Daily Archives: September 10, 2011

MCTS, MCTS Certification, MCTS Training, Microsoft, Tech, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Azure

5 Things Microsoft should do at BUILD

Can you hear it? Can you hear it coming? Microsoft’s Windows developer conference is almost here. BUILD kicks off September 13 in Anaheim, Calif., and it’s going to be big, big, BIG. Microsoft will give Windows 8 its formal unveiling — everything else before was just movie previews. No new Windows version is really official until Microsoft presents it to developers. 70-640 Training .”

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But there’s more. Microsoft moved its annual Financial Analyst Meeting from July to September, coinciding with BUILD. It’s a colossally smart move. Wall Street geeks and technophobes will have chance to get caught up in the energy and enthusiasm of Windows 8 — and Windows Phone “Mango”, too. Microsoft really needs to energize analysts about these products and how they’re not so much the past but vital forces for the so-called post-PC era.

I present five things Microsoft should do next week. These aren’t recommendations, since it’s too close to BUILD for Microsoft to follow my lowly advice. It’s what I expect from Microsoft, if the Windows operating system teams hope to churn up the kind of positive reaction that can ignite developers and spread the fire to Windows enthusiasts and customers.

1. Give everyone Windows 8 slates. No developer, no financial analyst, no news media attendee should leave BUILD without an ultraportable or tablet PC running Windows 8 beta. Hell, Google gave participants to its I/O developer conference Samsung Chromebooks and Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets. Microsoft should do even better.

There’s precedent. PDC 2009 developer attendees received free thin-and-light laptops designed by Microsoft and Acer. These portables were reference designs for developing apps. Microsoft should do at least the same next week.

“Windows 8 slates are great”. Now there’s a slogan.

2. Give all participants Mango smartphones. Why stop at ultrabooks or tablets? The first Mango smartphones are ready to ship, and Microsoft needs to rally developers. What? Microsoft should let its core use iPhones or Androids? Hell, no! Give developers phones and free cellular and data service for a year, if they personally use them. Make it hard to say no. Some wonky bloggers will scream “Bribery!” Frak them. Windows Phone is part of a larger Microsoft ecosystem of products and services (see #3).

3. Introduce a new far-reaching strategy: “Three screens and a cloud” Catchy, eh? For years Microsoft has talked about its three-screen and cloud strategies, separately and loosely connected. With the development and platform changes coming next week, Microsoft should formally and exactly tie together three screens and the cloud.

It’s clear that when looking at XNA, HTML5 and other technologies, Microsoft is rapidly unifying development around Windows 8, Windows Phone, Xbox and its cloud services. The vision must be communicated with absolute clarity and certainty next week, as much for financial analysts as anyone else. They have to see the vision of the Microsoft connected lifestyle. Too many of them drank the Apple Kool-Aid. Don’t believe that? Count how many analysts will be carrying iPhones and MacBook Airs or Pros next week.

4. Unveil a unified Windows marketplace, one place for apps of all varieties — cloud productivity, Internet Explorer 9, Windows Phone, Windows 7/8 and Xbox. Microsoft must present to developers and customers a connected business and personal lifestyle. A unified app store should be one of the experience’s pillars. Developers get the convenience and assured revenue confidence/piracy protection from a single, unified market for all Microsoft platforms.

5. Debut Metro OS. One of Windows 8’s most exciting new benefits is the tile-like Metro desktop UI, which is optimized for touchscreens. But behind it remains Windows legacy code for the seemingly zillions of enterprises and developers needing support for existing apps. Why not break out Metro instead, as a separate operating system? It would be much more than a Windows lite or embedded but much less than the legacy operating system.

Now that Windows will support ARM processors, Metro OS could be adapted for all kinds of touchscreen devices, everything from ATMs, to retail kiosks to tablets. Sure, Microsoft has Windows embedded, but Metro OS would be better because of the emphasis on touch. These third-party products could help sell Windows, too, because people would become used to the tile motif everywhere Microsoft Free MCTS Training and MCTS Online Training.

Metro OS also could extinguish Chrome OS. Google’s browser-based operating system has merit, but the motif is archaic in a touchscreen world. HTML5 already is core to Microsoft’s development approach for Metro UI. How hard would it really be for Metro OS to push Chrome OS into the waste bin?

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Don’t underestimate work productivity credentials of consumer tablets

Tablets are almost always a supplemental device for SMBs, helping employees stay more closely connected to work issues. The downside is that few companies protect tablets adequately.

The use case for supporting tablet computers within a small or midsize business is increasingly compelling from a productivity standpoint. I can say this with my gut because I rely on one myself to pare down my email frequently throughout the weekends and in the evenings, but I also happen to have backup evidence from two different surveys that I skimmed over the Labor Day weekend.

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It makes me wonder how many thousands of those Hewlett-Packard TouchPads that have been on fire sale for the past few weeks have been purchased by small businesses that — given the rock-bottom purchase price of $99 — don’t really care what happens when they break down. I don’t want to suggest that they are “disposable” but they sure are cheap at that price, so what do you have to lose?

