Futurecat - Michael Karek

…as I said, “more to come”.

You may have heard of the Double Rainbow Video. The guy who filmed this, Paul “Bear” Vasquez, lives in Yosemite and in the past month has gotten huge traffic for his ‘vivid’ reaction to that double rainbow. We hooked up with Bear to learn more about him & show him how to capture a full on double rainbow with Windows Live Photo Gallery using our panorama stitch feature. It’s so intense!

Some more background…

When I first showed the Windows Live team the famous “Double Rainbow” video back in July they thought it was hilarious. But when I said I wanted him to come and do a video with us, they looked at me as if I had been seeing rainbows all day…they thought I was kidding. I e-mailed Bear that night and sure enough, he responded, and with great enthusiasm.

I called him and gave him the lowdown on the project and asked if he would do a “Double Rainbow” redux. He was ecstatic! So we jumped right on it. He flew to Seattle and we had an absolute blast. After a 10 hour shoot we shared stories, ate delicious Vietnamese food (his favorite), and hung out with the crew.

Photo Caption: Bear and our crew. From left to right: Connor Lanman, Max Lanman, Adam Collins, Matt Garrett, Bear, Austin Chick, Michael Fishman, Andrew Sobey, & Shawn Anderson not pictured: Tommy Yacoe & Brendan Schlagel

We did a second video called “Meet Bear” where talks about his experience posting “Double Rainbow” and his love for sharing photos and videos with the world using Windows Live Essentials – video coming soon (will update post when its up). UPDATE: You can check out the second video called “Meet Bear” by clicking here!

Bear is something special. He’s entered the world of social media in hopes to share laughs, smiles, and insights. It’s not about the product, it’s about the people. It’s about the viewers, the users, it’s about you. And more importantly this project also shows how powerful sharing photos and videos can be. If tools like Photo Gallery and Movie Maker didn’t exist, Bear and I wouldn’t have met.

People can now share their lives with everyone and anyone, and can influence each other’s lives in a positive way. That’s what is so cool about Bear’s story.

Till next time,

-Connor

Today is the day that the Windows Phone team has been driving towards, and we’re very excited to say that we’ve reached the biggest milestone for our internal team – the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Phone 7!  While the final integration of Windows Phone 7 with our partners’ hardware, software, and networks is underway, the work of our internal engineering team is largely complete. 

Windows Phone 7 is the most thoroughly tested mobile platform Microsoft has ever released.  We had nearly ten thousand devices running automated tests daily, over a half million hours of active self-hosting use, over three and a half million hours of stress test passes, and eight and a half million hours of fully automated test passes.  We’ve had thousands of independent software vendors and early adopters testing our software and giving us great feedback. We are ready.

I last posted on this blog when we reached the Technical Preview milestone, and we’ve received some great feedback since then which we’ve been able to respond to and improve the smart design throughout the OS. For example, folks loved the Facebook integration in the People Hub, but they also wanted ways to filter their contacts so only the Facebook friends they really know will show up in their contact list  – we’ve added support for that.  We’ve also made it easy to “like” a post right from the People Hub, or quickly post a message to someone’s Facebook wall directly.

This has been one of the most incredible product development efforts I’ve ever been a part of. Today’s milestone is exciting not just because of what we’ll deliver to customers later this year, but how it sets us up for success over the long term in the mobile space… we’re really just getting started.

We reached today’s milestone because of the tremendous efforts of the entire team including our partners, early adopters, and independent software developers providing feedback.  I want to send a huge THANK YOU to this extended team– we couldn’t have done it without you!

Terry

All summer long we’ve given you some great reasons to purchase a new PC and make the move to Windows 7, an operating system loved by a whopping 94% of folks who use it! Here’s one more: starting October 3 in the U.S., Windows 7 Family Pack will be available for purchase at participating retailers and online at the Microsoft Store. Purchasing the Windows 7 Family Pack gives you three upgrade licenses of Windows 7 Home Premium for the low price of $149.99. To take advantage of Family Pack, you’ll need a PC running a genuine copy of either Windows Vista or Windows XP that is capable of running Windows 7. The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor can tell you which features and editions of Windows 7 will run on your computer(s).

For those of you who don’t live in the U.S., Family Pack may be coming your way too. It goes on sale in Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia and many other markets on or after Oct. 22 (Windows 7’s 1 year anniversary!)

According to IDC’s Consumerscape 360 data, there are 2.1 PCs per household in the U.S., but, as we all know, networking isn’t easy. Windows 7 has built in features – like HomeGroup- that make it easy and quick to get all of your home PCs connected and sharing files, music, photos and printers.

