Visual Studio Shortcuts

These are some of the Visual Studio keyboard shortcuts that come handy while editing your code.

The post will be updated whenever I come across a new shortcut.

• Ctrl + M + O – Collapse all code snippets (functions)
• Ctrl + M + L – will expand all snippets
• Ctrl + M + P – will expand all and disable outlining
• Ctrl + K + D – indents the code.
• Ctrl + E + C – will comment the selected section of code
• Ctrl + E + U – will un-comment the selected section of code
• Ctrl + Shift + S – Save All

Error working with COM

Recently got this error while working with COM components


Error: Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {91493441-5A91-11CF-8700-00AA0060263B} failed due to the following error: 80070005 Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED)).


You will come across this error only when you deploy it to IIS. It would work smooth on the local host. This is because the IIS user doesn’t have permission to access the COM/DCOMs

Solution:

1. Go to component services

2. Click on Computers

3. Select DCOM config

4. Find the DCOM object that you are using, in my case it was Presentation object

5.

6. Click on Add

7.

8.

Add IIS_USRS. Grant it local/Remote access.

It should work properly now.

Visual Studio Error – Insufficient_available_memory

I came across this error recently while working with Visual Studio 2010.

The error trace was:

Insufficient available memory to meet the expected demands of an operation at this time, possibly due to virtual address space fragmentation. Please try again later.


Solution:

Microsoft has released a hotfix that corrects this error. The patch can be found here :- Patch

Installing and executing the exe solves the problem

VSTS 2010 – My Experience.

Hello Readers,

I was very obliged and happy to be given a chance to attend the Visual Studio Team Suite 2010 Pitfall at Hyatt Regency on the 7 of October. It was a good learning experience, though most part of the session was not actually meant for students, but yeah, it was a learning experience. I would love to share the details (how much ever, I could grasp) with you.

Well, the event went off with a thought, “Where do you want to go?” This perhaps had been Microsoft’s campaign few years back. The speaker had given a lot of stress on this, throughout the seminar. It was thought-provoking. It made me think too.

Well, all he wanted to do was to highlight how things have simplified, moving from traditional compilers and editors to IDE’s to, now, Team Suite’s and Team Foundation Server. It has indeed simplified the entire process of product development.

Evolution:
Separate Editors and Compilers had been the developer’s tools in 1970’s. With editing the code in one environment to moving to a different, for compiling and testing. This gave way to IDE’s in 1990’s.
The scenario, then, was, having IDE’s built over various Build Tools, Test Tool and Source Code management Tools. This simplified the work to a good extent, however, there wasn’t any sense of comfort when it came to developing collaboratively in a Team environment.

Probably, this paved way for the development of Team Suite and Team Foundation Server. Although there was a VSTS 2008, VSTS 2010 is believed to be a much scaled version of 2008 including many functionalities which 2008 didn’t have.

VSTS Internals:
VSTS, at the core, contains a Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, that serves as the single Repository for all tools that are used by the IDE.

To name a few, the tools included in the Foundation Server are:
1. Tools for Work Item Tracking
2. Project Management
3. Version Controlling
4. Build Automation

And above all this, is the very enhanced Reporting Services (I shall mention about it, later).

This is the Architecture Diagram (or the Stadium Diagram, as they call it, probably since it looks more like a stadium)

the Architecture Diagram

As shown in this diagram, VSTS includes several API’s for Architecture Designing, Development, Test and Test Essentials.

And apart from this, it has the usual support for Sharepoint Services, Office Applications etc. As one of the speaker had put it, VSTS was more like a SOA in a Box. Well, it does look like one. All the plugins (or whatever they can be called) are services.

One thing I loved about the discussion was the simplified Versioning tools. VSTS 2010 can also do UX/UI versioning.

The debugging of the projects have been simplified to a great extent. VSTS has something known as Historical Debugger. As one of the speaker said, “With Historical Debugger, While Application runs, it can collect any form of data; viz. registers, logs etc and can be monitored. It also gives suggestions regarding how/why/when did it fail”

One more exciting feature showcased was the Lab Management feature. Using this, we can create a pool of Virtual Machines. Each machine could be used to run different instances of different servers. All this can be used extensively for testing purposes. An example of this could be, Suppose I want to test my application and I want to utilize SQL Server, BizTalk and things like that, so Lab Management can help me create virtual machines of each of the server instances and I could test my project on the single Foundation Server itself.

