Microsoft Student Partners

Happy birthday Messenger!

Leandrod — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:29:31 GMT

Ali wrote a celebration post for Messenger

Ten years ago, Microsoft launched one of its most innovative communication services: 7g4u3xqsaw

Windows Live Messenger (formerly known as MSN Messenger). Throughout its many stages of evolution over the years, Windows Live Messenger (which is claimed to have 330 million users!) has become the most widely used free instant messaging service in the world. (Source)

Without a doubt, Windows Live Messenger is one of the most successful products in communication software industry. Many individuals are using Windows Live Messenger to handle their personal and sometimes business needs every single day.

“It’s interesting to note that although NetMeeting is no more, people across the globe use Windows Live Messenger to chat during business meetings. Nearly a quarter (21 percent) of Americans recently surveyed use Messenger during business meetings; of those people, roughly 83 percent say they IM “fairly often” during meetings to make after-work plans.” (Source)

For many other users, Windows Live Messenger is only one of many other useful software and services in the Windows Live suite which if course plays a big role in delivering real time satisfaction for almost all of it’s users! Let’s watch this cool video to celebrate 10th birthday of Windows Live Messenger

Imagine Cup + Microsoft Student Partners from Egypt, the best combination

Leandrod — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:11:14 GMT

We know that in every country, Imagine Cup is powered by MSPs, they participate in the competition, they promote it, they mentor other students, they unblock the bottlenecks and they make the whole experience much better. I’ve heard comment for every person that participated in a local IC final about the amazing activities MSPs did before, during and after those finals.

You’ve probably already read thousands of articles, posts, tweets etc about the IC finals, but I want to give you my personal experience as the global program manager of the program.

These MSPs were the oil that keep the whole machine working, they make the competitors feel like kings and queens, the passion they put in the whole game was amazing, the way they solve problems show why they are MSPs, they stay awake hours and hours fixing every single problem they found and every single request they received.

I had the chance to visit Alexandria with Marwan Hamad and Evronia Azer and they showed me the real life behind the one that you can find under normal circumstaces.

The full day was amazing, I learned about the city, the challenges they face as MSPs, the activities they are doing, the events they have, the connections with other MSPs, the Library of Alexandria, the lighthouse, the software distribution in the schools, and the most important part of the day, the great people we have in the program.

Thank you Marwan and Evronia and thru you I’m saying ALL the MSPs from Egypt and the student volunteers, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, you’re part of the reasons why I love my job.

You should watch this awesome video about the MSPs in Egypt that Samer posted in his blog, and the article in the Imagine Cup site .

Egyptian MSPs, you rock!!!

Multimedia Search, Bing and more

Leandrod — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:25:55 GMT

Photobucket is a site where you can share photos, videos, and albums by email, IM, and mobile phone. Friends and family don't need an account to see your stuff. They just need to click the link you give them.

One amazing thing these guys are doing is keeping the innovation, they combined a killer user experience (based on Silverlight) with one of the most popular sharing behaviors on the web – instant messaging. Users are able to easily share pictures they find via Photobucket with their friends on Windows Live Messenger no matter where they are signed in .

The app was creating the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit UI Controls. It provides a skinable and flexible way to interact with Messenger . The UI controls can be easily integrated (see Interactive SDK) in web sites and makes a lot of the heavy lifting (coding JavaScript) only required if you want a fully custom experience.

The way it works is you go to Photobucket, you search in the Visual Search, and you can see the Live Messenger sign in. So you sign in to the site and when you find the right picture you can share it with you contacts from Messenger. Simple and powerful in terms of innovation.

I Robot, Microsoft Robotics Studio 2008 R2

Leandrod — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:44:22 GMT

Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 R2

We’ve announced the availability of the Robotics Developer Studio 2008 R2. This new release is an upgrade to the existing 2008 version. It includes the new DSS Log Analyzer tool and enhancements to the Visual Simulation Environment as well as bug fixes and additions to the documentation. You can view the Introductory Video for more information.

The Express Edition of the software is available at no cost from the Downloads Page, or the Academic Edition from DreamSpark or MSDNAA, or downloaded from the MSDN Subscribers Downloads or BizSpark. So if you don’t get it is because you don’t want it.

Please note that RDS 2008 R2 Standard Edition Upgrade is an upgrade version which must be installed on a computer that already has RDS 2008 Standard Edition previously installed.

