Daniel Jomphe's Public Library

11 Dec 09

This week, Microsoft surprised me by providing a downloadable Beta version of Office 2010 Starter, which also has the distinction of being the first public vehicle for Click-2-Run, Microsoft's new virtualization-based software deployment tool.
will be sold with new PCs only
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- this product replaces Microsoft Works, providing a true Office experience
- The ribbon UI from Word 2010 Starter (top) and Word 2010 (bottom) compared.
- "These are basic productivity solutions," Hutchinson said, noting that the types of things you can't do--like creating a table of contents, multi-author reviewing, Smart Art, bibliography, and the like in Word Starter--are typically needed only by more sophisticated users in work situations.
- "20 million people visit office.com every year and download trial versions of our software," Hutchinson said. "And it takes 20 to 50 minutes to download a trial Office version on a typical broadband connection. That's too long."
- Click-2-Run makes this experience faster and better. It presents a streaming virtualized copy of Office to the PC, allowing users to get up and running more quickly than before. Best of all, because the applications are virtualized, they're continuously up-to-date, automatically, and can be run side-by-side with older Office versions.
- "People are scared to install new Office versions because they're not sure what to do with their old version,"
- Click-2-Run will be used for purchases, too: Microsoft will also make purchasable versions of various Office 2010 product editions available from the Microsoft Store online.
- One final aspect of Click-2-Run is its ability to create a so-called Office To-Go Device, which is usually a USB memory key. Basically, instead of installing Office on your hard drive, you can install it to a USB device and run it from there. This will work from any compatible PC (Vista or higher), thanks to the self-contained nature of the virtualized environment is uses. When you run the Office executable on the device--a single file--you're presented with a front-end dashboard showing each of the available applications.

Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows: Office 2010 Public Beta, Part 2: A Tour of the New User Experiences

www.winsupersite.com/...o2010_beta_ux.asp - Preview

microsoft-office 2010

Office 2010 is simpler and more consistent
a new close gadget lets them abort the application launch if they wish
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- the new Backstage View, which acts much like the File menu from previous Office versions but takes up the full screen instead of opening in a window. Backstage view is going to prove controversial with users, I think, but it does provide a handy front-end to the actions you need to apply to the whole document--things like Print, Save, or Share--as well as application settings
- you can customize existing tabs or create your own
- an in-place, on-the-fly way to preview paste results
- This is a handy little tool that I find myself using regularly, and touch typists will appreciate that it's completely keyboard controllable
- you can import a photo or other image into a document and then do your editing right in Office
- Word, Publisher and OneNote 2010 all support some form of live coauthoring capability.
- In Word and Publisher, you can edit a document or presentation simultaneously with one or more colleagues, assuming you all have a Microsoft-oriented instant messaging application.
- Both Word and Publisher 2010 include support for expressive OpenType fonts, which can include ligatures, stylistic sets, kerning, and other unique typographic niceties.
- Particularly prominent and obvious here is the emphasis on home users, or consumers. Microsoft says that about 50 percent of Office users, or over 250 million people, use Office at home.
- There are now three Office product editions that target consumers.
- Home and Student
- includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote
- Home and Business
- adds Microsoft Outlook
- Professional
- adds Access and Publisher
- Microsoft will be enhancing purchasing options in Office 2010 to include new Click To Run and Product Key Card offerings.
- Click To Run lets people download a virtualized version of Office 2010 from the Office.com web site. This Office version can begin running in 2 or 3 minutes, depending on your connection, and because it's virtualized, you can run Office 2010 side-by-side with your current Office version. (It's based on Application Virtualization, or App-V, technology.)
- Product Key Card ships with no media but unlocks a trial version
- a new Office edition aimed at new PCs. This is called...
  
  Office 2010 Starter
- This very low-end Office version includes stripped-down versions of Word (called Word Starter) and Excel (Excel Starter) only. These applications include a permanent taskbar and are ad supported. Microsoft is replacing Microsoft Works with this offering, and will provide ways for users to upgrade to better Office versions electronically, or by using a Product Key Card.
- Office 2010 Standard
- only via volume licensing
- includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Publisher
- Microsoft will continue to sell all of the individual Office applications separately

Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows: Office 2010 Public Beta, Part 1: Introduction

www.winsupersite.com/...o2010_beta.asp - Preview

microsoft-office 2010

In mid-2009, when Microsoft released the first external build of Office 2010, the Technical Preview (TP), it limited distribution to a relatively small group of people. (See my exhaustive, multipart overview of the Office 2010 Tech Preview for details.)
Microsoft is focusing on both the fundamentals that we've all come to know and understand--things like copy and paste, email, and superior document fidelity and application integration
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- One of the bigger changes in the previous version of Office was the integration of the new ribbon user interface into several key Office applications.
- While some say they don't like the ribbon, Microsoft's metrics tell a different story, and this UI revolutions has resulted in huge productivity gains for users.
- a new BackStage environment that replaces the old File menu with a new full-screen interface for accessing all of the options related to the application and the current document.
- new image editing tools
- surprisingly powerful video editing functionality
- New OpenType typography (Word, Publisher) provides for much more advanced control over type
- Paste Preview, which seeks to correct the number two most-often-used Office command of all: Undo
- Outlook, which receives its biggest update in years
- A new Conversation View automatically organizes email messages by discussion, and many users will find themselves wondering how they previously organized email before.
- Excellent new tools
- Clean Up
- Ignore Conversation
- take the pain out of productivity-killing email threads
- Calendar Preview
- Quick Steps, provides a palette of customizable multi-step tasks
- It's a huge time saver.
- supports the use of multiple Exchange accounts