Reporting:

This was something very catchy. The reporting tools have been improved a lot. The sample reporting that I was shown was something like this. It was a report for a product development that had spanned for some 3 odd months. The report was a graphical representation of the work progressed since inception. The demarcations were Active Work, Resolved Work and Ended Work. I wish I could show you the snapshot of it, but I am afraid I don’t have one now.

But anyways, the report was so simplified and self explanatory. It could be used quite effectively for tracking the progress of the product.

In that report, there was this sample bulge in the area covering “Resolved” and decline in the area spanned by “Ended”. So this makes sense that during that time period of the development, the development team had resolved most of the bugs while the Testing team was yet to authenticate or pass the changes. Well, It might not seem to be some Big-Deal when you read it here, but believe me, it would be a great tool in analyzing the progress of the product development.

Well Guys, this is all I can write, as of now, about VSTS 2010. I would do more research and use it and update you further.

Some of the details might sound amateur as of now, I’ll try to improvise the article over a period of time.

All in all, the event was a good learning curve. I enjoyed it, right from being asked by that cute receptionist about my business card (If any, but yeah I shared my IVY card) to ending the session with some awesome lunch.

—
http://ivyventures.in || http://learneasy.in

StartUp

Hello Readers,

All this while, people had been asking me to blog, not to forget my sweet classmates.

Well, I had been really tied up in setting up my First Startup. We call it IVY Ventures. IVY is all into Streaming Media over the internet.

IVY recently launched it’s first product, LearnEasy which I am really happy to share with you guys. LearnEasy is a revolutionary and innovative product which aims at simplifying the troubled, congested lives of Engineering Student.

It revolutionizes the way Engineering is taught.

With, taking lectures live (@ a moderate bandwidth internet connections) sitting on the couch of your home, sipping a coffee and thus enjoying studying, to learning concepts with Animations. It has it all.

Well, the offers leanreasy offer doesn’t end with just education. Our revolutionary model helps you to be fit for the corporate level! We don’t leave you once the semester is over. While in the vacations we offer you an option of taking Internships and Attending our very innovative Eight Steps to Corporate Program.

Yes, we leave you only when you have stepped into the corporate! 🙂

Visit LearnEasy for more details.

I would recommend all my readers to join us on Facebook @learneasy, which would be the most happening spot.

It’s my first startup, something emotionally attached to me. I need your wishes, your Good Lucks and all your support that you have always given me

Community Blog

Hello Readers,

Its again after a lot of gap that I resume blogging..

Have had a tough vacation, lots of things are happening around. Couldnt take time out for blogging.

Anyways, and one more reason for the lump in blogging is wordpress :@
The restrictions on most of the things in WP is irritating.

Well, planning to move out of WP and get started with a blogging website. Planning of a community driven blogging website, wherein people from varied domains can contribute to blogging.

Sounds exciting at first go, doesnt it?.

People interested in participating in the project can get in touch with me.

What can you do with Dreamspark Verification keys?

Hello readers!

Lots of people have been asking me as to what is the use of providing DreamSpark verification keys when the dvd’s themselves have one in it?

There are 2 ways in which you could make use of your DreamSpark verification keys:

1. Use it to download stuff online:
You can potentially use your DreamSpark verification keys to download entire range of Microsoft Software at no cost for educational purposes.
The softwares available for download are quite exhaustive ranging from Visual Studio to Expression suites and SQL Server etc. It also includes DeepZoom, Photosynth etc.
You can find more information on the available softwares and more on DreamSpark Global and DreamSpark India

2. Use it to verify the software setups:
The second thing which you could do (I doubt whether doing this is official, but it is rather very helpful) is borrow a DreamSpark DVD from your friend and install the setup in your machine. Later get these software setup verified using the DreamSpark verification key.

