6 Tips To Help You Pass Microsoft Certification Exam 70-291

In this article, we won"t go through each objective but rather focus on six of the most important things to know to be prepared for Exam 70-291. But first, let"s take a minute to determine whether you need to tackle the exam at all.

Do you need to take this exam?

Exam 70-291 is intended to verify networking knowledge and skill with Windows Server 2003 for those new to higher-level Microsoft certification. If you already hold a networking certification from Microsoft above the MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional) level, you may be able to bypass this exam altogether.

If you are certified as an MCSA, you can skip this exam as well as 70-290, Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment, and just take exam 70-292, Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment for an MCSA Certified on Windows 2000. Taking only exam 70-292, you can upgrade your MCSA from Windows 2000 to Windows Server 2003 in just one test.

If you are certified as an MCSE, you can also bypass 70-290 and 70-291 by taking 70-292, but you need to add exam 70-296, Planning, Implementing, and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment for an MCSE Certified on Windows 2000. These two exams work together to upgrade your certification and save you time in the testing center.

Tip one: Think conceptually

Yes, this is an exam in the Windows Server 2003 track, but it probably focuses more on concepts, as opposed to products, than any other exam in the track. The IP Addressing category expects you to know and understand IP addressing (which is essentially the same as it has been for many years) and DHCP. The Name Resolution category focuses on DNS, which has not changed much since Windows 2000.

The Network Security category concentrates on security concepts with a required knowledge of some of the oldest tools in the Microsoft arsenal—Event Viewer and Network Monitor, to name two. When Windows NT became Windows 2000, “Remote Access" became “Routing and Remote Access" (RRAS vs. RAS), and little is new in the fourth category: You must understand the principles of TCP/IP routing. The final category, Maintaining a Network Infrastructure, requires commonsense knowledge of service dependencies (which are the same in almost every operating system) and some Microsoft tools—Network Monitor and System Monitor as well.

You do need a working knowledge of Windows Server 2003 to pass this exam. Far more important, though, is a knowledge and understanding of the concepts of networking and interacting with the Internet as an administrator.

Tip two: Buy the Resource Kit

As with every Microsoft exam, a dozen publishers will be putting out training guides and study guides and exam prep guides—so many that your head will spin just looking at the bookshelf. Those books are all helpful in studying for a test, but much of the same material used in question creation overlaps content used in one of the most definitive book series that Microsoft Press releases for each operating system. This started with Windows 95 and has become truer with each successive operating system and Resource Kit release, climaxing with Windows 2000. (You almost had to have the Resource Kit to pass the exams.)

As of this writing, the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit (ISBN: 0735614717) is not yet available but is expected to be soon. Although the list price is $299.99, you can already find it greatly discounted at many online retailers. When you factor in the cost of failing an exam or two, along with the fact that this kit can be used to study for every one of the Windows Server 2003 exams, you can see that the money it costs is a great investment.

Tip three: Think 70-216

I know that I am not alone in saying that exam 70-216, Implementing and Administering a Microsoft Windows 2000 Network Infrastructure, is one of the most difficult that Microsoft"s psychometricians ever conjured up. After sailing through exam 70-210 (Windows 2000 Professional) and 70-215 (Windows 2000 Server), I confidently took 70-216 without much study. “How hard can an exam on networking basics be?" I thought.

I don"t mind saying that I failed the exam on more than one occasion. I honestly believe that the pass rate on this exam was so low that it served as an impetus in Microsoft"s decision to create the much easier 70-218 exam, Managing a Microsoft Windows 2000 Network Environment.

If you look at the title of exam 70-291, you"ll note that it uses “Network Infrastructure" (from 70-216) instead of “Network Environment" (from 70-218). If you look closely at the objectives, you"ll see that they mirror many of the counterparts on 70-216. Although the number of objective categories has shrunk from 70-216 to 70-291, the difficulty level has not. This is not an exam you can sail through just because you"ve been working with networking concepts since the days when Peter Frampton had hair.

Tip four: Know that simple things can be difficult

Tying in with the last tip, you need to mentally acknowledge before taking the exam that some easy things can be made more difficult than they should be and be prepared for this. It is no secret that exam questions often focus on minutiae, and that is difficult enough when taking a test. But be ready for question formats—not just content—that try your nerves.

Brace yourself for marathon-length multiple-choice questions that list lots of possible answers and ask you to “choose all that apply." The problem with this format is that you still only get the question right or wrong. If there are seven possible choices and three that are correct, you don"t get partial credit if you only chose two and the two that you chose are among those correct. You missed the question. Miss enough of them, and you can plan on taking the exam again, and again, and….

Microsoft has also added a new type of question that divides the information among three screens that you have to maneuver and scroll through. There are not a lot of these questions yet, but enough to make things frustrating. Before signing up for this test, I would recommend calling the testing center of your choice and asking what size monitors they administer the exams on; the bigger the better for these questions.

Tip five: Focus on the Microsoft angle

The concepts are universal—networking, DHCP, etc.—but spend some time concentrating on anything that Microsoft does with these items that make them sales bullets for the company. For example, DNS has been around since the days when it became apparent that scaling HOSTS files was impossible, but you need to know how Microsoft intertwines Active Directory with DNS. In other words, don"t just know DNS, but know Microsoft"s take on it.

Read the overview of DNS posted on the Microsoft site, then delve deeper into selections about understanding, installing, and securing.

Other items to similarly focus on include all the tools and utilities related to the networking functions. Add ipconfig to the list and know all the parameters/options that can be used with it.

Tip six: Spend some time with IAS

Microsoft"s Internet Authentication Service (IAS) is its implementation of Remote Authentication Dial-in User Service (RADIUS), and it forms a large component of RRAS. Knowledge of this topic is crucial to passing the Implementing, Managing, and Maintaining Routing and Remote Access portion of the exam.

