Futurecat - Michael Karek

The Dell Inspiron M101Z is a funny little PC.  It’s not small enough to be a netbook or powerful enough to be a full-fledged notebook, but it balances both well enough to hit the sweet spot as an excellent travel machine.

If you’re a road warrior like me, you’ll immediately love the Inspiron M101Z’s size. At a compact 11” x 8” x 1” and weighing in at 3.5lbs, the M101Z is outstandingly portable.  Even my super-light and thin Sony VAIO Z looked kind of big next to it.  I’ve been carrying it around in my Tom Bihn Ego messenger for a few days, and I can honestly say that I barely notice the weight.  My copy of The Girl Who Played with Fire weighs just about as much.

I’m using the baseline version (single-core AMD Athlon II Neo K125 processor, 2GB of RAM, webcam, 3 USB ports, HDMI, media card slot and a 250GB, 5,400rpm hard drive), and there is a higher-end version that has a dual-core Athlon II K325 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 320GB 7,200rpm hard drive.  Despite the more modest specs, performance with the M101Z was surprisingly good and un-netbookish. Both have the same bright, glossy 1366 x 768 resolution screen, which makes viewing documents and web pages a breeze. The PC was responsive when multi-tasking, and handled my usual barrage of Office 2010 apps (Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and OneNote) without any issue.   I didn’t try any games, as a PC with 11.6” screen isn’t really optimal for gaming – unless of course that PC is an Alienware M11X.  I did, however, connect my M101Z to my home media library using Remote Media Streaming, and I was very impressed by the sound quality.  The speakers on the M101Z definitely don’t sound like a usual set of tinny, hollow netbook speakers; I filled up my office with surprisingly rich sound.

Ergonomically, the M101Z was the perfect size for me.  The keyboard is full-size and island style so typing was very easy, and the multi-touch trackpad was responsive and smooth.  As with many Dells, the mouse buttons are soft and pleasantly clickable.  I actually typed the first draft of this post on the M101Z in Windows Live Writer Beta, and I didn’t run into the normal eye-strain or hand-fatigue that I usually get when typing on a traditional netbook. 

My only wish was that the M101Z got better battery life.  Coming off many weeks with the ASUS UL30vt, which I can sometimes stretch to run almost 12 hours, the 4 hours of uptime I got with the Dell was a bit disappointing.  That being said, for most average consumers it should be plenty of time away from the outlet.

As with all of their new PCs, Dell did a great job of making the M101Z look as nice as it performs.  You can get the M101Z in one of 5 colors (mine is bright red) and the internal polycarbonate is high-gloss, so much so that at first glance you’d think it was aluminum.  It’s a beautiful machine that looks and feels like a premium box, even though it is value priced.

If you’re looking for a netbook but are worried about the small screen size and keyboard, I highly recommend you check out an 11-12” machine like the Dell M101Z.  You’ll find it to be a great compromise between the ultra-portability of a netbook and the power of a full-sized PC.

Have a question about this or any other PC?  Post a comment, hit me on Twitter or Ask Ben Anything via email.  Your question might appear in my monthly Ask Ben Anything Q&A column.

UPDATED 8/16/10, 9:32pm PST – Added a link to an even cheaper version of Office to save you more dough!

I saw an article over the weekend that said that according to the National Retail Federation, college students are cutting their back-to-school spending by 19% (about $150).  There are a lot of theories on why that’s happening, ranging from the increased capabilities of smartphones to the unstable economy to more students continuing to live at home during college.  Regardless of the “real reason” – I suspect it’s a combination of all of those – one thing is clear; families are looking to stretch their budget and make every dollar count. 

So I got to thinking – would it be easy to outfit a college student with the essentials (a laptop, digital camera, and printer) for $1,000?  The answer is most definitely yes…and its easier than you think.

