“Hilo world” – presenting the Annotator!

In June, we announced Project Hilo and promised a set of cool sample applications written in C++. At that time we released the first application in that series. Since then we have been busy publishing some articles that walk you through all the steps that go into developing that application (See Chapter 1 thru 8 here ).

This time we are back with the next application in the Project Hilo series. We call it the Hilo Annotator.

The Hilo Annotator provides basic image editing capabilities but more importantly it illustrates how to take advantage of the following Windows functionalities:

• Ribbon: To provide a modern, easy to use and easy to learn user interface.
• Windows Imaging Component (WIC): To display and manipulate images.

What’s more is that it even tells you more about the Windows Animation Manager and Direct2D that we have seen in the previous articles.

Feel free to download the source code for this application from the Hilo Code Gallery Page. The article introducing the Hilo Annotator app can be found here. As we did earlier, over the coming weeks we will be publishing a series of articles on the MSDN library that will walk you through building this application.

As always, you can also follow Hilo updates on Twitter @projecthilo. Stay tuned and code-on!

See it, hear it, touch it: HP adds new 3D, Beats Audio, and Touch laptops to its lineup

Technology moves at an unrelenting sprint, and HP is keeping pace with the introduction of several new laptops that take advantage of cutting-edge features like 3D, multi-touch, and their signature "Beats Audio” sound setup.

On the netbook front, HP introduced a new member to its venerable Mini 210 lineup (the Vivienne Tam – which I love – is part of this line) with new optional HD screens, optional GPS, and the option to power up with the Intel’s new Atom N550 processor.  It’s in a slick new chassis that’s less than an inch thick and weighs just a hair over 3lbs, and you can get one starting at $329.  HP also introduced the Mini 5103, which is HP’s first mini-notebook with a multi-touch screen.  It comes in a beautiful all-metal “espresso” colored case, and its available today starting at $399.  I’m really looking forward to getting a Mini 5103 so I can try out multi-touch.  Overall, HP does a great job with touch – just look at the wildly successful TouchSmart line – and I’m excited to see how they miniaturized the experience for the Mini 5103’s 10.1” screen.

The shiny new Mini 210s

Want something bigger?  HP’s got you covered.  Today they announced the ENVY 17 3D, the first 17” laptop in the world to pump out 3D graphics on a 1080p display.  I haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds amazing!  Couple that with monster specs, like an available ATI Radeon 5850 DirectX 11 GPU, 2 terrabytes of storage, an Intel Core i7 processor, and ATI Eyefinity to support multiple external displays, and the ENVY 17 3D is shaping up to be one of the baddest boxes on the market. 

HP rounds out today’s announcement with the ENVY 14 Beats Edition. This is a special edition of the standard ENVY 14 that’s packed with Beats Audio, which HP touts as “A unique, high-performance technology developed by HP and Beats by Dr. Dre™ to provide the optimal sound experience – the way the artist intended it – when playing music or audio through headphones or external speakers.”  I just got one of these laptops into my office and I’ve been playing with Beats Audio and the Beats Audio Solo noise-cancelling headphones and I can attest to how incredible its makes music sound.  Bass is deep, mids are solid, and highs are crisp and clear.  It’s an impressive combo and something that I highly recommend to music lovers.  I’ll be reviewing the ENVY 14 in more depth in the next week or so, so keep an eye out.

It’s always nice to see a leading PC company like HP staying ahead of the game by making cutting-edge technology available in mainstream laptops.  Hopefully we’ll see more PCs with technologies like this coming soon.   Speaking of what’s next – what do you think is the next big thing in PC tech? 

Have a question about this or any other PC?  Post a comment, hit me on Twitter or Ask Ben Anything via email.  Your question might appear in my monthly Ask Ben Anything Q&A column.

Internet Explorer Usage Share in August

We continue to see momentum for Internet Explorer 8 worldwide with the share numbers released today. Net Applications’ August browser usage share figures confirm that as IE8 moves into its 18th month, it remains the fastest growing browser worldwide. Internet Explorer 8 grew 1.17% to account for 32.04% of usage share worldwide – more than three times that of Chrome’s 0.36% share growth. Firefox remained largely flat for August with a slight gain of 0.02% worldwide.

An additional piece of encouraging news was the further drop of Internet Explorer 6, particularly in developed markets.  As Net Applications is reporting that IE6 share is now at its lowest point ever, I thought it would be a good time to address how we think about the aging browser.  As we have said in the past, one of our main missions is to get people off IE6 as fast as humanly possible.  And while IE6 was a great browser for its time, we all need the web to move forward.  First, this is good for developers who we want to be able to write the same markup across their sites. It’s good for consumers who should have the protections afforded by a modern browser. Finally, it’s good for the web, particularly as we look ahead to IE9 and begin to see what’s possible. 