For studying, start with the overview, and then read how the Network Access Quarantine Control works with Windows Server 2003. After reading that information, get as much experience with it as you possibly can.

Emmett"s recommendation

The 70-291 exam is a step you must take to become MCSA or MCSE certified on Windows Server 2003 if you don"t hold those certs for Windows 2000. It is a much more difficult exam than you would think, given the subject material. If you can avoid taking it—and you can, if you"re already MCSA/MCSE certified—that is the best way to handle it.




Source: brant.indiainteracts.com
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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Windows 7 Beta Critical to Compatibility

In another example of the fact that Windows 7 will be everything that Windows Vista was not, Microsoft indicated a strong commitment to ensure a high level of compatibility for the next iteration of the Windows client from the get go.

And the Windows 7 compatibility recipe involves addressing compatibility heads on from the very early stages of the operating system. As early as the first beta, in fact.

"Customers have a need to ensure compatibility with the new releases of the OS and that hardware (systems and devices) are fully functional after an upgrade. This will enable Microsoft and partners to evaluate the results and correct issues in the new OS and the associated hardware as part of the release plan," Microsoft revealed via a March 21, 2008 update version of the Windows Hardware Logo Program Requirements documentation (via Long Zheng).

Microsoft is effectively forcing all the hardware developers to test drive Windows 7 Betas in order to qualify for the Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista Logo programs. However, the Redmond giant requires that tests are performed and logs with the results turned in to Microsoft. The program's new requirements come into effect on June 1, 2008, but this is not to say that next month will bring on the first Windows 7 Beta build, as the company has failed to give any indication of such a scenario.

"Beginning with the release of the first beta of the next operating system, all Windows Vista client and Windows Server 2008 submissions must include a complete CPK with test logs for the new beta OS. The test logs generated from the beta OS are not required to pass. Issues with hardware, system BIOS or drivers must be investigated and resolved by partners prior to the launch of the logo program for the new OS. The tests should be run after performing an upgrade from Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 to the beta OS. Testing on the new beta OS must be done with drivers that are intended to install on the beta OS," Microsoft added.




Source: news.softpedia.com
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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CodeLite IDE v1.0RC01

The CodeLite team is pleased to announce the CodeLite v1.0RC01 is available. This release includes a bundle app for MacOS 10.5.2

What is CodeLite?
CodeLite is an open source project that target itself to become the best open source IDE for C/C++.
Here is a sneak peek at CodeLite functionlities:

  • Comes with two editor's themes: BlackTheme and Default
  • Generic support for compilers
  • Can be easily extended with plugins (Several plugins are already included in the installer)
  • Built-in GDB support, with the following features included:
    • Watches table - add persistent watches by a single click
    • Quick Watch - right click on a variable to expand it
    • Locals tree - automatically displays the current stack variables (also displays *this if available)
    • Threads view - provides list of currently running threads and easily switching between then by single click
    • Breakpoint management - add/remove breakpoint management panel
    • Automatic tooltip
    • and more...
  • Subversion plugin (based on the command line tool)
  • cscope plugin
  • Code formatter (based on the excellent AStyle)
  • Makefile based build system
  • Excellent support for custom makefile generators (such as CMake, QMake & Premake)
  • Project explorer (Workspace view)
  • File Explorer
  • Automatically imports MSVS workspace/projects and converts them to GNU based makefile
  • Active document outline
  • Sophisticated database based Code Completion mechanism, a default database is supplied which contains symbols for wxWidgets, STL and the standard headers
    • Function's call tip
    • Hover tip
    • Comments tips
    • Members List
    • Supports C++ templates, namespaces and other advance features of the C++ language
    • Automatically add include statement for symbols
    • Colourise local variables
    • Colourise workspace tags
    • Generate setters / getters for classes
    • Rename class/method/member name in an intelligent way (AKA refactoring)
    • Move function implementation from header to implementation file
    • Implement All un-implemented methods
    • Implement un-implemented methods
  • Quickly open resources in the editor using 'Find Resource in workspace'
  • Quickly open types in the editor using 'Find Type in workspace'
  • XML based syntax highlighting, comes with the following:
    • C/C++
    • Java
    • Perl
    • XML
    • Makefile
    • Lua
    • Diff files
    • PHP
    • javascript
    • Python
    • HTML
    • ASP
  • Text Folding
  • Bookmarks
  • Find In Files
  • Replace In Files
  • Highly Configurable
  • Built-in doxygen comment generator for functions/classes
  • And much more...

Download: Linux Download | 9.5MB | Freeware
Download: Mac OSX 10.5.2 Download | 14.5MB | Freeware
Download: Windows Download (Installer) | 11.5MB | Freeware
Screenshot: >> Click here <<


Source: codelite.org
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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10 Books You Must Have in Your Library as a Flash Platform Designer

I know that not everyone likes tech books. My wife and family being some of them. ;-) Anyway… I do. I have a huge arsenal of text for the last decade or so that I read, lend to friends and students and then keep around for further reference. In reality there are actually more than ten books in my collection worth sharing, but these ten in this list are especially of use to Flash designers. Of course this is just a list, and my opinion, but, it is based on research through judging my own, my students, friends and colleagues benefit after reading and using these books. Some may be a tad long in the tooth when it comes to coding chops, or specifics etc, but in the end they have still sound principles or extol virtues of best practices or standards. Read on…

  1. Flash Web Design: The V5 Remix – By Hillman Curtis. Perhaps one of the older books I still recommend to new Flash animators or designers. This book inspired the heck out of me in 2000 when I first picked it up. Of course any of the ActionScript in it is completely outdated by now, the animation principles, respect for the message and conservation of bandwidth through clever tricks and subtle animation are still effective as hell. An oldie but a goodie, I actually have the first edition of this book, not the remix, so my copy is laden with Flash 4 stuff (haha), but the use of photo sequences and vectorized video is still a great effect when used well.
  2. Flash to the Core: An Interactive Sketchbook – By Joshua Davis. Possibly the most influential Flash designer ever, this book is a tour de force of style tips and design ideas. A great addition to your library. I’m not sure who has my copy of this book, but, if you are reading this post… I’d like it back, please. :-D
  3. Designing with Web Standards – By Jeffrey Zeldman. Just because you export SWFs and write code for RIAs doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a firm grounding in HTML, CSS and web standards. This book has a fun feel to it and makes you almost want to read the spec documents at the W3C. Note that I said “almost”. If he wasn’t so cloying at times it would be a perfect book. Bottom line is, you are creating content on the web like most other designers out there today and if you have no clue about how, why and when to use standards and when to use Flash, you are a jerk and need to change your ways. Read this and then learn about SWFObject and SWFAddress.

