You might remember Statcounter.com as the site that came in the news a   few weeks ago when Bing overtook Yahoo, due to the sudden interest immediately after launch. Back then, as many predicted, it didn’t last long, as people quickly switched back to their old search habits. But I just checked...

Check it out: http://www.bing.com/community/ Nice layout & content organization. Much better organized when comparing it with the typical forums/community sites that you see on Microsoft sites or MSDN (or other non-Microsoft ones)

Just found a new video demonstrating the new classification feature in Windows Server 2008 R2. Enjoy! Special thanks to dawho1 who posted the video.

I love this - if you have kids, and if you are a geek, you'll understand. http://gizmodo.com/photogallery/microserveces08/1000446145

I think that the problem stated in one of my earlier posts is one of the most fascinating puzzles I came across recently. Many people that got confronted with it said bluntly that the problem simply has no solution, otherwise it would contradict common sense, information theory, etc. But surprisingly...

A few completed transactions: - $420: http://cgi.ebay.com/Microsoft-ZUNE-2-Gen-Black-80-GB-mp3-NEW-NIB-EXTRAS_W0QQitemZ320182867203QQihZ011QQcategoryZ147175QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem - $405: http://cgi.ebay.com/Microsoft-ZUNE-2-Gen-Black-80-GB-mp3-NEW-NIB-EXTRAS_W0QQitemZ320183303981QQihZ011QQcategoryZ147175QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem...

I just started to play with HD Tune , just to get a tool to look at my S.M.A.R.T. data. Not that I trust SMART a lot, but I wanted to see what's there. So that's how I discovered my main drive has a bunch of reallocated sectors. Ouch! What is a reallocated sector? Whenever a sector becomes "bad"...

Here is an interesting piece of spam I received this morning on our internal discussion list: Dear VSS Lab Account, You were recently appointed as a biographical candidate to represent your industry in the Madison Who's Who Among Executives and Professionals, and for inclusion into the upcoming 2007...

Florin Lazar , Todi Pruteanu si cu mine am demarat in cursul acestei saptamani un seminar tehnic pe teme de storage in Vista si programare distribuita in WCF. Mai multe detalii aici: http://reg.studentclub.ro . Pana acum seminariile din Bucuresti si Cluj au avut un raspuns fantastic! Daca aveti opinii...

A friend of mine didn't know about Windows Home Server - so I sent him these links: - Main site: http://stopdigitalamnesia.com - Interview with Charlie Kindel http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=270965 - Download: https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0&siteid=38...

A nice demo that shows you several things: - Windows Server virtualization (a separate partition running a striped-down version of Windows to manage all other virtual machines) - Running an 8-proc virtual machine - 64-bit and 32-bit machines running concurrently - Managing virtual machines with System...

Hot and fresh from Channel 9: a session on Shadow Copies in Vista, and its applications: Previous Versions and the brand-new System Restore. Check it out .

The Daily WTF has a funny story around intentional slowdowns . I have one story to share as well. Back in the college days, when we were still busy with exams and courses, some of my friends started working at various companies in our city (Bucharest). One of them managed to get a contractor position...

If you have a Tablet PC or a touch-sensitive model, check out Pen Flicks. Here is a video capture of Pen Flicks in action: I just found this nifty little feature after installing Vista on my old Tablet PC and it works great. It works on any list box in any application (Internet Explorer, Outlook, Shell...

- 2000 - You call their customer support. “Wait a second – did you actually install an application after installing our sound card? We don’t support this configuration. <hang>” (and that guy will likely get promoted for solving most support calls in record time). - 2001 – You call their customer...

Storage management is complex, we all know it. For many people, even the simplest opeartions in a SAN look like black magic. It's no wonder why - if you want to, say, create a brand new 5 TB file share using your brand new your SAN box: you need to create a new LUN in your SAN, mounting it on a machine...

Try it here: http://labs.live.com/photosynth . It is an interesting approach of building a 3D world from a bunch of 2D photos taken anywhere. Coincidentally, Microsoft just released 3D maps in Windows Live Local, which also succeed to build 3D models of cities simply by getting data from a camera...

Lock-free programming is a performant multi-threaded synchronization technique that allows you to safely manage in-memory data in a controlled manner. In its essence, the idea is to write your multi-threaded programs without using locks. Why is this better? For one thing, using OS constructs like mutexes...

A new OS is born - and I hope you will like it!

This is an interesting concept. This datacenter looks like a simple cargo container that can be deployed anywhere. To deploy their cluster, all you need is: 1) A 500 kW electricity source 2) Good network connections. 3) A hose with cooling water 4) A truck to move the container to...

The entire world is now slowly shifting to Flash-based storage in mobile devices. The latest trend is to get rid of harddisks in your laptop - and you will have longer battery life, faster shutdown/reboot, better shock-resistance. Not to mention that flash memory takes less space than a harddisk. Fujitsu...

Vaibhav Kamath asked on one of my previous posts if there will be any UI changes after Vista RC1. The answer - no major changes, of course. Just fit & finish at this point. If you have any comments or issues around Vista, please log them on our forum , or even in the comments area of this post...

Whew! Time for a beer :-) http://blogs.technet.com/windowsvista/archive/2006/09/01/453491.aspx The new OS runs pretty sweet on my dev box (aside a few bugs that I noticed and which are mostly already fixed in newer builds).

There is an article in Techworld.com mentioning a curious research report from Gartner implying a redesign of the Windows Vista code base, around virtualization. Huh? To quote from the article: Instead, the research firm predicts, Microsoft will be forced to migrate Windows to a modular architecture...

Lately, there are several 3D photo technologies coming from Microsoft like Photosynth and Photo Tourism . A new one is 3D facial mapping in XBox 360 games. How does it work? Upload a few photos of yourself (using the XBox Live Vision Camera ), and create a 3D model of your face. You can then use "yourself...