Utilizing the DreamSpark verification keys is important because you generally don’t easily find a DreamSpark DVD (For hunting one, you need to go to the nearest NIIT or a Aptech centre and get a DVD by producing your I-Card.) However, if you know any of your friend having a DVD, its saves on your effort 🙂

For more information on DreamSpark and other academic initiatives, contact the Microsoft Student Partner of your college.

Group Chat.

Tired of the un-organized group chat of GTalk?

Try using Tiny Chat

It lets you create chat rooms at the run-time and also lets u invite any one in the room by just passing over the url of the newly formed room.

Though its relatively slower, but surely, a great piece of work.

Keep Away!

Another fresh one out of the web!

Addicted to any particular website? Do you crawl over and over again to a website due to curiosity? Wanna be reminded every interval of not going to that website????

Jump over to this amazing web 2.0 product

Thanks to Jeetu Udasi for providing us the link.

After Break, Its social networking! :-)

Hey guys,

Sorry for being out of blogging for around a month now. I had been facing some issues and was finding it hard to take time out.

I also got to hear a lot from some of the blog followers for not updating. Jeetu Udasi, my fellow MSP guys, ppl back in class! But the latest one from Masoom really bugged me, “Search Engines are tired of crawling over your Dead Blog” was his remark over my excuse of not taking out time to blog! 😦 , Okay, so this made me think.

Well, apart from this, I had been talking to masoom, this guy is a web 2.0 freak and a fellow MSP as well, so apparently, I always end up learning a lot from this guy whenever we talk. We were having a debate over the existence of the social networks.

While I believed that social networking is gradually becoming stale in people’s mind, this guy had some contradicting ideas. Many analyst believe that the era of social networking has seen a lot and that the time has come for them to vanish.

While Orkut has its presence still felt in many parts of Brazil and India, it has not seen much of popularity elsewhere. Contradicting to this, Facebook and Myspace etc. are still very active.

Many social networks are now trying to think different to make people be hooked on to their networks, some of the examples being the introduction of games and various other applications, wherein people in the network can play multi-player games over the networking sites.

However, while the discussion with masoom was still on, he provided me with one more effort of such networking sites to help them stay alive or in other words try to refresh the idea of social networking in the minds of people, which has of-late become stale!

You should read his blog, where he tells about the new Facebook + Bluetooth powered social network.

I would love to hear your comments on the “Existence of Social Networks”, the more you comment, the more you would learn and also let others learn!

Well, Jayesh Sidhwani’s Blog is now also on Twitter, to follow, go on to Twitter

---

MSP

Hello guys, sorry for not blogging throughout the vacations.
Well, I had been very busy with my MSP work
We had conducted few seesions on C#.NET in VIT college.

Apart from that, some good news that I got to hear is that, (from whatever I know) 2 more guys from our college are being interviewed for being the Microsoft Student Partner. AWESOME!!

It would be a lot of fun to have many MSP’s around in VESIT. Apart from fun, VESIT could expect some good sessions in this semester. Well, lets just hope that we atleast get one more MSP.

Something else that I wanted to share was that MSP’s are having a Developers’ Conference in Pune (this is kinda first boot-camp for us). Developers’ Conference would have lots of techie stuff all through the day.

I will definitely take time off to blog all that would happen at the Developers’ Conference. So stay tuned for next few days.

Cheers 🙂

The battle continues…

Hey friends, its been a lot of time since I blogged. Well the chapter of the browser war continues further 😛
All my previous posts on the browser war took a very controversial mode with everyone having their word on the matter whenever they met me!

Well, now, I have got one more word at the war! 😉

Open Source has always been very exciting, with lots of open source projects doing great wonders. One such product is the Firefox.

Since, It had been started, it was heavily funded by GOOGLE to carry out its operation. The main motive of GOOGLE in doing so was that Firefox had GOOGLE Search as the default search engine in their browser. With Windows Live Search in IE’s, Firefox helped GOOGLE, give a tough fight to Live Search.

But, however, since GOOGLE has come up with its Chrome, its being speculated that GOOGLE has been planning to pull out all that it has been funding Firefox.

Chrome has GOOGLE Search as its default search engine and since Chrome has been out of beta, things are poised to be unaffected even after GOOGLE pulls out of Firefox.

