Beyond | IT : Billg

Microsoft to give out development tools to students | Markets | Markets News | Reuters

john.mullinax — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:02:45 GMT

Historically, Microsoft's free development tool software program for students has been controlled by computer science departments. This has probably been one of multiple reasons that comp sci students have disproportionately taken advantage of Microsoft's previous free software program for students. Now, there's a new program, called DreamSpark, that seems like it will reduce the administrative burden for schools and students while also effectively extending the opportunity to get free development software to students in all types of college and university programs (something that was already allowed, but didn't get used as much as you might expect).

If you've read my posts on computing as a liberal art, you can guess I think this is a great thing! :-)

As a coincidence, I happen to sit right next to one of the guys on Microsoft's "academic team" who is intimate with this program. We've chatted about it a couple of times over the course of the last few months, and one of the challenges he's mentioned to me revolves around the student verification process -- that is, how to verify who is a student eligible for the free software. As with any ambitious program there may be some hiccups in the beginning -- especially around the student verification process since there's no real repository of "all students" -- but for most folks, the process should "just work". Just in case, consider packing an extra helping of patience if you're planning to go get your software today. :-)

Also, you can see BillG talk about DreamSpark in this video here.

Technorati Tags: Computing is a liberal art,education,Microsoft,software development,billg

And the winner of the BillG - signed Guitar Hero guitar at ODC 2008 is...

john.mullinax — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:45:22 GMT

As I mentioned here, we held a raffle earlier today to give away a Guitar Hero III guitar, complete with Bill Gates' autograph, at the Office Developers Conference 2008. The guitar played a part in the FedEx demo during BillG's keynote kicking off the conference. (More on that, including pics and video, here, and Jon Box's take on it here).

The conference was just wrapping up, and at noon PST today we gathered folks together in the "interactive theater" in the exhibit hall (ok, we all crowded into a small room with curtains for walls) and drew the lucky winner from a FedEx box absolutely full of entries. And... the winner is...

Clayton James!

Clayton was kind enough to stick around and answer a few questions that I know are at the top of everyone's mind!

Question: What do you do?

Answer: I'm a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Consultant with Data Cogs in Brisbane, Australia - a .NET and SharePoint consultancy.

Question: Australia! Do you know Frank Arrigo?

Answer: Yes!

Question: Do you have an XBOX 360?

Answer: No...

Question: Are you going to get one?

Answer: Definitely!

Question: Most importantly, are you going to actually play Guitar Hero with the BillG-signed guitar?

Answer: That's a tough one... maybe once!

We chatted a bit more, and before Clayton headed out he said he'd send a video playing with the guitar, and we'd see about getting it up on Silverlight streaming.

We'll get a pic up of Clayton receiving his Guitar "soon".

Finally, much sincere thanks to FedEx for helping Clayton get his new guitar shipped back home to Brisbane at no charge! Very classy!

Technorati Tags: ODC 2008,FedEx QuickShip,FedEx,Guitar Hero,BillG,OBA,S+S,Software+Services

BillG Keynote at ODC -- see the video and screenshots from the FedEx demo

john.mullinax — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:34:00 GMT

If you weren't at ODC live to see BillG's keynote, you can see the video here. [Note: updated link so it works again.]

Also, FedEx showed a number of cool things during BillG's keynote at ODC today. The demo was really packed, so there wasn't a lot of time for to really dwell on / explore the interesting things they've put together. Here are a few screenshots for the different scenarios that were shown:

The FedEx QuickShip toolbar for Microsoft Office Outlook.

As a reminder, FedEx QuickShip is the Office Outlook add-in that FedEx is launched today. You can learn more, and download the add-in free of charge at the FedEx site here.

Printing to FedEx Kinkos from Office Word 2007. This was built using Visual Studio 2008 and VSTO 3. This is a prototype that FedEx is very excited about. Keep in mind it might change significantly when/if FedEx brings it to production.

While FedEx already has a printer driver type of capability called FPFK (File Print FedEx Kinkos) that lets you print to Kinkos from any Windows application (including Word), the kind of experience that FedEx showed today is far richer. In addition to connecting users to Kinkos services, it also provides the contextual information and visualizations to help people make decisions about how to leverage Kinkos services.

A "MyFedEx-style" site template that customers can use from within their own SharePoint environment. Uses ASP.NET AJAX, and pulls in mapping data from Virtual Earth -- in addition to the FedEx services, of course. Let's users find the rates for shipping packages, manage shipments, and see where there shipments are, and the route they've taken.

This is also a prototype that could change if/when it comes to production. One thing to keep in mind, customers could build this for themselves using SharePoint and FedEx's services. You can learn more about how to build with FedEx's services at the FedEx Developer Resource Center (DRC).

