Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Speech-enabled technology is one of the most promising digital frontiers and will help propel a wave of innovation in areas in which we are already deeply invested such as unified communications, mobile services and search. We are pleased to announce that Microsoft is continuing to invest in the productivity promise of speech-enabled technology by entering into an agreement to acquire Tellme Networks, Inc., the leading hosted speech applications platform company.  This announcement will be made public at 9AM PDT today, March 14, 2007 and we expect the deal to close in Q4 FY07.

The acquisition of Tellme advances Microsoft’s delivery of software plus services that put people at the center of technology solutions in the office, at home or on the go.  For years Microsoft has enabled speech, handwriting and touch as forms of natural input to computing devices, making those products easier to use.  Microsoft and Tellme share a common vision of information access, by way of spoken word, anytime, anywhere and on any computer or device. Bringing our two organizations together will help us to accelerate the delivery of great solutions to improve the way people can connect to others and find, use and share information.

By combining Internet data and a voice interface, Tellme radically simplifies how people use the phone to get the information they need every day. Founded in 1999, the company powers billions of calls to hundreds of phone services used by more than 40 million people every month. Some of the applications running on Tellme’s proven voice technologies include business search on 411, information search on 1-800-555-TELL as well as customer service and ordering for companies like Merrill Lynch, E*TRADE and American Airlines.  Tellme is headquartered in Mountain View, California.

Press announcement is located here:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/mar07/03-14PowerOfSpeechPR.mspx

One of the first “must haves” for Xbox 360 of the year is available for pre-order for release April 3^rd.

Guitar Hero 2 for Xbox 360 (feat. Xplorer Guitar)
http://redoctane.com/gh-xbox360.html

A friendly warning:  Preorder it now, ’cause this game is going to friggin’ SELLOUT.  

Heck – you’ll be able to buy one and sell it at a profit on eBay if you want.  With 12 Million Xbox360 consoles out there, it’ll be a eBay top seller for sure and you won’t find this game’s guitar in the stores for purchase anywhere for months once this game releases.   The Xplorer is a new guitar model unique to the Xbox360.  The game’s release is the first RedOctane release on a next gen console.  And don’t forget that this will be the first time you’ll be able to play songs that have never been played on the PS2 version, including songs from My Chemical Romance, Alice Cooper, Pearl Jam, Iron Maiden, and Rancid.  (http://www.guitarhero360.com/songlist.php)

And most importantly, they’ll be song packs that you can purchase for download on Xbox Marketplace!

 Not to mention the original on-disc track list including these favorites:

• "Shout at the Devil" – Mötley Crüe
• "Message in a Bottle" – The Police
• "You Really Got Me" – Van Halen
• "Carry On Wayward Son" – Kansas
• "Monkey Wrench" – Foo Fighters
• "Cherry Pie" – Warrant
• "Can’t You Hear Me Knocking" – The Rolling Stones
• "Sweet Child O’ Mine" – Guns N’ Roses
• "Killing in the Name" – Rage Against the Machine
• "Trippin’ On a Hole in a Paper Heart" – Stone Temple Pilots
• "Rock This Town" – Stray Cats
• "Institutionalized" – Suicidal Tendencies
• "Free Bird" – Lynyrd Skynyrd

(I already pre-ordered my DUAL GUITAR PACKAGE with FREE GUITAR CARRYING BAG.)

Most people know that you can create desktop demonstrations in .WMV files using the Windows Media Encoder 9, a download we have off of Microsoft.com.

What most people don’t know is that we made a pretty massive change IMHO to the default codec used for capturing the desktop screen.  Between versions 7 & 9, we changed the codec for Screen Capture. 

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SCREEN CODEC 7 & 9
In Screen Capture 9:

• Lossy desktop video capture
• Moderate frame rate
• Optimized for high speed processors with heavy bus throughput.  This includes the bus for disk I/O.

In Screen Capture 7:

• Lossless desktop video capture:
• Low frame rate: 
• Optimized for moderate speed processors with moderate bus throughput.

One of the things that you’ll notice is that the quality of you Windows Media Screen 9 captures are totally variable.  It depends on the processing power available at the time of the capture, meaning that if your processor sucks or you’ve got bad bus throughput to the disk (maybe multiple apps are trying to write to the disk at the same time) then you’ll find that the desktop videos you do won’t be very clear and you’ll need to "throttle up" the bandwidth of the video capture itself to get a decent encoding.  This can make the videos expand in size far beyond what you’d anticipated.

Meanwhile, Windows Media Screen Codec 7 had a lower frame rate with a lossless image which diminished data throughput and thus the processing needed, but it would also always deliver a perfect video experience.  It just might seem a little jerky but the bandwidth required was always consistent.

