Microsoft Technology Developers constitute one of the largest technical communities in the world. A significant number of these communities are hosted by external parties other than Microsoft. In addition, Microsoft itself hosts a number of these communities.
Recently, I was invited to deliver a session on community tools that Microsoft developers can benefit from at Delhi User Group. I took sometime looking up these communities and was astounded by the sheer numbers of these Microsoft hosted communities. While I made all efforts to include the ones i could find, I am sure that i may have left quite a bit of them as well. If you know of something that i may have left, please leave a comment here for everyone’s benefit.
I haven’t covered the 3rd party communities in the presentation below. Also, the most obvious resource for technical info on MS technologies – MSDN & Technet have been left out.
If you are someone working with Microsoft technologies, spend a minute looking at these technology communities from Microsoft and i am sure that you would leave with some links u were not aware of.
Remember the success of the community depends on the people who actively contribute.. looking forward to ur mark in the community!
Live Maps from Microsoft is a good product.. and till now it was only good in US.. Microsoft has finally made Live Maps available for India (news via LiveSide.net).. it is still not comprehensive for small cities in India and only has Street Maps for 9 major Indian cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, and Jaipur.
I took the maps for a spin asking for directions from MG Road in Gurgaon to India Gate in Delhi. The result (seen below) are exactly the route that i would take.
Amongst other features are Local Search, driving directions and business listings. The Live Maps seem good as a start but i need more time to verify the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the map data.. hope it meets my criteria 
Check out your city on Live Maps: http://mapindia.live.com and let us know what you feel about the search..
Zune, the iPod rival, has released its version 3.0.. the release further enhances the utility of the hardware available on the device.. Zune distinguishes itself from iPod by including FM tuner and WiFi ability at the same price as iPod.. the v3 release includes additional functionality for FM tuner and WiFi..
“Buy from FM”
This feature lets you download the song that u hear on the radio of your Zune.. this download will happen the next time you sync your device.. i am not sure if this will work for Indian FM stations.. wud check this feature soon..
“Browse Zune Marketplace wirelessly”
You can download music directly to your Zune from any wireless hotspot at home, at a café or wherever else.. earlier u cud only stream wireless music within ur home network.. if ur in US, you can wirelessly sync ur Zune at any McDonald’s restaurants..
Games
Zune 3.0 come preloaded with Texas hold ‘em and Hexic. you can now play games on your Zune.. in addition, if u want to create new games for Zune you can using XNA studio (that is available for free)..
Clock
A nifty new feature added to Zune is the clock that gets displayed on top right of your screen.
“Zune Channels”
Zune marketplace introduces a new feature called channels. Channels are predefined playlists. However, this is only available to Zune Pass holders (USD 15).. with this Zune Pass, you can download unlimited no. of songs from the marketplace.. i think the channels greatly enhance the value of Zune Pass.. i especially like the fitness channel there.. also present are radio stations like KROQ and KEXP and by Billboards…
Audiobooks
I use my Zune the most for listening to podcast.. And now Zune natively supports audiobooks from Audible.com and OverDrive..
Some additional new hardware available:
- Both 16GB and 120GB Zune devices have been added to the lineup
- Additional colours added are glossy black front and a black metal back
- More designs are now available to personalize your Zune via Zune Originals
With this update, Zune becomes a complete entertainment device and much more useful than iPod that is still only a music player…
You’ve seen numerous Windows Mobiles in the market from makers like Motorola, HTC, imate, Samsung (in fact only Nokia doesn’t have a Windows Mobile phone!!).. what you have NOT seen is the Windows Mobile displaying local Indian languages like Hindi.. watch these screenshots from my HP Windows Mobile phone:
Watch the day of the week in Hindi alongwith the name of the month. Even the appointments have the days mentioned in Hindi.
So why hasn’t Windows Mobile been able to show Hindi fonts?
