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TechEd 2009 already gave us details on Windows 7 and Office 2010 this week, and now it’s Windows Mobile 6.5′s turn. After the first day of the conference, a panel was put together and asked to talk about developing applications for Windows Mobile 6.5. I could not find the video uploaded on YouTube, so I’ve uploaded it on Vimeo and embedded it below (warning: it’s 42 minutes and 45 seconds long):
Although the Obama administration is indicating that it will be more aggressive about enforcing antitrust regulations, the European Union has been pursuing high-profile cases for years, having levied a large fine against Microsoft back in 2004, and hitting the software giant again last year. The latest target of the EU’s Competition group is the chipmaker Intel and, this morning, the EU announced that it too would face a hefty fine: slightly over €1 billion, which comes in just shy of $1.5 billion. Intel is already promising to appeal but, in the meantime, it’s going to have to drop over half a year of its current profits into a bank account in case its appeal fails.
The full decision, which is over 500 pages long, hasn’t yet been released to the public, but a summary of the EU’s case is available. It focuses primarily on the company’s pricing practices during the years 2002-2005, when Intel was facing growing competition from AMD in the desktop and server space. The EU authorities also cite an instance of similar practices in the notebook space in 2007, a time when that market was rising in prominence.
The Commission has concluded that Intel paid one manufacturer to delay the release of AMD business desktops, keep them from being sold through distributors, and block their sales to enterprise customers.
Again to sum up, TechEd 2009 has brought us fresh headlines for Windows 7, Office 2010, and Windows Mobile 6.5. So, what else is worth talking about? How about the Microsoft Surface. The company quietly (sans press release) announced that Service Pack 1 for the super-duper coffee table has been released. Apparently the service pack is the result of feedback from more than 180 partners in 11 countries who are developing on the Microsoft Surface. SP1 is meant to make development on the platform faster and easier: the SDK supports development on any .NET framework and is optimized for WPF and XNA.
Surface can run multiple applications simultaneously, but only with SP1 is it easy to tell if an application in the background needs your attention, thanks to a small notification on the side. Surface is also now easier to set up since you can calibrate without needing to plug in an external display. SP1 gives users more visual feedback about where they’ve touched and where they should have touched to select a specific item. Also, where applicable, Surface will let the user know that he or she cannot zoom into a specific object by showing lines leading away from the object. Below is a quick list of features that have been added; I think the Microsoft Update one is the most important one (and it probably should have been there from the start):
Intel’s Linux-based Moblin platform, which is designed to run on Atom-based netbook devices, has gained the backing of numerous Linux distributors. Novell jumped on the Moblin bandwagon last year and has participated in the development effort. In an announcement on Thursday, Novell revealed that it has signed an agreement with Intel and plans to boost its involvement with the project.
In an effort to make the project more inclusive and transparent, Intel recently invited the Linux Foundation to host ongoing Moblin development. Novell was a vocal supporter of this move and expressed enthusiasm for Moblin and the project’s potential capacity to accelerate the advancement of Linux in the mobile space. As part of the company’s new agreement with Intel, Novell has committed to build its own Moblin-based distro to offer to hardware makers.
Novell will also establish its own Linux labs in Taiwan to collaborate with a Moblin development facility that Intel launched in the country last year as part of a partnership with Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs. Intel is building a very strong presence in Taiwan, where the company is investing in both Moblin development and a major WiMAX rollout.
Earlier this week we learned that Microsoft would be giving out the Office 2010 Technical Preview to select testers on an invite-only basis. In January, screenshots of the alpha (then still codenamed Office 14) were leaked a week after select testers got them. This time, testers don’t even have the Technical Preview yet, but new screenshots have already arrived (see below). Office 2010 will be available in 32-bit and 64-bit, and both flavors have been leaked.
The most important part to remember here is that this version is build 14.0.4006.1010. The build number of the official Technical Preview, which is scheduled for two months from now, is not known, so it is perfectly possible that this is not the build that testers will be getting.
Office 2010 includes Access 2010, Excel 2010, InfoPath 2010, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010, PowerPoint 2010, Project 2010, Publisher 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010, SharePoint Workspace 2010, Visio 2010, and Word 2010.
Honestly, this really isn’t much different from the Office 2007 setup. You may note that not all the applications are here. That is because this setup is for the Professional Plus SKU. I did not bother taking screenshots of the installation for Project, SharePoint Designer, or Visio. Without further ado, here are the screenshots from the 64-bit version.
Last week, Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 arrived on MSDN, TechNet, and Connect. We noted that testers would not be getting slipstreamed ISOs of the operating systems but that MSDN and TechNet subscribers would be getting them soon enough. This week, Microsoft started putting up the downloads, and it looks like they’re pretty much all there. If you’re a subscriber, head over to the corresponding download page on MSDN or TechNet and put that bandwidth to good use. Below is a list of the SP2 downloads that Microsoft is now offering.
I’ve written before about how hard it is to find a good hosting provider, and how Ipowerweb and Hosting Zoom didn’t quite work for me. It’s hard to get good advice with all the lucrative referral programs, which seem to have spawned a whole genre of fake hosting review websites. That’s why I thought I’d share my experiences with Pair Networks. If you’re looking for a good, reliable host and are willing to spend a bit more, I suggest you read on.
I moved my personal sites from Hosting Zoom to Pair four and a half months ago, and setup was about as easy as it gets. Pair does not use CPanel, so I had to move the sites manually, but it really only took me a couple of hours, and was no trouble at all.
It took me a while before I felt at home in Pair’s own control panel, but it’s really very well designed, and incorporates ticket support and billing. All explanatory text are also very clear, unlike in CPanel. I actually prefer my.pair.com over CPanel, even though I’ve used the latter for quite a while and had gotten used to its layout and quirks.
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