Futurecat - Michael Karek

Here in Windows-land, we love us some multi-touch. That’s why today I’m taking a look at Toshiba’s M500 series touchscreen laptop, which was just delivered to my office earlier this week.

The Satellite M505 that I’m using is a 14” widescreen resistive touch laptop powered by a 2.2GHz Core2Duo processor (the newest versions come with Core i3’s) and integrated Intel graphics. It has 4GB of RAM and massive 500GB 5400rpm hard drive, and a full complement of ports – HDMI, VGA, 3 USB 2.0’s, eSATA, an ExpressCard slot, and multi-format media card reader. There’s also a very low-profile, mirror-trimmed slot-load CD/DVD drive, and a set of Harmon/Kardon designed speakers powered by Dolby Sound Room. You can get one starting at $699.

Design-wise, the Satellite M505 is thicker than many 14” laptops due to the touchscreen, but Toshiba’s done a nice job of making it look and feel slimmer than it actually is with some creative contouring and mirroring on the display and body bezels. Some users might call the M505 “heavy”, but I think a better word would be “weighty”; it definitely has some heft to it, but it’s well balanced in way that says “My weight shows I’m well made.” It’s available in red, white or black (mine is black) and decorated with Toshiba’s signature “Fusion Finish” across the lid, palm rest and trackpad – a nice touch that gives the Satellite M505 a bit of flair not usually found in this class of laptop.

Of course, the star of the Satellite M505’s show is the multi-touch screen. Aside from being bright and clear, I found the M505’s touchscreen to be very responsive. I tinkered with a few art applications like Window 7’s touch-ready Paint, and the more advanced drawing application ArtRage. Note that my degree is in Art *History*, not Fine Art, so don’t judge to harshly! 

When you’re done marveling at my breathtaking creation, check out the slightly askew canvas. Since this machine is multi-touch, you can use two finger gestures to enlarge, shrink or spin the canvas.  Very cool.  And useful when creating masterpieces like the one above – that’s the only way to get such intricate detail.

I also had a chance to play with Toshiba’s new Media Controller software, a completely touch-based application that does a nice job of bringing an easy touch experience to core Windows 7 features like HomeGroup and PlayTo. Basically, think of Media Controller as a way to automate the process – fire it up and it will automatically scan for HomeGroup-ed PCs and any other compatible PlayTo devices like an XBOX 360 or DLNA powered TV. Select the device you want to play to, and just drag and drop files like movies, music or photos over, and you’re ready to roll. I tried this out with the HomeGroup I have running in my house and found it to work quite well. Toshiba’s posted a how-to video on their site that provides a good overview of how to get up and running.

More and more OEMs are making touchscreen PCs available. Do you want one? If so, what would your ideal use case be? Already own one? Tell us how you’re using it – or better yet, send me a video!

We are pleased to announce the release of the Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT) 2.0. This free download is an important tool that helps customers automate and centrally manage a range of activities related to Windows and Office activation.   The release of VAMT v2.0 is a significant milestone as it packs the following features/benefits:

• Helps IT administrators centrally manage and automate a range of activities related to Windows activation using Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in for a consistent administration experience
• Enables management of product keys – whether obtained from the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) or from other sources such as retail, MSDN, MSPP — and product activations using those keys
• Provides disconnected activation and reactivation of systems without each system having to connect with Microsoft activation services individually
• Facilitates remote management of systems relating to activation/genuine using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) interface
• Assists with license compliance, letting IT administrators monitor system license state, including whether systems are licensed and running genuine Windows

Read more about how you can benefit from using VAMT 2.0 in our Manage Activation Using VAMT 2.0 whitepaper.  We are also in the process of releasing multiple videos highlighting the features of VAMT, which will be available on the Windows Volume Activation site soon.

We are pleased to announce the release of the Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT) 2.0. This free download is an important tool that helps customers automate and centrally manage a range of activities related to Windows and Office activation.   The release of VAMT v2.0 is a significant milestone as it packs the following features/benefits:

• Helps IT administrators centrally manage and automate a range of activities related to Windows activation using Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in for a consistent administration experience
• Enables management of product keys – whether obtained from the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) or from other sources such as retail, MSDN, MSPP — and product activations using those keys
• Provides disconnected activation and reactivation of systems without each system having to connect with Microsoft activation services individually
• Facilitates remote management of systems relating to activation/genuine using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) interface
• Assists with license compliance, letting IT administrators monitor system license state, including whether systems are licensed and running genuine Windows

Read more about how you can benefit from using VAMT 2.0 in our Manage Activation Using VAMT 2.0 whitepaper.  We are also in the process of releasing multiple videos highlighting the features of VAMT, which will be available on the Windows Volume Activation site soon.