First and foremost, your student needs a laptop.  This is arguably the most important piece of gear that a college students has, as its at the center of writing papers, building presentations, communicating with friends, and more.  I like 13” – 15” machines for college students as they have the keyboard and screen real estate you need for long-haul work, but are still portable enough to fit in a backpack for class-to-class commuting.   Since we’re working of a $1,000 budget, I took a look at the $500(ish) laptops in my inventory and came up with three great choices: HP G62 ($549 via Bing Shopping), the Dell Studio 15 (starting at $449 from Dell.com), and the Acer Timeline Series ($588 via Bing Shopping).  Click the product name links and read my hands-on posts to get a good idea of what each can do.

Although more and more professors accept papers and presentations in digital format, sometimes you just have to go with good ol’ paper.  Fortunately printers have come WAY down in price and you can get a pretty good one for about $100.  I checked in with Sarah, our resident device expert (and blogger) and she recommended the Lexmark Interact S605 (it’s a scanner, printer, copier all-in-one for $113 on Bing Shopping), and the Canon Pixma MP560 all-in-one that you can get as low as $69.94!).

You’re going to want to remember all of those great college experiences, right?  Then you’ll also need a digital camera.  Sarah just did a blog post on the Kodak EasyShare M530.  It’s a 12 megapixel, Device Stage-ready camera, and you can get it under $100.  Hard to beat that spec line at the price

Let’s see where we stand if we go with the cheapest combination:

• Laptop: Dell Studio 15 ($449)
• Printer: Canon Pixma MP560 ($69.94)
• Camera: Kodak EasyShare M530 ($89.95)
• TOTAL:  $608.89

That leaves us $391.11 in our imaginary budget.  What else can you get for that dough?  Well, you’ll need a good backpack to lug your new machine around in, and for that, I recommend the OGIO Mastermind, which I use when I’m carrying a heavy laptop load.  You can get one for $64 on Bing Shopping.

Now we’re down to $327.11.  That’s a perfect amount for a copy of Office 2010 Home and Student ($113 via Bing Shopping), Office 2010 Academic Professional for $79.99 and an Xbox 360 Arcade to play when your schoolwork is done ($199 via Bing Shopping).

15 48 bucks to spare!  Plenty for pizza to share with your friends while you show them your new gear.

Have a question about any of this gear?  Post a comment, hit me on Twitter, or Ask Ben Anything via email.  Your question might appear in my monthly Ask Ben Anything Q&A column!

Yes, I stole the headline from Conan the Barbarian.  But after using the Origin EON 18 gaming rig for the last few days, it’s the only way I could accurately depict just how mercilessly powerful this PC is.

Not familiar with Origin?  Don’t worry – up until a few months ago I hadn’t heard of them either.  So who are they?  In short, they’re a Miami based system-builder that’s entirely focused on super-high-end gaming PCs.  Their founders were instrumental in the launch of Alienware several years ago, and they’re continuing that “we-build-machines-that-will-melt-your-face-off” mentality with the monster EON laptop line.    What I’m loving about Origin as a company is that when they say custom, they mean it.  No matter what you want in a machine – a particular motherboard, graphics card, SSD, memory chips, paint job, etc. – you can get it.  Nothing is off limits. 

First off, this machine is BIG.  No, wait…big isn’t an adequate word.  Huge would be better.  Monstrous would be even better than that.  The Origin EON 18 is a crazy 17” wide, 11’ high and 3” deep and weighs over 10 lbs and stretches the boundaries of what you can legitimately call a “laptop” – let’s just say you won’t be using this on your tray table in coach!   Here’s a shot of the EON next to the smallest PC in my arsenal, the 8” Sony VAIO P:

The screen is a glossed 1080p with color depth that rivals my LCD HD TV, and inside is a full arsenal of top-of-the-line specs.  Here’s what my EON is packing:

• Graphics: NVIDIA Quadro FX 2800M (Windows Experience Index scores of 6.6 for both desktop and gaming graphics).  The card is huge and has both a DVI and HDMI port attached.  Since I ordered mine, Origin has started offering the latest NVIDIA GTX 480M cards, as well as a DUAL ATI Radeon HD 5870 cards running in Crossfire mode.
• Processor:  Intel Core i7-820 CPU (WEI score of 7.2).  I went for the 820, but you can spec an EON all the way up with a Core i7-940 Extreme.  That’s an extra $576, but its as big and heavy as you can go on proc. 
• Memory:  8GB of DDR3 RAM.  Self explanatory.  If you need more memory than this, you’re more of a power user than I am.
• Storage:  256GB Crucial RealSSD.  I *only* put one in here…but you can spec it with up to three for a over 750GB of SSD storage.  Origin will run them independent, or RAID 0 or 1 on your request.  If you go that route, be ready to drop an extra $2000+!  I should also note that you can go with regular HDDs as well – and use them to max your machine out with 2.75TB of space.  That’s just plain silly.
• Ports, etc.:  A full compliment of the usual ports and radios – Wireless B/G/N, Bluetooth 2.1, 4 USB ports, microphone & headphone ports, eSATA and a TV tuner round things out.  TV looks GREAT on that killer 1080p screen!

Performance on the Origin is exceptional.  In my stopwatch tests it crushed all comers (i.e., every other PC in my office) with a blazingly fast 1-second sleep/resume, and cold boot took only 24 seconds.  Full shut down was super fast as well and took just a hair over 7 seconds.    In every test I threw at it the Origin performed flawlessly.  Blu-Ray discs looked amazing, and day-to-day stuff ran smoothly with zero lag.  I tried to push the system, running Avatar in Blu-Ray at the same time as 10 tabs in IE (3 with Flash video), TweetDeck, Almost the entire Office 2010 suite (Word 2010, PowerPoint 2010, Excel 2010, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010), Zune, Office Communicator, MSN Messenger, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Sync and Digsby Messenger, and I just couldn’t slow the system down. 

My gaming tests produced the same results – my usual test games of Batman: Arkham Asylum and Street Fighter 4 ran beautifully.  I ran both games in full screen mode at full frame rate and didn’t see a single lag or flicker.  Street Fighter was REALLY fun to play on this guy…it felt like I was 13 years old again, playing the stand-up game at the Challenge Arcade in my hometown of Wyomissing, PA.

Beyond the “speeds and feeds” I’m really impressed with Origin’s industrial design and build quality. What stands out for me most is the all-glass trackpad and palmrest that’s completely smooth and unbroken, and the electroluminescent volume control (Which is “swipable” – just drag your finger across to change the sound level), hotkeys, and trackpad outline.  It gives the machine a high-tech look that says “nerd” as much as it says “sophisticated”.  All in all, a very nice balance of form and function.  Speaking of function, the Origin features a full keyboard + number pad, and has 8 dedicated “Gamekey” hotkeys which you can program to perform specific functions in specific games.  It’s a very nice touch that will be very useful if you’re a power gamer. 

All of this power does not come cheap.  My custom Origin cost nearly $5500 to produce (they start at $2177), and go way up from there.  That being said, it is hands-down one of the finest gaming rigs I’ve ever used – and the free lifetime support they offer on all of their systems is pretty nice, too.  If you’re a serious gamer and you want the best, Origin needs to be on your short list. 

I’m sitting here in on my in-laws’ deck overlooking beautiful Lake Chelan. Evan sleeping by my side, Audrey is down for a nap and the house is otherwise empty, so I thought I’d take my mother-in-law’s HP G62 out for a test drive. Yes, this is the same one I was conscripted to configure just a few weeks ago, but last time I was giving it the quickie setup (i.e., installing Microsoft Security Essentials, Windows Live Essentials Beta, and Office 2010), so didn’t have the chance to fully put it through its paces.

The HP G62 is part of HP’s line of everyday computers, meaning it’s optimized for light internet work, basic productivity tasks like writing Word docs, and playing music and movies. It’s a value priced machine – MSRP starts at $499.99, and my mother-in-law got her model for a little over $500 at a major retailer. For that price, you get a lot of machine. The G62 comes with a brand-new Intel Core i3 processor, 4 gigs of RAM, and a 320GB 7200 rpm HDD. Graphics are Intel Integrated HD which put out respectable Windows Experience Index score of 4.2 for desktop graphics and 4.8 for gaming graphics. That’s not top-shelf power, but if you’re just watching DVDs, playing casual games or streaming some web video it’s more than enough to give you a great experience.