GOOGLE search had gained a lot of acceptance after their Firefox tie-up. Earlier, since IE is shipped with Windows, the usage of MSN search and IE was very high, occupying nearly 80% of the market.

However, as per the stats, the usage of MSN search was brought down to 65% shortly after the GOOGLE-Firfox tie-up!

---

I will try to get more and more on this Browser War as and when I come across any good stuff.

Mr Steve “Missing” Jobs!

---

Well, this is my first Apple post. 🙂 Apple has always been one of my most admired companies.

Apple has always been closely associated with the MacWorld. Infact, the first ever Apple computer created by Wozniak and other apple guys was launched at one such exhibition. The massive response that these guys got from this expo led to the creation of the Giant Apple, which in no time turned the wave on IBM (which was jobs’ only motive at that point in time). Gradually and eventually Apple grew bigger and bigger until in late 80’s Steve was chucked out of his Apple and was in exile for 12 years to return back in ’97. And what a return was that!

While, most of the Apple fans love to have Steve in Apple, many others were not so! His highly expensive Macintosh was not accepted by the investors. Macintosh happens to be Steve jobs’ pet project and he left nothing undone to promote Macintosh.

Ever since, MacWorld was started, Steve Jobs had been an integral part of it. The all famous, keynote used to be delivered by him.

---

---

However, with the announcement of the next MacWorld, it was surprisingly, annonced that Steve would not be giving the keynote. Steve’s absence from Apple have once again raised many questions. Many beleive that he would be again chucked from the company, he is a co-founder of.  While some others believe that his constant health issues have pushed him out of work. And an Apple response to this was that, since this would be Apple’s last presence at MacWorld, they do not want Steve to be disturbed! 😛 Amidst this confusion, Apple investors seem to have lost interest, and Apple share isn’t doing any good either.

Many Apple fans cherish his exit (which they believe could happen) they say, “You can’t bet all your products to do wonders by just adding an i in front of all your products.” And, many others are just losing their sleep over the issue. 😦

---

Steve Jobs’ Resume

Imagine Cup

Hello Friends,
Its been quiet some time since I have last blogged. This time rather I have one interesting news for you.

Usually the Round-1 Software Design Challenge of the Imagine cup used to be in the end of December, but this time rather, its been scheduled for January. Yes, the Deadline for the submission of the round-1 abstract for the Software Design has been pushed to 31st January 2009.

So you guys have one more chance to prove your mettle, Since the exams would be getting over by the 9th Jan, you would get sufficient time to prepare for the Round-1.

If you have still not registered,jump right here to the IC registration page.

Have a great time.
Cheers.

---

Windows SE7EN Pics

Some more pics, shared by The Microsoft Man! himself 🙂

See More.

---

---

Mini Keyboard.

This is a great gadget, I got hold of. It’s a mini or a micro (I must say :-)) keyboard. Just bigger than a palm 🙂

The keyboard has 83 keys. It also has a support to bluetooth technology and connects to devices via it. As of now, the device can only get connected to PC’s.

---

BUY

Is it a fight….. or ??? GOOGLE Chrome

Well, it was very un-assuming that GOOGLE Chrome has come out of beta. Yes, GOOGLE has finally moved Chrome out of the beta testing mode to release Chrome 1.0.

Read on…

---

PhotoResizer

Recently, my friend Bhavik Vora had released a new version of his application – PhotoResizer 0.5.You can use this utility to resize/convert pictures. You can select images in bulk and also drag and drop them and inturn resize the pictures. Zipping the output files is also possible.

For more info on this.

Features of this release:

• Select Bulk Images to resize
• Drag and Drop Image files for resizing
• Resize Image by Percentage and Pixels
• Control Quality of resized Images
• Zip the output resized Images
• Conversion and resizing of bmp and png resizing to jpg

Well, this really has been one of the finest works by Bhavik!

POLL

just trying out the polls of polldaddy!

HINDAWI

Programming has always been fun. But What if one gets to code in its own mother tongue? and not only in English???