As the global economy begins to revive, financial institutions around the world are looking to their technology infrastructure to secure their data, decrease their expenses and grow their business. At two recent financial industry events, the Asian Banker Summit in Singapore and the Tower Group 2010 Annual Conference & Exhibition, the Microsoft team was talking with customers about how financial services companies can reduce their operating costs and improve productivity while remaining secure and compliant with government regulations with Windows 7 Enterprise.

Several Windows 7 financial services customers recently shared their deployment stories with us, and emphasized the advanced power management, lower TCO and utilization costs and improved performance they’re seeing.

Shinshan Bank, one of the largest multiservice financial institutions in the Republic of Korea, deployed Windows 7 to drive down operating costs, enhance security, and improve competitive performance. At the Asian Banker Summit 2010, Microsoft announced how the bank is leveraging security enhancements, such as AppLocker, BitLocker and BitLocker To Go, to provide Shinshan Bank with easier IT management and control. Kim Jangon, IT General Management Department from Shinhan Bank, says:

The financial industry is held to high standards for safeguarding customer information against theft or loss — a responsibility that Shinhan Bank makes a primary concern. In evaluating new operating systems, however, we also realized that we needed to strike the right balance between security and system performance to meet our employee productivity and customer service objectives. Windows 7 enables us to strike this balance.

AmericanWest Bank, a business and consumer bank in the Pacific Northwest, deployed Windows 7 to help improve security, system performance and user experience. Windows 7 features including AppLocker, BitLocker and BitLocker To Go provided the security enhancements American West needed while features like User Account Control helped enhance system performance and improve the user experience. To help mitigate any possible compatibility issues, American West Bank also leveraged Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) to allow users to run a virtual instance of Windows XP on the Windows 7 desktop. Here’s what Robert Cardon, Network Administrator for AmericanWest Bank says:

We can reduce calls to the help desk by enabling users to troubleshoot on their own. For each call saved, that’s an addition 15 minutes our IT personnel can spend on more strategic tasks.

Piraeus Bank Group, financial service provider with offices and branches throughout Europe, Egypt, and the United States, upgraded to Windows 7 for enhanced security, greater flexibility for mobile workers, and better desktop management. Piraeus Bank also plans to deploy Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system to take advantage of the DirectAccess and BranchCache features in Windows 7, to help mobile and remote workers connect more quickly and securely to the bank’s corporate network. Piraeus Bank is considering introducing BitLocker Drive Encryption and BitLocker To Go technologies, which use full-volume encryption to help protect the data both on computers and portable storage devices. Because of the success they’ve realized, Piraeus Bank plans to upgrade all 5,000 of its desktop and portable computers to Windows 7 before the end of 2010. Here is what Haris Voutsas, Deputy IT Director from Piraeus Bank Group, says:

From what we’ve seen so far, we’re convinced that we’ll experience greater stability and fewer issues with Windows 7 than with any other operating system. We trust our banking business to run on it!

And here is what Nikos Petropoulos, IT Operations and Administrations Manager for Piraeus Bank Group, says:

Windows 7 has been 100 percent compatible. It’s the most compatible version of Windows yet—even with no changes to our hardware.

To learn more about how these and other financial institutions are benefiting from Windows 7, check out the Windows Enterprise site, or read more enterprise company case studies.

Last week I posted a quick intro and my first hands-on post, which was a look at the super-green Sony VAIO W mini notebook. In that post, I told you that I’d follow up with more detail on who I am, what this blog is all about, why I think it’s important, and what to expect out of my posts.

First, a bit about me. I’ve been in technology for most of my career, starting off in biotechnology and then spending a number of years in the virtualization space working on software for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. That experience helped me become well versed in just about every OS you can imagine (hello, Plan 9 and eComStation!) and the hardware it runs on. My tech background is complimented by an Art History degree, so I’m just as interested in good industrial and aesthetic design as I am with raw tech specs.