The news today of August market share that Internet Explorer 6 is at or below 5% in many developed markets is overall goodness.

While there is still a significant number of Internet Explorer 6 users who have not upgraded, most of these users are concentrated in developing or emerging markets as well as enterprises with substantial application dependencies that take time to migrate. Overall, August data shows a decline of Internet Explorer 6 usage of 0.87% to 16.99% worldwide, which is about half the market share Internet Explorer 8 has today. Break that down further and you see that the share of IE6 is at 5.3% in the United States and less than 5% in Europe – a good sign that many users and developers are ready to embrace a modern browser. As IE6 share drops (and IE7 too), we expect a dip in worldwide IE share.  For August, IE share worldwide decreased 0.34% to 60.40% worldwide, but in a world of customer choice we are pleased that people are continuing to choose Internet Explorer 8 three times more often than other browsers when they make that move. 

Over the past several months, you have seen us talk about some of the ways we’re helping customers get off IE6 and onto IE8 and soon IE9, coming in beta in just a few weeks.  From our work with enterprise customers, to consumer campaigns like adios IE6 and spoiled milk, to joining the fun at the IE6 Funeral - these efforts will continue.

Today, people on the web are demanding an even more beautiful web experience. The Internet Explorer 9 Platform Previews continue to generate great buzz among developers and browser enthusiasts, and we have now registered over 2.5 million downloads and 20 million page views to the IE Test Drive Site, our developer site where we show new capabilities in HTML5 and Internet Explorer 9. We are looking forward to even more great things with the release of IE9 Beta this month.

Ryan Gavin
Senior Director, Internet Explorer Business and Marketing

Family Pack Returns in time for the Anniversary of Windows 7

All summer long we’ve given you some great reasons to purchase a new PC and make the move to Windows 7, an operating system loved by a whopping 94% of folks who use it! Here’s one more: starting October 3 in the U.S., Windows 7 Family Pack will be available for purchase at participating retailers and online at the Microsoft Store. Purchasing the Windows 7 Family Pack gives you three upgrade licenses of Windows 7 Home Premium for the low price of $149.99. To take advantage of Family Pack, you’ll need a PC running a genuine copy of either Windows Vista or Windows XP that is capable of running Windows 7. The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor can tell you which features and editions of Windows 7 will run on your computer(s).

For those of you who don’t live in the U.S., Family Pack may be coming your way too. It goes on sale in Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia and many other markets on or after Oct. 22 (Windows 7’s 1 year anniversary!)

According to IDC’s Consumerscape 360 data, there are 2.1 PCs per household in the U.S., but, as we all know, networking isn’t easy. Windows 7 has built in features – like HomeGroup- that make it easy and quick to get all of your home PCs connected and sharing files, music, photos and printers.

So, don’t delay. The Windows 7 Family Pack will be available soon while supplies last.

If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up on Twitter.

Hotmail now supports push email, calendar, and contacts with Exchange ActiveSync

Hotmail is making it easier for you to stay up-to-date and be productive on your phone. Starting today, you can get your email, calendar, and contacts pushed automatically to your phone using Exchange ActiveSync (EAS). EAS keeps everything in sync between your phone and Hotmail, so whatever you do on your phone, like delete an email, add an appointment, or update one of your contacts with a new number, will also be reflected on the web, and vice-versa. If you use an email client on your PC that already syncs with Hotmail, like Outlook with the Outlook Connector or Windows Live Mail, what you do on your phone will show up there as well, delivering a seamless experience for managing your stuff between your PC email client, your browser, and your phone. 

Today, EAS is supported by over 300 million mobile devices worldwide, including some of the most popular Windows, Nokia, and Palm smartphones, as well as the iPhone and iPad. For a full list of supported devices, click here.

Setup details: I encourage you to take a look at the phone-specific setup instructions and known issues at the Windows Live Solution Center page on Active Sync setup.

Field	Setting
Server / URL	m.hotmail.com
Username	Enter full email address, for example: someone@example.com
Domain	Leave this blank
SSL	Enable this
Certificate	Accept the SSL certificate when prompted
Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks	All can be enabled (see the Solution Center article for exceptions on some phones)

In the coming months, we will continue to bring out new features and capabilities based on feedback from our users, so please, stay tuned for more.

