Microsoft

Internal Microsoft Video Criticizing Google Chrome ‘Now Everywhere’

May 15, 2013 by Avinash 14 Comments

On the same day Google CEO Larry Page spoke out against “negativity” in the tech industry, we’ve just come across an internal Microsoft video criticizing Google Chrome ‘Now Everywhere’ video.

Larry Page said:

“I’ve personally been quite sad at the industry’s behavior around all these things. If you take something as simple as IM, we’ve had an open offer to interoperate forever….Just this week Microsoft took advantage of that by interoperating with us. You can’t have people milking off of just one company.”

Here is the original Google Chrome video:

Microsoft’s internal video criticizing above video:

Is Page right? Should Microsoft stop bashing Google?

[Video Source]: GeekWire

Emotional Bill Gates Discusses Final Conversations with Steve Jobs [Video]

May 13, 2013 by Avinash Leave a Comment

We’ve heard Bill Gates talk about his last, emotional meeting with Steve Jobs before. First in the Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs biography and then again in a video interview with ABC, but last night Bill Gates once again discussed the final conversations in an interview with 60 Minutes.

In the following unaired footage from the interviews, Gates said he was able to spend time with Jobs while the then Steve was sick and that they discussed what the two had learned growing up as titans of the tech industry, families and other topics.

Gates also talks about Steve’s sense of design despite very limited engineering background, his “intuitive sense for marketing that was amazing,” and his emotional last meeting where the two discussed a number of topics including products, family, and the yacht Steve was having a built at the time.

Gates even admitted that, while Microsoft attempted tablets, Apple was able to build them “in a way that succeeded” and said that he wish he had Jobs’ sense of design.

I understand how Bill Gates has earned his name of being a class act through all his philanthropy work and attempts of making the world a better place. Bill Gates is just a great person, the world would be far better place if more of the super wealthy followed in his footsteps.

Microsoft Confirms Windows Blue Update

May 7, 2013 by Avinash Leave a Comment

Microsoft confirms long rumored Windows update – Blue. In a post, Microsoft confirmed that the Windows Blue update will be coming later this year and will allow Windows 8 to run on a number of different sized devices that will be able to combine the capabilities of a PC with some criticisms of Windows 8 and Windows RT.

Microsoft’s Tami Reller said in a blog post,

“It will deliver the latest new innovations across an increasingly broad array of form factors of all sizes, display, battery life and performance, while creating new opportunities for our ecosystem.”

Reller also pointed out that the number of apps in the Windows Store has increased 6 times since launch, offering more apps than iOS had available after its first year. She also passed along the news that 250 million Windows Store apps have been downloaded.

Finally, Microsoft said that 100 million licenses have been sold for Windows 8, up from the 60 million licenses sold by January. This figure includes licenses that are shipped along with a new PC or tablet, as well as devices updated to Windows 8.

[Read More]

Update, May 7, 2013: Just announced: Public preview of “Windows Blue” available at the Build Conference at the end of June.

WSJ: Microsoft Reportedly Working On Smartwatch

April 15, 2013 by Avinash Leave a Comment

There has been a lot of ink spilled on rumored offerings expected to be coming from Apple, Samsung, LG and now Microsoft. According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is also working with suppliers on designs for touch enabled watch device.

According to the report, Microsoft is working on designs for smart-watch and asked Asian suppliers to send over components. One of the executives who work for the suppliers claims that Microsoft was asking for 1.5 inch displays.

However, things weren’t always so promising for this watch market. About 10 years ago, Microsoft developed a smartwatch that for a subscription fee, would have news headlines, sports scores and IMs sent via FM to its display. But the smartphone business was just starting to take off and the watch was no longer sold after 2008.

Remember Zune? A portable media player made by Microsoft which was an attempt at ‘iPod killer’ and it is no more. Will Microsoft Smartwatch lead the market?

Next-gen Microsoft Office is codenamed “Gemini”

March 27, 2013 by Avinash Leave a Comment

Windows Blue, Windows Server Blue, Windows Phone Blue, Windows Services Blue. The one thing missing from this list of next-generation Microsoft releases is a Blue version of Office. Is there one? Microsoft’s next generation of Office software looks like it’s going to be a rebel and not follow Microsoft’s new “Blue” codename.

The software will instead go by the codename “Gemini”, and it will be composed of two waves that will be released over the next two years. The first wave will be released alongside Windows Blue, and will bring updates to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

[Credit]

According to ZDNet, there is a group inside the Microsoft Office team called the Modern Office Experience (MOX). Their prime goal is making Office more Metro for Windows 8 and future Windows Blue users.

Along with the Gemini release, Microsoft plans on developing a touch version of Office in the near future. The touch-based Office will be targeted more towards Windows RT devices, that will have consumers see Office as more than just a desktop-based application.

[Read More]

Temple Run is finally coming to Windows Phone

March 27, 2013 by Avinash Leave a Comment

One of the top mobile games, Temple Run is finally coming to Windows Phone. Microsoft is actually bit late with this popular game. The original Temple Run has more than 170 million downloads since its launch in 2011, and there is already a Temple Run 2 available for play on iOS and Android.