So, don’t delay. The Windows 7 Family Pack will be available soon while supplies last.

If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up on Twitter.

My name is Connor Lanman and I am not claiming I am the most interesting intern ever; and by no means am I working on routers for my 12 week summer internship at Microsoft. I am, however, working on a fairly unorthodox marketing project…sponsored by Microsoft. More on that in a minute. But you can imagine what I was thinking, “Why the heck would they trust some scrawny college kid to do marketing?” The cool thing is that I get to tell the tale to you in this blog until I finish later in September.

Let the saga begin…

First in order to understand where I’m starting from…

1) I just completed my Freshman year at Stanford University and no, I don’t know what I’m majoring in

2) I’m 19 years old, my birthday was this past June

3) I have no idea what I want to do in life

4) The only big online video experience I had was doing a promotional video for Haagen-Dazs back in ’09 when I finished high school. I wrote a book about bees, made a documentary, and then made a comedy music video with my brothers sponsored by Häagen-Dazs, inspiring dance moves from Silicon Valley to Holland. What? I like bees.

So here I am at Microsoft, now given the assignment to do an experimental video campaign for Windows Live Essentials (download the Windows Live Essentials beta refresh!). The cool thing is that Windows Live is launching Wave 4 soon and I get to be a part of it. Many of you may be familiar with Photo Gallery and Movie Maker and in these videos I get to talk about these tools in creative fun ways. Instead of watching a demo, why not be entertained? That’s basically what I aimed to do!

After doing the video for Häagen-Dazs I was amazed at the power of an online video to communicate a message to the masses, and I was even more intrigued by the power of education through multimedia. I used what I learned from that experience and applied it to this project. To start, you need short, high quality stories that are informative in terms of content and are entertaining to the average YouTuber. How do you do that?

Well, I began by involving my brother Max Lanman who is filmmaker. We sat down and started creating concepts. After narrowing down 15 concepts down to 8 or so, we were ready to script, audition, and pool together a crew. We posted an ad calling for actors a couple days before the scheduled audition and we fielded over 80 responses and auditioned over 60 people in 6 hours. We casted over 20 roles, about 40 extras, and worked with a 10 person crew! It was crazy, but it worked. We then shot the videos in four x 10 hour days. We’re in post-production and excited to show off some hilarious videos and some great easy to use products. I’m still not quite sure how to make the perfect online video. But, I abide by my motto to entertain first, and then inform. In the videos to come, you might be able to get a sense of what I’m talking about.

More to come…

My name is Connor Lanman and I am not claiming I am the most interesting intern ever; and by no means am I working on routers for my 12 week summer internship at Microsoft. I am, however, working on a fairly unorthodox marketing project…sponsored by Microsoft. More on that in a minute. But you can imagine what I was thinking, “Why the heck would they trust some scrawny college kid to do marketing?” The cool thing is that I get to tell the tale to you in this blog until I finish later in September.

Let the saga begin…

First in order to understand where I’m starting from…

1) I just completed my Freshman year at Stanford University and no, I don’t know what I’m majoring in

2) I’m 19 years old, my birthday was this past June

3) I have no idea what I want to do in life

4) The only big online video experience I had was doing a promotional video for Haagen-Dazs back in ’09 when I finished high school. I wrote a book about bees, made a documentary, and then made a comedy music video with my brothers sponsored by Häagen-Dazs, inspiring dance moves from Silicon Valley to Holland. What? I like bees.

So here I am at Microsoft, now given the assignment to do an experimental video campaign for Windows Live Essentials (download the Windows Live Essentials beta refresh!). The cool thing is that Windows Live is launching Wave 4 soon and I get to be a part of it. Many of you may be familiar with Photo Gallery and Movie Maker and in these videos I get to talk about these tools in creative fun ways. Instead of watching a demo, why not be entertained? That’s basically what I aimed to do!

After doing the video for Häagen-Dazs I was amazed at the power of an online video to communicate a message to the masses, and I was even more intrigued by the power of education through multimedia. I used what I learned from that experience and applied it to this project. To start, you need short, high quality stories that are informative in terms of content and are entertaining to the average YouTuber. How do you do that?

