I always felt that Security Softwares (Antivirus, AntiSpyware, Firewall) available today have not evolved for a long time. They lack User Interface and the engineering perfection that many other software have achieved. These suites also take a lot of system resources unnecessarily as many of them are badly developed.

All along I thought I was the only one feeling this, but today I was glad to read an article in Washington Post echoing the same sentiments.

Recently Microsoft announced Mix '07 - the conference for web developers, designers and business professionals. It is around April end 2007 in Las Vegas and as of now I am planning to attend it.

I was there in last year event (Mix '06) and it was big fun. The event had good technologies talked like Atlas, AJAX, Mash-ups, WPF & MOSS 2007. For a relief, the event was not Microsoft only affair. It had good participation from other new age web companies like Yahoo & Amazon. This gave the event a good breadth of topics and speakers. I also liked the format and restriction to few hundred partipants.  

(Click on the photos to see more from the same album)

This week in Mumbai a version of the event (IndiMix '06) is being conducted on 9th Nov. You can watch the live webcast or register for the event free here. If you happen to be there, say a "hello" to me.

While in my last trip to USA, I saw these beautiful baby dolls in Fao Schwartz. The shop assistant was good enough to give me permission to shot these photos. These dolls were cute and almost like real ones.

(Click on the photo to see more photos)

Microsoft today announced the public availability of pre-configured VHD (Virtual Machine Images) files for common server scenerios. These contain trial editions of Microsoft Server softwares like Windows Server 2003, SQL Server 2005, Exchange Server 2007 and more, setup as VPC images and ready to run in few minutes after download.

Microsoft Partners and ISVs can use these to create new images with their solutions pre-installed. This makes businesses' experience of trying out new softwares (especially complex setups like Active Directory or Exchange Server) that much more easier.

This completes the cycle of Microsoft making everything available for trying Virtual environments - first they made Virtual Server free, then VPC 2004/2007 and now pre-configured images. (Read my earlier post on this)

It is only once in a while, Microsoft comes out with such goodies especially those concerning Licensing (doing something like this earlier would have been possible but complicated due to legal licensing issues involved). Thank you Microsoft  and don't stop with this, please come out early with VHDs for all common scenerios.

Download from Technet VHD site here

For a recent question on whether there is a published Schema for XAML, Microsoft's Clemens Vasters (who was earlier one of the RDs before crossing to Mother ship, we miss you Clemens) had this good explanation to say (Reproduced verbatim with permission below):

"XAML doesn’t really have schema, since it’s a direct representation of .NET object tree that (of course) allows user extension to appear practically everywhere. So even if you’d have a base schema for all the classes that WPF brings along with it, you could not have a schema that also includes all the derived classes, new controls and other extensions you and everyone else will ever write. Strictly speaking, XAML is really mostly a serialization convention that allows building and reshaping complex object trees declaratively and using tools whose builders don’t want to deal with the intricacies of tackling a full programming language when generating object-trees into and parsing object-trees out of a file (as the Windows Forms designer effectively has to today)"

If you are adventurous and want to dive down on what  I am talking about, you might want to check out the XSD files installed by .NET FX 3.0 at this path "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Xml\Schemas\Xaml*.xsd"

This tip is useful if you are using any of the Microsoft Desktop Search Technologies including Windows Vista/Office 2007/Windows Desktop Search/MSN Toolbar Search. Many times you will find yourself scratching on how to do a power search that the UI doesn't expose.

Recently I came across this help file on Advanced Query Syntax (ADS)) in Windows SDK (Unexpected place to find it). Check it out.

There are some jewels there like:

• size:>50<70 - Search for a file with in this limit
• kind:im - Search only IM conversations
• kind:email - Search only email communications
• store:outlook - Limit search to Outlook Store alone

One tip which is not in the document:

• folderpath:Microsoft - Limit search to what is in "Microsoft" folder (Outlook folders)

The much awaited Microsoft Office 2007 System got "Released to manufacturing" today. Today, Microsoft also confirmed that corporate customers will be able to get the product before Nov 30th.

I am using Office 2007 Beta2TR for several weeks now. I love the new functionalities like the "Task Oriented UI and Ribbon" in Word/Excel/PowerPoint and the RSS reader in Outlook 2007. I am eagerly looking forward for the product to show up in MSDN Downloads to download and install.