As with all HPs, the 15”, 1366 x 768 display is gorgeous. It’s very bright but not too glossy; out here on the deck in bright sunlight the screen is still easy to read. Sound is powered by Altec Lansing speakers which produce solid, deep sound that’s better than most laptops I’ve tried in this price range – you don’t get the tinny, hollow reverberation that you find on cheaper speakers. As someone who’s permanently tethered to his Zune collection (or Pandora), that’s a big plus.

Even though this is part of HP’s value line, they didn’t skimp on design. The chassis is imprinted polycarbonate with a light polygon texture and the default out-of-the-box wallpaper matches the case design, which is kind of cool and a nice touch that brings the PC together inside and out. My favorite bit about the G62’s design is the touchpad – or should I say “lack of touchpad”. Unlike most laptops that have a dedicated, defined touchpad that looks like at touchpad, the G62 doesn’t. Its touchpad is seamless with the rest of the palm rest, so the chin of the laptop is completely unbroken (aside from the right and left mouse buttons). That’s an unusual design choice, but I like it and it’s something I wish more PC manufacturers would do. I’m a minimalist by nature, so anything that cleans up the façade of my PC makes me feel all Zen inside.

I’ve only had a chance to work with the G62 for a few hours, but I like what I see so far. Performance while working on this doc in Word 2010 was snappy and Internet Explorer running Twitter, Facebook, and multiple other tabs like CNN.com, Weather.com, The Consumerist, Gizmodo, Engadget, The Windows Experience Blog, and my favorite non-tech blog, The Sartorialist, was smooth and hang-free even when playing video on both Giz and Engadget simultaneously.

If you’re in the market for a solid 15” laptop and you’re working off of a modest budget, put the HP G62 on your list. For around $500, it’s a tough box to beat.

Have a question about this or any other PC?  Post a comment, hit me on Twitter, or Ask Ben Anything via email.  Your question might appear in my monthly Ask Ben Anything Q&A column!

Everyone needs a new look from time to time. After all, you might not know Stefani Germanotta or Norma Baker, but I bet you know Lady Gaga and Marilyn Monroe. The same holds true for companies fighting for eyeballs in a world saturated with imagery.

For reasons large and small, some of today’s familiar logos started life looking quite different – the original Starbucks logo, for example, was brown and advertised tea and spices. Most, however, have been through a gradual evolution. Coca-Cola remains one of the world’s most recognizable brands and Wal-Mart’s evolving design is as impressive as its global retail reach.

Logo design evolution plays a pivotal role in support of brand strategy, whether it’s signaling a change in direction, supporting a new promise, or merely taking a familiar mark and making it more modern, arresting and relevant. There’s always a balancing act between preserving visual equity and moving the design forward.

In Windows, we’ve also had our share of new looks. Below, you’ll find what our iconic Windows logo looked like at the time of each major new release:

Windows 3.1

Windows 95

Windows XP

Windows Vista

Windows 7

Round 4 of the Windows Recession Sweepstakes is now open! To win, leave a comment and let us know which logo you like best. You have until 6:00 am PT tomorrow (July 23) to enter.

Remember to follow me, Brandon, Ben and the Windows Blog on Twitter to find out more and hear about future rounds of the sweepstakes.

Full Terms & Conditions of the sweepstakes are here.

Good luck!

The new Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 5.0 is now available for download! MAP 5.0 is an agentless tool designed to simplify and streamline the IT infrastructure planning process across multiple scenarios through network-wide automated discovery and assessments. This Solution Accelerator performs an inventory of heterogeneous server environments and provides you with usage information for servers in the Core CAL Suite and SQL Server, SQL Server 2008 discovery and assessment for consolidation, Windows 2000 Server migration assessment, and a readiness assessment for the most widely used Microsoft technologies—now including Office 2010.