  4. Essential ActionScript 3.0 – By Colin Moock. Moock’s previous book became the defacto standard for AS2 based development, and it’s certain that this one will become the same for AS3, if it isn’t already. One thing to note… This book is intense. If you are a newbie or completely inexperienced to ActionScript, this might not be the best choice for you to learn it. However, if you want a heavy duty desk reference, this is a good one.

  5. Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design - By Jenifer Tidwell. Not a Flash book specifically, but for Flash designers morphing into RIA developers, this serves as a great intro to UI design patterns and offers a very nice full color design to boot. Indispensable when looking for inspiration or UI ideas. I give this to all my designer friends and colleagues to read. I’m thinking of using it for a required text for a Mashup class I am teaching this fall for Bradley.

  6. Programming Flex 2 -By Chafic Kazoun, Joey Lott. Joey Lott writes good books (His AS3 cookbook would be on this list if was 11 books instead of just ten). This one serves as a great guide to learning Flex 2. I’m sure they have a version for the version 3 SDK coming, but as far as I know, it’s not out yet. Programming Flex 2 is practical, covers a lot of ground in regards to MXML and doesn’t get too deep too quickly. It’s certainly easy to recommend this to a Flash user looking to learn Flex. This one is also on my shortlist for adding to my repertoire as a teacher. As soon as the Programming Flex 3 book is released, you can bet I’ll be picking it up.
  7. Adobe Flex 2: Training from the Source – By Jeff Tapper. While I doubt this book will age well due to its very specific product version number and the fact that it is truly just tutorials, the information in it turns you into a competent Flex RIA developer pretty quickly. A solid weekend away from your mountain bike, girlfriend, boyfriend, beer, video games, or whatever else you usually like to do when not coding or designing will get you through this one. It even comes with a handy CD containing the software and files needed. Bonus. Of Course, now that Flex 3 is out, get the newest edition of the book for this one.

  8. Foundation ActionScript 3.0 Animation: Making Things Move! – By Keith Peters. Hot damn I wish I would have paid attention in math back in school. I wouldn’t need books like this on my desk. Seriously though, Keith does a fantastic job of contextualizing a complex topic like trigonometry, velocity, etc and makes you understand how it applies to making a ball bounce. He does it with flair and the book lets you refer to it in a very easy to use fashion (I guess thats a table of contents, duh) to get the desired effect you want with whatever art or design you are working on.

  9. Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data – By Stephen Few. Sooner or later you will have to design some sort of dashboard, chart or information graphic for a client. You will. Oh yes, you will. Best be prepared when you do. If you don’t know the difference between a pie chart, an eye chart and chart of pies (yum!), you need this book. Not flash specific, but certainly easy to apply to Flex chartin and other great information design components this one explains it all.

  10. Learning ActionScript 3.0 – By Rich Shupe, Zevan Rosser. My most recent acquisition. I’m still digesting this one, but we have already decided to move over our intro flash courses to this one. What a gem. Color pictures, great examples and hot topic that has at least until now been difficult to get across to designers. I mean let’s face it AS3 is like moon language to people who are not familiar with coding and this book helps break that barrier down.

So that’s it… I have to admit, it was tough to limit it for me. I probably have about 30-40 tech books in my library… many of them on Flash, so it was hard to pare it down. Any books to add to the list for you?




Source: visualrinse.com
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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Windows 7 - Next Generation User Interface

One thing is clear, although starting from the summer of 2007 and ending in the first half of this year, the main focus for Microsoft has been building Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3, in terms of the Windows client the company did much more than just service packs.

In the background of Vista SP1 and XP SP3, Microsoft is putting together Windows 7. As the Redmond company's next iteration go, Windows made its debut at D6 – All Things Digital conference, with a presentation from Julie Larson-Green, Corporate Vice President, Windows Experience Program Management. The graphical user interface in Windows 7 is much more than just Windows Aero on steroids, it's in fact the move to a new level of interaction, as you can see from the video segment embedded at the bottom of this article.

"For years Microsoft has been investing in many forms of natural input in order to simplify the way people interact with their PC's and devices," explained Christopher Flores, Director Windows Communications. Back in 2006 at the All Things Digital event, the Redmond giant introduced Microsoft Surface, its first surface computing product running Windows Vista at its core. At that time, Microsoft Surface offered a clear indication that the company was going into an entirely new direction, a move that Chairman Bill Gates emphasized by repeating the need for natural user interfaces to become the standard interaction model between people and technology.

"The advent of the original Windows graphical user interface forever changed the way people used their PC's. Today, advances in pen and handwriting technology in Windows Vista offers students a natural and intuitive way to capture searchable notes and diagrams in the classroom. Others are using this technology to quietly capture pen based notes during meetings. Speech recognition, something which was once considered science fiction, is enabling many Windows Vista users to see, hear, and use their computers for the very first time," Flores added.