UH… IN ENGLISH PLEASE?
In short, Windows Media screen capturing is not optimized by default for folks that don’t care about network streaming bandwidth, such as corporate users.  If you are streaming off of a internal network or reading the video off of a CDROM, who the heck cares about bandwidth?  As long as you can make out visually what the user’s doing and you’re not saturating the pipe, what really matters is the clarity of the recording!  And Screen Codec 7 is much better at that than Screen Codec 9.

Screen Codec 9 is better if you’re going to be encoding material to post on the Internet and bandwidth really is an issue.  For example, if you’re encoding a demonstration that’s 30 minutes long and will be streamed to 100 people from a single server, you probably want to minimize the bandwidth of the stream so that it doesn’t consume your outbound connection entirely.

SO WHAT DO I DO TO GET THE "CLEARER IMAGE"?
Thought you’d never ask:  Simply read the article below.  It explains how to install a fix to allow for the usage of Windows Media Screen Codec 7 in Windows Media Encoder 9.  What it’s really doing is tuning Windows Media Screen Codec 9 to behave identically to Windows Media Screen Codec 7:  Lossless quality, lower framerate.

FIX: Images in content appear less clear after you upgrade to Windows Media Video 9 Screen codec
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/837171/

Yes, I’m writing about… a mouse.  Normally, I’m of the opinion that one computer mouse is just like any other.  One mouse, wireless or not, is just another human interface device for my computer.

This is a different kind of mouse.  It really is.  First of all, it’s got that "laser" technology that we’ve been heralding.  Now, admitted until this point, I’d never actually used a mouse with this "laser" technology.  Most of the mice I’ve used are those optical mice that have red image cameras under them that we introduced a few years back that revolutionized the mouse industry. 

THE RISE OF THE OPTICAL MOUSE
With the introduction of the optical mouse, the mouse all of a sudden didn’t get "dirty" and you didn’t have to "clean the mouse ball" with acetone or anything anymore.  The other benefit of the optical mouse was that it took 400 snapshots of what was under the mouse at any given time making it fairly accurate and precise.

The problem was that a) you couldn’t use the mouse on any relatively reflective surface making it useless against glossy surfaces (creating a cottage industry for mouse pads) and b) the mouse really wasn’t THAT precise.  It was an improvement over the mouse ball however it had the tendency to subtlely frustrate people without them even knowing it.  The optical mouse isn’t as precise as you’d like to believe it is… it tends to be a little difficult to point precisely to exact locations on the screen.  For example, if you need to place your mouse right between two characters in a word – have you ever noticed that it’s something of a chore?

INTRODUCING LASER TECHNOLOGY BASED MICE
But now they have this new laser technology that takes 1000 snapshots of what is under the mouse.  This creates precision that really does make it easier to point "precisely" at things.  Being able to position your mouse between those two characters is a piece of cake now.

And to compliment the precision of the laser camera, the scroll wheel is silky smooth with exacting precision as well.  Unlike many mice which "rumble click" each time you roll it, this scroll wheel smoothly glides along as you scroll it and it does so with amazing exacting precision on the screen.  It’s hard to explain until you actually try it.

And of course the mouse has the standard notebook features:

• Bluetooth integration (the device doesn’t have a pairing key)
• Bluetooth USB transciever
• Secondary left & right mouse buttons
• AAA-battery powered
• On & off switch

BUT THE PRESENTER PART?
But mouse also has Powerpoint clickers under neath it along with a laser pointer built into it.  Yep, you can walk around with the mouse in front of a crowd and click through the slides remotely. 

If you look at the top of the mouse, you can see a tiny button right below the scroll wheel.  This switches the mode of the mouse from "laptop mouse" to "remote presentation tool" and disables either the "left/right click" buttons on the top of the mouse or disables the "Powerpoint" buttons under the mouse.

Once you’re in "Powerpoint" mode, you have the opportunity use any of the buttons under the mouse and they include:

• Next slide
• Previous slide
• Volume up
• Volume down
• Blank/Hide Powerpoint screen
• Laser pointer

…and meanwhile, the buttons atop the mouse are disabled so you don’t have to worry about their impact on the desktop.

The mouse is available for about $80 which makes it pricey but for once, I have to admit, it was worth every penny I paid for it.  (And yes, I had to pay for mine)  If there are customer’s of mine that present Powerpoint decks a lot that would be interested in trying one of these out, let me know:  I’m not BS’ing you – this is really quite a revolutionary device for notebook users.

There’s a lot of great IT administrator information available every month in Microsoft Technet Magazine.   It’s always practical, real world information written by real corporate server & desktop administrators that have the same challenges as you do.

