name at Community Pavilion in TechEd India.

UnConference @ Microsoft Tech.ED India 2009

UnConference @ TechED India and your chance to vote for your favorite topic.

Tech.Ed India is all about the community. In the true spirit of community we are happy to present the UnConference@TechEd India

UnConference will be hosted in the Community Pavilion @ Tech.Ed India throughout the day and streamed live. It is the event where you are the presenter and you are the ones choosing the sessions. The attendees also get an opportunity to present at UnConference. The sessions are led by third-party experts (MVPs) and intended for attendees to enjoy free-flowing dialogues about products, technologies, and solutions.

Unconference is one of the favorite ways people connect at the conference. You can meet people with similar interests and challenges in an open-forum environment at the Unconference sessions.

UnConference sessions are an eclectic mix of technology and productivity sessions. You can vote for the sessions you would like to hear at UnConference here. Apart from the technology sessions, you will also find some productivity sessions on blogging, presentation skills etc.

The attendees of Tech.Ed India form another important part of the UnConference. They can nominate themselves to be speakers at the beginning of each day and will have the opportunity to present in the post lunch session.

The list of sessions you can vote on are as follows:

Silverlight 2 & 3 Core CLR - Vikram Pendse

What's New in Silverlight 3 - Vikram Pendse

Improving Application Installation UX in Windows 7 - Vijay Raj

SQL Server 2008 Management Studio New Features - Pinal Dave

XML Support in SQL Server 2008 - Jacob Sebastian

SQL Server 2008 Beyond Relational - Arun Balachandran

ADO.NET Data Services - Chaitra Nagaraj

REST - Chaitra Nagaraj

Using Office 2007 effectively - Top 10 issues: Nitin Paranjape

IIS 7 for Devs and Admins - Mohd Abdul Muqeet Khan

XNA Game Studio- Dhaval Faria

Windows 7- Bitlocker Enhancements - Vinod Unny

Groove is the best medicine for difficult times - Ashok Hingorani

Getting started with Oslo - Mehfuz Hossain

Policy Based Management in SQL Server 2008 - Amit Bansal

Please vote by indicating your TOP 3 topics you would like to hear at UnConference on Tech.Ed Group on FaceBook here. The topics you select would be featured on the Live Streaming from UnConference@TechEd India.

click here to Join Microsoft Tech.Ed India 2009 Group on FaceBook

Session on My favorite BizTalk RFID in TechEd India 2009 – I am going to attend this session for sure…

Just going though all list of session and speakers on Microsoft TechEd India 2009 Website.

I found very interesting session for me, session on my Favorite topic or i can say my favorite product… I just love this module of BizTalk server, BizTalk RFID..

there is a session on BizTalk RFID 2009 in Microsoft TechEd India 2009 at Hyderabad.

Microsoft BizTalk RFID 2009 – Connecting the extreme edge to the cloud  on 14th May, 2009 at Timing: 16:30 - 17:45

Speakers: Kalyana Sundaram

RFID Mobile devices are making a significant impact to warehouse (“edge locations”) operations today. On the other hand, many high performing companies are taking advantage of the cloud based infrastructure to collect events designed to provide high visibility of assets in a supply chain. In BizTalk RFID 2009, Microsoft and its large ecosystem of hardware and software partners have provided the capabilities to collect physical events from mobile devices and use the BizTalk RFID Server to deliver events via EPCIS to cloud based services. This session demonstrates the compelling mobile to server to cloud based scenario that is sure to revolutionize asset visibility in the future.