04 Nov 09

Registration

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On-Line Registration

27 Oct 09

Enterprise Java Community: Direct Ajax - Goodbye to Ajax Deadly Sins

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web javascript framework comparison

30 Essential Controls

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web javascript framework component comparison

21 Oct 09

Common Java Cookbook

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programming language library java learning best-practices example snippet

03 Oct 09

Live Japon : l'ampoule à LED, nouveau produit vedette

www.clubic.com/poule-led-produit-vedette.html - Preview

vendues plus de 75 euros pièce au Japon il y a quelque mois, les ampoules à LED sont désormais nombreuses et proposées à un tarif moitié moindre
La baisse des prix va probablement se poursuivre
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- Toshiba
- la concurrence s'aiguise avec l'arrivée de nouveaux entrants qui n'étaient pas présents sur ce marché de l'éclairage mais qui y viennent armés de technologies efficientes
- Sharp, est de ceux-là. Le responsable de la dégringolade des prix, ne cherchez pas, c'est lui. Il a en effet lancé cet été une gamme d'ampoules basées sur ses propres technologies (secrètes) à un prix deux fois inférieur à celui des modèles concurrents alors en rayon, qui plus est en faisant mieux sur le plan qualitatif.
- "Sharp s'est aussi distingué avec ses ampoules en résolvant un problème afférent aux LED qui est que leur lumière est directionnelle. Il a le premier réussi à bien en homogénéiser la répartition"
- Toutefois, le fait que lesdites ampoules à LED soient désormais techniquement au point et abordables ne suffit pas, car elles restent quand même 40 fois plus onéreuses à l'achat que les modèles d'antan à filament et 4 fois plus coûteuses que les plus récentes lampes fluorescentes compactes. Elles ne sont de fait rentables qu'à moyen et long termes, offrant une décennie d'utilisation à raison de 10 heures par jour en consommant jusqu'à huit fois moins d'électricité que les autres modèles, fussent-ils étiquetés "basse-consommation".
- Pour convaincre les consommateurs, Sharp joue aussi sur l'ambiance. Ainsi, une des nouvelles ampoules proposées est vendue avec une télécommande. Cette dernière permet de changer la nuance sur sept niveaux d'un dégradé allant de l'orangé au blanc parfait. Il est aussi possible d'ajuster à souhait la luminosité de 0 à 100%. Une même télécommande peut contrôler toutes les ampoules d'une même pièce dans un rayon de 5 mètres.
- Panasonic tente aussi de s'imposer sur ce marché en insistant sur les vertus écologiques de sa nouvelle gamme
- Une firme affiliée au groupe d'électronique nippon Mitsubishi Electric est aussi sur les rangs, de même que NEC qui a dû revoir ses projets initiaux à l'aune de ces rapides changements pour proposer des produits plus compétitifs que ceux qu'il envisageait de lancer
- Amérique du Nord afin d'y promouvoir et vendre ces produits

30 Sep 09

Super Mario Bros. 2 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Because SMB2 is a redesign of a non-Mario game, the game differs greatly from the original Super Mario Bros. The game has sold over ten million copies, was the 3rd most sold title on the Nintendo Entertainment System^{[citation needed]} and was critically acclaimed at the time. Many elements from Super Mario Bros. 2 have since become part of the Mario series canon and the repertoire of recurring elements.
Various Nintendo of America employees personally disliked the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, which they found to be frustratingly difficult and otherwise virtually identical in gameplay and features to Super Mario Bros. (SMB1).^[2] Adopting the belief that such a game would likely sell poorly in the United States, Nintendo sought to release a different sequel that would be more acceptable for Western audiences. Because of this, although Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic was originally set in a storybook and had an Arabian theme completely unrelated to the Mario series, it was modified to use sprites and music from the Mario series as well as to introduce new characters in keeping with the Mario storyline.
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- Most of the differences between DDP and SMB2 are small graphical changes,^{[citation needed]} such as animation being added to the POW blocks, bomb fuses, cherries, potions, vegetables, and extra frames of animation for numerous enemies for the SMB2 version. Super Mushrooms replacing large hearts as life-meter increases, the characters shrinking when reduced to only one unit of health, and some music tracks being made longer with more instrumentation were among some other changes.
- Super Mario Bros. 2 received a graphical, audio, and gameplay upgrade when it was rereleased five years after its original release as part of the Mario games collection, Super Mario All-Stars (1993, SNES).
- Whereas the original NES version of Super Mario Bros. 2 only allowed players to continue twice after losing all of their lives, the All-Stars version enabled players to continue any number of times due to the reintroduction of a save function (as with the original Doki Doki Panic). The ability of players to win lives in the All-Stars version of the Bonus Chance game was also increased from a maximum of 5 to 10. While in the original NES version players were forced to use the same character throughout the duration of the level the character was selected for, the All-Stars version additionally enabled the player to select a different character after losing a life.
- Finally, various minor stylistic and aesthetic changes were also made including the changing of Princess Toadstool's hair from brunette to blonde

12 Sep 09

Kirth's Mess » Blog Archive » Starting with Git

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git learning

11 Sep 09

We No Longer Need Power

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entrepreneurship tips

04 Sep 09

Hivelogic - Top 10 Programming Fonts

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programming fonts

28 Jul 09

Sprint Gobbles Up Virgin Mobile For $483 million

www.techcrunch.com/...-virgin-mobile-for-483-million - Preview

toDelete

deal to buy out Virgin Mobile USA
The deal is expected to receive approval either in the fall or in early 2010
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- The deal cancels out Virgin’s $248 million in outstanding debts and will unite Sprint’s Boost service and Virgin Mobile under the same roof.
- Sprint says it would keep the Virgin Mobile brand