New Web Site

The Microsoft Robotics home page, http://www.microsoft.com/robotics, has been completely revised to have a new look and feel and provide updated information. In July, another section will be added to the site called Learn. This new section will catalog all of the available learning resources for RDS. The new Learn section will also allow search and filtered views of the content, so developers can find what they need quicker.

Software Quality Metrics

One of the new features of RDS is Software Quality Metrics (SQM). This is a tool that is used in many Microsoft products to monitor usage patterns and send the data back to Microsoft. The data is then used for planning and the development of new product features. No personal details are sent to Microsoft.

You can elect to participate in the SQM program during installation and we encourage you to do so. If you change your mind at a later date, there is an Update and Feedback Options item in the Start Menu that allows you to opt in or out at any time.

Also as part of this feedback program you can request that RDS tools like VPL, DSSME, etc. check for a new version of RDS whenever they are started. This is also optional, but we suggest that you select it during installation too.

Bill Gates predicted the birth of a new industry, where you can be a big player starting now. Get your hands into the bits and start playing now!

You can follow MSRobotics in Twitter, we’re following them from StudentPartners in Twitter

Another great MSP meetup. The Adria workshop

Leandrod — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:24:02 GMT

In the first week of June, MSPs and ADEs from the Adriatic area organized the first MSP Adria workshop that was held in Split, Croatia. They had 15 MSPs from Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia on this first workshop. The ADEs also attended and participated there, Zoran Subic from the Microsoft Serbian sub, Oliver Zofic from the Microsoft Slovenian sub and Marko Sever from the Microsoft Croatian sub. Based on the pictures and the feedback, the experience was amazing.

The idea for organizing this workshop came a year ago, but this was the best time to organize this event. Reasons for which we wanted to do so can be put in several points:

Those three countries share the same cultural and historical heritage, we also speak the same language. It seems natural to make a connections between best MSPs from these countries, because they are dealing with very similar challenges, on their own original way. We need to mix all those experiences in order to get the best possible effect on student bodies in all countries.
Educational systems in the countries are also very similar.
It is good to reward our best MSPs, at the end of a very long academic season, and take them to see other countries and to have some networking with their peers.
ADEs could share their experiences also, and get to know each other a little bit better.

Best practice examples were the main reason that we wanted to organize this event, which I will try to explain in a few words for each country:

MSPs from Serbia talked about organizing Student Tech Clubs by which they stated that it was their best case practice. They are organizing STC as student community. They are organizing workshops for STC in their institutions for students. They have reached approximately 100 students with STC. Also the best practice is that with STC all of the students have learned more about MS technologies.
MSPs from Slovenia have talked about two best practices.

One was regarding School of the future program that they have started with Gymnasium and economics high school in Trbovlje. In the past 3 years they have renewed hardware for the school through government and EU grants, and they are managing to make this school the first example of the School of the future program by Microsoft in Slovenia. They managed to implement Single Sign-On on all applications with Microsoft Active Directory integrated with school information system, MSDN AA, Live@EDU, billboard school TV with calendar and restricted wireless access (EDUROAM).
The other was about sharing best-practice on how to build MSP community and what does Slovenian MSPs do to address more students. The presentation was about events, community site, workshops and good engagement of MSPs in companies.

MSPs from Croatia talked about organizing events on institutions, Open Days, Student Technology Days and Install Fests. Through this events they are reaching students to get informed of the presence of the latest Microsoft technology on their institutions and all Microsoft programs that their institution is involved with.

This was a great opportunity to put together MSPs from the region and to see what we can do together. One of the ideas that came during the workshop was to organize together student community portal and video portal, and also to bind together MSPs for discussion through live group and SharePoint that we have in Croatia. Each country is unable to achieve desired amount of content, but if we work together we could manage to have always updated and rich content portals. This is the first combined program that we will get involved with.

Some thoughts from MSPs that were on the workshop:

“MSP Adria Workshop was important to me because of the best practices presented by others which I was able to get to know during the group lectures which were held by other MSPs. Also, I am convinced that the personal contact established with other MSPs (from Croatia and Slovenia) during the course of the summit will be an awesome benefit in any future joint projects that are bound to happen.” from Dejan Dimitrijević, MSP in Serbia.

“I had lots of fun and gained new knowledge and friends. We should do it again A.S.A.P.”, from Andrej Šlegl, MSP in Slovenia.