Well, Hindawi is just another Open Source project aimed at making programming more fun and feasible. Hindawi aims at making regional equivalents of most of the famous programming languages. It’s basic intention is to remove the language barriers that inhibit most of the programmers from programming. 

Currently, Hindawi has come up with Hindi C++, Hindi BASIC and many more for its Indian customers. Likewise, Hindawi aims at coming up with the same programming languages for various other countries in their respective regional equivalents.

Hindawi has been the winner of the FOSS India Awards 2008.

Programming in regional languages had always been a matter of debate in almost every ICT conference, perhaps its the time when the world realize this. 

I just wonder how would it be like for a programming enthusiast, who had always been on the back-foot due to English language, to use HIDAWI…

Visit Hindawi

Happy Birthday!

Well, there is a very unassuming, fascinating birthday lined up.

While browsing a few days back, I came know that December 09 happens to be our dear mouse’s birthday. Yes! your very own mouse that helps you crawl through the web.

The Mouse was invented by Mr Engelbart, 40 years back.

So, lets wish your respective mice, a very Happy Birthday ! 🙂

Now, We can do our bit to save Electricity…

Hello,

This post is for all those (including me) who have always wanted to put a control on excess and wasteful electricity consumption. I had been browsing some days back, when i got to know about this great site powered by GOOGLE search. Its BLACKLE

It uses a plain black screen and it asserts on having saved 956,099.360 Watts until now Isn’t that just awesome? Being powered by GOOGLE search, it gives you almost similar search results as GOOGLE. So jump to blacke, if you haven’t, till now

The Fight of the Explorers to rule the market!

Well the fight of the Internet Browsers is getting tougher day by day. We had seen the much hyped release of Chrome earlier this year.

Chrome, however, managed to make it big initially but it went down badly later. Microsoft’s IE still rules the market with over 70% share, followed by Mozilla Firefox.

Chrome was not that bad initially. But later it had been caught by some very bad bugs. One of my experience of using Chrome was, when i tried to open GOOGLE from it, it constantly kept showing MALWARE detected :-p

Apparently, GOOGLE has been pushing hard to re-brand Chrome. Of late, GOOGLE has released an Update (0.4.154.25) for Chrome.

All that, one can sense is that there is a tough competition ahead for all these major players.

VESIT rocked at IC! :-)

The IT Challenge round2B had seen a great turnout from this Microsoft-friendly VESIT.

Apart from having a good turnout, many have successfully qualified for the round 2 of IT Challenge.
Ms. Sneha Ledwani (SE-IT) has scored a whooping 18/30 (she is the India Highest for this quiz), Ankit Koradia (SE-Comps) has scored 15/30 and Samiran Saha (SE-Somps) had scored 15/30 in the quiz 2A.

These being few amongst the many VESITians whos have scored some awesome totals at the quiz. We Congratulate all of you smart techies for your success.

Latest Windows 7 Pics.

Hello friends, I recently got hold of few awesome pictures of Windows 7, shared with me, by one of my dear friends Chetan Pawar. I know you would not be able to resist yourself from seeing those awesome pics. So jump right here to enter the all new WINDOWS…

Sessions On .NET

Hello once again.

Well I have a very good and exciting piece of news for all you people. We, MSP’s are planning to start off, taking sessions in our respective colleges. These initial session (on Visual Studio controls, C#.NET, VB.NET, ASP.NET, Silverlight etc) would help you people to have a good knowledge about various .NET technologies and we would try to give you a hand-on experience of creating some simple projects initially.

After few initial start-up sessions, we would concentrate on more complex .NET technologies (viz. Windows Server, HyperV etc.). Well its all up guys. We only need your support to make this a really learning experience. I expect all those interested people to please mail me at jayesh.sidhwani@student-partners.com about the date and time you prefer. It could be a day before the exams or days after the exams.

I need the number of you, friends willing to attend the sessions because i would need prior permission from the college authorities regarding the availabilty of class rooms. I hope to make this a great learning experience.

However, these sessions are meant to be held only in VESIT, but my friends from other colleges, if wish to have the sessions in their college, we could manage one. So if any of you want the sessions to be taken in your college by any of the MSP’s, please mail me at jayesh.sidhwani@student-partners.com or just comment down here. We would be pleased to take sessions in your college too.