As per this betanews article Office 2007 is supposed to have a SMS Text Messaging application - this I haven't tried out yet, will check out and post my experience soon.

About two years back in this IEEE Spectrum Article ("Lighting Up the Andes") I read about how a Canadian couple is lighting up remote villages in Bolivia (South America) using white LEDs & solar panels. Mission was simple, to free remote communities from reliance on costly kerosene lighting. Solution was to have LEDs - Light Emitting Diodes, the tiny bulb like thing that you see in your electronic devices and Traffic Signals. The LEDs were powered through simple Solar Cell Panels. The beauty about their scheme is that they devised a small volunteer operation that blends tourism and charity.

(Courtesy: IEEE Spectrum)

I was touched for their thought for their technology innovation as well (read the full article here). The operation, called Luxtreks, has now installed lighting systems in Bolivia, Guatemala, Peru, and Pakistan without taking a dime of government money.

I missed to blog about it then, but was reminded this week when my uncle gave me a book "How to Change the World". 

I got this touching greeting from Udavum Karangal (An Old Age, Child, AIDS Orphanage in Chennai) for my humble gift to them towards Diwali 2006.     

I request each one of you to donate a small sum to any good cause of your choice during one day in a year, it could be - your birthday, spouse birthday, marriage day, Diwali, Pongal or New Year.

Internet Explorer 7.0 introduces a convenient Search Box to the Right Hand side of the address bar. By default the search is done against Windows Live Search, but if you click on the drop down next, it will allow you to install other Search providers. My favourites are Wikipedia and Amazon. If you are browsing this option from India - you will see two Indian providers - IndiaTimes & Naukri.

IE 7.0 allows you to install your own Search provider as well - useful for Website publishers for custom searches. Earlier doing this meant reading a (though a simple) XML format, now the new page makes it as simple as filling two text boxes. Some cool thought from someone in Microsoft, way to go.

This week (Post Deepavali) has been good to Chennai City for couple of things.

After a month of frustrating traffic and hour long traffic jams in T.Nagar Shopping District, driving on Monday & Tuesday (23,24 Oct) felt relaxed. On Monday at peek hour (7PM) I was able to drive from my office (Habibullah Road) to Srinagar Colony (Behind Saidapet Magistrate Court) for a meeting in 15 minutes. I just wish everyday is like this . The reasoning (do you need one?) for roads being empty - one after Deepavali people have to return at last to work, second they are left with no money after all the Deepavali shopping.

In one move - Chennai City Police went to NYPD range. I was driving to my house and was surprised to see a stunning white color Police Car fitted with Hollywood Police like Lights parked in a tea-stall in Thambiah Road (West Mambalam). For a minute I thought it was for a Hollywood Movie - Why in a Tamil Movie would they want this car, for Tamil Movies it is always a Colonial day Jeep which itself would have acted in over 10,000 movies. Reading the next day newspaper I realized that Hyundai India has donated 100 of these beauties (Hyundai Diesel Accent) to Chennai City Police Free. Critics might say it is a marketing move by Hyundai to make the Police trial run this, get hooked to it and then make them more. I just hope after 12 months, parts of these cars are not sold in platform in front of commissioner's office.

Last two-three days we have been having good down-pours here. Thanks to weather gods, all the reservoirs aroud the city are getting filled. Hopefully this should help the city ride through the coming summer comfortably.  

I was asked by someone on what are new Native Windows APIs introduced in Vista; when I searched I came across these two useful resources.

- Video on "Tips and Tricks on Vista" presented in Tech Ed '06 covering new File Dialog API, Search API, UAC Issues and API.

- PDF file of a Slidedeck on "Tips and Tricks on Vista" - Covers the same topics as in the video above.

The online video sites are seeing action like never before. Last week Google bought the market leader in this Youtube.com for over $1.6 Billion dollars. The Social networking site Myspace.com has a popular video section as well. MSN is launching soon its Soapbox service.

Though I have been to these sites a few times and seen few of the videos, I was not that captivated with them - as the media expects everyone who visits video sites to do. I guess I am not the target audience - which predominantly is Teenagers. I am also not sure on the business model - presently I find no advertisements in Google Video and the advertisements on other services are also very minimal, if not absent.