Well, Windows 7 will not only build on the foundation of Windows Vista, but will also take the natural user interface and make it a standard user experience of the Windows client. Multi-touch and gesture recognition will be at the core of the Windows 7 UI capabilities. In the video bellow, Microsoft demonstrates the multi-touch technology in Vista's successor with the help of a Dell Latitude XT laptop. Panning, zooming in and out are all driven by natural gestures.

"Touch is quickly becoming a common way of directly interacting with software and devices. Touch-enabled surfaces are popping up everywhere including laptop touch pads, cell phones, remote controls, GPS devices, and more. What becomes even more compelling is when this experience is delivered to the PC -on a wide variety of Windows notebooks, in all-in-one PC's, as well as in external monitors. In working with our broad ecosystem of hardware and software manufactures, we're excited to be showing some of the great work and investments we are working on in Windows 7," Flores said.

According to reports from the conference, the actual graphical user interface for Windows 7 featured an item similar to the Dock of Mac OS X from Apple. However, the official video provided by Microsoft does not provide proof in this respect. The focus for Microsoft is, of course, placed on new input systems which go beyond the mouse and the keyboard. "We’re at an interesting junction," Gates commented. "In the next few years, the roles of speech, gesture, vision, ink, all of those will become huge. For the person at home and the person at work, that interaction will change dramatically."




Source: news.softpedia.com
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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Next Microsoft operating system has touch controls

CARLSBAD, California (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp plans to give users of the next version of its Windows operating system touch screen controls as one option for controlling the software, its top executives said on Tuesday.

Chairman Bill Gates and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer showed off new Windows features based on software it calls "multi-touch" that will be part of Windows 7, the next version of Windows, which Ballmer said was due out in late 2009.

The ability to use touch to give users fingertip control of their screens could help revolutionize how computer desktops and mobile phones are controlled and would be an alternative to existing mice, keyboard and pen-based user controls.

During a joint interview that kicked off the Wall Street Journal's three-day D: All Things Digital conference, an annual gathering of the computer industry elite taking place north of San Diego, Ballmer said touch screen controls was one example of how Microsoft would improve on existing Windows software.

Microsoft is seeking to one-up Apple Inc, which made touch-screen software central to the success of its iPhone mobile device, which combines computer, phone and Web features and has sold around 6 million units in its first 11 months.

After more than a decade of slow development, Gates said new ways of interacting with computers other than keyboards and mice have matured to the point where they are ready to go mainstream.

"We are at an interesting juncture where almost all of the interaction is with the computer and mouse, today, and, over the years to come, the role of speech, vision, ink, all of those will become huge," Gates said.

He was referring to technologies that gives users the ability to control computers with voice commands, detect and sort different kinds of images and use electronic ink instead of typing for computer input.  Continued...




Source: reuters.com
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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Vispa 0.2.1

Vispa secures your Windows Vista installation and protects your privacy. In addition to so-called antispy features, it disables common security threats and increases your Windows performance.

The only recommendation I can give is not applying settings without vague knowledge of what you´re doing. Not every setting is desired in every environment. Vispa is no tool for beginners, just a more convenient way of tweaking your operating system the way you know you want it.

What's New in version 0.2.1:

* added translations for help dialog
* added restore feature for 404 search
* fixed bug in IEUnSearchScope
* fixed bug in UsabUnDisableSounds
* fixed bug in UsabUnClassicLogon
* fixed bug in "all settings" warning
* fixed firefox download link
* fixed windows mail detection
* fixed bug with /lang switch
* fixed spelling mistakes
* modified Windows Classic installtype

Download:
Vispa 0.2.1 (link 1)

 

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Desktop Virtualisation Competition Heats Up with XenDesktop Launch, IDC Provides Product Analysis

SYDNEY, 27 May 2008, This month, Citrix is launching a new desktop virtualisation product called XenDesktop, in direct competition with VMWare’s Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) product.

XenDesktop is the centrepiece of the new Citrix offerings aimed at providing end-to-end delivery of Windows desktops using a virtual infrastructure.

IDC believes that Citrix's new offering represents a comprehensive delivery model that addresses the majority of the needs for IT infrastructure and that after a few years of mixed success trying to diversify its portfolio of products, Citrix may be at the brink of finally reinventing itself as a major player in the virtualisation space, following its acquisition of XenSource in October 2007.

IDC notes that one of the key strengths of XenDesktop lies in its provisioning system that allows simultaneous booting of up to a thousand virtual machines from a single virtual machine hard disk, over the network. This reduces storage and the number of images to be maintained.

“The combined power of XenDesktop and XenApp and the ability to separate the desktop and application delivery is a key value proposition for Citrix and the use cases for the new solution are numerous. IDC believes that most organisations will see an advantage in deploying at least part of the solution,” said Jean-Marc Annonier, Research Manager, IT Spending, IDC Australia.

“The real value of this offering is the level of flexibility that it brings with regard to deploying a dynamic infrastructure: virtualised applications do not need to be installed locally as they can be dynamically streamed to clients; upgrading an application becomes only a matter of upgrading the master copy; virtual machine image files can be created and allocated to users dynamically; and patch management is reduced to a minimum, among others,” adds Annonier.

IDC predicts that Citrix is going to face a number of challenges when it brings this solution to market:

·Education will be paramount. It will take time for clients and partners to learn the product. Partners in particular will need to be well educated and trained. This level of education required will potentially be a problem for Citrix as there is a shortage of IT skills in Australia and New Zealand.

·There will be added complexity. Despite strong potential, XenDesktop adds a layer of complexity to the existing infrastructure that might deter some organisations from going ahead in a short timeframe.

·There are still limitations. Graphic intensive applications such as video still do not work well in a virtual environment. Replacing desktops with virtual machines can create problems within organisations as it could prevent multimedia technologies from being deployed even though they have tangible cost benefits.

·Competition will be fierce. Citrix is now competing directly with VMware on the server, desktop, and application virtualisation fronts. VMware has strong mindshare in the market whereas Citrix will have to educate customers on the new components of its offerings.