While Windows Mobile supported Unicode, the core issue was the font engine in WM did not know (was not built) how to render complex characters. The reason why it was not done for WM, was that made the font engine heavy and OEMs didn’t want to increase memory footprint for that. Also, there were no fonts natively for Hindi on WM. All that changes with this application install that enables the following features.
An inscript Hindi keyboard:
Any WM application that supports Hindi fonts can now actually display them. look at the screenshot of google maps on Win Mobile:
And yes, even Word and Excel documents containing Hindi text render correctly on the Windows Mobile (using Word Mobile):
Earlier, you could not browse Hindi websites on mobiles. Now, websites that render Unicode text are also shown correctly (intentionally rendered in Opera Mini to show that it works in all browsers):
i have tried sending a Hindi SMS to a hindi enabled Nokia phone and it has worked seamlessly!!
However, it should be noted that this solution is not a localization engine. The dates and few other things get localized because they happen to use localized fonts which are installed by this font engine. Hence, most of the menu items of Windows Mobile are not rendered in Hindi but in default English.
Now, if you want your Windows Mobile to start showing you things in Hindi, you can download the solution FREE of cost from here: http://www.eyron.in
The solution is designed for Microsoft Windows Mobile-based devices with a touch screen for Windows Mobile 5 and Win Mobile 6 Professional.
remember, this solution is not to localize WM to Hindi, but rather enable WM to get Hindi input and show Hindi characters on the UI (not changing the UI elements from eng to hindi)..
Let me know what you think of this solution.
“Microsoft community drives Microsoft products” – a statement that would make you roll with laughter, isn’t it? it did for me too till i attended the User Group Leads meet organised by Microsoft. it is here that i witnessed the seriousness with which the user group community goes about its job (i had earlier tweeted about this).
User Groups is the life blood of the Microsoft communities (other community avenues include blogs, forums, webcasts and events) in India… there are more than 40,000 known users spread across India in numerous professional user groups in various cities (there are another equal nos. in student user groups)… the bangalore user group can alone boast of more than 10,000 users (truly amazing).. with more than 71 user group sessions in the last year alone, u can’t be far away from one happening in any large city of the country.
The user group leads were a very attentive and enthusiastic bunch who met the MS folks with great deal of passion and feedback. the commitment from MS folks was more than evident with around 10 MS employees present to engage with the community leaders. Not only were the user group leads eager to provide feedback, they also spent significant time exchanging notes and sharing their vision of the user groups with each other.
The focus wasn’t only on the established user groups like in Mumbai but also on the emerging ones e.g. in Jaipur. the most exciting moment was the User Group award time:
the BEST Developer User Group for the country was found to be the Bangalore User Group. the BEST Networking Professionals User Group was the Bangalore IT Pro User Group. Amongst the new or emerging user groups in the country, Chennai .NET User Group was adjusted as the best and Hyderabad Techies was the choice in the IT Pro UG section.
If you want to enhance/ share your knowledge with the community, head over to http://www.microsoft.com/india/communities/usergroups/default.aspx to find the user group in your city and join the same. Joining any MS User Group anywhere in the country is absolutely FREE. The quality of speakers in the user groups is surprisingly high with most being MVPs, Microsoft Employees and other reputed speakers.
If you know of an active MS community that is not mentioned in the list above, please leave a comment here and I will take the responsibility of getting it listed
Live Mesh technical preview has expanded to include Canada, India and Ireland (English only).
So what is Live Mesh you might wonder? Live Mesh is supposed to be a platform on which anyone would be able to build applications using the basic services of synchronization across the devices done over internet. Mesh, true to its name, will enable users to reach their information and applications irrespective of the machine they are currently working on (think entire Office running on any computer you log on without having to install app on every machine)…
As of today, Live Mesh team has made only some of these experiences available. These experiences are:
- Files that automatically get syncronised on all the machines that run this program (sort of Foldershare)
- Online file storage (sort of Skydrive)
- Online group collaboration (sort of Groove)
- Remote Desktop Viewing (sort of SharedView)
The cool thing here is the seamless implementation of Software + Services. The cloud becomes a core part of the Mesh system.
