Days ago, while I was working, I tried to send my coworker a file through Windows Live Messenger as a shortcut in presence of broadband. The file was about 20 MB, as soon as my coworker accepted to receive the file, it arrived in just a moment! I was astonished, I was certain that broadband connection won’t permit that speed. I thought it was due to the LAN that was configured with AD and ISA servers that may accelerated the connection. I went home while being thinking about it.
Today, I tried to send a file over my home network with same method through WLM while I’m on 1 Mbps ADSL. The file size was 24 MB, I accepted from the other PC and it was arrived in less than 3 seconds!
What I realized lately, that WLM “Windows Live Messenger” in fact is not only an Internet based IM client, but also a LAN file transfer manager! It could determine that both clients are for same network “maybe IP test” and soon instead of sending file across Internet, it sends file over LAN without need to pass through very very long routes worldwide and back do destination.
I tried to search web for articles about this features, however I didn’t find any results or news from the Live Messenger team yet.
I hope that everyone enjoy this feature! Thank you Microsoft! Thank you Live Messenger!
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In a previous article, I’ve started analyzing Microsoft’s new search engine Bing versus Google. However I didn’t focus on search results, but we focused on Webmaster tools offered by both Bing and Google.
In this article, I’m going to go on with analyzing Google Webmaster tools and summarize both Bing and Google webmaster tools as well.
Google Webmaster Tools
Home page includes messages that Google may send to webmasters to enhance their sites and a list of sites added by a webmaster.
Dashboard includes 4 sections for first 9 top search queries, crawl errors, external links that refer to my site and a list of sitemaps within site.
Sitemaps page shows available sitemaps for site with total URLs and indexed URLs as well. Page allow deletion and resubmission of the sitemaps and an option to download sitemaps list or data for all sites.
Crawler access page gives details about the robots.txt file within site and checks which options are disabled by the robots.txt file that prevents search engine crawlers see some pages.
Sitelinks are links to interior pages within the site. Google generates these links automatically based on site structure allows Google algorithms do this process.
Change of address is a cool tool that allows faster indexing of the new domain that site moved to and keeping old domain data as if domain was never changed.
Settings of Google Webmaster tools allow webmasters to check target users for a certain country, set preferred domain and set crawling rate either automatically or manually.
Top search queries displays information about each user search queries as for impressions and clickthrough. Clickthrough means user clicks on site links in these searches.
Links to your site page shows a list of links that lead to site.
Keywords page is one of the coolest tools in Google Webmaster tools, because Google bot not only index pages, but also it analyzes every word in the site and finds the most frequently used words within site that a webmaster can add in site meta tags to enhance search results.
Internal links are pages linked by other pages on site.
Subscriber stats are statistics about users who subscribed for site RSS feeds.
Crawl errors is a tools that gives complete details about errors found during site crawling. The cool is that this tool not only for web, but also for WAP access through mobile devices.
Crawl stats page shows graphs about pages crawled by day and kilobytes downloaded per day
The best of the tools is found in the last page I display in this analysis and it’s the HTML suggestion page. This tool finds issues within site while Google bot was crawling the site. These issues if they were well treated will lead to a better experience and performance to enhance site rank on Google search engine. Tool includes 3 sections as for: meta description, title tag and non indexable content with capability to download these issues and a date for last updates.
Summary
I’d never found any powerful Webmasters tool like Google Webmasters tools. I can consider it a perfect for any webmaster who doesn’t want to invest extra money for paid tools and the greatest investment to get their site on top ranks of Google search results.
Searching for Ahmed Mahdy’s site contents on Bing and Google
Now after displaying and analyzing features of Bing and Google Webmaster tools, I’ve made a real test about searching for site contents.
Searching: Ahmed Mahdy
Bing
As seen, after the sponsored sites, you can find 2 sites with title: [Ahmed Mahdy – “From Community. To Community”]. This was my old URL that was cancelled! And still yet indexed since the old Live Search!
My site –which you’re on now- is ranked 5th using my name as reference. No more results about it on Bing.
Google
As seen, Google ranks my site the second and third after an old indexed site before. First result of my site is for the root URL, second one for the items tagged with my name. Really cool!
Searching: Imagine Cup WWF
Bing
As seen, Bing never found any result for my site for a post has the text: Imagine Cup WWF.
Google
As seen, Google firstly ranks the highest priority sites in their list which include same search results “here MSDN Blogs in this case”, while my site rank taken place in third and fourth positions.
Overall Summary
Bing Webmaster Center is a very basic tool in comparison with Google Webmaster tools. Microsoft is still in need of a very long time to be able to create more professional tools for webmasters. Google would still the top of search engines for long years.