“With this offering Citrix aims at establishing a dominant position in the virtualisation market by offering an end-to-end virtualisation portfolio across server, desktop, and applications to build a true dynamic infrastructure, and by leveraging its strong brand in the corporate segment,” said Annonier.

“Only time will tell if Citrix will succeed in drawing widespread adoption into its virtualisation stack but one thing remains sure for the foreseeable future: virtualisation has the potential to profoundly change the way IT is delivered and it will be a very exciting topic to follow for all observers in the market,” he said.

Ends

For more information, please contact Sally Taylor-Phillips, Marketing Communications Manager, IDC on +61 2 9925 2234 or e-mail staylorphillips@idc.com.

About IDC IDC is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends covering over 110 countries worldwide. For more than 44 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com or www.idc.com.au.

During 2008, IDC is celebrating its 30th birthday in Australia.




Source: linuxworld.com.au
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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Earn The Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer Certification

How do you get a good mcse study guide? We all know that the MCSE certification exams are tough to pass. IT certifications are not easy. But not if you have the proper training resources with you. Browse from the following exams and buy your test practice today. Knowing the right material is the best way of becoming certified.

Earn the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) certification and prove your expertise in designing and implementing the infrastructure for business solutions based on the Microsoft Windows 2000 platform and Windows Server System.

The demand for information technology skills brings MCSE into the forefront as the popular way to extend one"s opportunities. When you choose to pursue your MCSE certification, you"ve got some decisions to make right at the beginning. Certay will be the best provider to help you to get any popular IT certifications!

If you prepare for the exams using our Exam4sure testing engine, we guarantee your success for MCSE certifications in the first attempt. If you do not pass the exam on your first attempt we will give you 100% Money Back Guarantee.

Exam4sure MCSE will certify that the successful candidate has knowledge and skills necessary to gather information from the technology basics to some of the more updated features and functions.

Some hot exam4sure MCSE exam list: 70-296, 70-292, 70-290, 70-291, 70-294, 70-293.




Source: brant.indiainteracts.com
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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How to Fix the Blogger Comment System

I'll be honest - I really like Blogger. Despite the fact that nearly every co-blogger I know has urged me to give Wordpress a try, I'm still (mostly) satisfied with what I've got. I serve static pages and other content myself, and let Google worry about hosting the blogs that account for over 90% of my total traffic. However, there is one thing, in my opinion, that is unforgivably lacking in Blogger: the comment system.

The comment system is so abysmal that I'm literally on the verge of creating my own message board that I can simply embed in an iframe. If I weren't so packed for time lately, you could consider it done. However, before I launch another harder-than-I-thought-at-first project, let me share with you the features that I believe, for the most part, any blogging platform should afford.

So here they are, in no particular order:

  1. Unique Styling for Author Comments

    This one seems obvious to me. Every other message board on the planet does this, yet Blogger currently offers no CSS accessible way to distinguish an author comment from a user comment. I've previously discussed a hack method using JavaScript to accomplish author comment styling, but it's ridiculously more painful than it should be.

  2. Threaded Comments

    This one's pretty straight forward - users should have the option of replying to a particular comment, rather than being forced into a flat discussion. Tree style comment threads allow for individual conversations to be self contained.

  3. Collapsible Threads

    This feature is obviously dependent on the previous one. But assuming threaded comments were implemented, I would expect the ability to collapse a thread that I was not interested in. Think Digg...

  4. Get Rid of that Separate Comment Page!

    Why oh why am I taken to another page just to leave a comment? Can there possibly be a good explanation for this?

  5. Language/Profanity Filters

    Ya, some of us are still old fashioned like that. This would be especially appreciated in family and faith oriented blogs.

  6. WYSIWYG Editor

    Personally, I hate them - but the fact is, WYSIWYG editors are now a consumer expectation. Given the crowd that tends to follow my articles, this blog would probably benefit a lot less from this than a less code-savvy user base.

  7. Private Comments to Authors

    I'll admit that from here on out I'm probably going above and beyond what I'd consider "minimum requirements." However, being able to send private comments to the author would be a handy feature. For one, it would be a safe and convenient way to share personal contact information.

  8. Spell Check

    Since I use Firefox, I simply use the built in spell checker, but this would be helpful for visitors using other browsers. This is another example of something Digg did right...

  9. Arbitrary Thread Locks

    The author of a blog should be able to enable or disable comments on a post-by-post basis. This disable feature should have the option to actually hide all the comments, or simply disallow additional comments.

  10. Statistics

    This is probably the least crucial of all my wants, but it would be nice to see some overall statistics (e.g., average comments per post, post with most comments, etc...).

Well that's it for my list. Please feel free to add any additional ideas in the comments!




Source: blog.jeremymartin.name
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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Is it game over for Windows Vista?

The saviour that was meant to be, Vista Service Pack 1, isn’t. In some cases it’s actually a performance decrease for an operating system already grinding up-to-date PCs to a halt.

XP fans (for the most part) are happily using Service Pack 3, and Windows 7 (formerly known as Blackcomb) is barking at the gates (or should that be Gates?), ready for an early release in Q3 2009. Windows Vista never stood a chance.

Not much has gone right for Microsoft’s fledgling OS. First it was delayed over three years (initially it was meant to be a stopgap between XP and 7, but then turned into a fully fledged OS), then stories of incompatible software and drivers surfaced. Most recently Vista Service Pack 1 was pulled from Automatic Download. Now that it’s back up and running it could very well be the one and only service pack ever released for the struggling OS.

Microsoft has shot itself in the foot in two ways with regards to Vista. Firstly, it went ahead with the release of Service Pack 3 for the hugely popular Windows XP. Secondly, its progress on Windows 7 and its potential release ahead of schedule has been extensively covered by the media. What this means is that consumers who were reluctant to switch from a perfectly reliable XP SP2 to Vista now have no reason to. They have a fresh upgrade in SP3 that should be able to see them through the roughly 1.5 years until Windows 7 hits shelves.