To experience this path breaking technology in India, go here: www.mesh.com
You can pass on your feedback about Live Mesh at the forums..
CAUTION: There is still a maximum limit on the number of users for the Technology Preview. However, anyone in the allowed countries can sign-up with no delays or wait list as long as they are below the limit. So don’t delay the sign up!
Congratulations Countrymen!
May peace and sense prevail..
Software piracy is bane to all the software developers in the country and ultimately hurts the reputation of the country on the world stage. in order to establish ourselves as respected, India needs to tighten its laws & enforcement against software piracy.
I have always believed that any law enforcement has to be done on a citizen – govt. partnership (see my trafficviolators.com initiative).. A citizen plays an equally important part in this education and enforcement.
Microsoft has now enabled people to report its software piracy. If you are in India and observe any software piracy of Microsoft software you have the option of reporting the same in the following ways:
Method 1: E-mail piracy@microsoft.com.
Method 2: Call the Microsoft Hotline at 1800-111100 (from MTNL & BSNL landline) or 1800-1021100 (from Mobile and Airtel)
Method 3: Fill out an online reporting form.
More details are available here:
https://www.microsoft.com/resources/howtotell/reports/report.aspx
This post is thanks to the meeting with an iphone enthusiast over the weekend. Now this iphone enthusiast isn’t from India and has been using an iphone for some time alongwith his Mac. While checking out the cool interface of the iphone we casually started to compare the features of his iphone with the HTC Windows Mobile we were carrying.
this is more relevant as airtel and vodaphone are planning to come out with iphone 3G soon in India (for airtel the launch is fixed on Aug 22nd)… while the pricing is not yet disclosed, i would assume that they may cost around 30K in India. and the irony is that in India there isn’t a single 3g network and the ones most likely to get are the govt. carriers like BSNL
What follows below are some discoveries we made in that friendly comparison:
iphone has cooler interface than Windows Mobile. Agree. One of us has tried to include a iphone shell (iPhonz) on Win Mobile but the quality of that shell was really bad and the phone had to be rebooted.. i am now running a skin that emulates the slide to unlock feature..
we all agreed that apple is a control freak and iphone is a marvel of their work! you can’t get any app on the phone if you don’t buy it off the apple store without jailbreaking the iphone (voids the warranty!!).. meaning thereby you have to pay for every app you install on iphone.. windows mobile comes with numerous applications developed by the community and are available for Free (a good site to get this freeware: http://www.1800pocketpc.com)..
the commercial applications that you develop for iphone have to be hosted on the apple store and they keep a cut off your IP.. no such bull crap for windows mobile… you get to keep the money on what you developed..
the iphone is going to come out in 1 or max 2 versions… very limited choice.. 
i.e. if i wanted a qwerty keyboard i can’t do anything or a slider keyboard.. windows mobile does offer you that option from multiple vendors.
the iphone is really maimed on the following accounts:
- no copy paste of contents (e.g. email/ SMS text) or files from one location to another (how can one NOT have this??)
- no bluetooth transfer of anything i.e. mp3, images, videos
- can’t use iphone as wireless modem for your PC.. hence you can’t share your internet with your own PC..
- the camera is a simple 2 MP and can’t record video
- no Java support (thereby a lot of existing apps won’t work)
- the battery is locked inside the phone.. changing the same means getting to the apple store…
- Can’t send MMS.. imagine this!!
- no FM radio
- can’t use MP3 files as ringtones..
- can’t use ipod as external storage device to carry documents, pictures etc.
- there are no expansion slots available apart from built in memory..
- no flash or silverlight support
- no office apps installed… i.e. u can’t read documents on iphone or quickly revise your presentation
- if you are a coporate customer you don’t any security features like remote wipe if ur phone gets stolen or any corporate management server to manage mobile devices..