Want To Become a MSP?

Well guys, its been quite some days after I had been chosen as the MSP for VESIT. For those of you, who have missed out the opportunity of being a MSP too, Microsoft has scheduled another selection process, The MSP Challenge Round.

Things are as simple as they could have been, you just need to do few odd things and off you go to become a MSP and join the elite club.

The registration process has started and its going to terminate on the 16th November. So move on quickly hereto learn more about it and register yourself for representing Microsoft (the thought itself is so awesome!!!). The process after the registration is very simple. You need to qualify for the round 2 of the IT Challenge(one of the categories in the Imagine Cup). After that you would have an Interview and may be few other selection processes. However you can start preparing for it as soon as you finish registering.

Imagine Cup

Well guys, Microsoft is at it again. In its seventh year, its again a dawn of the new Imagine Cup.
Imagine Cup is a global student technology competition focused on finding solutions to real-world issues. The competition encourages the world’s most talented software designers, programmers, game developers, photographers and filmmakers to tackle the toughest problems facing the world today. There are many categories in the Imagine Cup, on which you could work on.

Imagine Cup is one of the most premier competitions in the world, encouraging student to come up with brave new ideas. The competition does not end up with just winning or losing, if the idea turns out to be amazing it could also be taken up by the Imagine Cup partners for development and it can also be funded by many Venture Capitalists as well.

The round 1 of the Software Designing competition would start in the December (tentative), however the registrations have already started. So grab this opportunity of proving your mettle, globally.Few other competitions like the IT Challenge has already started, but you are never late with Microsoft, you can still participate in it. For more details jump here after reading the complete post 🙂

I request you to give my reference while registering. Its very simple. You just need to write my referral code: jayesh.sidhwani in the ref code box on the registration page. I would be happy to see most of you taking this opportunity to present yourself globally.

For further details on registering and the Theme for this year’s Imagine cup, just go here And please drop in a message at jayesh.sidhwani@student-partners.com if you have given my reference or have registered, since I (and Microsoft) got to keep a record of the number of students from Mumbai, participating in the Imagine Cup.

Microsoft PDC

Well, it has been quite sometime since the Professional Developer’s Conference of Microsoft concluded.
Reading about the conference was an amazing experience. Microsoft has come up with quite a number of releases with the PDC, few of them being, the release of the beta version of Windows 7, Microsoft’s Azure (Cloud Computing OS), Internet Explorer 8 and the release of Live Mesh for India (I shall be talking about Live Mesh in detail in the subsequent posts).

Azure:

Cloud Computing had always been fascinating ever since its release. I had earlier spoken about Cloud Computing in one of my posts (for getting a preview of Cloud Computing, I would request you to go here ). Well, Microsoft has now come up with a cloud based OS. Azure has been open for the developers interested in cloud based computing. MS’s chief software architect, Ray Ozzie said that “Azure won’t run on a company’s own servers, Rather it’s a service running on a vast number of machines housed in Microsoft’s own data centers.” Azure has definitely opened a new horizon in the area of cloud computing.

Windows 7:
For those who did not like the Windows Vista, (I bet, that none of you would have disliked the User Interface though) Microsoft has come up with a brand new Desktop Operating System, Windows 7. This is a pet project of Microsoft and the developers are betting high on its success. The UI of windows 7 however would be more or less similar to that of Vista, but however it definitely cuts down the glitches introduced by vista. MS promises that Windows 7 boots 20% faster than vista. Windows 7 is also supposed to be the first touch screen OS from Microsoft.

Live Mesh:
This is certainly one of the most awaited release of Microsoft in India. Though Live Mesh had been released for the US residents earlier this year, it had been released in India only after this PDC. Live Mesh is a Software + Service platform. It helps in data synchronization between various devices via a cloud based system. It also provides for a temporary 5GB online storage. With its release in India, Live Mesh is definitely worth giving a shot…

IE8: IE8 was much awaited because it gave MS one more chance to outdo GOOGLE. Though, Chrome wasn’t too bad initially, but somehow it drove away from the competition too early. As quoted by one of very good Hindustan Times analysts, “IE8 is a performer. It has all what Chrome and Firefox too, but with more power”. IE8 has many features to explore. Having started using IE8 recently, I still require time to know its functionalities completely. Well, to start of with IE8 beta, go here

This certainly wasnt all that was discussed and released at the PDC. Will try to update more on the PDC as and when i get time(have been bugged a lot by the exams).