No matter what kind of reluctant computer user you are, swapping to Vista just doesn’t make sense anymore. There are a few different perspectives you can look at it from. It’s hard to come up with reasons for broad groups of computer users, like gamers, business users and home users to migrate to Vista as well.

Gamers especially should be running for the hills whenever they hear the word Vista. Yes, it’s the only way you can get DirectX 10, but is that really a big enough carrot to dangle in front of gamers? Not by a long shot. While DirectX 10 delivers a significant improvement in graphics, Vista provides a significant drop off in performance, even with SP1. In fact, it’s been proven that installing SP1 could actually make your PC slower. What’s more, over a year after Vista was released, there still isn’t a compelling enough library of games that make good enough use of DirectX 10 to justify the upgrade (around 20 only if Wikipedia is to be believed). It’s no wonder gaming PC manufacturers like Alienware and NRG by Altech have only just switched over to supplying their machines with Vista.

Business users are in the same boat. Most important to them is reliability and security. But Vista isn’t any better than XP in either reliability or security. Most of the security issues with XP were fixed with SP2 and even more have been fixed with SP3. Any additional problems are more than likely to have been dealt with by third party tools and applications. Reliability is a non-contest. XP has a five-year head start. Add to this the fact that the reason SP1 was pulled from Automatic Download was an issue with Microsoft’s Dynamic RMS software used by small to medium businesses and the Vista doesn’t seem all that welcoming.

Furthermore, business users are well aware of the fact that there are still plenty of drivers and software that won’t play nice with the OS, a particular problem for small businesses requiring obscure software. Financially, it wouldn’t be a smart idea for them either. The cost of upgrading an entire company to Windows Vista can’t be justified if another operating system is just around the corner.

Even general home users have no reason to upgrade. This is the group that doesn’t mind using technology that’s not at the forefront. They use PCs for email, music, the Internet and minesweeper. Upgrading from XP to Vista will likely turn a working PC into a sloth if users have less than 2GB of memory, and it can become quite costly if they need to upgrade their PC’s specs to handle the transition on top of purchasing the OS.




Source: loader.gadgetzone.com.au
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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Nokia Already Shipping the N78

The newest addition to Nokia's Nseries family of high-end mobile phones, namely the N78, is available now in Finland and Nokia will probably announce its launch for the rest of Europe in the next few days/weeks.

The Finnish online retailer Verkkokauppa has started selling the N78 as of yesterday (May 23), for the retail price of 448.90 Euros, meaning a bit over 700 USD. This means 100 Euros more than the price initially announced by Nokia (350 Euros) and we hope that, after the handset is officially released, it won't be that expensive. Not that it's a phone that should come as affordable, but $700 is just too much.

Anyway, back to the availability of the N78, its release in Finland first is somehow logical, since we're talking about Nokia's home country. In case you want to check out the phone's selling page from Verkkokauppa, you can access it here (in Finnish) or here (in English, translated from the original page).

Part of the new Nseries line-up for 2008, together with the N96 flagship, Nokia N78 was first unveiled at the beginning of February. Like all the Nseries phones, the N78 brings a wide range of features. Users will get Symbian S60 3.2 OS, quad-band GSM and dual-band HSDPA connectivity, a high-quality 2.4 inch TFT display with 240 x 320 pixels and 16 million colors, Wi-Fi, GPS, Nokia Maps, advanced Web capabilities, email and Instant Messaging, Media player with lots of formats supported, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, a 3.5mm audio jack, FM radio, FM transmitter, document viewer and a 3.2 Megapixel Carl Zeiss camera with auto focus, geotagging, flash and video recording.

At 113 x 49 x 15 millimeters and 101.8 grams, Nokia N78 is not among the slimmest phones on the market, but the Nseries devices are not meant to be slim anyway, they're meant to be powerful.

While the N78 should be available across Europe in a very short time, North America will probably have to wait a bit more for it. Well, the important thing is that the handset will surely go there too.




Source: news.softpedia.com
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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Click Web Framework 1.5 M1 released

Click 1.5 milestone 1 is available for download. This release introduces the concept of a container for building hierarchical components. The core has been refactored into pluggable services which enables support for Freemarker as an alternative template engine to Velocity. Lastly the mock package has been extended to enable unit as well as funtional testing.

A big thank you to all who made this release possible.

Important links:

Click is a stateless, page and component oriented Java web framework. It is built around concrete use cases instead of buzzwords and complex abstractions.

Pages and components are developed in Java while layouts are specified in Velocity, Freemarker or JSP. Components know how draw themselves so developers don't have to maintain redundant markup. The following introduction will provide a quick overview of how Click works and if it suits your style of programming.

New Examples:

New documentation:

Issues resolved:

  • Improved performance by rendering from a single non-blocking buffer. For some actual numbers see my answer to the first question here.
  • Added a Country Select control based on the JDK's own built in Country/Locale support.
  • Added a Virtual Keyboard control using GreyWyvern JavaScript library.
  • Added support for setting Form action URL attribute. This issue was raised by Erdem Gunay [319].
  • Added support for Page HTML imports with a new getHtmlImports() method. This enables Pages to programatically define HTML imports which will be included in a border template using the PageImports object. This issue was raised by David Frizelle [329].
  • Add Page setTemplate(String) method to enable dynamic changing of a page border template. This issue was raised by Huy Do [353].
  • Updated Page.setPath to handle JSP resources. This issue was raised and fixed by Huy Do. [141].
  • Added support for Hibernate AnnocationConfiguration. This issue was fixed by Jean-Francois. [355].
  • Improved FileUpload support. This issue was raised by Ricardo Lecheta [326].
  • Improve File Upload support with new FileUploadService class. [326].
  • Fixed Cayenne PropertySelect which is not reset to original value. This is was raised by Tore Halset [317].
  • Fixed Cayenne 3.0M3 DataObjectUtils issue in CayenneForm when using JDK 1.5. Added CayenneUtils helper class [342].