Anyways, today I decided to give these sites a try by uploading a video. The video I selected was the speech I gave last month in Jayaram College of Engineering on "Can India Sustain its IT Growth and what I look for in freshers?"  (Hyperlinked to the other post which has the links to various sites)

The first disappointment for me was all these sites, expects you be with a video - edited, fine-tuned and ready to upload. None of these sites provide you either an offline or an online tool to do typical video editing jobs, which if you are not a professional can take hours.

Though almost all of them worked the same, these are the differences I found:

1. Google Videos: Two good things about the service - This service allows files more than 100MB; It gives you a small (240KB) downloadable Application that makes uploading files more than 100MB a breeze.
2. Myspace Video: Though easiest to use also has the minimal features. Limits to 100MB of filesize
3. MSN Soapbox  (Beta): Currently Invite only site; Uses extensive AJAX to give a multi-task interface and file upload - you can upload and watch videos at the same time; Limits to 100MB of filesize. The post upload processing here took hours. Good think, it gives readily the Hyperlink, Code for Embedding Player, etc. Scores high on UI.
   
4. YouTube.com: Simplest interface; ability to group videos into playlists; Limits filesize to 100MB.

Wish you all a very happy diwali.  தீபாவளி நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்.

 

Let this Diwali - the festival of light, bring peace and prosperity for everyone.

If you haven't seen Live.com site, go check it out. It is a personalizable start page, you can add any number of available Gadgets - which are tiny AJAX applets that gives you functions like Calculator, News, Currency Converter, Games and more. There is a built RSS feed reading gadget as well that displays the contents of any RSS feeds. At Vishwak, we decided to improve the functionality of this RSS Gadget and we have come up a new RSS Viewer gadget. This gadget accepts any RSS link, displays top 5 stories, expands one abstract at a time in rotation.

You can add this gadget to your live.com page from: http://www.vishwak.com/gadgets/live.com/vishwakrssrandom.xml. For adding, click on the Add Stuff link above the Pages Tab, then on Advanced options and type the URL of the gadget in the Subscribe textbox and press subscribe. Let me know what you comments .

If you would like to write Gadgets on your own check out the Live.COM SDK here. There are differences between the Live team approved gadgets that have access to the entire page DOM and JavaScript objects; and your own (not approved) Gadgets which are run on an IFrame, which restricts it from drawing outside the Iframe area. That's why you will notice our gadget having the Edit button not on the same line as in the title display (border) but as a seperate line (Right-aligned).

It is rare for me to finish a book that I started till the end. Though I love to buy books (as I grow up among books - my father runs LIFCO Books) and a bookstore is a place I can spend hours, I am hardly into big fat books like novels and fictions. I am puzzled on how kids can finish the 500+ pages Harry Potter Books. I buy a book, take a snapshot, read the first few chapters in one sitting. Then the book goes into my personal library - hardly taken out again (with few exceptions). That's why you see my posts under "Books" Category in this blog less populated - I keep waiting to finish a book before posting, but finishing never happens.

This post is about an exception. Early last year I bought the book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. Immediately in that trip I finished the first chapter, then in few trips though I took the book I could never read more than few pages. Last two weeks due to trips to New Delhi (3 Hour Flights for each leg and then all the Airport waiting time) I re-started this book and finished it easily.

The book is about how our SubConsious mind processes informations differently than our Concious/Scientifc mind; it covers how at times this can be used for effective decision making. This book proves the statement that you might be using many times "I have a gut feeling that this works only like this".

I will certainly recommend this book for anyone interested.

I had written about 6 months back about the revamped Hotmail to Windows Live mail. Though it was better than the aged Hotmail interface, it still lacked fit-and-finish elegance.

Today I was happy to see a new version(M8) of the UI when I logged in to my Hotmail ID - Microsoft certainly have improved the experience and it is feels more responsive and stable than the previous version. Check it out.

 

Few weeks back I installed the free Windows Live Toolbar - normally I am skeptical on installing any IE Toolbars (Browser Add-Ons) as they tend to destabilize your Windows Explorer and IE. But WLT so far seems to be stable and causing no performance issues. Two things that you can get only if you have the WLT are Live Favourites (that allow synching your Browser Favourites online and access it from any computer) and PC Health (Free OneCare Virus Scan and PC Optimization tools like Registry Clean). Check it out.