What’s new in MAP 5.0?

• Heterogeneous server environment inventory – Know what’s in your IT environment. The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit performs a network inventory of IT assets remotely without the use of agents, identifying heterogeneous server environments consisting of Windows Server and Linux operating systems, including those running in a virtual environment. MAP 5.0 also automates the discovery of Linux-powered LAMP stacks.
• Software usage tracking for Windows Server, SharePoint Server, System Center Configuration Manager, Exchange Server, and SQL Server – Right-size your IT environment with MAP Toolkit 5.0, and simplify your software license management and compliance processes. MAP 5.0’s new usage tracking feature provides consistent software usage reports for key Microsoft server products: Windows Server, SharePoint Server, System Center Configuration Manager, Exchange Server, and SQL Server. Run updated reports whenever you need to accurately assess current software usage and client access history in your environment. This reduces time and administrative costs for managing your server and client access licenses (CALs) and helps you to streamline the management of your software assets.
• Microsoft Office 2010 readiness assessment – Streamline your migration to Office 2010 with MAP 5.0’s hardware compatibility proposal document. The MAP Toolkit provides readiness details and specifics of your IT infrastructure inventory, including hardware and OS requirements and upgrade recommendations for planning a seamless deployment of Office 2010. The actionable recommendations and assessments presented shorten the time it takes to plan your Office 2010 migration and prepares your IT environment for Office 2010 deployment and migration scenarios.
• SQL Server discovery and assessment for consolidation – MAP 5.0’s new database discovery feature gives you the information you need to optimize your database resources and investments. MAP helps you simplify database administration and provides wide-ranging details of databases and server instances—information you can utilize for consolidation. Use the MAP Toolkit’s proposals to better utilize hardware and database resources, reduce administrative costs, and streamline your software licensing needs—all essential for cost-effective IT planning and operations.
• Windows 2000 Server migration assessment – As support for Windows 2000 Server ends soon, MAP 5.0’s Migration Assessment feature helps you prepare for migration to Windows Server 2008 R2 by assessing the Windows 2000 Server environment and legacy workloads in the form of proposals and reports. The MAP Toolkit’s actionable recommendations help you to understand the potential business impact of maintaining legacy workloads and the benefits of migrating to the robust Windows Server 2008 R2 environment. With migration to Windows Server 2008 R2, you’ll be able to utilize the increased IT flexibility and efficiency from such technologies as Hyper-V and Remote Desktop Services, as well as tap into power-savings features to decrease TCO.

Is your organization spending valuable resources planning its IT infrastructure? Download the MAP Toolkit 5.0, and let this tool do the heavy lifting for a wide variety of your IT planning projects.

• Download the MAP 5.0 Toolkit.
• Checkout the MAP Overview DEMO
• Check out the Springboard Series on TechNet Pilot and Deploy Zone for more info on MAP, ACT, MDT and other Solutions Accelerator Tools!
• Check out the great video series our friends at TechNet Edge did on MAP:
  • Part 1- Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 5.0: Overview
  • Part 2 – Office 2010
  • Part 3 – Windows Server 2008 R2 consolidation
  • Part 4 – Database Discovery for SQL
  • Part 5 – Heterogeneous Server Environment Inventory
  • Part 6 – Software Usage Tracker

This weeks post is the part two to the Your Building a LiteTouch Bootable USB Image Questions Answered! post from 6/21. Big thanks to Jeremy Chapman from the Windows Product Team and Brian Shiers from the Microsoft Office team for the assist.

Over the last couple of weeks at TechEd and from folks who participated in the Bus Tour, we were consistently getting the same question, “How do I add Office 2010 Professional Plus to my MDT 2010 Update 1 Beta environment?” The good news is that most of it is documented in the help files of MDT 2010. With this MDT release adding Office 2010 support, however, there is little additional documentation explaining the differences compared to Office 2007. The description below is actually derived straight from the MDT help files, but I added a few screenshots and go to explain the “Office Products” tab that lights up in MDT once you add Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010 to the Deployment Workbench. MDT provides you access to leverage the Office customization features in a single deployment console.