DreamSpark

On 5^th November 2008, Microsoft unveiled DreamSpark – a software giveaway for an estimated 10 million eligible students in India. DreamSpark will provide students access to the latest Microsoft developer and designer tools at no charge.

Microsoft DreamSpark will be available to all students whose studies touch on technology, design, math, science and engineering. The software available to students will include:

Microsoft developer tools

• Visual Studio 2005 Express
• Visual Studio 2005 Professional
• Visual Studio 2008 Professional
• Visual Basic 2008 Express
• Visual C++ 2008 Express
• Visual C# 2008 Express
• Visual Web Developer 2008 Express
• XNA Game Studio 2.0
• 12-month free Academic membership in the XNA Creators Club

Microsoft designer tools

Expression Studio 2, including

o    Expression Web

o    Expression Blend

o    Expression Design

o    Expression Media

 

Microsoft platform resources

• SQL Server 2008 Developer
• SQL  Server 2008 Express
• Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
• Virtual PC 2007

Training Resources

• IT Academy Student Pass

This broad range of professional-level software will be available both online via www.dreamsparkindia.com and in offline format via DVDs distributed by program partners NIIT, Aptech and Hughes Net Fusion Centers. A student merely needs to offer a proof of identity at a branch of these institutes to avail of a DreamSpark DVD. There are 125 NIIT, 175 Aptech, and 200 Hughes Net Fusion Centers participating across the country.

These program partners will also provide technology training on the DreamSpark software tools at a nominal cost; as well as have the option of soft skills training in languages like English and Hindi. Microsoft India is also working with academic institutions, government bodies and student organizations across the country to ensure that all students get a chance to benefit from DreamSpark

The DreamSpark program in India is tailor-made to join the dots between software access and employability – which means making training and enablement complement simple access to technology.

DreamSpark will also facilitate student participation in Microsoft’s annual marquee contest, Imagine Cup, through various contest categories such as software design, short films, photography etc. Students from India that qualify for the Imagine Cup 2009 World Finals will get to travel to Egypt. Selected teams will also get the opportunity to get mentored by the Centre for Innovation, Incubation & Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM, Ahmedabad.

Addressing students and academicians at IIT Delhi – where the DreamSpark program was unveiled – Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft Corp, said, “We want to do everything we can to equip a new generation of technology leaders with the knowledge and tools they need to harness the magic of software to improve lives, solve problems and catalyze economic growth. Microsoft DreamSpark provides professional-level tools that we hope will inspire students like you to explore the power of software and encourage you to forge the next wave of software-driven breakthroughs.”

..this is a copy of the mail, i had received form Microsoft.

What does American Elections mean for India?

Well till now, India IT industry had thrived on US for most of the outsourcing, the only thing for which Indian IT industry is most famous ;-).

Now with Barack Obama taking the throne, things are poised to change. Obama has already hinted on having an anti-outsourcing legislation in the US, which would mean that there would be a certain drop in the number of projects outsourced by the US companies. This could have a direct and a serious impact on the Indian IT industries, however, this would mean an increase in the employment in the US though.

Barack Obama has also indicated some immigration-tightening measures. So, do we see a souring Indo-US IT relation???

Well, lets be optimistic and hope that the policies aren’t realised…

What does Barack Obama mean for Technology?

Well, it was pretty much obvious that Barack Hussein Obama would win the contest without much resistance, it was finally realised today… Sen. Obama, comfortably winning the US presidential elections. The youthfulness in him had always fascinated me and i used to be constantly waiting for his speeches wherein he used to put forth his commitments.

No wonder, what mattered to me, most, was his commitments towards Technology. Well, as far as the street gurus are to be beleived, Sen. Obama has always stood for a Tech savvy US. I got an opportunity to grab some of the advancements, Obama would be looking forward, towards Technology.