FedEx capabilities within Office Live Small Business. This screenshot shows tracking for FedEx shipments and Kinkos print orders within Office Live. This was built using Office Live Small Business and FedEx's HTML plugins available through the FedEx DRC.

Technorati Tags: ODC,BillG,FedEx QuickShip

Miss your chance to see BillG keynote CES? See him keynote the Office Developers Conference 2008!

john.mullinax — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:01:13 GMT

The Office Developers Conference (ODC) is coming up quick, starting 10-Feb-2008 in San Jose this year. Should be an awesome event! Office 2007 is by far the best Office yet to build solutions on, and now that it's got a year on the market under it's belt I can't wait to see what everyone is showing off!

As an added bonus, Bill Gates will keynote the event to kick things off -- his last ODC Keynote as a full-time Microsoft employee. So if you missed him at CES, don't miss him here! After that, you can look forward to a few great days getting inspired and learning how to put that inspiration into practice.

More info below - grabbed from the conference registration site: www.odc2008.com.

I will sure be there, and look forward to seeing many of you there, too! :-)

LIVE DEMOS. REAL CODE. HOT NEW INFO.

The 2008 Microsoft Office System Developer Conference

February 10-13, San Jose California

ODC 2008 is the premier event for Microsoft Office and SharePoint developers, bringing together architects, developers, industry technical experts, Microsoft insiders, and key partners to redefine what it means to build on the Office system.

Opening Keynote by
Microsoft Chairman, Bill Gates

We have incredible keynotes by senior Microsoft executives, starting with a special opening keynote by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. We’ll have hot new sessions that bring together diverse topics, from application composition to Software+Services, SharePoint & Silverlight to VOIP & OOXML, and everything in between!
We have 5 technical tracks, and 70+ breakout sessions and hands-on labs. And for the first time ever, we will have an Executive Track where analysts, Microsoft and industry executives will get together to discuss the how and why of Office business applications and their competitive advantages.
We look forward to seeing you there!

Additional Executive Keynotes:

Kurt DelBene - CVP, Office Business Platform Group
Rajesh Jha - CVP, Office Live
Richard McAniff – CVP, Microsoft Office
Gurdeep Singh Pall - CVP, Microsoft Unified Communications Group

Technorati tags: ODC2008, Bill Gates, Microsoft, Office, Conference

A Guide to the BillG Keynote at CES

john.mullinax — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:39:00 GMT

Bill Gates gave the opening keynote at CES the other day. You can see a video of it here. I didn't think the press and blog coverage that I saw this morning did a very good job exposing the ton of cool stuff he covered, so I whipped together this guide to give you a feeling for what he did cover and also to help you skip to the "good parts" -- whatever they may be for you. :-)

A few notes: The times at the end of each bullet are the minutes:seconds into the video. All times are approximate - within 30 seconds. FYI, Bill shares stage time with Robbie Bach and a few others, so some sections will have someone besides Bill on stage -- either with him or in some cases by themselves for a short time (so don't worry if you skip to a section and don't see BillG on stage...).

Bill comes on stage - 5:00
The First and Next Digital Decade: All media and entertainment will be software driven - 7:00
Imagining Bill's Last Day at Microsoft - Hilarious video! (link to high quality version of spoof-only)- 10:00
Second Digital Decade focused on connecting people and user-centric - 18:30
Software + Services (without using the term) - 19:00
High Definition experiences everywhere - 20:30
Service-connected environments pervasive - 21:30
Natural User Interfaces -- beyond keyboard and mouse -- speech (TellMe, Ford SYNC) and multi-touch (Surface, iPhone), gestures recognition, plus more - 23:00
New form factors - 25:30
Windows Live Platform + Windows Vista + Windows Mobile - using all together - 26:30
Microsoft and NBC partner to show Olympics on web with Silverlight at NBCOlympics.com - 35:00
Robbie Bach on "Connected Entertainment" - 39:00
Disney/ABC and MGM bringing TV and movies to XBOX Live - 41:00
HP building MediaCenter Extender into HD TVs - 43:00
DVR Anywhere - record on one TV, play on any TV in household network - 43:30
MediaRoom - 44:00
British Telecom to use XBOX 360 as set top box for video (e.g., "cable") service - 44:30
Zune Social - 47:00
Ford SYNC and Lincoln MKX - 50:00
911 Assist - a Ford SYNC upgrade - Can set option for automatic 911 call if airbag deploys unless you stop it - 52:30
Windows Mobile/SmartPhone voice search with TellMe - 52:30
Visual Recognition and context awareness on Phone - Microsoft Research device - 58:00
Guitar Hero smackdown! - 1:03

Technorati tags: CES, Microsoft, Billg, Keynote, Bill Gates