The first step is to get MDT 2010 Update 1 Beta from Microsoft Connect. If the link doesn’t work for you, you may need to create an account first. MDT 2010 Update 1 is in the “Solution Accelerators” program. There is a “Security Solution Accelerators” program, too, with great content, but don’t confuse it like I did the first time for the “Solution Accelerators” one. Once you are in there, you can download MDT 2010 Update 1 in both x64 and x86 versions, or print-ready documentation here.

This is what you’ll find about importing applications in the help files of the Deployment Workbench (minus screenshots):

MDT 2010 allows you to use the New Application Wizard in the Deployment Workbench to create new applications that are deployed from the deployment share. The New Application Wizard copies source files for this type of applications to the deployment share.

To create a new application that is deployed from the deployment share

1. Click Start, and then point to All Programs. Point to Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, and then click Deployment Workbench.
2. In the Deployment Workbench console tree, go to Deployment Workbench/Deployment Shares/deployment_share/Applications (where deployment_share is the name of the deployment share to which the application will be added).
3. In the Actions pane, click New Application.
4. The New Application Wizard starts.
5. Complete the New Application Wizard.

Information for Completing the New Application Wizard

The New Application Wizard finishes. The application is added to the list of applications in the details pane in the Deployment Workbench.

Now that Office 2010 is imported, you can do a few things specific to Office 2007 and 2010 – these items are not called out specifically as Office 2010 items in the help files of the Deployment Workbench. After Office has been imported into Deployment Workbench, then right-click the application and click properties:

Now click on the “Office Products” tab and you will see this:

If you select “ProPlus” from the drop down menu called “Office product to install”, it will enable the fields below:

Note the Office product to install is based on the source files you have initially provided in the setup of the application in MDT. ProPlus and Standard are the 2 volume license skus you typically see available here depending on the source

The Office Products tab is essentially a graphical user interface to adjust settings in the Office config.xml file. Here you see the display level for the installation window, you can set according to your preference (I prefer none, meaning Office will install invisibly with no progress screen, but that is up to you), choose languages (they will match the OS language by default, otherwise English), accept the EULA automatically so it doesn’t interrupt the automated process and suppress reboot.

Many of these settings plus many more can be controlled with the Office Customization Tool (OCT), you can see the full list of OCT configuration options here. MDT provides you direct access to invoke the OCT. You can use the OCT to customize which components and features of Office are configured upon installation. You can create role specific MSP packages to customize your application to meet your specific user group needs. For example, I can give Finance roles Excel, PowerPoint and Word, marketing roles just PowerPoint and Word, and sales roles Access, PowerPoint and Word. The MSP files you generate are automatically stored in the Updates folder of the Office source directory.

Office also automatically installs items in the Updates folder in its source directory, so in the future you can simply drop the update files into that location and they will install automatically with Office for each new MDT-based installation. If you create more than one MSP file for multiple roles, you would normally store them in a different location and use admin files to determine which MSP is applied to each installation.

The Office Customization Tool also lets you dictate the type of activation (Key Management Service [KMS] or a Multiple Activation Key [MAK]), the Product Key field from the Office Products tab can be used for a MAK key, but it is not obfuscated in the deployment control files and could be discovered easily if media-based deployment materials are lost or stolen. KMS is the recommended activation approach for medium-to-large organizations (same for Windows activation, too), learn more about Office 2010 activation here.

An optional area to look at if you are using Office Communicator or Live Meeting, you can set application dependencies in MDT to require for example that Office 2010 is installed prior to those applications being installed.

Above, I have just right-clicked on an Office Communicator application, opened Properties, then the Dependencies tab. If I click Add, I will see a list of applications in my application store and can select Office 2010 from the list. This means that if you select to install Office Communicator without selecting Office 2010, it will select it for you. Another option is to use an application bundle to group all related Office Products in the correct installation sequence. That will mean that you will only see one entry in the application selection list in the Lite Touch Installation wizards at install time. You can even use these approaches for Office add-ins and other related applications – they just need a silent install command.

