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Announcements, tips, tricks, and techniques for mobile PC developers.
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Microsoft Silverlight Released
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Microsoft released to the Web (RTW) Microsoft Silverlight 1.0, a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering richer user experiences on the Web. In addition, Microsoft will work with Novell Inc. to deliver Silverlight support for Linux, called Moonlight, and based on the project started on mono-project.com.
Silverlight significantly reduces development and deployment costs and provides enhanced Web audio and video streaming and playback using industry-leading Windows Media® Technologies. Microsoft unveiled new Silverlight customer experiences on "Entertainment Tonight," HSN and World Wrestling Entertainment, and also launched the Silverlight Partner Initiative, a program designed to foster collaboration among solution providers, content delivery networks, tools vendors and design agencies.
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Microsoft Announcements and News Items
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Crafting a web strategy is important for any thriving business. However, implementing that strategy with rich Internet applications is not always as easy as it should be. To make web work easier, Microsoft recently introduced Silverlight.
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With the Tablet PC, Cincinnati Country Day School found a technology platform that teachers could seamlessly integrate into their classrooms. "This was not just an incremental step up from a laptop, it was a whole new paradigm," says Robert Baker, Director of Technology and a computer science teacher at Cincinnati Country Day School. "With the introduction of the pen and digital ink, suddenly we no longer had to think about how to make the technology fit into the pedagogy; instead, we were challenged to think of how to enhance the pedagogy to take advantage of this liberating new tool."
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Microsoft has released a software development kit for a service that enables users who sign in through one website to be authenticated on many other sites. If a website incorporates Microsoft authentication, its users are directed to a Windows Live ID sign-in page hosted by Microsoft. After users sign in, they're sent back to the original website with a special, site-specific identifier. That identifier can be used by the website to assign certain rights or personalized content to specific users.
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When Microsoft services are integrated with existing programs on Nokia phones, users can sync their Windows Live contacts list with the phone's address book, or send and receive Windows Live Hotmail® e-mail messages within a Nokia messaging application. Owners of Nokia multimedia phones can download a suite of Windows Live services that includes e-mail, Windows Live MessengerT, a contacts list, a blogging site, and a picture sharing site.
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A group of top Microsoft executives is taking over Bill Gates' ThinkWeeks, which is only one of the changes happening as the company prepares for its longtime leader to step away from his daily duties. Craig Mundie and Ray Ozzie are both preparing to face the challenges of what may be two of the most difficult jobs in the world.
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Bill Gates, Craig Mundie, Ray Ozzie, and Steve Ballmer
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Officially live since its soft launch in July, the .NET Framework Developer Center brings together existing content in a format that is designed to be accessible to software engineers with experience in non-Microsoft platforms, frameworks, and languages, such as PHP, Java, JSP, and ColdFusion. With few developers working in a single-platform environment throughout their entire career, Microsoft says the site will help boost interoperability throughout the industry.
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After a week of intense competition, Microsoft announced the winners of Imagine Cup 2007. Finalists are chosen from a pool of more than 100,000 students from more than 100 countries. Thailand's Team 3KC Returns/Project LiveBook! was awarded a $25,000 cash prize for its first-place finish in the worldwide Software Design Invitational.
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Microsoft threw some weight behind application virtualization when it acquired Softricity in July 2006. From this acquisition comes SoftGrid, a solution for application virtualization. With SoftGrid, applications are served from a data center or another network location and run locally on remote clients in a virtual environment. The virtualized applications run in silos and operate independent of the operating system and other applications on the local desktop.
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The U.S. Partner Group at Microsoft is working to reduce the complexity of dealing with the company, in addition to trying to reduce the costs involved with maintaining the relationship between partners and Microsoft, said Robert Deshaies, vice president of the U.S. Partner Group, during an address at XChange '07.
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Partner of the Month
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Organizations are constantly looking for solutions to reduce costs by automating business processes. One of the business processes that is most often overlooked is data collection by mobile workers and the integration of collected data with existing enterprise systems.
The complexity of automating this process has forced organizations to stick with the classic "pen and paper" approach that continues to prove very expensive and error prone. The introduction of mobile devices, and most recently of Tablet PCs, has provided organizations with an unprecedented opportunity to automate this business process and increase the productivity of their mobile workforce.