For example, the April 2007 edition talks about such topics as Advanced Client Inventory Collection with SMS2003, Capacity Planning for any Deployment or Implementation using System Center Capacity Planner, or the Value of x64-based Windows OSs.  And it’s filled with REAL STUFF:  Actual code, pointers to the Technet web site where you can download said code, screen shots of tools in use, and a lot of just plain practical information.

The best part of the magazine in my opinion is the fact that it’s not preachy.  Yes, it’s funded by advertising dollars, but it’s subsidzed by Microsoft which ultimately means the magazine is written from the perspective of making the Microsoft IT guy’s life easier.  How to overcome those IT problems everyone encounters in day to day work… what tools are most useful… where to get help online… and most importantly, it comes from reputable source:  Folks like Don Jones, Mark Russinovich, Raymond Chen, and the Scripting Guys.

The skeptical might say that the magazine is also written with less than an impartial slant.  To that comment, I’ll say this:  All the writers are reputable folks, most of them non-Microsoft employees – and if they are Microsofties, they’re usually consultants:  The guys that have to deploy and maintain our stuff, just like you do.  Consequently, I find myself combing through this rag like I did in the old days when NT 3.1 was a new thing, and TCP/IP was still sorta new to the mainstream computer user.

(To be blunt, that was my issue with the old Microsoft-labeled IT magazine, "MCP Magazine", which appears to be Technet Magazine’s predecessor.  At one time, back in the early 90’s it was really useful but after 2000, it seemed to get more and more desperate for advertising dollars.  They began publishing more opinions, polls, and surveys than technical information and ultimately, it started to get really political writing about issues like, "Are you getting paid what you’re worth?" and "Is Microsoft Software Assurance worth it for you?"  I remember asking myself, "What does this have to do with administering technology?"  I’d kept every issue of MCP magazine for years and I finally stopped reading altogether.  And while that last topic might be useful for CIOs, but not engineering techs like you and me.  In case you’re wondering, Technet Magazine is now published by CMP Media, the same folks that do the highly-acclaimed & highly-useful MSDN Magazine, Dr. Dobb’s Journal, and SysAdmin Magazine.)

So the question is:  How do I get it? 

Easy:  It’s free.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/subscribe.aspx 
Turns out that you can get a free subscription to it, so go sign up!

If you use Instant Messaging, please consider using Windows Live Messenger. 

By doing so, you have the opportunity to contribute IM-related advertising revenue to a social cause of your own choosing from a list a organizations through a program Microsoft has started called "im".  Here’s the program description:

i’m is a new initiative from Windows Live™ Messenger. Every time you start a conversation  using i’m, Microsoft shares a portion of the program’s advertising revenue with some of the world’s most effective organizations dedicated to social causes. We’ve set no cap on the amount we’ll donate to each organization. The sky’s the limit.

So any time you have an i’m™ conversation using Windows Live Messenger, you help address the issues you feel most passionate about, including poverty, child protection, disease, and environmental degradation. It’s simple. All you have to do is join and start an instant messaging conversation. We’ll handle the donation.

There’s no charge, so join now and put our money where your mouth is.
JOIN HERE:  http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Join/

I’m personally sending my ad revenue to the American Red Cross. using the "*red+u" signifier in my Display name.  There are several effective organizations that you can make a contribution to including:

*red+u  American Red Cross
*bgca  Boys & Girls Clubs of America
*naf  National AIDS Fund
*mssoc  National Multiple Sclerosis Society
*9mil  ninemillion.org
*sierra  Sierra Club
*help  StopGlobalWarming.org
*komen  Susan G. Komen for the Cure
*unicef  The US fund for UNICEF

Have you ever wanted to record your desktop activity into an animated GIF file?

I always thought this idea was kinda cool.  The problem was that there are a number of tools out there that accomplish this but they’re all kinda pricey for something I just wanted to mess around with. 

And let’s not kid ourselves:  I’m just a simple blogger.  I’m not getting paid to do any of this and I certainly don’t intend of spending any money on tools that I just want to mess around with and have no hope of ever getting reimbursed for.  (For example, DemoCharge 2005 does this and does it really well.  The only problem is the tool is $100 and I really don’t want to pay $100 for something I may never use again.  If I did use this stuff for actual work, I’d certainly consider buying the tool because it’s a great product but being that I’m just messing around…)

So anyway what if there was a tool that did this for free? 

