Posted by: kurtsh | January 25, 2006

Technorati Identifier – Please disregard

Comments Off on Technorati Identifier – Please disregard

Posted in Uncategorized

Posted by: kurtsh | January 24, 2006

NEWS: Supreme Court rejects BlackBerry patent appeal

One word:  DOH!
 
Supreme Court rejects BlackBerry patent appeal
Action could doom RIM’s e-mail services
Updated: 11:51 a.m. ET Jan. 23, 2006
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from the maker of the BlackBerry in the long-running battle over patents for the wildly popular, handheld wireless e-mail device.
…
 

Comments Off on NEWS: Supreme Court rejects BlackBerry patent appeal

Posted in News and politics

Posted by: kurtsh | January 24, 2006

OFFER: Trade in your Palm device for credit against a brand new Windows Mobile-powered Treo 700w

Do you know a customer or a friend with an existing Palm device?
Would they like to get some trade-in value for it against a Windows Mobile-powered Palm Treo 700w?

Simply follow these instructions below:
– Visit the Palm Trade-In website
– Tell us about the product you want to trade
– We’ll give you a quote (including shipping costs)
– If you accept the quote, give us a little more information and we’ll send you a prepaid shipping label
-Once we receive and inspect your trade-in product, we’ll email you a coupon redeemable for purchase at the Palm Store (Note: Not valid for Treo Store purchases

To get started go to the Palm Trade-In website:
http://palm.tradeups.com/Palm_Standard_SelectProduct.asp?catalog_name=TradeUps&category_name=&Page=1&StoreId=Palm

 

Comments Off on OFFER: Trade in your Palm device for credit against a brand new Windows Mobile-powered Treo 700w

Posted in Offer

Posted by: kurtsh | January 22, 2006

INFO: How to switch phones on Verizon Wireless’ network

If you have a Verizon Wireless account, there is a web site where you can change your phone number’s device.  In other words, this is how you can switch between, say a Smartphone to a Pocket PC Phone and back.
 
You must have an account on the web site so that you can login.
You must also have the ESN/MEID of the phone you wish to associate with your cellular phone number. 
 
Most people report that the change takes place within 5 minutes.  Voice Mail notification may lag however.

Comments Off on INFO: How to switch phones on Verizon Wireless’ network

Posted in Info

Posted by: kurtsh | January 22, 2006

STUDY: Email can diminish an individual’s IQ

I find it really weird that more people didn’t really take to this story when it was first written about so I’m going to continue to write about it until someone takes notice.
 
The bottom line is that I STRONGLY believe that companies and employees themselves really need to be concerned about this syndrome.  The symptoms of ‘infomania’ include a loss of short term memory, a lack of concentration ona single task and the tendency to drift to some other thought context, and the inability to remember simple lists of ‘to-do’ items.  The implications of this problem for an employee are obvious however, the aggregate loss to a company is potentially devastating. 
 
The bottom line is that I believe according to this study, constant interruption during the workday by email, instant messaging, fellow employees, Internet popups, and other ‘context switches for the mind’ are a very bad thing to our brains when sustained over time.  People need to protect themselves and here are a few ways that I think you can do this:
– Set email checking to broader time intervals.  You DON’T need to have email delivered to you immediately.  Make it every 15 – 30 minutes.  Being interrupted by email arrival through both audible and visual signals on the screen are also bad – disable these interruptions.
– Set instant messaging visual signals to notify you only when someone directly needs to contact you, and set your ‘state’ to be BUSY so that only the most urgent of interruptions are made.  There is no need for your train of thought to be interrupted by your instant messaging application just to let you know that "Jane Doe" is now online.  Disable these notifications.
– Install a managable pop-up blocker.  While I do work for Microsoft, I strongly encourage the MSN Search Toolbar because it’s popup blocking capabilities are unmatched.  While Google’s toolbar may provide a similar function, only MSN’s toolbar is managable and can provide ‘white lists’ to enable appropriate web sites to provide pop ups.  This is managable using Group Policy through .ADM files that we provide.
 
———————–
Abuse of Technology Can Reduce Worker’s Intelligence
 
Earlier this year, around April, Hewlett Packard released the results of a study that was conducted by the University of London:  Excessive use of technology such as email and text messages can cause a fall in IQ greater than that caused by smoking marijuana.

The study of more than 1000 adults was commisioned by HP and conducted at the University of London’s Institute of Psychiatry.

The research showed that the average reduction of 10 IQ points as participants’ work was interrupted by emails and text messages is more than double the four-point loss caused by smoking marijuana.

A third of all adults will respond to an email immediately or within 10 minutes, the study showed. But women are more effective at multitasking: Their drop in IQ was only five points, compared to 15 for men.

Comments Off on STUDY: Email can diminish an individual’s IQ

Posted in Info

Posted by: kurtsh | January 22, 2006

RELEASE: Enterprise MSN Search Toolbar 2.06 (Build 2058)

So, what about the MSN Search Toolbar?   As you may or may not have noticed, when you installed Enterprise Windows Desktop Search, it didn’t install the MSN Search Toolbar.  And when you installed MSN Search toolbar from the ‘toolbar.msn.com’ web site, it comes with MSN Desktop Search… which collides with Enterprise Windows Desktop Search.

What you basically need to do is download and deploy the ENTERPRISE MSN SEARCH TOOLBAR.  We’ve released a special package with JUST the Search Toolbar for Internet Explorer so that both Desktop Search and Search Toolbar can coexist.  And just as with the Windows Desktop Search, we’ve also made it easy for customers to distribute the product Internationally using the MUI pack for it, and manage it using Active Directory Group Policy.