MobileFabric is an end-to-end enterprise-class software solution to help organizations to automate business processes by using mobile forms and to maximize their investment in mobile devices. Advantages include:
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Integration of Mobile Users with Desktop Users
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Smart Templates Synchronization
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Secure Data Synchronization
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Enterprise Integration
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Ground-up Tablet PC Support
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Easy Design of Forms
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Robust Architecture
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Partner Announcements
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In a bold move, Acer Computing acquired Gateway Computing, a move that would make Acer the third-largest computer manufacturer in the world. Analysts have been having a field day as they speculated on how this will affect the industry, both in the United States and in other markets. An article in InfoWorld, Acer will target consumers with new Gateway brand speculates that Acer will use "spiffier designs and faster processors in an effort to add cachet to Gateway and eMachines labels." Read the Acer and Gateway press releases.
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The C120X has a nice design, but forgoes being too gawdy or flashy. Gateway didn't go with a glossy lid or white keyboard with this Tablet PC. Instead, they went with a classy, flat black finish that almost looks gray. Combined with the metallic accents around the hinge area, this Tablet PC has a professional and sturdy appearance. More importantly the C120X has a solid build to support that sturdy look.
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As they did for their other Tablet PCs, Gateway will offer separate SKUs for the business and home user. The business user version, E-295C, starts at $1549, and the home user version, C-140, starts at $949. Both models are available to order now. There is also a Small Business SKU: the S-7235C, starting at $1049.
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If you own a Tablet PC or an ultra-mobile PC with an attached keyboard, chances are that, just like the screen, it's going to get dirty. The kindhearted people from GottaBeMobile.com offer some handy tips to take care of those crumbs and dust bunnies. Look around the site a bit and watch some of their InkShows.
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From your desktop computer, you print your documents to the CloudPrint "virtual printer" and your print job will live "in the cloud." When you print a document to CloudPrint, HP notifies all the people you send it to with an SMS message that contains a unique document code. With only your telephone number and that document code, you can retrieve your documents from anywhere.
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Clad in hand-stitched, saddle-grade premium French leather, each Lenovo ThinkPad Reserve Edition notebook is individually numbered and includes live, round-the-clock executive-class service and support. Each ThinkPad Reserve user is provided access to dedicated, specially-trained Executive Support staff, available at the touch of a button, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to support every aspect of the ThinkPad Reserve Edition computing experience.
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With the Mi-Forms for Home Health and Hospice for Tablet PC and Windows Mobile® program, mobile caregivers use a pen to handwrite their OASIS forms at the point of care, have data instantly digitized and validated, uploaded to existing systems, and submitted for payment. Mi-Forms helps homecare agencies save time and money, and improve the quality of care, by spending more time with patients and less time with paperwork.
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PhatWare, a leading provider of software products and professional services for mobile and desktop computers, announces today the release of PhatNotes 5.0, the next generation of the company's award-winning notes organizer software for Microsoft Windows based desktop computers and Windows Mobile® Smartphones.
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Recent Articles: General
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The study, .NET in the Fast ***, looks at how and why a few high-profile companies have made the switch to .NET Framework 3.0. The most successful implementations of the new .NET Framework will be those that take advantage of new capabilities in presentation, connectivity, and the sharing of workflows, proponents of the framework say.
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The representation of text is undoubtedly one of the more important aspects of a usable UI. In Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) interfaces, you often use controls such as the Label control to display text. In many scenarios, however, you need more than a simple display of a few words. In the August issue of MSDN Magazine, Markus Egger shows how Flow Documents provide a more sophisticated approach, although they are fundamentally very simple. Flow Documents define text flows in a manner reminiscent of HTML documents, but they are more capable and provide significantly more advanced layout options.
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IT PRO talked to the chief operating officer of PC-maker Lenovo about the company's plans and products, and how she balances the Chinese and American sides of the company.
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Recent Articles: Mobile PC
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Good things come to those who wait, says the proverb. Right now, this is very appropriate if you're in the market for a new notebook. Unless you're in a hurry, you may want to keep your wallet in your pocket. New technologies are waiting around the corner that you won't want to miss. Although for a few years the pace of innovation seemed to be slowing down, the year 2008 may prove different. Conversations with several experts on industry trends, and a deep dive into the conventional wisdom of published reports, have yielded some interesting prognostications.