Microsoft just announced at this week’s Game Developer’s conference that Temple Run, along with other titles including Chaos Rings, Gravity Guy 2, 6th Planet, Propel Man, Fling Theory, Orcs Must Survive, Ruzzle and Drift Mania Championship 2 will soon be available on Windows Store.

Update: Temple Run is now available in the Windows Phone Store.

Official Twitter App For Windows 8 Now Available

March 13, 2013 by Avinash Leave a Comment

Official twitter app for Windows 8 is now available for download. It is available in the Windows Store now in 22 languages which brings the Home / Connect / Discover / Me tabs found in other official apps, plus support for Windows new UI features like snap view, the search charm and Live Tiles.

You can download the app from this link and read more about in official Twitter blog post over here.

People Hate Windows 8? This Can’t Be A Good Sign!

January 23, 2013 by Avinash 1 Comment

Love it or hate it, you will get a new laptop pre-installed with Windows 8. The new UI is pretty gorgeous, but you’re confused! Something weird, you can’t find your own files easily as they have for the past 10 years. It’s just an unpleasant dream and you just want your old Windows back?

Well, don’t worry! There are Microsoft Certified Professionals who can help you with downgrade option to Windows 7. And for that, they’ll charge you $125 only! This can’t be a good sign for the software giant.

[Source]

P.S. I agree no OS is perfect. I am personally using Windows 8 since the product was released into the market. I actually like it, not a fan at all of the tiles so I’m on the desktop portion of Windows 8 for 99% of the time. Overall the OS seems leaner and quicker which is saying a lot since Windows 7 was pretty decent. Meanwhile, checkout this cute Windows 8 demo video –

How To Reset Domain Admin Password on Windows Server 2008 R2

January 22, 2013 by Avinash 1 Comment

One of my friends recently contacted me to help reset domain admin password on Windows Server 2008 R2 domain controller that I helped him set up a year back. There are many tools in the market which help resetting administrator password. In fact, most of them help in resetting local administrator password, but not domain administrator password.

Here is an easy way to reset your Domain Administrator password. All you need is a copy of the Windows Server 2008 R2 installation disk and one simple command line trick.

Steps:

1. Boot up the server using Windows Server 2008 R2 installation disk and select ‘Repair your computer’ as shown below

2. Proceed to the next step and select ‘Command Prompt’ option

3. In the command prompt, backup utilman.exe file using following command. You may have to change your drive letter to Windows directory accordingly

MOVE C:\Windows\System32\Utilman.exe C:\Windows\System32\Utilman.exe.bak

4. Make a copy of cmd.exe and rename it to Utilman.exe using following command

COPY D:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe D:\Windows\System32\Utilman.exe

5. Restart the server normally and press the key with the Windows logo and the “U” key at the same time at the login screen. This will bring up the command line window. Alternatively, you can click the Ease of access icon as shown below

6. A command prompt will open up and type the following command to change the password:

net user administrator *

7. That’s it! Exit out the command prompt and try logging again with new changed password. Finally, reboot the server again to the installation disk and undo the changes. That is, delete Utilman.exe and then rename Utilman.exe.bak back to plain old Utilman.exe using simple del and ren commands.

I have tried above mentioned steps on a Windows Server 2008 R2 and I am sure these steps will also work on Windows Server 2008. It goes without saying that you should make a backup of your system before doing any of this, and more importantly, I bear absolutely no responsibility if you mess up your system. Remember, we are not trying to access a box we have no business accessing in the first place – take the hint or risk going to jail or ready to get laid off!

Yahoo Employees Getting Free Smartphones Including iPhone 5

September 16, 2012 by Avinash Leave a Comment

The former Google executive, Yahoo’s new CEO Marissa Mayer just sent out a memo to all its full-time and part-time employees in the US of getting free smartphones including iPhone 5. This is part of the new program at Yahoo calling “Yahoo! Smart Phones, Smart Fun!”. The company is also going to pay the employees data and phone bills.

[Credit]

According to Business Insider, Yahoo employees have the option of choosing the phones from Apple, Samsung, Nokia and HTC. The list of smartphones include iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3, HTC One X, HTC EVO 4G LTE, or Nokia Lumia 920. These are the top phones on the market today and they will be replacing the BlackBerries that Yahoo employees were given up until this point.

Recently, according to GeekWire, Microsoft employees are also getting free Surface tablets and Windows Phone 8 devices. These kind of benefits will certainly boost morale among employees with motivated workforce.

Below is the memo. Marissa was famous for her use of Apple’s iPhone, even within the walls of Google. Clearly, Yahoo will be buying lot of iPhone 5 devices via this fantastic program.

We have a very exciting update to share with you today – we are announcing Yahoo! Smart Phones, Smart Fun! As of today, Yahoo is moving off of blackberries as our corporate phones and on to smartphones in 22 countries. A few weeks ago, we said that we would look into smartphone penetration rates globally and take those rates into account when deciding on corporate phones. Ideally, we’d like our employees to have devices similar to our users, so we can think and work as the majority of our users do.

Moving forward, we’ll offer you a choice of devices as well as provide monthly plans for the data and phone.

The smartphone choices that we are including in the program are:

* Apple iPhone 5
* Android:
– Samsung Galaxy S3
– HTC One X
– HTC EVO 4G LTE
* Windows Phone 8:
– Nokia Lumia 920

We’re getting started right away and taking orders starting now