Channel 8

This Week C9: Revolution 9 - The Future of Channel 9

Max Zuckerman — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:15:00 GMT

On a very special episode of This Week on Channel 9, Dan is joined by Jeff, Duncan, and Nishant to talk about the recent survey results, and the Revolution 9 project

- (0:00 - 1:00) Jeff Sandquist, Duncan Mackenzie, and Nishant Kothary
- (1:00 - 1:57) Survey results request by Minh
- (1:57 - 2:47) How we're working on being more transparent including content and our dev team and helping other organizations be more transparent
- (2:47 - 7:20) Jeff discusses the history of Channel 9
- (7:20 - 10:55) Survey Results - The Good
- High satisfaction with Microsoft
- Most Important site features: Video interviews, screencasts/podcasts
- 50% visit daily, 75% visit at least weekly
- 66% will try a new technology
- 91% gave verbatim feedback
- (10:55 - 12:23) Channel 9 Traffic
- 131 Terabytes/Monthly
- 2.8 Million Minutes/Month
- (12:23 - 15:17) Survey Results - The Bad
- Site reliability
- Finding content through search/tags
- Site organization
- Satisfaction for non-developers was lower than developer satisfaction
- (15:17 - 16:48) Survey Results - Importance and Usage Graph
- (16:48 - 17:18) RossJ Coffeehouse comment on artificial classification of devs, students, and consumers
- (17:18 - 17:50) Long Zheng blog comment on Evangelism Network and the "dilemma of choosing a community"
- (17:50 - 19:20) Current State of the World - Channel 8, 9, 10, Coding4Fun, Edge, and MIX Online
- (19:20 - 24:00) Future State of the World
- Channel 10 and Coding4Fun content will now be on Channel 9
- Existing Channel 8 content moves to Channel 9, while the Microsoft Student site becomes the portal for students
- Edge and MIX sites stay unchanged
- (24:00 - 25:28) The origins of the Revolution 9 name based on Jamie's PDC artwork and coming full circle to our roots
- (25:28 - 26:10) Revolution 9 is three things - Content, User Experience, and site reliability + features
- (26:10 - 29:00) Content - Common theme is more - Erik Meijer, Silverlight, real world examples, how-to training, Scoble/Rory style interviews, more history of Microsoft
- (29:00 - 40:10) Adding new content, not taking away existing, not one size fits all, different topics, formats, styles, length, continuous evolution.
- New stuff
- Learn - Going Deep, 10-4, MSR/Coding4Fun Projects
- Opinions - Erik Meijer, Anders Hejlsberg, favorite Windows 7 apps
- Culture - Old-school C9 videos, history of Microsoft
- Community - Channel 9 Live - Live streaming town halls with leaders at Microsoft, online "bootcamp" for different technologies
- Grow # of C9 authors
- (40:10 - 54:54) Nishant on User Experience
- Jeff talks about the Bruce Williams podcast
- Nishant's dog and how he is on Twitter (@yoweim)
- How Channel 9 played a huge part in him joining the company
- Discoverability - Can we help you find content you're searching for or content you find interesting that you weren't searching for. It's too hard to browse through through 1,300+ tags
- Readability - How consumable is the content, both text and video, ensure the content is pleasing to look at
- Interactivity - Don't over-complicate interaction model
- Visual Design - Let the content shine through, design only begins when you launch, it will continue to evolve
- (54:54 - 58:38) Duncan on site reliability
- Duncan's request for comments
- SQL Performance Tuning and de-normalization
- Replacement of Editor control
- Cross-Browser Compatibility with Chrome/Safari
- (58:38 - 1:05) Duncan on new features
- Improve video - Windows Media profile, smooth streaming, video bookmarks/chapters
- Channel 9 Live - Live chat stream in some way (Twitter, uStream-style)
- Misc - Anonymous comments, spam filtering, star-rating system so more people will use ratings (content recommendations like Netflix)
- (1:05 - 1:07) Recap
- Thank you for being members of the Channel 9 community

MCTS Certification Vouchers - Registration Challenges

Jenp — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:47:00 GMT

The Prometric web registration site is experiencing intermittent slowness and temporary connectivity issues. We encourage candidates to continue their registration attempts. If you are not able to schedule an exam appointment online please got to www.prometric.com/microsoft “Questions?” and select your specific region to register via phone.