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Both in-game graphics and DVD film action are smooth, looking crisp and colorful on the Alienware Area-51 m9750's higher-than-standard 1,920 x 1,200 resolution screen. The strong graphics support includes a 512- MB nVidia GeForce Go 7950 GTX card that is coupled with the 2.33-GHz dual-core processor. Together, these components ensure that the Alienware Area-51 m9750 makes a capable video-editing laptop tool.
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The drive is one of a series of five that make up Toshiba's new MKxx52SX family of hard disk drives. The 320 GB model will contain two platters-the circular disks on which data is recorded. Other drives in the range will offer between 80 GB and 250 GB of storage space. They will connect through a 3-gigabits-per-second serial ATA interface.
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Recent Articles: Ultra-Mobile PC
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Although not technically a Tablet PC (it doesn't run Windows XP® Tablet PC Edition or Windows Vista), the Nokia N800 is a tablet device. As GottaBeMobile.com says, "We don't deal with too many devices that aren't Tablet PC or UMPC-related, but there are a few that enhance our 'Mobile' life, and the N800 could be one of those devices."
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Fujitsu announced the introduction of two new devices-an ultra-mobile PC with a 5.6-inch display, and an ultralight Tablet PC with a 12.1-inch WXGA screen. They are clever devices that underscore the change in not just one market, but two, because the announcement comes days after IDC reported that the PDA market has dropped 42 percent since last year.
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Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation announced the palm-sized LifeBook U810 mini and the ultra-portable LifeBook T2010 convertible notebooks that Fujitsu says delivering unmatched mobility and versatility without anywith no compromises. The new notebooks are packed with the features and capabilities mobile professionals and on-the-go consumers demand;. uUsers will appreciate the sleek, highly functional design of these ultimate mobile devices.
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Recent Articles: Tablet and Touch Technology
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Acturion Datasys, one of the leading system vendors in the field of industrial and military mobile computing, releases two new outdoor convertible PCs: the Victum Note V10 and the Victum Note V12. The Victum Note V-Series is built to survive even in harsh environmental conditions. The housing is made of a special, light metal alloy which gives the V-Series its extreme ruggedness. Thanks to the use of magnesium for the housing, the weight of the whole unit stays low at only 6.2 pounds (2.2 kilograms). With its completely sealed housing, the V-Series fulfils IP54 protection class and MIL-STD810F.
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According to Larry Bryant, USAF Academy academic computing director, the selection committee decided the educational reasons for choosing a tablet computer out-weighed the increased cost and weight of other computers. Students can use the Tablet PC to take handwritten notes in class, and to copy math formulas, drawings, diagrams, and other classroom formats.
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A joint project between Microsoft Research (MSR) and Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL) has resulted in a novel solution-touch screens on both the front and back of a mobile device that are used simultaneously. The user's thumbs touch the front screen while the eight fingers touch the back on what has been called the LucidTouch "see through" mobile device interface.
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OrderPad enabled the Virginia Lottery to implement a new operational model in which the field sales representatives place orders for "scratchers" (the scratch-off lottery tickets that you commonly find near the cash registers at convenience stores) while they are in the store. Under the old model, the lottery sales representatives would visit the retailers, but didn't have any technology to place orders, so orders were placed by telemarketers. The weakness of this system was that the telemarketers didn't really know the retailer, didn't have rapport with the retailer and, in fact, had never stepped foot in the retailer's store.
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"I live in Christchurch, New Zealand. I was born in 1944, and for many years I thought I'd enroll in art school when I retired, a fantasy built on my love of drawing as a child. I realized that I'd need to do a lot of sketching to re-awaken and update my childhood ability. I will do a thousand in a year, I thought to myself. The rest clicked into place: put them online, make it a cyber-project, don't retire."
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MobileDemand announced the release of the xTablet T8600 Rugged Tablet PC with an integrated numeric keypad that meets military standards (MIL-STD-810F). This enhancement accompanied with bar-code scanning, and magnetic-stripe card reading has attracted new high-profile customers like Disney, Anheuser-Busch, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
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PICO is a computer interface that can move electromagnetic pucks, merging the digital and physical worlds. In this video, see how researcher James Patten has used his unique combination of projection, magnets, and computing to help visualize problems such as determining the best place to put a group of mobile phone network transmission towers.