Once you’ve gone through these steps, you should have a working and automated build. This should hopefully get you started with Office 2010 integration in your MDT environments. There is always more you can customize and configure and more in the Office and MDT documentation I’m not covering.

If you are working with MDT or any of the deployment tools and have questions or suggestions for content that you just cannot find in the documentation, let us know and we will try to answer the more popular ones with posts like these.

Behind door number one:

If you’re in the market for a new PC, I’ve got a deal for you. For a limited time, the Microsoft Store is offering an HP Pavilion DM4 with Windows 7 Home Premium and an Xbox 360 Arcade for less than the price of the PC (you save $200). Ben will have a review of the DM4 up shortly posted a hands on review today. It’s thin and light – so you can take it anywhere – and the 14” screen size is big enough to see everything and small enough to go into a backpack.

Bear with me while I explain why this is an incredible deal: the $200 savings means that the PC + Xbox Arcade is $794. The PC alone is $849. And with Kinect coming, you have another great reason to pull the trigger on a full tech upgrade.

If you haven’t seen what Kinect is all about, check this out:

This offer is only available in the U.S. for a limited time, so if you’re sold go here and give yourself or someone you love very, very much an awesome gift.

Behind door number two:

If you’re a student and not in the market for a new PC, we didn’t want you to feel left out this summer. From now until September 6 we’re offering you the lowest price available on Windows 7.

If you qualify you can score one copy of Windows 7 Professional for just $29.99! To qualify, you must have a valid .edu email address and currently own a PC with genuine Windows Vista or Windows XP that can run Windows 7. Go here to see if you’re eligible and buy.

Also don’t forget about Microsoft Office Professional Academic 2010: right now, students receive a $79.95 special deal (go here) on that too—which means you can get both Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2010 for just over $100.

While the above information is for customers in the U.S., the Windows 7 student offer is also available in Mexico, Canada, Australia, France, Korea and the UK. Please check www.windows.com for full details.

There are still other offers available, so be sure to also check www.windows.com to see if another deal is right for you.

Happy summer! Questions? You can reach me @winashbrown

During the Get On The Bus Tour, I did a demo using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 where I took a Windows XP machine with Office 2003 on it and migrated it to Windows 7 and Office 2010 in under 40 minutes. I have received several emails with questions on this presentation, so here are the answers to those questions.

What is MDT 2010 and how do I get it???

• Check out my post on the MDT 2010 here and information on how to access the latest version.

How do I build the image and use the tool?

• Windows XP to Windows 7 Migration Using MDT 2010?

• Part 1: Building the Deployment Environment
• Part 2: Initiating the Install and Migrating the PC

How do I build that bootable USB stick?

1. Based on the size of the content folder, acquire a USB drive that will store all of your files. (Remember, you can do everything by storing your deployment files on the network also and boot from the LiteTouchPEx86/x64.iso files – they are typically under 300MB)
2. Prepare the USB drive to be bootable
   1. Insert drive
   2. Open an elevated Command Prompt
   3. Type “diskpart.exe”
   4. Type “list disk” and find the disk number
   5. Type “sel disk 1” (replace the “1” with the actual number)
   6. Type “clean”
   7. Type “cre par pri”
   8. Type “active”
   9. Type “format fs=ntfs quick”
   10. Type “assign”
   11. Type “exit”
3. Now copy the content in the “content” folder to the root of the USB stick.
4. Now you should have a bootable USB stick with your image and custom build on it.

How can I view your Get On The Bus Tour presentation?

Thanks again to everyone who attended our Bus Tour events!

If you’ve been using the Office Web Apps since our release last week and saw some of the changes to the new Hotmail that we began rolling out this week, you’ll realize why, like everyone here on the Windows Live team, I love the web.

I especially love how web apps like SkyDrive and Hotmail let me work and play anywhere and communicate and share with anyone. But I also love all the great things I can do with apps on my PC, like fusing multiple photos together in Windows Live Photo Gallery, or editing video clips in PowerPoint 2010.