Well it is upto you to buy into the hype or be intelligent and make an informed choice..
Blogging is easy – blogging right is difficult! A little help is always useful if you are planning to blog right.. The book “Blogger – Beyond the Basics” by Lee Jordan proved to be my bridge from blogging to blogging brilliantly..
The book is for users who have just entered the blogging field and would like to create a name for themselves in the blogosphere. The book quickly ramps you up from beginner to an advanced level user with ability to derive maximum out of your blog.
This book is for those who want to use Google’s Blogging platform – Blogger. However, many tips in the book go beyond blogger and are generally useful for anyone. This is the first book that i have found in the market that covers blogging. Frankly I have also thought about writing a book on blogging but never went beyond the initial TOC.
The key to blogging (as you may have heard) is content. Without appealing content, a blog will not get readers. This book is about getting the platform right so that your content can create maximum impact. At one place in Chapter 9 the author does provide interesting suggestions on how to discover content that you could be writing based on the keywords.
The book starts by introducing a fictional business that wants to ensure its social presence in Chapter I. The next chapter logically dives into creation and customization of the site look. It is here that they cover conversion to a 3 column layout (my absolute favourite!).. The interesting part of the book is inclusion of 3rd party tools and sites apart from blogger platform itself making it relevant to the person rather than the tool.. chapter 3 is all about social bookmarking including introduction to quintessential feedburner.com.. The theory on blogging isn’t left out as it makes its appearance in Chapter 4 and covers blogrolls, backlinks and suggestions on how to get ur blog interesting.. The blogger platform let’s you extend the functionality e.g. polling, slideshow, 3rd party badges on the site using widgets.. if ur interested, they even introduce you to setting up ecommerce on blogger.. for the tinkerers, you can get ur fill by learning to create custom widgets! yes, it is not that difficult (but u don’t know that if you haven’t read this book ).. Web 2.0 is driven by RSS and the guts are opened up for you in Chapter 6. by now, you are expected to know everything that is there to know technically about this platform..
so how about making some money like a pro? Chapter 7 gets u started with google adsense & leaves u with more options of making money $$.. Chapter 8 covers 
analytics and measuring site performance with google analytics.. and if u thought adding the javascript was all there was to this chapter, you will be surprised by the comprehensive coverage of analytics here. Oh and they don’t leave you just yet.. the final pillar is the SEO and that is taken care of in Chapter 9.. some great tools and techniques are presented here and this is generic to all bloggers on any platform.. and if you are only running a blog, you are done with here. for all corporate honchos with their static corporate websites, the final chapter 10 covers integrating blog with their corporate website..
Since i have been a blogger user for long, this book proved extremely useful for me. The book is complete with required screenshots and contains code where required. The screenshots are useful and the code provided immediately relevant.
The language of the book is a tard dry but I am ok with it (after having read numerous technical manuals).
While the book covers a lot of ground I would have loved some case studies on popular blogs that would have customised blogger. Information on how regular users have found blogger useful for them would also have been a welcome addition.
One can only gauge the relevance of the book based on the impact it has had on one’s blog. For me I have implemented the following after reading the book:
- Converted my layout to 3 column and expanded my template to 1024 pixels
- Put up a comments feed (i had been looking for this for sometime now)
- Added a sitemap for the blog
- Verified the blog with google and live search webmaster tools
- Changed the blog XML Validation from Strict to Transitional
- Changed the Facebook profile from vertical to horizontal
I am sure that there is something for you in the book that is waiting to be discovered. really, this is worth a read if you are in the blogging world and are using the blogger platform!
and if you are in the Delhi/ NCR region, do remember to setup urself with fellow bloggers in Delhi at www.delhibloggers.in.. u can work out the finer details with other folks from the group…
MY RATING: 5 on 5