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Augmentix announced its new XTG 630 fully-rugged notebook. Offering the latest Intel and new DirectVue LCD technologies, the XTG provides military, industrial, government, and commercial customers with a military-standard, mission-critical mobile computing system, based on the award-winning Dell Latitude mobile platform.
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Recent Articles: Power Awareness
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Organizations that currently run Windows XP on their mobile PCs could save $605 a year per machine by replacing those systems with Windows Vista, and by using the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack and best practices to improve infrastructure optimization, a Microsoft-sponsored study has found.
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"As these green issues emerge as more mainstream considerations, what's striking is their overall consistency regardless of age, gender, income, or where people live," Todd Board, senior vice president of Ipsos Insight's Media, Entertainment, and Technology practice, said in a prepared statement. "However, it's interesting to note that college-educated Americans place more value on each of these factors, except contributions to environmental causes, than other Americans do. We also see more importance placed on the Energy Star rating among Americans with incomes over $50,000."
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Recent Articles: Network Awareness
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Sprint Nextel has commitments from its chip partners to embed 50 million WiMax chips, with prices of $5 to $15 each, into devices in cars, and into cameras, laptops, and other equipment, over the next three years. Users will turn on WiMax access from a device and "come to our network," according to Barry West, Sprint Nextel's chief technology officer.
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Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is the Microsoft services-oriented framework for building connected systems by using the .NET Framework. Although WCF is flexible enough to build arbitrary services-based solutions, its primary purpose is web services. To get the most out of this article, you should have at least a basic understanding of core WCF concepts, including messaging, serialization, contracts, and bindings and endpoint configuration. This article was written based on .NET 3.5, the Beta 2 release.
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Samsung Electronics said Monday it will work with Sprint Nextel to bring fourth-generation high-speed wireless Internet to New York City. Samsung said in a statement it was chosen by Sprint Nextel to provide the infrastructure for a wireless network in New York. The Reston, Va.-based wireless provider plans to launch the network, based on an emerging mobile wireless technology called WiMax, in several U.S. cities.
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The plan to blanket Chicago's 228 square miles with wireless Internet access was announced early last year when Chicago leaders said they hoped to become one of the largest cities to offer all-over access to the web. Recently, however, the city said its negotiations with private-sector partners, including EarthLink, have stalled because any citywide Wi-Fi would require massive public financing. The city had hoped to provide only infrastructure for the network.
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Mayor Gavin Newsom's high-profile effort to blanket San Francisco with a free wireless Internet network died recently when Internet service provider EarthLink backed out of a proposed contract with the city. The contract, which was three years in the making, had run into difficulties with the Board of Supervisors, but ultimately it was undone when Atlanta-based EarthLink announced that it no longer believed that providing citywide Wi-Fi was economically viable for the company.
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Intel's Sean Maloney shepherded through the technology that's poised to rewrite the rules of wireless. He has led an industrywide effort to develop and market what was in 2002 an obscure wireless broadband technology that only a few hundred engineers had heard of. Indeed, after logging hundreds of thousands of air miles, he has rounded up a remarkable coalition of chip, PC, consumer electronics, networking, and software companies in an effort to radically reshape the future of broadband with what is now called WiMAX.
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City-owned Toronto Hydro says its downtown wireless Internet network, launched last year, is going strong and already making money--bucking a trend in several U.S. cities that have recently scrapped ambitious plans to offer similar access to citizens.
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A wireless Collector Appraisement system would inform terminal operators-Pakistan Automated Customs Clearance System (PASCCS) and Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL)-about details of licensed bonded carriers, along with details of the registered vehicles. Such information would help authorities to permit only the licensed carriers to transport imported cargo to the required destination, within a stipulated period and route, and to reduce opportunities for stealing cargo and misusing the facility.
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Recent Articles: Data Synchronization
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IBM and Microsoft have submitted a draft standard to allow databases to work together as a federated system. If the standard is finalized and becomes widely accepted, it would enable a much higher degree of automation in the data center, said Ric Telford, IBM's vice president of autonomous computing. "Everybody has some form of configuration management database, but they act as silos. That information can't be federated [into one logical view]' he said.