Bing is more likely to be Live search with a replacement for Live logo and URL. Bing search engine yet was designed for USA to let them make decisions, while Google doesn’t make any difference between any country.
If you’re not American citizen and would like to use Bing, so you’re so unlucky, since whole Microsoft web based services was only designed for USA: Bing, Live Translator, adCenter and more.
Microsoft should re-take another step to enhance Bing and its web better more. We might see those changes in the next few years. Hoping so…
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Since Microsoft announced the launch of its competitive decision maker search engine, all
news to show the powers of Bing versus its first competitor and world first search engine Google.
While all news and posts gave great analysis about both Bing and Google –as search engines, all news neglected the included tools for webmasters.
I was lucky because Bing was launched in late May while I moved this site to new server with new domain name, that gave me opportunity to start adding my site to both Google Webmasters and Bing Webmaster tools as well.
In a series of 2 articles, I’m going to make a complete analysis and analogy between Bing vs. Google Webmaster tools.
Bing Webmaster Center
Note: You might need to install Silverlight to display images
Images up show all different options in Bing Webmasters Center.
First image shows the site list that can be added per account and authentication method used by each site.
Second image shows the summary of chosen site as for last date site was crawled by Bing bots, number of indexed pages, domain score and same details for top 5 pages crawled.
Next image shows site profile as for sitemap address, verification method and webmaster e-mail.
For Crawl Issues page, any crawling issues are shown if found.
Backlinks gives details about sites that have links for your site with score of reference pages.
Outbound Links shows links in my site that refer to other sites.
Keywords is a very weak tool to manually search keywords on site.
Sitemaps are a method to inform Bing bots about site pages.
Summary
Since May 2009, Bing crawlers didn’t crawl but only the homepage of the site! That’s pretty much weak crawler bot. Last crawling process was taken 25 days until the date of writing this article. Regarding profile, it’s very simple and doesn’t allow more details.
In the next article, I’m going to give details about Google Webmaster Tools and summarize the topic as well. Follow up!
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Windows PowerShell is a command-line shell and scripting language that helps administrators improve their productivity in day to day management tasks and achieve greater control over their IT environments. Using a new admin-focused scripting language, more than 230 standard command-line tools, and consistent syntax and utilities, Windows PowerShell allows admins to more easily control system administration and accelerate automation.
PowerShell ships with the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. However if you’re running Windows XP or Windows Vista, you are still able to download a standalone installer for PowerShell.
PowerShell or as I’m going to call it PS for shorten, won’t replace the existing CMD “Command Prompt” already in Microsoft Windows. PS has CMD included within it in order to let admins do all tasks through the same environment.
PS is considered an intermediate environment that is a perfect choice for both Developers and IT Professionals as well. Since a developer can do some system procedures using PowerShell depending on “CMDLETS”. CMDLETs are .NET classes that represent APIs and GUIs. While IT Professionals can do a delicate scripting commands that became pretty more easier than other scripting languages like JavaScript and VBScript.
For example, if we’d like to list Inactive Services in a running instance of Windows, we can write the procedure as:
For VBScript
strComputer = “.”
Set objWMIService = GetObject(“winmgmts:” & _
“{impersonationLevel=Impersonate}!\\” &
strComputer & _
“\root\cimv2”)
Set colStoppedServices = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
(“Select * From Win32_Service Where State <> ‘Running’”)
For Each objService in colStoppedServices
Wscript.Echo objService.DisplayName & “ = ” & objService.State
Next
For Windows PowerShell
get-service |where {$_.status –ne “running“} | ft displayname,status –au
Any easier?! :)
Why PowerShell?
Productivity
- Consistent syntax and approach – learn once apply many times
- Frictionless Composition – Type what you think
- Flexible system – works against the “old” and the “new”
Fun
- Multiple ways to administer tasks – interactive, scripting, API, GUI
- Makes Windows administration as pleasant/productive/cool as possible
Sharing
- Enables an ecosystem where the community can effectively fill in the things we’ve missed
This was the first article of a series I’m going to present about Windows PowerShell in the next few days. Follow up!
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Before a month, and after few days of site’s re-launch, I was surprised that Rurai Plint, Microsoft MEA MVP Lead recognized me and my site on his personal blogs!
Here is Rurai’s blog about me and my site posted on June 9, 2009
Microsoft Student Partners Hit The New Tech
It’s not often I write about an individual, but from my previous role I developed a soft spot for education and to today I still give Lectures in Universities, why? Because it’s such a blast and students have so much passion. Imagine Cup (World wide Student Software Competition) was one of my favourite activities.