He supports an Electronic Health-Care System, He shall invest close to $10 billion over the next years to displace the current US healthcare system, and adopt a standardized electronic health information systems, which also includes maintaining electronic health records..

Of all the things Barack Obama commited, I found this the most interesting. Barack Obama is calling for an Open Government. Now, what this means for a common man is that, he would be able to participate in the government policy and decission-makings directly. Barack Obama is insisting on going high tech to facilitate for a larger common man interaction and shift the focus from the current scenario, wherein the government concentrates only on a chunk of some special interest groups for decission-makings.

Barack Obama wants to appoint a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the nation, which would be first of its kind in the nation…

He, finally, wants each American to have a broadband access. Irrespective of the economic background, each American would have equal privileges to accessing Broadband in U.S

hmm, So what else does US want?

MS-Office, now Online!!

Microsoft has made a major announcement at the PDC (Profesional Developers Conference). The chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie announced that MS shall be floating Online MS-Office applications. This would mean that now most of the Office applications can be used online from your browser.

However, the browser compatibility is still limited. The Office applications shall be compatible with IE, Safari, Firefox, as of now. Now users shall be able to edit and read the documents from their browser. Some of the office application included, shall be the lighweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.

Microsoft will be using 100% HTML and JavaScript for their applications. A touch of Silverlight was expected, but i fell the browser compatibilty of Silverlight would have put the plan on hold. However the pundits feel that the upgrades would soon have Silverlight used…

As of now the Office applications can be used for free. 

Next Up: More on this Online version of Office in coming days…stay tuned.

Small Basic

No wonder Microsoft has always stepped in whenever any sort of technology is required to “Ctrl + Z” any ongoing trouble. The Dev Labs has continued providing various technical solutions to many problem. One of the latest developments coming out of the Dev Labs, rather has already come out, is the “Small Basic” language.

Small Basic is a project that’s aimed at bringing “fun” back to programming, as beleived by its developer,S. Somasegar. It provides a small and easy way to learn programming and makes it more friendly and enjoyable. It has been, ideally, developed for kids but adults shall also enjoy it equally. It shall be a great experience for children to dive into programming with Small Basic.

No wonder, small basic has been inspired from the Basic. It is based on Microsoft’s .NET platform. Its astonishingly very small, having just 15 keywords and also the concepts are very minimal so as to allow an easy entry level into programming for the beginners.

Small Basic has some great features like intellisense, which make programming a fun. It also allows  third party library to be installed and used. Small Basic shall be an ideal choice for the beginners.

Is IT industry in crisis??

Well, the global economic instability has already shaken the world. The dreadful period has become a bookmark in the world economics.

It had all started in US. The increasing sub-prime loans by the banks against the mortgaged land were rampant. As rightly said by some financial gurus, It is difficult to sustain in an euphoric market. So, it did happen…

Well I dont really intend to highlight the causes and results of the dreadful recession that the US is going through (or, will go through). I only wanted to figure out why was the IT industry hit with a stick on its head?  The subprime losses were majorly due to the real estate property prices going down in the US and ulimately, banks not being able to recover their losses. So since the turmoil,had started due to property rates going down (and some related issues), why did it let down IT industry so badly, that the corporates had make every employee sit on bench, right from start???

Well after learning the causes of this chaos, the thought, of this IT industry, kept on disturbing me, until my brother finally gave me some respite by giving a brief account of the situation. Basically, since the banks suffered huge losses they began recovering those in anyway possible. However some of them could not sustain the turbulence and had to ultimately give up.

Since the banks were, themselves under a huge liquidity crunch,  it was not possible for them to lend to the corporates. Due to this, the IT budget was hit hard and the prospects of newer IT projects received a blow. The continued upsets in the banking community along with the liquidity crunch have taken a toll on IT industry…

Many leaders, like sen. Obama, think that the situation would be restored quickly, so do we hope. Ultimately my purpose for writing this is to show that the slowdown and the slump in the IT industry wont last longer (basically, it’s just to make me feel more relaxed) and soon we would see the industry blooming as it has always done…