So why am I writing? Unfortunately, millions of customers view their PC the same way they do their toaster – a useful but boring appliance. I’m working to change that view by bringing to life the colorful, powerful, and beautiful world of PC hardware, explaining the technology that powers them, and serving as a friendly, objective advisor to help you find a PC that is a perfect match for who you are. Basically, I’m out to show the world with a new Windows 7 PC, you’ve got a toaster that doesn’t just make toast – you’ve got a toaster that’ll make you breakfast, get the morning paper…and make your friends green with envy, too.

Over the coming months, you’ll see posts that fall into a few buckets:

OEM partner news: If one of our OEM partners launches a new, exciting PC, you’ll hear about it here first.

Hardware hands-on: I’ll be writing short hands-on posts about new Windows PCs, and whenever possible, shoot an accompanying video so you can actually see what I’m talking about. I’ll dig into what’s under the hood, scenarios it makes possible, and how the PC looks and feels to use.

“Tech trends for dummies”: What the heck is DDR3 memory? Do I want an SSD or an HDD? I’ll cut through the techno-babble on these topics and more to educate you about the latest technology so you can make a more informed buying decision.

Feature & Capabilities videos: Along with my partner in crime Ryan Asdourian, we’ll find some of the most unique Windows PCs and use them to test a common concept (like shock resistance, or video output) in an unconventional way. Laptop trebuchet, anyone?

“Ask Ben Anything”: Sometimes, you just need to ask an expert before you make a big-time decision like buying a PC. Starting soon, you’ll be able to email me your questions, and I’ll choose 3 questions to answer publicly in each post.

The most important part of this blog is, of course, YOU. Like or hate a certain post? Want more in depth looks at hardware, more videos, or think I’m headed in the wrong (or right) direction? Tell me! The more feedback I get, the better this blog will become. Speaking of, you can leave a comment for me here, find me on Facebook, or hit me on Twitter @BenThePCGuy.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you on the blog soon!

Missed our TechNet webcast on April 14^th? Not to worry, we’ve made the recording available on-demand through LiveMeeting.

View “Product Activation in Development Environments” now.

Beginning today you can download the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP Refresh (WPDT CTP) from http://developer.windowsphone.com, which means you can now build Windows Phone 7 apps on the final release of Visual Studio 2010 (VS2010). While this update is primarily intended to enable development using the final release of VS2010 there are a few new things here too.

Examples of what’s new & changed include:

• This release has been tested to work with the final release of Visual Studio 2010.
• An updated Windows Phone 7 OS image for the Windows Phone Emulator.
• A few APIs in the frameworks have been added and or changed. See this MSDN page for more details.
• The documentation has been updated with new and expanded topics. See this MSDN page for more details.
• We’ve provided limited support for launchers and choosers. In cases where the underlying built-in experience is not present launchers and choosers are still not available (i.e. the email chooser asks you to select a contact, but there are no contacts in the emulator and no way to add one).
• Pause/Resume events are now supported.
• If the tools are installed as the admin user, non-admin users are now able to deploy to the emulator.
• A problem with incremental deployment of projects has been fixed.
• A problem resulting in the error "Connection failed because of invalid command-line arguments" being displayed during project creation has been fixed.
• A problem where the Windows Phone node was not appearing in VS 2010 on non-system drives has been fixed.
• Design time skin refresh issues have been addressed.

Please read the release notes before installing this refresh. A few tips:

• Uninstall the previous CTP first (the item in Add/Remove programs to uninstall is “Microsoft Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP-ENU”)
• If you have the RC of VS2010 installed, uninstall it first and then install the final release.
• You can install Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP even if you do not have Visual Studio already installed.
• We’ve introduced a few ‘breaking changes’ with this release. The one that will impact almost everyone who used the existing release is a requirement that all WMAppManifest.xml files have a filled out <CAPABILITIES> section. The release notes describe this in more detail and the tools will warn you when you open an existing project.

Documentation links include Developing Windows Phone Games and Silverlight for Windows Phone as a part of the XNA Game Studio 4.0 and Silverlight 4 RC documentation sets, respectively. If you have feedback about our documentation, join the discussion in the Windows Phone forums or use the ratings control in the upper right-hand side of the pages on MSDN.