Enjoy Click.




Source: java.dzone.com
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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30 Websites to follow if you’re into Web Development

I’ve made it a goal to learn at least one useful thing each day so that I can stay sharp and well-versed on the topic of web development and design. To that end, here’s some of the websites I keep track of to find new techniques, resources, and news about building websites.

Most of these sites are updated frequently, so there’s never a lack of new content that fills up my Google Reader.

Because the role of the web developer is ever-expanding, I’ve also included a variety of sites that covers fields relating to web development - such information architecture, user interaction, and web/graphics design.

1. NETTUTS

NETTUTS - Screenshot

NETTUTS is a recently launched blog/tutorial site that provides "spoonfed web skills". There are already plenty of useful and detailed tutorials that range from offloading static content to Amazon S3 to creating a beautiful tabbed content area using jQuery. NETTUTS is perfect for developers just starting out, since the tutorials are very thorough and in a "step by step" format. For more advanced developers, it’s an excellent source of inspiration and learning new techniques.

2. woork

woork - Screenshot

Woork is a blog by Antonio Lupetti, a developer from Italy. He provides short, easily-consumable tutorials on various topics of web development such as PHP, Cold Fusion, JavaScript, and CSS. His knack for creating beautiful tutorials, chock full of custom-made images that illustrates the concepts he talks about is a testament to the detail and "work" that Antonio puts in each of his posts. Check out his awesome tutorial on a "Top-Down approach to simplify your CSS code" where he explains his preference on creating and formatting stylesheets.

3. Web Designer Wall

Web Designer Wall - Screen shot

Web Designer Wall is a blog by Nick La that features design ideas and elaborate, stunning tutorials such as creating a CSS gradient Text Effect - a technique that uses an image overlay over normal XHTML text, and jQuery tutorials for designers which showcases ten techniques to get you started with jQuery.

4. Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine - Screen shot

I won’t say much about Smashing Magazine since most of us have probably heard of it, but if you haven’t, Smashing Magazine is an excellent resource for web designers and developers looking to be inspired. Smashing Magazine also manages to publish almost everyday, despite their very detailed and thorough posts.

5. Vitamin

Vitamin - Screenshot

Vitamin offers a large amount of information on the topic of web development and design. With many contributors, Vitamin manages to cover a wide range of topics including Ajax, CSS, development techniques, best practices, and workflow management.

6. Wake Up Later

Wake Up Later - Screen shot

Wake Up Later is the blog of Samuel Ryan, a freelance web developer/designer. Rather than covering specific web development techniques or providing tutorials, he talks about general web development related things such as reasons not to write your own code, tips on improving productivity, and common design mistakes made by developers.

7. Snook.ca

Snook.ca - Screen shot

Snook.ca is run by Jonathan Snook, an icon in web development and design. His blog provides tutorials and articles about PHP, JavaScript, and more recently (the blog dates back to 2001), Adobe AIR. He also provides useful resources and bookmarks that are worth a read, and talks about things that are part of being a web developer such as project management via email and maintaining your personal brand online.

8. Signal vs. Noise

Signal vs. Noise - Screen shot

Signal vs. Noise is a design/usability company blog by the people over at 37 Signals - known for developing remarkable web applications such as BaseCamp and their involvement in the popular open source web application framework, Ruby On Rails. The blog gives insights about being a productive and effective web application developer and keeping things simple, with entries such as "Workaholics fixate on inconsequential details" and "Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor".

9. adaptive path blog

adaptive path blog - Screen shot

adaptive path’s company blog offers news and posts on the topic of user interface design. There’s a variety of useful posts that cover the topic of creating user-friendly designs (not limited to just web applications). Some things the adaptive path crew writes about are "Tips for presenting the look & feel to a client" and "The Lure of the Single Click".

10. Tutorial Blog

Tutorial Blog - Screen shot

Tutorial Blog provides handy tutorials, resources, and lists on various web development and design topics such as code snipplets for web designers, using layer comps in Photoshop to manage designs, and Flash tutorials. Tutorial Blog has a section on user-submitted tutorials which allows readers to share their own tutorials.

11. WebAppers

WebAppers

WebAppers is a blog created by Ray Cheung, a freelance web developer. The premise of WebAppers is to provide news and resources related to open source and free applications that are useful to web developers and designers. From cost-free fonts and icons to navigation menus and image galleries, WebAppers seeks to hunt down useful tools and applications aimed at reducing your time developing custom solutions.

12. Web Resources Depot

Web Resources Depot - Screenshot

Web Resources Depot is similar to WebAppers - it discusses new web resources that web developers and designers may find helpful. Web Resources Depot is an excellent way to stay up to date with what’s currently available out there all in one place.

13. Ajaxian

Ajaxian - Screen shot

With continual advancements in Ajax, it’s imperative to keep up to date with modern techniques and news. Ajaxian is the leading Ajax community run by some of the biggest names in the field. You’ll find information, reviews on JavaScript frameworks, helpful tools, and server-side technology specific (like PHP, RoR, and .NET) articles. If Ajax news and information is what you’re looking for, you can be sure to hear about it from Ajaxian.

14.DZone

Dzone - Screen shot

DZone is a social news site for developers. Users share links related to development and can vote on submissions (very much like Digg but limited to developer links). You can subscribe via RSS to various pages and sections such JavaScript, Flash/Flex, or databases if you want to get instant updates to things specific to your interests.

15. Design Float

Design Float - Screen shot

Design Float is social media site created for web and graphics designers. Like Dzone, people get to vote up submissions. You’ll find stuff about CSS, HTML, and Photoshop submitted to Design Float.

