After months of waiting (after several attempts registering my hotmail id for beta, including once in PDC '05) I got a invite in my Hotmail InBox for Windows Live! Mail. I will leave the details out for you to try, but I found the experience to be much superior to anything you have used before - including Gmail/Yahoo/Outlook Web Access.

Copyright 2006, Microsoft Corporation

Last week, Microsoft relaunched beta of Windows Live Search. Though I like Google and Yahoo's simple search result interface and find it extremely usable during searches, I guess at times you need something more than "Google's One Size Fits All" vanilla white UI. I feel this to be the precise spot that Microsoft is targetting with its new Live Search service.

Copyright 2006, Microsoft Corporation

What I liked in the new service is its intelligent use of scroll bars in your search results page - no more you need to keep moving between previous and next pages; instead you can keep scrolling and the results keep adding at the bottom. Also useful is the new zoom in and zoom out capabilities which works for both search results and for images.

These new features of Windows Live search are by no means perfect, but they clearly show that there is enough scope for Search vendors to innovate. If I were to be Google, I will concentrate on doing just this and not spread myself too thin going after Microsoft in every space!

After weeks of suffering with Benq P50 and several hours of deliberations over the phone models - I have finally bought my new phone. It is "Nokia 9300i" at Rs.28,000/- with standard Nokia India Warranty. This phone though a little heavy compared to normal Nokia Phones has got a perfect form factor. This is the first phone where I could do with ease a meaningful SMS or a full email.

The phone has everything you wish for:
1) Qwerty keyboard inside and in outside a regular Nokia Mobile Numerical keypad - best of both worlds
2) Excellent full colour interface
3) Connectivity - GPRS, Edge, Wi-Fi
4) Great battery live even while using Edge browsing (or) Wi-Fi
5) Full XHTML/HTML Browser with JavaScript & Cookies support
6) POP3/SMTP/IMAP4 Email Support
7) MS Word/Excel/PowerPoint compatible Applications / Adobe Acrobat Reader

This is also the only Nokia phone for me that got recognized at first instance (just after installation of CD and connecting the USB cable) and the built in software synchronized all emails/contacts/tasks/notes from Outlook with ease.

There are only two things I miss in this phone - One it doesn't run Windows Mobile OS and two is a Camera. I guess I can live without both b'cos I am getting everything else!

I am also happy to be buying a Nokia phone last week, as it coincided with Nokia opening its first factory in India in Sriperumbudur (which is where I studied my graduate degree at SVCE ) near Chennai.

I have been a reader of Reader’s Digest for several years. They claim their success to “selection of nothing but the best articles from around the world, condensing it, recondensing it without missing any of the fine part” – which time and time I found to be 100% true.

In this month’s issue I read about “Dare to Dream” by Michael J.Weiss where the author unravels the mystery/superstitions of dreams and explains the benefits of dreams and the use for recalling your dreams. I found it very interesting to know that Dreams can be used for your improvement and they can find answers to your difficult situations.

Highly recommended article to read; of course read it not in your dreams but when you are awake.

If you are hearing lot about the new UI (Ribbon) in Office 2007 and dying to see more of it, visit these two sites: First is Jensen Harris Blog and the second MS Official preview Page.

(Office 2007 Beta 1 Going Dark Theme - Copyright Microsoft Corporation)

MS Blogs

Seeing yet another useful blog from a MS staff, I am impressed by the new transparency Microsoft has embraced in the last two years. The single biggest way they seem to have done this is by using blog as an effective media to keep in touch with outside world. The other is their regular CTP (Community Technology Preview) builds of their upcoming software. The classic way of Beta 1, 2, 3, RC & Gold have lost their relevance in the super fast changing connected world.

With the State Assembly elections round the corner, the Election commission of India has released a website - containing Tamilnadu Election Rolls in its entirety. This includes all 30 districts in Tamilnadu State and the entire text is in local language (Tamil). This is a remarkable step in transparency and checking bogus entries.

From a technical standpoint few points:

1) The site requires you to download and install a Tamil font to few the website. If you are a Non-Admin user like me, this is a problem. Here is a Windows Trick to get over this. Just click on the Font Download link, when the dialog box that says Open/Save/Cancel comes up, click Open. You will see a window similar to one below, please don't close it; instead leave it open and then switch to your IE/Firefox window and refresh the page. You should be able to see the text in Tamil. (This trick works because whenver you have a font file (TTF) opened in Explorer, Windows temporarily registers the font. When you close the font window, the font is removed).

2) I would have preferred the website to be in Tamil Unicode, instead of the proprietary 8-bit encoding of C-DAC.

If you are trying to get dirty with WinFX ("Avalon", "Indigo" and Workflow), then check out this post by fellow RD Michele Leroux Bustamante. It contains easy steps to get the various pieces of Jan CTP including VS 2005 integration downloaded and installed in the correct order.

I wrongly assumed Windows SDK (1GB Download) is a superset and will include everything needed to work on WinFX. Had I had this cheat sheet earlier it would have been lot easier!. MS please note this and don't have this so fragmented in future.

If you are adventurous and want to go bleeding edge, check out WinFX Feb CTP. This blog post has a list of breaking changes in Feb CTP, but remember you are on your own.

About a year back (Jan 2005) I had written about MS Research India doing work on Digitizing India maps. Nearly a year later, recently I learned from these two blogs (Atul's Blog and MapPoint Blog) that MS Research India have released a limited trial of the same. I seem to get detailed maps of Bangalore but I believe other cities are to be followed soon. Check it out, cool stuff.