One reason you might be interested in this is because it’s really easy to set up "white lists" for the Pop Up Blocker… so that internal Enterprise web sites can provide authorized ‘pop ups’ and new windows that aren’t blocked by the toolbar.  This is managable using Group Policy.

——————————————-
MSN Search Toolbar v2.06
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/desktopsearch/enterprise/toolbar/downloads.mspx

MSN Search Toolbar Multilanguage User Interface (MUI):
http://g.microsoft.com/8SEURL/ENTbarMSCOMDownloadURLTbarMUI

MSN Search Toolbar Group Policy .ADM file:
http://g.microsoft.com/8SEURL/ENTBarMSCOMDownloadURLTbarADM
 
MSN Search Toolbar Administrator’s Guide:
http://g.microsoft.com/8SEENUS020600TBR/MSCOMTBarDownloadAdminGuide

 

Comments Off on RELEASE: Enterprise MSN Search Toolbar 2.06 (Build 2058)

Posted in Release

Posted by: kurtsh | January 20, 2006

RELEASE: Enterprise Windows Desktop Search

We’ve released a new Enterprise product called Windows Desktop Search V02.06 (updated 3 Jan 2006*) for Windows XP.  It enables people to index and quickly search their desktops.  We’ve also made it easy for customers to distribute the product Internationally using the MUI pack for it, and manage it using Active Directory Group Policy.
 
This is a recommended update. This updated version can be installed over the previous version (V2.06.0000.2057) and will result in a rebuild of your index.
– Old version: V02.06.0000.2057 (release date: 15 Nov 2005)
– New version: V02.06.0000.2083 (release date: 3 Jan 2006)
 
——————————————- 
 
Windows Desktop Search V02.06.0000.2083 downloads:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/desktopsearch/enterprise/downloads.mspx
 
Windows Desktop Search Multilanguage User Interface (MUI):
 
Windows Desktop Search Group Policy .ADM file:
 
Windows Desktop Search Administrator’s Guide:

Comments Off on RELEASE: Enterprise Windows Desktop Search

Posted in Product

Posted by: kurtsh | January 19, 2006

BETA: “Group Shot” from Microsoft Research

Alright.  I admit that my friend Blake Handler (http://www.blakehandler.com) posted this faster than I did.  In my defense, I’ve been training in Seattle, WA learning about some pretty fascinating things that I’ll blog about as soon as I get the time but in the mean time, check out this new tool that Microsoft Research posted a week ago called "Group Shot".

Basically, Group Shot takes multiple photographs and allows you to select the portions you like from each of them to create a totally new photo with the "best features of all the preceding photos.  Here’s the help file for the tool here:  http://research.microsoft.com/projects/GroupShot/GroupShotHelp.htm

If you want to download the tool, it’s free:  http://research.microsoft.com/projects/GroupShot/

 

Comments Off on BETA: “Group Shot” from Microsoft Research

Posted in Beta

Posted by: kurtsh | January 18, 2006

OFFER: 43% off selected MS Press titles

Hmmm.  Need some references?  Wanna discount?  Check this out:
 
43% off 4 major titles from Microsoft Press:
  • Microsoft Windows Xp Professional Resource Kit
    Third Edition, updated to cover Service Pack 2
  • Microsoft Windows Desktop Deployment Resource Kit
  • MS Windows Server 2003 Core Requirements
    MCSE Exams 70-290, 70-291, 70-293, 70-294
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit
  • … and 10 additional titles related to Scripting, each 40% off (with promo code)

Above titles available here: http://www.quantumbooks.com/hero

Use promotion code "ITPRO43"
 
Scripting titles are available here:  http://www.quantumbooks.com/c/scripting
Use promotion code "ITPRO43"

Comments Off on OFFER: 43% off selected MS Press titles

Posted in Offer

Posted by: kurtsh | January 17, 2006

NEWS: “Christmas Lights”… a spectacle made using Windows

The things that you can do on Windows XP…

In case you didn’t know, the famous "Christmas Lights" video by Carson Williams that’s been floating around the Internet was instrumented and sequenced on a Windows PC.   The execution and playback was also orchestrated by a Windows PC using nothing more than a 16-way light controller octopus, a serially connected analog controller for the PC, and some commercially-available software.  The response to his video was such a big deal that he was interviewed by the Today Show, various radio shows, and more recently, the video was captured and played back as a Miller Light commercial.

HOW TO:
The Windows software he used, along with the commercially available controllers are all available in a kit here: http://www.lightorama.com/
(There are other controller equipment vendors out there like http://www.d-light.us and http://www.animatedlighting.com but this is the one he used.)

And for you geeks out there, instructions on how to replicate exactly what Carson Williams did are available at the link below.  Carson’s posted not only the instructions on how to do it but also the exact sequencing file he’s used with Lightorama, so quite literally, your "replication" will be timed to the music in the exact same way as the video.  (Assuming you use the same song he did – Transiberian Orchestra’s Wizards in Winter: 
http://www.wonderlandchristmas.com/wizardsofwinter.php

Personally, I think would have made a great "Start Something" commercial for Windows.  
(If you haven’t seen the "Christmas Lights" video, here it is: http://media.putfile.com/WizardsofWinter-SM)

Comments Off on NEWS: “Christmas Lights”… a spectacle made using Windows

Posted in Uncategorized

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »

Categories