As noted above this refresh is intended primarily to ensure compatibility with the RTM version of Visual Studio 2010. We are working additional releases that we will make available through the launch of Windows Phone 7 in the fall. So please keep sending us your feedback, as we take it all to heart and want to  get you what you need in the final product which we can only do with your continued partnership.  We can’t wait to see the apps you’re building!

Added bonus: In case you missed it, check out this cool post from Andre Vrignaud about the 3 pillars of Xbox Live on Windows Phone.

Update [4/29 1:30PM PST]:  We’ve identified an issue in this release with regard to the loading of signed precompiled assemblies in the context of your application.  If, when you try to run your application in the emulator you get a ‘System.IO.FileLoadException’ error, please see Brandon Watson’s blog for a workaround.

Last week in Germany, Hannover Messe 2010 showcased the most efficient, innovative and sustainable developments inspiring industrial technology today. On this topic, I want to share the Windows 7 deployments of industry companies Vebo, Peterson, and Deep Ocean and highlight the mobility, security and productivity improvements they’re seeing.

Vebo, a concrete, steel, and aluminum manufacturer in the Netherlands, specializes in the development, design, and manufacture of high-quality products. As a construction company, Vebo needed to build their own stable, technological foundation and found that moving to Windows 7 gave them a reliable and efficient technology infrastructure. Frans Lowiessen, IT Manager from Vebo, says:

Our business would be less successful if we didn’t have IT to show us how things are evolving in the company. Technology helps us stay on top of the flow of orders and information.

Peterson, a Norwegian manufacturer of paper and packaging solutions for the European market, deployed Windows 7 to leverage productivity and mobility features. Now employees enjoy fast, glitch-free connections to the corporate network which has helped Peterson keep factories running around the clock, keeps mobile employees productive, and helps the IT staff resolve support calls faster and protect mobile computers with the latest security updates. Here is what Anders Hverven, System Manager of the IT Department at Peterson, had to say:

Critical employees, most notably factory maintenance and process engineers, can connect to the network from anywhere to accomplish time-critical tasks. Startup and logon times are significantly improved, giving users quicker access and a more responsive experience. The sooner they can connect to corporate systems, the faster they can resolve problems, and the less factory downtime we experience.

Based in Norway, DeepOcean specializes in subsea services as part of the Trico Marine Group. The company moved to Windows 7 to enhance security for mobile computers and address challenges with its virtual private network solution. With their deployment, DeepOcean has simplified IT management, enhanced IT security and improved employee productivity. Per Ove Sandhåland, Senior IT Consultant for DeepOcean, says":

Employees love the improvements to the interface, which is more intuitive and helps shave valuable seconds off of common tasks. Even employees who use Macintosh computers at home are thrilled with Windows 7.

For more enterprise customer case studies, check out our Customer Stories site or go to the Microsoft Case Studies site for a broad selection of Windows 7 customer stories. If you’re an IT Pro in looking for Windows 7 deployment tools and resources, be sure to visit the Springboard Series on TechNet.

See update at end of post.

As Jeff and Piero mentioned yesterday, the newest version of Messenger (beta coming soon) is designed to be the most meaningful way to stay in touch with the people who matter most, keeping you connected with your friends and what they’re doing across the web. We have made it possible for people to quickly see what their friends are doing on social sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. But of course, people love shopping, they love watching videos and viewing photos, and they love finding great local places to eat, relax, and spend time with others. So while the big social networks are important, there are tons of other experiences that customers want to stay up to date with.

Earlier today, John Richards and Angus Logan took the stage at The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam where they announced Messenger Connect – a new way for partners and developers to connect with Messenger. Messenger Connect allows web, Windows and mobile app developers to create compelling social experiences on their websites and apps by providing them with social promotion and distribution via Messenger.

As we thought about how we designed Messenger Connect, we looked a great deal at what was happening in the industry and where our partners and developers were looking for us to add value and provide opportunities for them to enhance the experiences they are building. A few key themes emerged:

• Connecting into existing friend relationships is very valuable: In the past, many developers wanted to build up their store for user identities, profile information and social graphs. But over the last few years, it has become increasingly clear to many developers that taking advantage of the existing relationships and communications within the large online networks is more valuable than trying to create their own walled garden.
• Emerging industry standards for social data are easing development: Whether it’s identity and authentication or it’s how contacts and updates are shared between sites, the emergence of industry standards is making it much more efficient for different developers to allow their customers to connect with each other.
• Simple and flexible controls are key for developers: Bringing in social data must feel natural to the developer’s experience. At the same time, developers have busy lives and competing priorities. So social objects have started to become much more easy to embed “as-is,” with little required customization – often just pasting a few lines of script. But when you want to customize, it’s important that the developer has the ability to go deeper and really tailor the experience.