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A new version of Windows Mobile Device Center, the software used to sync Windows Mobile-based phones with Windows Vista, has been released. This new version of the Windows Mobile Device Center contains key improvements and new features to support Windows Mobile 6 devices. The Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 is supported only on Windows Vista. It is available in many languages and in 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
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In his morning keynote speech at the opening of the destinationCRM2007 Conference, Malcolm Gladwell described four core elements that innovative leaders need to understand to win over public support for CRM. "You are the champions of new technology," Gladwell told the audience, "and you're facing a public that has a lot of views about technology-and they're not all positive." He then listed opportunities and strategies for engaging customers and leading them to want customer relationship management.
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As the CRM software market extended its growth streak to a third consecutive year, CRM magazine and the sixth annual CRM Market Awards honored the vendors, consultants, and end-user companies that strove to create and cultivate rewarding customer experiences and relationships through the sophisticated integration of people, processes, and technologies.
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This post discusses the basic concepts of user-centric identity, user-centricity, and their social impact, and describes the user-centric identity technologies and protocols. The post also provides a list of vendors who produce user-centric technologies.
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Spb Wallet provides safe, secure, and convenient storage for all your business-critical information, and gives you quick access to data on both your device and desktop. Spb Wallet protects your data by using the powerful Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Cards can be stored in folders in any hierarchy you choose. You can customize card view and include as many different fields as you want.
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It's easy to get all your PIM data in sync over multiple devices through Hosted Exchange. Hosted Exchange, powered by the Microsoft Exchange Server, provides you the kind of benefits you might find with an Exchange server in a corporate environment but without the trouble of setting one up.
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Rick Strahl, Microsoft most valuable player (MVP), looks at the new SQL Data Tools that are a part of Microsoft Visual Studio® Orcas. Read what Rick has to say about schema and data comparing features, SQL refactoring, and more.
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The article, How Does DPM Really Protect Data? and the 10-minute video from Jason Buffington, a senior product manager in Windows Storage, explore the differences between Data Protection Manager 2006 and Data Protection Manager 2007. The conclusion? "The DPM Engineering team has done some truly amazing work in delivering a product that many say will set a new standard for data protection in the Windows world. Data Protection Manager 2007 changes the landscape of data protection overall. To do that, we had to reinvent a few things, all of which are for the better."
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"Human" factors can cause a CRM project to fail. This article discusses what those factors are and why a CRM system based on Microsoft Outlook® gives you the best chance of overcoming these issues and ensuring a successful CRM implementation.
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Location Awareness
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BMW is the only automobile manufacturer to offer the Google local search in the car-available now. For the first time, you can use this search function with the world's most famous online search engine to look for local information everywhere in Germany. When you find what you want, the details are transferred to the navigation system and car phone.
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Mercedes-Benz Search & Send is a new and convenient way to plan your trip destinations ahead of time. Using familiar Yahoo! Local Maps and Google Maps websites from the comfort of your home or office computer, you can search for a destination online, and then send it right to your Mercedes-Benz. Instead of spending time inputting data into your navigation system, your destinations are available whenever you need them.
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The addition of the satellite images allows users of Bushnell GPS devices to get the normal GPS data placed over the top of actual satellite images of the terrain they are navigating.
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Events
September
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September 12 - 13, 2007, 10:00 A.M. Pacific Time
This two-hour web seminar will describe how to analyze applications to make sure they adhere to new guidelines for deployment, security, reliability, and stability. The IDC projects that 90 million units of the Windows Vista operating system will ship worldwide in 2007. Will your business be ready to take advantage of this opportunity? Windows Vista takes the Microsoft client-side platform in a new direction, with new features that will impact how we build applications.
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September 18-21, 2007 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver
Make plans to attend the Professional Association for SQL Server Summit (PASS). Engage with SQL Server and business intelligence experts. Increase exposure of your products and services. Learn to generate valuable sales leads.
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September 18-20, 2007 at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco
The September 2007 IDF is your one opportunity to get the latest information and unmatched collaboration around critical performance capabilities. Come to IDF for detailed technical training, more access to top Intel executives, and to collaborate with technology companies from around the world.
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