Dick Craddock
Group Program Manager
Windows Live Hotmail

Windows Recession Sweepstakes #8 & 9: The New Hotmail

After taking a little time off to enjoy my birthday, I am pleased to bring back the next installment of the Windows Recession Sweepstakes.

We’ve done seven sweeps so far and I realized this weekend that I’ve never talked about Hotmail. Windows Live Hotmail recently got a refresh and it’s more powerful than ever at helping you save time and sweep away inbox clutter.

Now, you can work with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote files right from your email – even if you don’t have Microsoft Office installed on your PC. You’re also protected from junk mail by Microsoft SmartScreen, which governments and businesses use to protect their email, and you can now send up to 10GB in attachments.

So, go give the new Hotmail a try. In the meantime, drop us a comment and tell us what you love about Windows Live. In honor of my birthday, I’ll draw two names from entries this round to win. You have 24 hours to enter rounds 8 & 9. You can always read the full Terms & Conditions here.

Please Tweet this post, and don’t forget to follow me for all the inside track on all the latest news.

Windows Live Sync to be named Windows Live Mesh

In June, we announced that as part of Windows Live Essentials beta, we brought together two programs, Windows Live Sync and the Live Mesh beta, into one: Windows Live Sync beta. We focused on four things with our beta release:

• Making it easy to access the PCs you use from anywhere
• Getting your files and folders on the PCs you use regularly
• Giving you enough space to sync your most important files and folders to the cloud
• Providing simple document collaboration over the web using SkyDrive

Since the release of the Windows Live Sync beta in June, over 240,000 people have tried Windows Live Sync on hundreds of thousands of devices, and have provided a lot of feedback. The average customer syncs over 675 files with an average file size of 1.8 MB, and uses 240 MB of cloud storage. We received an incredible amount of forum posts and comments as well as informal communication through our feedback site. We have been listening and have made updates based on your feedback.

Renaming Windows Live Sync to Windows Live Mesh

In our beta release, we brought the best of Windows Live Sync and Live Mesh together. With the addition of remote access and cloud storage, we understand that the new program does more than sync files.  So following the beta period, we’ll be using the name Windows Live Mesh going forward, which we feel best reflects our broader goal of allowing you to access your stuff across your devices.

Giving you more information

A number of our customers noted the inability to sync hidden files, so we added this support. Another point of feedback was that customers wanted a list of which files were missing in a synced folder. Now when Windows Live Mesh detects missing files, you can easily see the file name and when and where it was last modified.

More cloud storage

We continue to see that the primary way customers are syncing files is between their different PCs (or Macs). And we will continue to make it easy to sync virtually unlimited amounts of data between your PCs. When syncing files to the cloud, beta participants get 2 GB of synced cloud storage. Only 2% of these participants are using more than 1.5 GB. However, Live Mesh offers 5 GB, and while only a small number of Live Mesh customers use all their space, we want to ease migration and increase the online storage limit from 2 GB to 5 GB.

A number of customers have asked why we don’t allow you to sync up to 25 GB, given that 25 GB is the SkyDrive limit. While we merged Sync and Live Mesh in this release, we did not merge the online storage system used for Live Mesh with the one used for Office or Photos on SkyDrive. This means that each system has different storage limits and is optimized for different scenarios.

SkyDrive offers enough storage for you to share documents and photos with friends, family, and co-workers. Hotmail offers enough storage for you to store your email, calendar, and contacts. Windows Live Mesh lets you sync all your files and folders across your PCs and devices, and provides enough cloud storage for your most important files. Over time, we’ll be considering ways to do even more to share information across these systems.

Performance and quality improvements

We’ve made several performance updates to Windows Live Mesh in response to your requests that will provide noticeable improvements to your experience. We worked on cutting the application load time in half and made syncing large numbers of folders and adding multiple devices to a sync folder faster. We’ve optimized both memory and CPU usage during sync activity as well as decreased CPU consumption by as much as 30% when Windows Live Mesh is idle.

We hope you enjoy these changes and take the time to install the new Windows Live Mesh along with the rest of Windows Live Essentials 2011 once it is released from the beta. In the meantime, please keep using the beta programs and keep the comments coming. Thank you for using Windows Live!