Messenger Connect

Messenger Connect brings the individual APIs we’ve had for a long time (Windows Live ID, Contacts API, Messenger Web Toolkit, etc.) together in a single API that’s based on industry standards and specifications (OAuth WRAP, ActivityStrea.ms, PortableContacts, OData) and adds a number of new scenarios.

The new Messenger Connect provides our developer partners with three big things:

• Instantly create a user profile and social graph: Messenger user profile and social graph information allows our shared customers to easily sign in and access their friends list and profile information. This allows our partners to more rapidly personalize their experiences, provides a ready-made social graph for customers to interact with, and provides a channel to easily invite additional friends to join in.
• Drive engagement directly through chat indirectly through social distribution: By enabling both real-time instant messaging conversations (chat) and feed-based sharing options for customers on their site, developers can drive additional engagement and usage of their experiences by connecting to the over 320 million Messenger customers worldwide.
• Designing for easy integration in your technical environment: We are delivering an API service that will expose a RESTful interface, and we’ll wrap those in a range of libraries (including JavaScript, .NET, and others). Websites and apps will be able to choose the right integration type for their specific scenario. Some websites prefer to keep everything at the presentation tier, and use JavaScript libraries when the user is present. Others may prefer to do server-side integration, so they can call the RESTful endpoints from back-end processes. We’re aiming to provide the same set of capabilities across the API service and the libraries that we offer.

Keeping consumers connected

For consumers, this begins with letting you stay in touch not only from our Messenger experiences but also from the sites that our partners are building. Critical to this endeavor is that we do this in a manner that you own and control. So as we do this, we strongly believe that users own their data and should be able to share or access it from the websites and applications they want to. And we believe that the privacy of a customers’ data is a critical element of a secure web and the customer should be in control. So we’ve built Messenger Connect with security and privacy as foundational elements. Websites cannot access any of a user’s non-public information from Windows Live without prior consent from the customer, through an experience that could look like the image shown here:

And, equally important, a user can remove the permissions they have granted to websites and applications at any time.

Coming soon to a site or app near you

As Chris mentioned earlier, we’re in the process of broadening the distribution of our new experiences. Messenger Connect is currently being opened to a small number of leading companies that are helping to provide us with feedback and final revisions. You can look for more news about our new developer portal opening up more broadly in the coming months.

Ori Amiga

Principal Program Manager
Partner program for Windows Live

Update: I got some questions about OData and we forgot to mention in the original post (doh!)… our RESTful endpoints will also support OData (www.odata.org).  We’ll share more info as we roll out the bits.

I have exciting news about a special event called Windows Summit 2010. For those who don’t know, Windows Summit 2010 is a special event designed for hardware and software designers, developers, engineers, testers and other technology professionals who want to learn how to build great products on Windows 7. Originally, the event was to take place here at the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, WA. However, to make this more accessible to a larger audience we decided to make Windows Summit 2010 an online event. In making this an online event, we have made the content more digestible by giving you a month of great topics, tools and resources! Here is the current schedule:

• May 25th - Device Track: Discover the rich customization features in Windows 7 that enables partners to create a custom user experience for the PC or device. Targeted at software and device firmware engineers, this track will provide you with the direction and technical information to unlock the power of Windows 7 to create a great device experience.
• June 2nd - System track: Understand the features of Windows 7 that you can leverage to create and deliver the best system possible. You’ll see how implementing a few fundamental techniques can dramatically improve overall system quality and key user experiences.
• June 16th - Software track: The Windows 7 platform makes it easy for developers to create engaging, user-friendly applications by providing familiar tools and rich development features that allow them to take advantage of the latest PC capabilities. The sessions in this track will guide you through the key developer advances in fundamentals, richer application experiences, and the best of Windows and the Web.

Check out the site to learn more including information about registration!