“This was a summit to remember and it cheered everyone, and helped everyone to come to a lot of new information and to meet many new people! Definitely, we all agreed that it would be great if this continued, and become a practice. We came to a lot of information and ideas used by colleagues from neighboring countries and we hope that some of them will be implemented here so that we could make the MSP program better.“, from Silvio Šagovac, MSP in Croatia.

We all think this kind of events are very useful for small subs and countries because in combining efforts we can do much more then by ourselves.

When we did not work, we had relaxing time. We went out to the city together to socialize. Also during Friday’s afternoon we had a Split city tour with a tourist guide so all MSPs could know a little history of the place where we had our workshop. You can see some pictures from the tour and from night out.

It was an amazing experience!

How do I Azure?

Leandrod — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 21:24:39 GMT

Key things for technical learning are: access to the bits, access to training, creativity and a community to build things together.

Do you want start playing around with Azure?

get the tokens: anyone who signs up at Connect will be granted Azure tokens. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/azure/register.mspx to sign up for the tokens
get the training: these snacks will get you up to speed quickly

Webcasts – www.microsoft.com/events/series/azure.aspx
Training kit – www.microsoft.com/azure/trainingkit.mspx
Azure SDK - http://www.microsoft.com/azure/sdk.mspx
Sample projects to review – codeplex.com, search “azure”
How Do I Info: Visit here for the overall summary page of videos

join the community: Azure user groups – azureusergroup.com or you can create your own student club for azure at www.studenttechclubs.com and from there thru Connect, get access to content about Azure

Do you want more info?
http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx
http://channel9.msdn.com/Search/Default.aspx?Term=azure&Type=site

Easy, uh?

Give Shelter, Save a Life. When everything we do makes sense.

Leandrod — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:13:00 GMT

Make a difference to refugees by joining Microsoft.com/Student on Facebook. It’s really simple and i, personally, love simplicity. Couple of clicks and you will be able to help people that is living a real bad times. Microsoft Student is partnering with UNHCR on the “Gimme Shelter” initiative to raise funds and awareness for UNCHR emergencies. Forward to your friends because for every person that joins or every dollar donated, $1 will be donated by Microsoft Student until our goal is met.

The UN Refugee Agency supports the UN Refugee Agency's humanitarian work to protect and assist refugees around the world. We strive to meet the needs of the world's most vulnerable people, building support and awareness for UNHCR's life-saving relief programs.

The UN Refugee Agency - a two-time Nobel Peace Prize winner - provides protection, shelter, emergency food, water, medical care and other life-saving assistance to 32 million people worldwide, who have been forced to flee their homes due to war and persecution. When possible, UNHCR helps refugees and other displaced people return to their homes voluntarily, safely, and with dignity.

Since its formation by the United Nations General Assembly on December 14, 1950, UNHCR has helped an estimated 50 million refugees restart their lives. Today, with a staff of more than 6,300 people, the agency is the lead humanitarian organization on the scene in 117 countries around the world.

When i think that i can help with just a couple of clicks I really feel better.

Isn’t this the definition of cool?

Leandrod — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:41:02 GMT

When you use Wikipedia for the definition of coolness it says that there is no a single definition of cool, but it is definitely related with attitude, well-being and excitement (coooool).

So here is the deal:

Xbox, a game console with services that you can use to play games, watch movies from Netflix, share and interact with friends, post real-time status updates, and check out photo galleries on the big screen in living room with Facebook on Xbox LIVE and more.

Ok, we know that, but let’s add more color into the picture being more specific:

A technology that is in the Guinness World Records, and also won a Grammy

The new games are hot stuff like Halo 3 ODTS (Orbital Drop Shock Troopers), the new Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction™, (I’m a big fan of Splinter Cell), Forza Motorsport 3 recharged (check the trailers), The Beatles: RockBand

And to add even MORE on top of all this stuff two things to make this perfect:

Xbox Live would deliver yet another first-to-the-world: instant on 1080p streaming HD movies and TV with 5.1 surround sound—direct to TVs worldwide through its Xbox LIVE social entertainment network.

And the crown goes to:…..Project Natal.

“mom, mom, no controllers!!” What about playing Xbox games with no controllers? Even better, use your body as a giant game controller, face and motion recognition.

Do you want to take a peek? Enjoy this http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/projectnatal/

Coooooool!!!!

Bing it. Even the Apple co-founder likes it

Leandrod — Fri, 29 May 2009 01:04:37 GMT

Yup, the new search is on.

www.bing.com try it, it’s fast, cool, relevant, keeps the beautiful pictures, and actually you can see the previous ones,

Steve Wozniak said “That was the most astounding software demo I've every seen” in the All Things Digital Conference.