Well I digress, this chap I met when joining the MVP program however and we started communicating on MSN on a regular basis, since then he has become a MSP (Microsoft Student partner) and has really matured into technology. just yesterday we caught up and he now has a very active blog, and WOW talk about embracing the new technologies.
He is even become super proactive and has won prizes in the beta testing programs Microsoft runs, Well done Ahmed you have developed nicely I wish you all the best into the future and I hope I had some influence in this great work you doing :-)
Check out his blog, some neat Windows 7, VS2010 as well as some Bing stuff:
http://www.ahmedmahdy.com/
I’d stop very long by this post that’s considered a medal of honor for me personally and a trust from Microsoft leads of our news and blog posts, promising everyone that we’d always offer the best of the best whenever site is up :)
Rurai, A BIG THANK YOU!
If you’re interested to read the original post, please refer here: http://ruariplint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!4DC22E349714F30F!590.entry
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Today, Microsoft announced the official launch of it’s cross-platform web plugin, Silverlight 3 as the natural successor of Silverlight 2 released about 1 year ago.
Download it now: http://www.silverlight.net/
What’s New in Silverlight 3?
Fully supported by Visual Studio and Expression Blend, highlights of new features and functionality of Silverlight 3 include: major media enhancements, out of browser support allowing Web applications to work on the desktop; significant graphics improvements including 3D graphics support, GPU acceleration and H.264 video support; and many features to improve RIA development productivity. Also, in order to fully integrate all the .NET developer tools, Visual Studio 2010 will support a fully editable and interactive designer for Silverlight. New features in Silverlight 3 include:
- Support for Higher Quality Video & Audio. With support for native H.264/Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) Audio, live and on-demand IIS7 Smooth Streaming, full HD (720p+) playback, and an extensible decoder pipeline, Silverlight 3 brings rich, full-screen, stutter-free media experiences to the desktop. New and enhanced media features in Silverlight 3 include:
- Live and on-demand true HD (720p+) Smooth Streaming. IIS Media Services (formerly IIS Media Pack), an integrated HTTP media delivery platform, features Smooth Streaming which dynamically detects and seamlessly switches, in real time, the video quality of a media file delivered to Silverlight based on local bandwidth and CPU conditions.
- More format choice. In addition to native support for VC-1/WMA, Silverlight 3 now offers users native support for MPEG-4-based H.264/AAC Audio, enabling content distributors to deliver high-quality content to a wide variety of computers and devices.
- True HD playback in full-screen. Leveraging graphics processor unit (GPU) hardware acceleration, Silverlight experiences can now be delivered in true full-screen HD (720p+).
- Extensible media format support. With the new Raw AV pipeline, Silverlight can easily support a wide variety of third-party codecs. Audio and video can be decoded outside the runtime and rendered in Silverlight, extending format support beyond the native codecs.
- Industry leading content protection. Silverlight DRM, Powered by PlayReady Content Protection enables protected in-browser experiences using AES encryption or Windows Media DRM.
- Empowering Richer Experiences. Silverlight 3 contains new 3D graphics, animation features, hardware accelerated effects and text improvements that enable designers and developers to create next generation Web visuals. Additional features include:
- Perspective 3D Graphics. Silverlight 3 allows developers and designers to apply content to a 3D plane. Users can rotate or scale live content in space without writing any additional code. Other effects include creating a queue in 3D and transitions.
- Pixel Shader effects. These software based effects include blur and drop shadow. In addition, you can also write your own effect. Effects can be applied to any graphical content. An example would be to make a button appear depressed on rollover you could use a drop shadow effect on the pressed visual state.
- Bitmap Caching. Silverlight 3 dramatically improves the rendering performance of applications by allowing users to cache vector content, text and controls into bitmaps. This feature is useful for background content and for content which needs to scale without making changes to its internal appearance.
- New Bitmap API. With Silverlight 3, developers can now write pixels to a bitmap. Thus, they can build a photo editor to do red eye correction, perform edits on scanned documents or create specials effects for cached bitmaps from elements on the screen.
- Themed application support. Developers can now theme applications by applying styles to their Silverlight 3 applications and changing them at runtime. Additionally, developers can cascade styles by basing them on each other.
- Animation Effects. Silverlight 3 provides new effects such as spring and bounce. These make animation more natural. Developers can also now develop their own mathematical functions to describe an animation.
- Enhanced control skinning. Silverlight 3 provides easier skinning capabilities by keeping a common set of controls external from an application. This allows the sharing of styles and control skins between different applications.