Some would have you believe that you should abandon the apps on your PC to take advantage of the web, that you must live in a world of compromise where you can’t use the best tools for the job, that web-based anything is better than the best PC productivity suite in the world.

The truth is, browser-only services are limited by nature, and just aren’t ready to replace their PC counterparts. This means you’re likely going to use both web and PC software to get your tasks done, inevitably having to waste effort with every task you do. You find yourself downloading a file, finding a place to save it, opening it using a program on your PC, editing it, going back to the website, uploading it again, possibly losing your formatting, and repeating the process every time you want to use the power of your PC. When you type it out like that it really doesn’t seem all that great, does it?

That’s why, with Office 2010—available today—and Office on SkyDrive, we’ve created a suite of software and services that work together for you, both on your PC and in your web browser. No more compromises. You can create great documents like never before.

Windows Live gives you the choice of where you want to work—in the browser or on your PC—and either way, you can access and share your documents anywhere, anytime. Office is now integrated with Hotmail, Messenger, and all the other services that you connect to Windows Live, like Facebook and Gmail.

Let me show you…

Work anywhere

With Office 2010, I can easily create a new document in Word and save it to SkyDrive with just a couple of clicks. If I’m on the road, I can view my document on my phone. Or I can go to any PC or Mac and make quick edits to my document online—even if the computer doesn’t have Office installed. And unlike other services, SkyDrive and the Office Web Apps keep my document’s formatting intact, so I don’t waste time fixing things when I get back to the office.

My Word document in Office 2010

Viewing my Word document in SkyDrive – looks familiar, doesn’t it?

If you’ve used OneNote, you know that Office is good for more than just documents. With OneNote, I can keep track of everything that’s going on in my life. And now that I can synchronize my OneNote notebooks with SkyDrive, my notes are always just a click away. I can jot down every stroke of genius that occurs to me, whether I’m on the web, on another PC—or soon, with Windows Phone 7—on my phone!

Work with others

Earlier I mentioned how you can make awesome documents using Office 2010. But sometimes you need help from your friends to make a document. And when you’re done, you want to share your documents with everyone. Well, this used to be really hard, especially when your friend didn’t have the same version of Office as you.

With Office on SkyDrive, we’ve solved that problem. And the best part is, you don’t need to change the way you work. Like most people, I like to use email to share documents. SkyDrive works seamlessly with Hotmail, so now I can email up to 10GB of Office documents in a single message, and my friends can view and edit my documents online using Office on the web—no matter what email service they use or what software they have installed.

As long as I send documents using SkyDrive, my friends and I can take advantage of other benefits of working online, like keeping document versions in one place. If we’re working on Excel or OneNote documents, we can even work on the same file at the same time on the web. And if my friends have Office 2010, we can work on Word and PowerPoint files at the same time, too.

Sometimes, I’m not the one who starts projects. Instead my friends will send me attachments the old-fashioned way. But since I use Hotmail, I can easily transform their attachments into online documents in just a few clicks. I don’t have to download the document, find it, open it, re-attach it, and send yet another version that clogs my friend’s inbox. I can edit attachments online without leaving my inbox!

Now you might be saying, “this sounds awesome, but I don’t use Hotmail.” Fortunately, we’ve made it easy to bring your Gmail and Yahoo Mail Plus right into Hotmail so even you can take advantage of these great features, too.

Go beyond the inbox

Email is great – but sometimes I want to share stuff with all 5,000 of my friends on Facebook or MySpace. We’ve made it really easy to share with your friends on your favorite social networks and also get updates on their documents – right from office.live.com.

There’s more – a lot more – but we’d love for you to discover some of that on your own. Interested? Try out a free trial of Office 2010 for a limited time. And if you like it, you can buy Office 2010 without leaving your seat! Get started with the Office Web Apps for free at office.live.com.

Jason Moore
Principal Lead Program Manager
Windows Live SkyDrive