Allison O’Mahony
Principal Program Manager Lead, Devices & Roaming

Windows Live Sync to be named Windows Live Mesh

In June, we announced that as part of Windows Live Essentials beta, we brought together two programs, Windows Live Sync and the Live Mesh beta, into one: Windows Live Sync beta. We focused on four things with our beta release:

• Making it easy to access the PCs you use from anywhere
• Getting your files and folders on the PCs you use regularly
• Giving you enough space to sync your most important files and folders to the cloud
• Providing simple document collaboration over the web using SkyDrive

Since the release of the Windows Live Sync beta in June, over 240,000 people have tried Windows Live Sync on hundreds of thousands of devices, and have provided a lot of feedback. The average customer syncs over 675 files with an average file size of 1.8 MB, and uses 240 MB of cloud storage. We received an incredible amount of forum posts and comments as well as informal communication through our feedback site. We have been listening and have made updates based on your feedback.

Renaming Windows Live Sync to Windows Live Mesh

In our beta release, we brought the best of Windows Live Sync and Live Mesh together. With the addition of remote access and cloud storage, we understand that the new program does more than sync files.  So following the beta period, we’ll be using the name Windows Live Mesh going forward, which we feel best reflects our broader goal of allowing you to access your stuff across your devices.

Giving you more information

A number of our customers noted the inability to sync hidden files, so we added this support. Another point of feedback was that customers wanted a list of which files were missing in a synced folder. Now when Windows Live Mesh detects missing files, you can easily see the file name and when and where it was last modified.

More cloud storage

We continue to see that the primary way customers are syncing files is between their different PCs (or Macs). And we will continue to make it easy to sync virtually unlimited amounts of data between your PCs. When syncing files to the cloud, beta participants get 2 GB of synced cloud storage. Only 2% of these participants are using more than 1.5 GB. However, Live Mesh offers 5 GB, and while only a small number of Live Mesh customers use all their space, we want to ease migration and increase the online storage limit from 2 GB to 5 GB.

A number of customers have asked why we don’t allow you to sync up to 25 GB, given that 25 GB is the SkyDrive limit. While we merged Sync and Live Mesh in this release, we did not merge the online storage system used for Live Mesh with the one used for Office or Photos on SkyDrive. This means that each system has different storage limits and is optimized for different scenarios.

SkyDrive offers enough storage for you to share documents and photos with friends, family, and co-workers. Hotmail offers enough storage for you to store your email, calendar, and contacts. Windows Live Mesh lets you sync all your files and folders across your PCs and devices, and provides enough cloud storage for your most important files. Over time, we’ll be considering ways to do even more to share information across these systems.

Performance and quality improvements

We’ve made several performance updates to Windows Live Mesh in response to your requests that will provide noticeable improvements to your experience. We worked on cutting the application load time in half and made syncing large numbers of folders and adding multiple devices to a sync folder faster. We’ve optimized both memory and CPU usage during sync activity as well as decreased CPU consumption by as much as 30% when Windows Live Mesh is idle.

We hope you enjoy these changes and take the time to install the new Windows Live Mesh along with the rest of Windows Live Essentials 2011 once it is released from the beta. In the meantime, please keep using the beta programs and keep the comments coming. Thank you for using Windows Live!

Allison O’Mahony
Principal Program Manager Lead, Devices & Roaming

Tools To Make Working With Internet Explorer 6 in Windows 7 Easier

Over the past few months, many of you have shared with me your need to continue to be able to offer support for Internet Explorer 6 specific application while rolling out Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 into your organization. Suggestions for walkthroughs, papers and application compatibility lists were made by many of you. Based on those conversations, I am very happy to offer the following resources to help you.

