Microsoft Windows Mojave

Take a look at http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/. A number of people who were sceptical about the value of Windows Vista, but had never used it, were told that they were getting a sneak peek at a brand new operating system from Microsoft called "Mojave". They loved it and gave it a big thumbs up. They were then told that Windows "Mojave" was in fact Windows Vista. Their reactions are great, remembering that these are people who hate Vista but have never actually used it.

This is an interesting experiment in perception versus reality, and a lesson in just how powerful advertising and the Press can be in setting people's expectations and perceptions.

Online Storage

Microsoft provide different online storage mechanisms:

1. Windows Live SkyDrive - 5Gb free storage.
2. Office Live Workspace - 500Mb free storage.
3. Live Mesh - 5Gb free storage.
4. Hotmail - 5Gb free storage.

Why so many different storage mechanisms? Well, they all have different purposes:

1. SkyDrive is for meant for storing finished documents, or documents that are used for reference. It can be used to share documents, but it isn't about collaborating. SkyDrive can be thought of as a USB drive on the Internet.
   
2. Office Live Workspace is for collaboration rather than storage. It's where you can build a document with input from others, allowing them to comment and suggest changes. Once the document is finished it could be moved to SkyDrive for sharing.
   
3. Live Mesh is focused on having your files available everywhere you need them, on the web or any other device.
   
4. Hotmail is all about email in terms of storage.
   

Microsoft Open Source

Sam Ramji, Senior Directory of Platform Strategy at Microsoft, has announced that Microsoft are stepping up their participation and contribution to Open Source:

1. Firstly, they are providing monetary sponsorship to the Apache Software Foundation.
2. Secondly, they are supporting the ADOdb effort by contributing a patch for it. This is Microsoft's first code contribution to PHP community projects.
3. Thirdly, they are putting an increased number of protocols under Open Specification Promise.

This desire to expand interoperability between Open Source and Microsoft technologies will hopefully provide enormous benefits for businesses and users.

More Free Microsoft Software

Some time ago Microsoft acquired Caligari. Microsoft have now announced that Caligari trueSpace 7.6 is available as a free download. trueSpace is a serious 3D tool that has previously retailed at hundreds of pounds (a quick search online found v6 retailing a £569.88). Furthermore, it's now fully integrated with Virtual Earth, which means that models you create can be uploaded and hosted by Microsoft, for free. You'll need to register, then you'll get some download links for the full product (130Mb), the pdf manual (51Mb) and a collection of videos (132Mb).

For details about integration, read this.

Imagine Cup 2009

Next year the Imagine Cup final will be in Egypt, and the theme will be anything that addresses one or more of the UN Millenium Development Goals. The aim is to give participants more creative freedom than in the past.

For some inspiration see what Y Combinator thinks the future of software will be.

Goodbye Windows 3.11

Microsoft have recently announced that as of November 1st 2008, OEMs will no longer be able to license Windows for Workgroups 3.11....in the embedded market.

Windows 3.11 has long been gone in the standard channel, but the embedded world is unique in that Microsoft allow classic OS products to be sold longer than in other channels.

Line Rider

As Microsoft progresses towards a final release of Silverlight 2, more and more sites are adopting it to create great apps. A great example is Line Rider. Line Rider is a casual game developed by a Slovenian university student. The game has received a lot of attention online and can be found here. Check it out - it's worth a play.

Microsoft Resource Refactoring Tool

Yesterday I used Microsoft's Resource Refactoring Tool. The tool gives developers an easy way to extract hard coded strings from the code to resource files, thus supporting localisation. The idea is that if you want to port your application to another language (e.g. French) rather than having to go through all the source code files altering the content of any output strings (from English to French) you can just alter the strings resource file.

The tool features include:

Works with C#, VB.Net languages.
Supports all project types including web
sites and web application projects.
Finds other instances of the text being
replaced in the project automatically.
Lists existing resources by their
similarity level to the text being replaced.
Automatically replaces hard
coded string with a reference to resource entry.
A preview window to show
changes.

You can download it from here.