Enter Cropper & it’s Animated GIF plug in:

Cropper Screen Capture Tool v1.9
Download:  http://blogs.geekdojo.net/brian/articles/Cropper.aspx

Animated GIF plug-in for Cropper
Download:  http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2006/11/07/Animated-GIF-Plugin-for-Cropper-_2B00_-some-.NET-Animated-GIF-code.aspx

Microsoft GIF Animator v1.0
Download:  http://www.freewareweb.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?ID=288

WHAT IS CROPPER?
Cropper is a free .NET 2.0-based Windows Vista-compatible tool that will screen capture adhoc segments or windows on your desktop.  The Animated GIF plug in is a set of files that you can drop into the plugin directory that will wnable Cropper to record your actions within a windows or a predefined area of space on the desktop.  The recording will be placed into an animated GIF.

WHY ANIMATED GIFS?
Why is this cool?  Well, since you can post pictures on to public blog sites or photo sites like Flickr, it’s now possible to easily… and cheaply… record desktop demonstrations and post them onto your blog space, without resorting to doing a Windows Media screen capture, posting the video clip to Soapbox, then embedding the video as an object into your blog.  Instead, you just upload the "picture" which is really an animated GIF, and you’re done.  And if you need to edit the recording/animated GIF, you can use the freely available Microsoft GIF Animator.

Of course, there’s a few limitations: 

• NO AUDIO
  There’s no audio, unlike a Windows Media recording.  If you want to record your on-screen demo and annotate it with your voice, you’ll still want to download and install the free Windows Media Encoder 9.0 from Microsoft.com. Because there’s no audio, this is really only good for quick demonstrations of simple actions that require no verbal explanation.
• JERKY MOVEMENT
  Movement can be jerky because the frame rate of these animated GIFs aren’t great.  For smoother movement you’ll want to look at Windows Media screen capture codec using Windows Media Encoder 9.0.
• LARGE FILES
  File sizes can get big.  The compression of animated GIF files aren’t as good as I thought they’d be relative to Windows Media frames… I guess progressive morphing between Windows Media video frames really provide a lot of super high quality compression relative to frame by frame captures like with animated GIFs.
• NO MEDIA CAPTURING
  While Cropper will capture most everything on the desktop, it won’t capture anything in Windows Media Player or anything projecting video leveraging hardware acceleration overlays.  This is because the media "feed"/"stream" for this content goes directly to the display on your system using DirectX and completely bypasses the display system interface that Cropper uses to capture data from.

UPDATE:  3/11/2007
Normally, I don’t post updates on the basis of communications from others because… well… I deliberately discard most communications from any individuals other than my customers. (Guys, I get enough mail from my actual customers as it is, much less from the occasional passers-by hence the reason there’s no actual "mailto:’ information anywhere on my blog.)

But in fairness to the folks that make UserLock since I did unintentionally but somewhat implicitly put something of a shroud of doubt around the scalability of their product, I was contacted by the CEO of IS Decisions, the makers of UserLock, who wanted to tell me that their product is in place at the US Dept of Justice which has 30,000 desktops. (http://www.isdecisions.com/en/software/userlock/customer-references.cfm) His point is obviously that UserLock could in fact scale to larger customers based on their references.

Again, I have no personal experience with their product from a scalability perspective but I figured, I should at least let folks know that based on their CEO’s communication, they do seem to recognize & appreciate the importance of Enterprise scalability.  Nice.
————————

ORIGINAL POST:
There’s a tool that I found, and I haven’t tested it much but it seems rather promising at least for smaller groups.  It’s called Userlock and it tracks, notifies, and reports the logon/logoff activity of your domains.  It gives you the ability to limit the number of simultaneous connections under the same user name on an entire Windows NT/2000/2003 network.

I’m not sure how this product scales but it could be useful for certain groups that want to ensure that a people don’t leave themselves logged in at the console of multiple machines.

Trial at: http://www.wservernews.com/061113-UserLock

Have you got a Windows Vista system?  Do you have a machine with 64MB VRAM and 512MB of memory?  You might want to check out the trial downloads of many of these Windows Vista-only games available on MSN Games.

LINK:  http://zone.msn.com/en/vistagames/

If you’ve been using Windows Vista & Outlook 2007, you’re probably aware that Outlook 2007 itself can provide previews of attachments directly within the Outlook 2007 Preview Pane.

This is a really nice time-saving feature that avoids having to double click on a .DOC attachment, open Word, load the attachment, close Word, return Outlook 2007 to the focus, etc. etc.  Simply clicking on the attachment will allow a user to quickly "preview it’s contents" in the Preview Pane.

Well, we’ve got one for Adobe Acrobat .PDFs.

We just released it for free: http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2007/02/27/14001.aspx.  Feel free to use this and distribute to your colleagues, customers, etc. as an example of extending the Office 2007 platform.

Right now it will only work on Windows Vista, but we’re working on a Windows XP version.