Certification... just do it

Silke-Christina Kummer — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:10:00 GMT

Okay... so it might be a little harder during these days to find your perfect job.
But to improve your chances there is no better way than to enhance your curriculum with certifications.

55% of all the managers out there check if you have certificates while looking for the perfect candidate.

If you are looking for some easy first steps - visit DreamSpark.
There you get not only free Microsoft software, but also free trainings with the Microsoft IT Academy Student Pass.

Vectorform’s cool new Surface applications

Silke-Christina Kummer — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:51:00 GMT

We met the ux and creative directors of Vectorform and they showed us their new cool software stuff.

Things like Blazin Beats, Driver Profile, Surface DJ 1.5 and A Green Austin. But also people like Chuck Bass, yes gossip stuff arrived at the Survace through our favorite application called "Extra" ;-)

So enjoy, lay back and have fun by watching the video.

Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts

Silke-Christina Kummer — Tue, 05 May 2009 08:02:00 GMT

Now we show you the new and best keyboard shortcuts in Windows 7.

Take a look, learn, enjoy and have fun ;)

New Windows 7 Features

Silke-Christina Kummer — Mon, 04 May 2009 08:29:00 GMT

In this video Chris shows us some new features of Windows 7. You can see what the new Aero features Aero Snap, Aero Shake and Aero Peak do.
Chris also explains how Jump Lists are used and shows the new pin to taskbar functionality. So have a short look and see what’s possible.

You can also grab a free copy of Windows 7 RC on May 5th here http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

Max Builds an HTPC: pre-build update

Max Zuckerman — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:33:00 GMT

I know it has been a while since you have heard about the build-a-PC but I got a friendly nudge from a fellow 8er.

Little did he know, I had already ordered all of the components and they have ARRIVED! I have added a few surprises to the mix that I think you all will really enjoy.

Although there is a chance I’m going to blow something up….. so make sure you watch this build post, it should be LEGENDARY. Or at least fun to watch :).

Until then… sit tight, or feel free to speculate on what the surprise is in the comments.

Codename Chimpanzee - Check this out....

Silke-Christina Kummer — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:12:00 GMT

We present another cool game. Codename Chimpanzee - Multiplayer 3D Vertical Scrolling Shooter – is a game still in progress.

3 guys started developing this game in October 2008. As soon as we have the final version you’ll find it here on Channel 8 ;-)

You are doing a great job Florian and team ;-)

- XNA, PC und Xbox360 -

First tutorial Windows Azure

Ivana Tilca — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:56:00 GMT

Well recently I decided to investigate WINDOWS AZURE without understanding what means "construct applications in the clouds" I looked for the info, that shows the best performance of azure.

First of all i saw thousands of videos from the PDC to the videos you can find on the official website of azure .. http://www.microsoft.com/azure and that best explains the tool is Mr Steve Marx http://channel9.ms

The basic idea is that developers now have a much easier way to deploy applications and services without having to worry about scale or maintenance. Azure is an operating system in that it abstracts the details of infrastructure.

So ... create your web site or service aplicatión ... from visual studio and internet Azure operating system is responsible for installing the necessary steps so that your service will provide your applications to run ....

Well ... first of all to work is required to download the following materials.

Windows Azure SDK

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio

Microsoft .NET Services SDK

Microsoft SQL Data Services SDK

Live Framework Documentation and Resources

Java SDK for .NET Services

Ruby SDK for .NET Services

These are the materials of Azure to work with up to SQL, by the time we use the first 3 links.

Once installed open the visual studio and I see the tab

a href="/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/itilca/image_5F00_5B50FFC3.png">
choose the option Web Cloud Service and put a name ... the explorer will be the following ...

Once installed open the visual studio and I see the tab >https://connect.microsoft.com/SelfNomination.aspx?SiteID=681&ProgramID=2500&pageType=1 Here is the link to sign up ... once they are registered ...will email the following ...

once you have done this go to the New Project option to see the area left of the website .. there are options to create Azure services ... we choose the option of Hosted Services

click Next. choose a url for your site and then press CREATE

Back to visual studio. As we saw earlier Visual Studio creates two projects in my solution is the one that webcloud and another is the website. We chose the cloud and tight right click Properties. and on the same site and prefer to stick there id the website azure.