1. Migrating from Windows Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP to Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7: Strategy, Standards, and Support - As organizations deploy Windows 7, many still depend on web applications that were designed for Internet Explorer 6. Will they still work, and what can you do when they don’t? On Sept 30th, join a panel of IT Professionals, Microsoft specialists and technical experts to discuss best practices to simplify and accelerate the migration to Internet Explorer 8. Topics will include an explanation of the causes of and solutions for application compatibility issues (including policy, code, and virtualization solutions), an introduction to tools, and a review of best practices. Send us your questions to be discussed on the show to vrtable@microsoft.com.
2. Internet Explorer 8 Application Compatibility List for IT professionals - The Internet Explorer 8 Application Compatibility List for IT Professionals is a Microsoft Office Excel-based spreadsheet listing software applications which are compatible or not compatible with Internet Explorer 8, based on public support statements from software publishers, or statements made to Microsoft from software publishers. This list will be updated on a regular basis.
3. Addressing Application Compatibility When Migrating to Internet Explorer 8 - Many corporations are still relying on Internet Explorer 6 based web applications that have been built and customized over the past decade. Organizations planning to deploy Windows 7 need to have a comprehensive strategy and an execution plan in place to migrate legacy web applications to Internet Explorer 8. This document provides IT professionals a detailed overview of Internet Explorer 8 compatibility issues and discusses remediation strategies for migrating web applications, while providing an introduction to tools and processes. Watch for the companion developer piece coming to MSDN soon!
4. Internet Explorer local URL lockdown restriction - This screen cast shows how you can lock down Internet Explorer 6 or greater to only browse to the URLs you specify.  This is most commonly used when you are virtualizing IE 6 or 7 for legacy applications and using IE 8 or greater for your primary browser which is not locked down
5. Solving Enterprise Application Compatibility Issues with Internet Explorer 8 (Part 1 of 2) and (Part 2 of 2) - By far, the single largest obstacle to deployment of Windows Internet Explorer 8 for many organizations is the 10 years of accumulated Web applications that may have a dependency on Windows Internet Explorer 6. How big is the problem really? How can you address it using best practices gleaned from Microsoft Enterprise Services engagements with other enterprise customers? In this video, we explore the workflow, the tools to leverage through this workflow, and the remediation techniques Microsoft Enterprise Services has used with other large customers to successfully navigate the application compatibility challenge.
6. Internet Explorer Virtualization with MED-V - Learn how you can utilize MED-V to virtualize your web applications which require Internet Explorer 6 or 7 in your environment. If your organization is considering an upgrade to Windows 7 or Internet Explorer 8 but is concerned about the expense, time, and IT staff effort needed to update your older (or legacy) LOB web applications, using a virtualization option might be a an effective solution until you can run your web applications natively with IE 8.

The MSI GX640 & the beauty of Device Stage

Normally when I review a laptop, I spend most of my time on performance and design – how it looks, how it feels to hold and type on, how it performs under various workloads.  Today’s post on the MSI GX640 gaming laptop is a bit different, because I wanted to focus on MSI’s implementation of Windows 7 Device Stage.

For those of you not familiar with Device Stage (I suspect most of you are), it’s a new feature in Windows 7 that makes it easy to find the things you want to do with your devices on your PC – basically, a a multi-function version of Autoplay that displays all the applications, services, and information related to your device.  To access the device stage experience: click Start, then Devices & Printers, from the Devices and Printers folder, you’ll see all of the devices connected to your PC.

While Device Stage is typically used by device manufacturers for things like cameras, MP3 players, and printers, MSI is taking advantage of it to make managing your PC extremely easy.  Unlike most manufacturers who typically pre-load their machines with a bevvy of house-made applications to set up preferences, configure power management, and update drivers, MSI has has customized Windows 7 Device Stage to allow users to easily access system settings, open the Network and Sharing Center, modify keyboard, audio, and other hardware settings, get easy one-click access to the user manual and to MSI support, and keep their MSI drivers and software up to date.

When I first heard about what MSI is doing with device stage, I wasn’t sold on it – I’m used to working in different applications and Control Panel windows to manage PC settings, and I’ve never thought of that process as difficult or cumbersome.  After using the GX640 for a few days, though, I started to realize how nice it was to have everything in one place. 

In terms of performance, the MSI GX640 doesn’t disappoint.  Mine was loaded with a Core i5 processor, powerful NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250M graphics, 4GB or RAM – although it came pre-loaded with the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium, so I couldn’t use all 4GB.  Even with the RAM limitation in place, I had an easy time playing my standard test loads of Batman: Arkham Asylum and Street Fighter IV, and running standard apps like Office 2010, TweetDeck, Internet Explorer 8, and the Windows Live Suite was a breeze.

MSI did a nice job of making the GX640 look and feel like a high-power gaming rig.  It’s big with a 15” 1680 x 1050 screen, and is trimmed with red paint and lots of brushed aluminum.   Not quite as intimidating as an Alienware M15x or my Origin EON 18, but still more aggressive than your average 15” laptop.  It just looks like it means business.  My favorite design touch on the GX640 was the aluminum palm rest with the laser-cut mouse buttons.  It’s an aesthetic choice that I really like.  My only gripe with the system is that its heavy – it weighs nearly 6lbs and has a monster power brick that weighs another 1- 2lbs.  While that’s not a deal breaker for a guy my size who’s used to carrying a big backpack full of tech gear, it could be awkward for a smaller user. 

Overall, I liked the GX640 more for everyday stuff and its great implementation of Device Stage than for its gaming prowess (which is undeniably formidable, I’m just spoiled by that Origin!).  It’s a capable laptop and shows the power of a great piece of hardware taking advantage of Windows 7’s unique features.

Have a question about this or any other PC?  Post a comment, hit me on Twitter or Ask Ben Anything via email.  Your question might appear in my monthly Ask Ben Anything Q&A column.

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