And there is a great community corner at www.bing.com/community where you can find blogs, videos etc

Visual Studio 2010 – Tutorials from the kitchen

Leandrod — Thu, 28 May 2009 01:59:41 GMT

Jason Zander, Visual Studio GM posted a couple of tutorials about the new version (beta).

You can download the beta from here, get instructions on how to download it from Channel9, and then go to Zander’s blog and play with the tutorials.

Big news: modeling tools, improved efficiency throughout the test cycle, better collaboration capabilities, and the new .NET Framework 4.0

If your school has MSDN AA you can get it from there too.

And if you want all the info about it, click here with twitter updates, newsletter, blogs, etc.

Windows Live Services Hackathon. Next Wednesday in San Francisco.

Leandrod — Tue, 26 May 2009 08:31:59 GMT

If you’re in SFO and you want to learn and do some experiments with Live Services, the click here and get your invitation.

The agenda includes, pizza, Messenger Library high level, 2:30hs of full coding, more pizza and beer.

Cool uh?

Marc Ruxin (Chief Innovation Officer for McCann) will be there talking giving some secrets for innovating in a downturn.

Here you can hear James Senior talking more about the event. Bring you code and have some fun.

If somebody read this post and attend, WE WANT COMMENTS ABOUT IT!!!

The history of Microsoft. 1990 a new post

Leandrod — Fri, 22 May 2009 06:25:23 GMT

it’s important to learn what happened in the past to understand the present and envision the future.

The series that Tina Wood is posting on Channel9 about the History of Microsoft is very interesting. How the company we’re now was built, products, headcount, areas, new offices and subsidiaries around the world and what was happening around the world

Now you can watch up to 1990

Very cool

Imagine Cup is almost here!

Leandrod — Tue, 19 May 2009 09:39:45 GMT

The road to Egypt is getting full of students.

As you read this the local Imagine Cup finals are happening all around the world

Every country created a different experience, in some cases it was training on site for the

We have Netherlands, Russia, US, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Venezuela, Turkey, Poland, Indonesia, Egypt, Hungary and more.

In Netherlands for example, the local final event was Co-host of the event was NCDO (National Committee for International Cooperation and Sustainable Development) in partnership with companies like Avanade, Achmea and Exact Software.

In US, Microsoft’s New England Research and Development Center was host to student technologists from across US for the finals. The students were addressed by Dan Bricklin, - co-creator of VisiCalc . In addition to the competition itself, the students spent a day in an innovation and entrepreneurial workshop led by the NCIIA, they saw the historical sights of Boston, and they presented their projects to the local tech leaders, the Massachusetts Lt. Gov, and local entrepreneurs at a community student showcase. More here

In Italy the finals were held in University of Padua, with a great connection with the Local Software Economy. Engaging and collaborating with the most important Italian university incubators association (PNI Cube) with the twofold objective of spreading the culture of enterprise among students and researchers of our universities and of selecting and rewarding the best business/business ideas created.

In Turkey, the Finals was streamed online by Silverlight where they also got to vote online. More than 10.000 students watched the finals on line. Local companies sponsored the winners and top NGOs were present

In Indonesia Steve Ballmer announced the winner

And more… You can search it with www.live.com and you will find the spirit always .

Adrenaline, the greatest ideas, software solutions to the toughest problems of the world, and of course a lot of fun.

Imagine Cup is coming and the road to Cairo is being paved…

Ramping up! Web development now!

Leandrod — Tue, 19 May 2009 08:55:13 GMT

We care about your learning. We want you to be ready with all the things you need and more.

So here is Ramp Up.

Ramp Up is a free, online, community-based learning program that will help you build professional development skills. It's free! and help advance your career

You can choose now from Move ASP to ASP.NET, Web Development with ASP.NET, Develop Windows Mobile 6 apps, Sharepoint for Developers, VS2008 and more content ready to improve your skills.

Windows 7 tips and secrets

Leandrod — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:10:04 GMT

Chris Sackl posted on Channel8 some new features of Windows 7. The new Aero features Aero Snap, Aero Shake and Aero Peak.
Chris also explains how Jump Lists are used and shows the new pin to taskbar functionality. So have a short look and see what’s possible and after that some of the shortcuts for the keyboard users of the new W7 RC.

And if you want more you can go to the Windows 7 clubhouse and have some fun.