Once this ... open the Default.aspx file from the site and add this into the body

<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div>
        <h1>Hello Azure</h1>
    </div>
    </form>
</body>

once we have this, again choosing the right project and click Publish azure .. or post. , We are publishing our website, where visual studio is finished, open the explorer where you published your site and azure page where this project should go up. Within the web of azure ... choose the option Deploy. and on the next page to locate the folder where your website published. Choose the files you told azure, put them to a label name and click Deploy.

which result in the creation. then choose the RUN option must wait until they see the finished WebRole completed .. and then the URL below that you have published your website.
http://geeks.cloudapp.net/Default.aspx
greetings :)

VSOne Teil 2 - Chris Sells

Silke-Christina Kummer — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:48:00 GMT

Chris Sells, Program Manager of team "Oslo" Microsoft Corp., held the keynote at the VSOne.

Which prio Model Driven Architecture and Model Driven Development in software development has, which possibilities Oslo will offer, what his job as a "PM" is about, what he thinks about Germany, and Munich especially and how he spent his time when I was not on stage during the VSOne.... you'll see the answers in that clip.

Ruh-roh… Stefan has a new job?? Now what?!

Max Zuckerman — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:47:00 GMT

Stefan has been flying low recently but I managed to meet up with him to find out exactly what’s going on.

To make a long story short, Stefan took on a big new role here at Microsoft, but he has some words of assurance for all “7 of you” fans ;).

Imagine Cup 2009 is Coming… are you in?

Max Zuckerman — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:50:00 GMT

Last year’s Imagine Cup was a blast… some of my favorite moments were with Joe Wilson recapping the day’s events and speculating on what the future brings.

Now it’s up to YOU to be the future of Imagine Cup culminating in Cairo, Egypt for the worldwide finals. Are you in???

Worlds largest Windows Media Center remote control

Christian Liensberger — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:33:00 GMT

Michael Hurnaus (aka michbex), a true geek and former student (until half a year or so ago), and a friend of him bought two PlayStation 2 Dance Dance revolution mats and a Playstation2-to-PC converter box. After that they wrote a C# library (available from here) to connect the two mats with their Windows Media Center PC.

The result, as seen in the picture, is the largets Windows Media Center Control that the world has ever seen! A video of Michael playing the remote is also available on his blog and here.

Windows 7 Hits Public Beta on Friday, January 9th

Max Zuckerman — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:01:00 GMT

Check the title… enough said. Until then, learn more:

CES 2009 Kicks off with Robbie Bach and Steve Ballmer

Max Zuckerman — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:39:00 GMT

Hey there dudes and dudettes… I’m at Vegas for CES 2009 to check out the Microsoft shenanigans going on this year. Let’s just say there’s a lot going on, but I am loving the buzz around Windows 7.

Just a heads up: you can watch the keynote TONIGHT at 6:30pm US Pacific here: 100k, 300k, 750k.

Also, Channel 10 will have a liveblog rolling just for you!

Happy Holidays! Here's a little something from us (Giveaway)

Sriram ChandraSekaran — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 13:47:00 GMT

Winners announced!! Users: 'chabilha' and 'anthonypants', see inside for details.

Ho! Ho! Ho! Happy Holidays folks! We hope you're having a great time with family & friends ;)
Here's a little something from team Channel8, just for you!
We're giving away 2 sets of SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition DVDs + swag!! All you got to do is leave a comment..it could be anything - why you'd want one of these? or just about anything else.

- Microsoft loves ya

Users: 'chabilha' and 'anthonypants' are requested to:
1) Send an email to icanhaz@khoofia.com with:
     Your shipping address and any other information needed to deliver the prize.
     A Secret password or passphrase of your choice.
     A scanned copy ID issued by your school, university or college (or) any other identity document that confirms you as a student.
2) Add another comment to this current post with:
     Your City, State, Region and Country.
     The secret password/ passphrase that was sent via email.

Contest Rules:
- You need to be a student currently studying something/anything at an accredited school, college or university. (yes, I will ask the winners for an ID)
- Contest Open Worldwide
- Void where prohibited by law, including the Canada Province of Quebec and countries of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
- Only one comment per person
- Contest ends 3 Jan 2009
- Winners (2) will be chosen randomly
- Winners will be announced in the same post

This giveaway was brought to you by:
Team Channel 8
SQL Server 2008 Launch Team - The DVDs
Microsoft Dubai - Logistics + any other swag you might find ;)

Max Builds an HTPC Part VII: Optical Drives

Max Zuckerman — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:17:00 GMT

Quite a different story this time around compared to our last discussion about what kind of optical drive to use in our Home Theater PC building series. I think this time it’s safe to assume we will be going the Blu-Ray direction, but hey if you want to try something else that is up to you all.