Here’s the thing: Even though the latest generation of tablets have been around roughly 18 months since the introduction of the Apple iPad, almost 40 percent of small and midsize businesses have begun to adopt them, according to annual research on technology adoption trends by CompTIA, a technology trade organization. The research, which was released in July 2011, listed the following as the Top 6 uses:

Light work while traveling (68 percent)
Capture notes during meetings (54 percent)
Making presentations, in lieu of laptop (52 percent)
Point of sale transactions (50 percent)
Demo a product (47 percent)
Communications, in lieu of a smartphone (44 percent)

The base for the CompTIA data is interviews with 390 small and midsize businesses planning to use tablets.
The CompTIA research dovetails with data from Staples Advantage (which sells technology to business accounts) showing that approximately 80 percent of tablet users report having a better “work/life balance” as a result of using a table. There were approximately 200 tablet users surveyed for these results. Here are the primary purchase motivators:

Increased productivity (60 percent)
Staying connected to colleagues or clients (40 percent)
Easy to use because of its portability (90 percent)

Almost all of those surveyed are using tablets in conjunction with another device, not as the primary device.
The downside of tablets, of course, is security. When I chatted with Ed Ludwigson, vice president and general manager of Staples Technology Solutions, he said only about one-third percent of tablet users apparently are taking adequate steps to back up the data on the device. Fewer than 15 percent of them have either encryption or antivirus software on the device, he said.
SMBs need to pay more attention to tablet access control; Staples advocates using cloud-based applications so that data actually isn’t downloaded to the device itself. That way, if it is lost, the potential damage is minimized, Ludwigson said.
The other downside to tablets, in my mind, is that you wind up working around the clock instead of during predefined hours. Then again, that’s probably what most SMBs hope. As someone who MUST keep up with email, I am willing to live what that tradeoff.
See also:

The 10 hottest tablets of 2011
Lenovo to launch the IdeaPad A1, a 7-inch Android tablet for $199
Has HP done a “New Coke” with WebOS and tablets?
HP TouchPad: The calm before… a really long calm
Here come the ultrabooks: Evolution or revolution?
When disaster strikes your PC
Technology is the ultimate SMB leveler and enabler

Google

Google+ Tips: 4 Tools to Boost Your Social Networking Experience

Getting the hang of Google+ and looking for more? Check out these four Google+ tools that let you easily upload photos in bulk, find new people to follow, translate posts and more.

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CIO — While rumors continue to swirl about when the Google+ API will be released to developers, that’s not stopping some people from getting in on the Google+ action.

Whether you’re just starting out on Google+ or consider yourself an advanced user, more and more Google+ enhancements and add-ons are popping up across the Web.

Here’s a look at four new ones that do everything from streamlining bulk photo-uploading to helping you increase your network reach.

1. Google+ Photo Importer for iPhone
If you store your photos on multiple sites such as Facebook, Flickr, Instagram or Photobucket, there’s a new download available in the Apple App Store that lets you upload 100 photos in less than a minute to your Google+ account. This tool is especially handy if you plan on shifting your social networking focus to Google+.

The Google Plus Photo Importer by Dropico costs 99 cents, and while uploads I tested generally took longer than the advertised 60 seconds, it was still impressively fast.

10 Google+ tips for Beginners
Google+ Privacy: 5 Settings You Need to Know

2. Find People on Google+
Looking for more connections on Google+? While its own search feature only lets you find people by name, you can dig a bit deeper to find groups of people with certain characteristics at FindPeopleOnPlus.

Here, you can not only search for people by name, but you can also search by profession, location, relationship status, gender, education, employer, occupation and more, which makes growing your network and tailoring it to your needs a lot easier.

You can also choose to add yourself to its directory. This will keep your FindPeopleOnPlus profile updated and in-synch with your Google+ profile.

3. PlusClout
Akin to Klout.com, a site that measures your social media influence, PlusClout measures the influence a user has on Google+ and rates it from 0 to 100.

When you visit the site, PlusClout will ask you to insert your Google+ ID in order to generate your score. Your ID is the string of numbers that appear in the URL of your profile page.

PlusClout says that while its formula is still evolving, right now it calculates your number based on 15 million public Google+ profiles and items shared, such as posts, comments, +1s, the number of followers you have and the frequency and volume of information sharing.

You can also browse people with the highest PlusClout in categories such as bloggers, designers, entrepreneurs and the most-followed users on Google+. Click on any of these names and you will see their current PlusClout score, a graph of their score over the last five days, and websites associated with that person.
4. Google Translate for Google+

If you want to connect with people from around the world but find that language is a barrier, this is a must-download Google Chrome extension.

Google Translate for Google+ is a powerful tool that inserts a button into your Google+ streams, letting you quickly interpret a chunk of foreign text.