Well, I began by involving my brother Max Lanman who is filmmaker. We sat down and started creating concepts. After narrowing down 15 concepts down to 8 or so, we were ready to script, audition, and pool together a crew. We posted an ad calling for actors a couple days before the scheduled audition and we fielded over 80 responses and auditioned over 60 people in 6 hours. We ended up with a 20 person cast and a 10 person! It was crazy, but it worked. We then shot the videos in four x 10 hour days. We’re in post-production and excited to show off some hilarious videos and some great easy to use products. I’m still not quite sure how to make the perfect online video. But, I abide by my motto to entertain first, and then inform. In the videos to come, you might be able to get a sense of what I’m talking about.

More to come…

Well folks, it’s over. Drop us a comment and let us know which sweeps you thought was the most interesting. One lucky winner will get the final prize package (you can find full Terms & Conditions here).

If you’re just finding us, here’s what you missed:

We introduced you to some new music, showed you how to save power and took you on a tour of our ever-changing logo. Then we built our own airplane, went to San Francisco for a night of electronic music, got schooled and rediscovered Hotmail.

So, that’s a wrap. I hope you’ve discovered a few new things about Windows. I’ve certainly had a blast writing about them. There will be more to come, so be sure to follow me on Twitter for all the latest news.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering who I am—this is me and thanks for reading!

Hotmail is making it easier for you to stay up-to-date and be productive on your phone. Starting today, you can get your email, calendar, and contacts pushed automatically to your phone using Exchange ActiveSync (EAS). EAS keeps everything in sync between your phone and Hotmail, so whatever you do on your phone, like delete an email, add an appointment, or update one of your contacts with a new number, will also be reflected on the web, and vice-versa. If you use an email client on your PC that already syncs with Hotmail, like Outlook with the Outlook Connector or Windows Live Mail, what you do on your phone will show up there as well, delivering a seamless experience for managing your stuff between your PC email client, your browser, and your phone. 

Today, EAS is supported by over 300 million mobile devices worldwide, including some of the most popular Windows, Nokia, and Palm smartphones, as well as the iPhone and iPad. For a full list of supported devices, click here.

Setup details: I encourage you to take a look at the phone-specific setup instructions and known issues at the Windows Live Solution Center page on Active Sync setup.

In the coming months, we will continue to bring out new features and capabilities based on feedback from our users, so please, stay tuned for more.

Dick Craddock
Group Program Manager
Windows Live Hotmail

After taking a little time off to enjoy my birthday, I am pleased to bring back the next installment of the Windows Recession Sweepstakes.

We’ve done seven sweeps so far and I realized this weekend that I’ve never talked about Hotmail. Windows Live Hotmail recently got a refresh and it’s more powerful than ever at helping you save time and sweep away inbox clutter.

Now, you can work with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote files right from your email – even if you don’t have Microsoft Office installed on your PC. You’re also protected from junk mail by Microsoft SmartScreen, which governments and businesses use to protect their email, and you can now send up to 10GB in attachments.

So, go give the new Hotmail a try. In the meantime, drop us a comment and tell us what you love about Windows Live. In honor of my birthday, I’ll draw two names from entries this round to win. You have 24 hours to enter rounds 8 & 9. You can always read the full Terms & Conditions here.

Please Tweet this post, and don’t forget to follow me for all the inside track on all the latest news.

The Office Web Apps have been refreshed on SkyDrive and in Hotmail with several new features, including:

• Word printing. Now, the Word Web App offers the print command in the Word Web App editor.

• Excel charts and the auto fill handle. With the Excel Web App, you can easily insert charts and manipulate data in much the same way you can in Excel 2010. Also, you can now use the auto fill handle.

• PowerPoint clip art and more themes. With the PowerPoint Web App, you can now add high quality photos and illustrations to your presentation, as well as select a theme.

For more details on this update, check out the Office Web Apps updates blog post on the Office developer blog.

The Microsoft Education team shared the graphic below with us last week.  As students head back to school, they’re going to face a job climate that will increasingly require tech skills – 77% of jobs will require some tech within the next ten years. 

And if you drop out?  High school dropouts from the Class of 2006-7 will cost the US economy $329 billion in lost wages and productivity. That’s enough to buy every student in America 13 Windows 7 PCs.  So students, stay in school and good luck with the coming year!

And remember students, if you need Windows 7 and you live in the U.S., you can get it for a cool $29.99 with a valid .edu email address.

For the next 24 hours, Round 7 of the Windows Recession Sweepstakes is now open. Drop us a comment and let us know what you think we can do to help students out. If you like reading legal fine print, full Terms & Conditions can be found here.

Please Tweet this post if you know someone heading back to campus, and don’t forget to follow me for all the inside track on all the latest news.