So it comes down to a few considerations:

Do we want to be able to burn Blu-Ray discs?
Do we want to be able to burn DVDs?
Single drive? Multiple drives?
Do we even have room for multiple drives?
Is one more quiet than another? Do the research and find out ;)

Modeling through the ages - get to know OSLO

Silke-Christina Kummer — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:01:00 GMT

Models on stones.... models on papyrus... led to...
And what is the next evolution of modeling?

This video is fun to watch!

Max Builds an HTPC Part VI: The Hard Drive(s)

Max Zuckerman — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:10:00 GMT

We’re moving along quite nicely in our HTPC Build Series… so let’s keep this train-a-rollin’.

Today, my friends, we discuss the storage solution—that’d be hard drives. And this space is definitely heating up lately with the introduction of less-than-insane-prices-but-still-wicked-expensive Solid State Drives.

In fact, it may be a good idea to check out the fastest non-SCSI SATA drive on the market tested against an SSD.

Here are my tips:

This is a media powerhouse, so we need big drives. I’m talking TERAbytes if you can stomach that.
It will be on a LOT, so power-hungry drives aren’t necessarily the wisest, greenest choice… so stay efficient
Speaking of power, keep heat in mind… those wicked fast drives also generate a lot of heat, where are we going to dissipate that heat?? Do we have the fans?
Solid State is amazing tech, should we consider a main drive SSD for the operating system and general use, and then a super-sized power-efficient drive as our storage piece? I do believe that’s a nice idea :)

But hey, what do I know… hit me with YOUR ideas! Anything goes!

Get to know the German Microsoft Student Partners

Silke-Christina Kummer — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:40:00 GMT

Miao Wag, Martin Blersch and Johannes Fähndrich are all Microsoft Student Partners in Germany.

During their one week C#-workshop they told us why they really enjoy being part of the program.
As a Student Partner you really enhance your professional skills, improve your presentation skills, get to know great people and yeaaaahhhh.... it is also about fun ;-)!

Take a look at the video - maybe you are the one we were waiting for at the Microsoft Student Partner Program.

Student Technology Day: Future User Experience Technologies

Max Zuckerman — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:03:00 GMT

One of the most important innovations in decades is coming, moving away from mouse and keyboard interactions to touch-based interactions. In this session, Paolo Barone spoke about the impact this will have on Computer Science and how developers will build innovative applications on top of this new user experience paradigm.

Student Technology Day: Microsoft Research Talk on CS Inside Halo 3 True Ranking System

Max Zuckerman — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:02:00 GMT

Ralf Herbrich is a Senior Researcher at Microsoft's computer science lab in Cambridge. In his work, he and his team combine cutting-edge research in computational intelligence and machine learning with their passion for computer games and the Internet. In this talk, Ralf revealed the magic behind the Artificial Intelligence of Forza Motorsport and the machine learning algorithm Trueskill that matches players in Halo 3 and other Xbox LIVE games. He also explained how simple geometry and advanced high-school maths mixed with tons of imagination can lead to exciting new possibilities in the realm of computer games and beyond.

Student Technology Day: Science Behind Live Search

Max Zuckerman — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:01:00 GMT

Group Program Manager Jay Girotto, from Microsoft's Live Search development team, spoke about the research and engineering that go into indexing and searching the vast amount of information that is available on the Internet.

Student Technology Day: Lessons from Starting a Software Company

Max Zuckerman — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Andy McLoughlin is a co-founder of Huddle.net, the online collaboration, project management and document sharing service. Andy discussed the highs and lows of the first two years in business and the lessons he learnt taking Huddle.net from an idea in the pub to 'one of the UK's most exciting start-ups'.

Student Technology Day: Steve Ballmer Keynote

Max Zuckerman — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:40:00 GMT

Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, addressed the UK's leading computing students, discussing the challenges facing the software industry today and how an organisation like Microsoft focuses on innovation to embrace disruption. This candid discussion with the audience gave a unique insight into Microsoft and highlighted why Computer Science talent and research is critical to the industry's success.