- Improved text rendering & font support. Silverlight 3 allows far more efficient rendering and rapid animation of text. Applications also load faster by enabling the use of local fonts.
- Improving Rich Internet Application Productivity. New features include:
- 60+ controls with source code : Silverlight 3 is packed with over 60 high-quality, fully skinnable and customizable out-of-the-box controls such as charting and media, new layout containers such as dock and viewbox, and controls such as autocomplete, treeview and datagrid. The controls come with nine professional designed themes and the source code can be modified/recompiled or utilized as-is. Other additions include multiple selection in listbox controls, file save dialog making it easier to write files, and support for multiple page applications with navigation.
- Deep Linking. Silverlight 3 includes support for deep linking, which enables bookmarking a page within a RIA.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Silverlight 3 enables users to solve the SEO-related challenges posed by RIAs. By utilizing business objects on the server, together with ASP.NET controls and site maps, users can automatically mirror database-driven RIA content into HTML that is easily indexed by the leading search engines.
- Enhanced Data Support Silverlight 3 delivers:
- Element to Element binding : UI designers use binding between two UI properties to create compelling UI experiences. Silverlight now enables property binding to CLR objects and other UI components via XAML, for instance binding a slider value to the volume control of a media player.
- Data Forms. The Data Form control provides support for layout of fields, validation, updating and paging through data.
- New features for data validation which automatically catch incorrect input and warn the user with built-in validation controls.
- Support for business objects on both client and server with n-Tier data support. Easily load, sort, filter and page data with added support for working with data. Includes a new built-in CollectionView to perform a set of complex operations against server side data. A new set of .NET RIA services supports these features on the server.
- Improved performance, through:
- Application library caching, which reduces the size of applications by caching framework on the client in order to improve rendering performance.
- Enhanced Deep Zoom, allows users to fluidly navigate through larger image collections by zooming.
- Binary XML allows communication with the server to be compressed, greatly increasing the speed at which data can be exchanged.
- Local Connection This feature allows communication between two Silverlight applications on the client-side without incurring a server roundtrip: for instance a chart in one control can communicate with a datagrid in another.
- Advanced Accessibility Features. Silverlight 3 is the first browser plug-in to provide access to all system colors, allowing partially-sighted people to make changes such as high contrast color schemes for ease of readability by using familiar operating system controls.
- Out of Browser Capabilities. The new out of browser experience in Silverlight 3 enables users to place their favorite Silverlight applications directly onto their PC and Mac, with links on the desktop and start menu—all without the need to download an additional runtime or browser plug-in. Further, the new experience enables Silverlight applications to work whether the computer is connected to the Internet or not—a radical improvement to the traditional Web experience. Features include:
- Life outside the browser. Silverlight applications can now be installed to and run from the desktop as lightweight web companions. Thus, users can take their favorite Web applications with them, regardless of whether they are connected to the Internet or not.
- Desktop shortcuts and start menu support. Silverlight applications can be stored on any PC or Mac computer’s desktop with links in the start menu and applications folder, and so are available with one-click access.
- Safe and secure. Leveraging the security features of the .NET Framework, Silverlight applications run inside a secure sandbox with persistent isolated storage. These applications have most of the same security restrictions as traditional web apps and so can be trusted without security warnings or prompts, minimizing user interruptions.
- Smooth installation. Because Silverlight applications are stored in a local cache and do not require extra privileges to run, the installation process is quick and efficient.
- Auto-update. Upon launch, Silverlight applications can check for new versions on the server, and automatically update if one is found.
- Internet connectivity detection. Silverlight applications can now detect whether they have Internet connectivity and can react intelligently including caching a users’ data until their connection is restored.
New Features in Expression Blend 3: The designer-developer workflow took another major step forward today with major innovations in Expression Blend 3 including: SketchFlow, a rapid prototyping capability that makes it easy to communicate design intent to stakeholders; design time sample data that enables the design and testing of applications without access to live data; direct import of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator files; behaviors, extensible and reusable components that add interactivity to applications without writing code; a full code editor supporting C#, VB and XAML; and many more features that support an improved design and development experience. Features include:
- SketchFlow. SketchFlow introduces a new set of features designed to make it easier for you to experiment with dynamic user experiences and create compelling prototypes. SketchFlow also helps communicate design ideas to other stakeholders, and makes it easier to collect in-context annotated feedback. SketchFlow enables the navigation and composition of an application to be modeled in a very visual manner from a simple prototype that uses a series of sketches, to something much more evolved. A prototype can be made as real and interactive as it needs to be to communicate design intent and SketchFlow can leverage all the existing features of Expression Blend.
- Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator import. The powerful importers for both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator enable smooth integration with workflows the designer already has in place. The designer has freedom to view and import Photoshop files layer by layer. Layers can be easily regrouped and elements retain their original formats; layers, layer positions, editable text and vectors remain available for editing within Expression Blend.
- Behaviors. Add interactivity to your application, without having to write code. Behaviors can encapsulate complex design interactions into reusable components which can be directly applied to a user interface element in the application. Developers have access to a rich API that they can use to write their own triggers, actions, and behaviors for use in their Silverlight and WPF projects.
- Sample data. Design time sample data makes it easy to build data-connected applications without access to live data. You can generate sample data or import sample data from an XML file and is available to controls on the artboard at design-time. You can extensively customize your sample data details, and you can easily switch between using sample data and using live data at run-time.
- Improved design and development experience. Expression Blend 3 includes many features that improve the overall design experience including a brand new design surface making Blend more accessible to visual designers. Team Foundation Server support allows easier integration of the Blend user into Team System. Improved animation and easing functions, 3D transforms, visual effects and an improved visual state manager enable a great tooling experience.
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It’s now almost 1 AM, unlike public press to take snapshots of the general events, I decided to take some snapshots of what’s going behind the scenes, maybe due to my position with team captains, competition admin crews…
Now I’ll leave you with photo snapshots taken around the day from different places.
Click View Full Album to view! Enjoy!
Imagine Cup Pre-Launch: Warming Up with Fun!
MSPs Suite – Snapshots from everywhere!
MSPs & Volunteers: Work, Rest, Fun!
Some snapshots of Ahmed Mahdy “That’s me!”
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Today, almost all Microsoft staff arrived the hotel for the Imagine Cup WWF. Registration just started officially an hour ago, everything is working very smoothly. I met Leandro, the Global MSP manager and I met up very brilliant and cool Microsoft guys.
Outside the admin crew, I’ve took some pictures while some of MSPs, volunteers and Matt, the Imagine Cup internet guy were warming up with this cool soccer game.
Follow up more!
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It’s 1 AM, after midnight of my the first day for preparing for Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals “WWF” in Cairo, Egypt. As I’m a Microsoft Student Partner for Microsoft Egypt, I was lucky to officially volunteer in organizing for IC WWF. The more luckier that I’ve arrived the first one, hence I’ve got a first come first served opportunity to choose my preferred room in the reserved suite for MSPs who are not residing in Cairo.
More luckier, I’ve got an Admin Assistant position, where I work with the Imagine Cup competition administrators. I really like the the team work, seems like a bee cell. Very quick brainstorming, very short briefs and quick effective decisions are taken.
I got my first task as admin assistant and I really liked it!
I had an important meeting for my graduation project in the far west of Cairo which took me an hour to go, 3 hours to get back on a 65 degrees temperature that heated the road much to burn our faces!
I just get panic from plane’s view from far landscape for Cairo’s International Airport which I can see through the glass of my room’s balcony beside the heads of CityStars compound.
I’m not going to give any details about the competition due to NDA and code of ethics.
Follow up with my blog, you’ll always get updated with all new about Imagine Cup!
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Brandon LeBlanc, one of the Microsoft Windows team bloggers posted a meeting transcript with Brad Brooks, Microsoft Corporate Vice President for Windows Platform, on the official Microsoft Windows 7 blogs for the pricing of the upcoming Windows 7 on October 22.
For Windows 7, the price is reduced on our most popular retail product for customers, the Home Premium Upgrade, by approximately 10% (depending on the market). In the U.S., this means a customer buying Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade will pay only $119.99 instead of the $129.99 being charged today for its predecessor.
Overall, customers will be paying less and getting more with Windows 7. This includes fun new features such as HomeGroup, Device Stage, Aero Shake, Snap, Peek, Jump Lists and our completely redesigned Windows Taskbar (one of my favorite new features in Windows 7 today). These new features make your PC simpler and much easier to use.
So here’s the low-down on pricing for Windows 7. The estimated retail prices for upgrade packaged retail product of Windows 7 in the U.S. are:
- Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade): $119.99
- Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade): $199.99
- Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade): $219.99
And the estimated retail prices for full packaged retail product of Windows 7 in the U.S. are:
- Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99
- Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99
- Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99
This means that Windows 7 Home Premium full retail product is $40.00 less than Windows Vista Home Premium today.
For more details about the transcript, please refer to the official Microsoft Windows 7 Blog here.
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