Nowadays with Mobile Phones proliferating everywhere, there seems to be a severe lack of Etiquette on how people use them on Public Places. Many don't keep their phones in Silent mode during musical concerts, films or even business meetings. If you are travelling in Bus, Train or waiting somewhere the person next to you invariably keeps talking very loudly disturbing your peace. The only peaceful place you get is when you are traveling by airplane. For many years, few engineers were saying that more than the security aspect of using mobile phones on board – the reason it is banned is due to the chaos they can cause by connecting to multiple cell towers at once; as all the towers appear unidistance from the sky.  Now this peace seems to disturbed by the recent FCC announcements in USA – read this MSNBC Technology article on this.

Recently I bought myself a Benq P50 (Read here the earlier post). After spending time to set everything up - ActiveSync, Contacts, etc. using it for few weeks, I realised the following:

• The phone is lovely, colors are brilliant
• Decent Browsing and usable Wi-Fi speed

• Phone is very heavy in your pocket, you got to use the belt clip to carry it
• The keyboard keys are too small - but you can get used to it after few weeks of usage. First few weeks, you will end up pressing two keys at once
• The documentation sucks big time. It leaves much to be desired. It is too shallow when it comes to First time user of Windows Mobile and is non-existent for advanced options
• The battery life is pathetic. So far the maximum I could get was 6 to 8 hours Standby with about average of 20 minutes talk time
• Radio is poor. Many times I see 5 full bars of network signal, but people get "Subscriber could not be reached" message
• The main usability problem was the phone doesn't have a Keypad Lock, so when I put the phone in the belt clip the dial key gets pressed accidentaly all the time and the phone dials the last dialed number - Kind of like Artificial intellegence. The workaround I found was to dial a non existing number like 4, each time before you place the phone in the clip. Pressing he space bar does bring the screensaver and locks the keypad but the dial key is still active and a small tap in the screen brings the keypad also active. After weeks of frustration I found out that you can gently press the power button once to put the phone in stand-by before keeping it in the clip which shuts down the screen, locks the dial key and all the other keypad keys. Too counter intutive.

So overall this phone is better to be left in the Shop Window; but with next version if BenQ fixes the above, upgrades the phone OS to Windows Mobile 5.0 then the phone has the potential to be a big hit.

I am now shopping for a new phone. I am considering Nokia 9300i, N70 and 6681. Last one week I had been using a friends' Nokia 9300 Communicator - seems to love the phone, especially the form factor, keyboard layout, email support. Though there are some nuisances like non existence of Vibrate mode, few quick shortcuts available in Series 60 phones especially with Address Book and SMS, the main features that are missing are Camera and Wi-Fi. I am awaiting for Nokia 9300i in India. If I get tired of waiting, i will go probably for Nokia 6681.

All this is not to say the Windows Mobile OS is bad, but the manufacturer (BenQ) seems to have got it all wrong in the device implementation. Proves the point that you shouldn't be the lab rat and wait for the few versions of a phone before buying it. I willl buy my next Windows Mobile only if it was made by one of the big manufactures like Palm or HP or better still Nokia

While hearing the announcement in PDC '05 for MS Expression and Visual Studio (Orcas) set of web designer IDEs  and playing with Office 12, I had mixed reactions. The positive was Expression and Orcas going full throttle with supporting XHTML and other web standards, at the same time introducing awesome new features that makes web development easy. My dissappointed was for lack of no such new standards support with the popular MS Web Designer product - MS Frontpage. I have been a fan of Frontpage even before MS bought the product and had built several websites using it. But over the last few years I was forced to switch to Visual Studio and other 3rd Party products as Frontpage was stagnating.  Also MS was confusing with two product streams - both aimed at doing Website Development.

Today all my fears and criticism was put to rest with the Announcement of Sharepoint Designer 2007 replacing MS Frontpage. Sharepoint Designer will be supporting all web standards including XHTML and full CSS compliance. In the same press release MS has clarified the position and the roles played by this new product and Expression Web Designer.

May MS Frontpage's soul RIP (Rest in Place)

Today MS also announced the final naming for Office "12" (Codename) as MS Office 2007 and the packaging, pricing of Office 2007. Thank god, they didn't name it "Office Vista"

IT and Computer Science Students doing their Engineering/Arts/Science Graduation courses can participate in a competition organized by KTS (Kani Thamizh Sangam) and Tamil Virtual University. It can be their final semester project but it should be in Tamil computing. The three best projects in 2006-07 will get cash prizes worth Rs.50,000. For details and application form, click here.

I feel the timing for this is very apt, as the commercial viability of Tamil Software projects is showing signs of finally picking up. OS vendors like Microsoft and Redhat are now supporting Tamil in many ways in their offerings. This week saw Tally (India's Leading Package Software) announcing availability of vernacular editions of its accounting software. For Tamil computing enthusiasts like me and others in INFITT and KTS this is great news - many have been working hard for last two decades for things like this to start happening and take computers to the masses in Tamilnadu. Though other commercial company’s will follow suit, in order to accelerate this trend and innovate in this it is very important to get the young minds excited and I believe this competition will certainly do that. My wishes to the organizers and the students.

In this connection KTS and TVU have organized a one day workshop – Tamil Computing Technology on February 25 at Meenakshi Sundararajan Engineering College. Topics include Tamil fonts and encoding, government initiatives in e-governance, tools and technologies, Microsoft's language applications, open source and job opportunities. Details can be had from http://www.kanithamizh.in/ or www.tamilvu.org. I have been invited to speak in the workshop panel on “Microsoft’s Language Applications” from 3:30PM to 4:15PM. See you there.

Yesterday I attended MSN - NDTV Party. The party was to celebrate 5th Anniversary of MSN in India and announcing the Sales Partnership between the two companies and the new India country manager for MSN India - Mr Jaspreet Bindra. Many industry and media stalwarts were also present.

The party was at Rampart Row, Kalaghoda of Mumbai – Kalaghoda seems to be an exclusive street full of party joints, restaurants and pubs. It was fun!.