16. IBM’s developerWorks

developerWorks - screenshot

With the name camel-cased, you already know off-the-bat that it’s a great site for developers. developerWorks offers many articles and tutorials pertaining to development topics, not just about web development, but also on related fields such as systems administration and open source technologies and applications. developerWorks has a knack for writing about complex topics and boiling it down to consumable, understandable articles. Some of my bookmarks include "Debug and tune applications on the fly with Firebug" (an introduction to Firebug) and the "Make PHP apps fast, faster, fastest" series.

17. del.icio.us

del.icio.us - Screen shot

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site where members can post bookmarks to keep and share. It’s not strictly for web developers but you can monitoring specific tags such as webdev, development, or javascript.

18. Sharebrain

Sharebrain - Screen shot

Sharebrain is site that shares useful resources for web workers. You can find resources and tutorials on various web development and design topics such as Photoshop tutorials, Usability, SEO Tools, CMS’s, and interviews.

19. Style Grind

Style Grind - Screen shot

Style Grind shares useful news and information about web technologies and designs. Resources and news reported by Style Grind include a variety of web development and design topics such as updates on Erik Meyer’s CSS Reset and new plugins for jQuery.

20. PSDTUTS

PSDTUTS - Screen shot

Your value as a web developer increases when you’re proficient in design as well. Some examples would be Wordpress theme developers who not only know how to develop themes, but can also design them. PSDTUTS is a great place to improve on Photoshop skills and is a site I follow to learn more about graphics/web design.

21. Design Reviver

Design Reviver - Screen shot

Design Reviver is aimed at providing useful information for web designers. You can visit to read tutorials such getting started with 3D in Flash, to get free downloads like Photoshop brushes, and to find design inspiration.

22. Blog.SpoonGraphics

Blog.SpoonGraphics - Screen shotr

Blog.SpoonGraphics is a blog about graphics and web design created by Chris Spooner, a graphics and web designer. You can find many tutorials on Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, free, downloadable resources like “Sliding Door” tab menus, articles for inspiration, and news.

23. John Resig

John Resig - Screen shot

John Resig is the self-titled blog of John Resig - a premier JavaScript developer and author most known for his creation of jQuery, a popular JavaScript framework. John Resig’s blog shares his thoughts about JavaScript development and web applications. It’s where I found out about the release of his new project: Processing.js (a JavaScript port of the Processing programming language) and where he voiced his thoughts on Google Doctype.

24. Boxes and Arrows

Boxes and Arrows - Screenshot

Boxes and Arrows is all about best practices, innovations, and trends in the topic of design - including information architecture, graphics design, and user interaction design. You can read about findability (how people look for information), counter-arguments of front-loading information above the fold, and web accessibility.

25. PHPDeveloper

PHPDeveloper - Screenshot

PHPDeveloper brings together news and resources about PHP from blogs and sites that cover PHP. You’ll find reports varying from PHP video tutorials to interesting developments over at Zend.

26. Coding Horror

Coding Horror - Screenshot

Coding Horror is a very popular blog (over 100,000 RSS subscribers!) by Jeff Atwood, a software developer. He talks about web development too, posing questions such as Is HTML a Humane Markup Language?, discussing Amazon S3’s viability to host images, and sharing information on versioning databases.

27. O’Reilly Network

O'Reilly Network - Screen shot

The O’Reilly Network by O’Reilly Media (publisher of development books) features articles and blogs pertaining to web development and open technologies. Some recent articles include Creating Applications with Amazon EC2 and S3 and Getting Started with the Google App Engine. Some blogs that are part of the O’Reilly Network include WindowsDevCenter.com (for Windows Developers), ONJava.com (topics cover the Java language) and ONLamp.com (which talks about Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP).

28. Google doctype

Google doctype - Screen shot

Google Doctype is Google’s new project that will include entries "by web developers for web developers". Currently, it doesn’t have very many articles, but it’s certainly a resource to follow in the upcoming months.

29. Web Monkey

Web Monkey - Screen shot

Web Monkey - the web developer’s resource is back! Though they’re just getting back to the swing of things, it’s definitely a website to keep track of.

30. Digital Web Magazine

Digital Web Magazine

Digital Web Magazine is the online magazine for web professionals (web designers, developers, information architects). You can find many things included here such PHP, Web Standards, and Programming.

Other notable sites to check out
  • 24 ways - an annual collection of 24 development and design articles by some of the leading website builders.
  • Noupe - Provides news and resources on web design and development.
  • Vandelay Design - a blog on web design and development by Steven Snell, who contributed to Six Revisions last month.
  • CSS Globe - Community-driven website on web standards.

If you’re looking for your favorite site and it’s not included here, check out something I wrote few months back called "20 Websites That Made Me A Better Web Developer" which talks about popular sites like A List Apart and 456 Berea Steet.

Because of the sheer quantity of great websites out there, I simply can’t talk about and share all of them (I wish I could), so I encourage you to share your own favorites in the comments section with the name, link, and a short description. In about a week, I’ll update this post with your suggestions. Thanks!




Source: sixrevisions.com
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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Life after Aero, Microsoft Cooking Improved User Interface for Windows 7

It might not sound like all that much, but it is a definite confirmation that there is life after Windows Aero. And as far as the scarce details on Windows 7 go, any palpable piece of information goes a long way.

Microsoft is cooking an improved graphical user interface for the next iteration of the Windows client. Windows Division's Core User Experience team is hard at work taking both the user interface and user experience of Windows 7 to the next level.

"The Core User Experience team focuses on experiences that include interaction with the desktop, the taskbar, the start menu, switching between applications, control panels, gadgets, media experiences, etc. Essentially our charter is improving that "core user experience" that millions of users navigate daily so that the next version of Windows is not just improved, but a 'must have!'", Microsoft revealed.

As a mark of the evolution of Windows Vista in comparison to Windows XP, a new display driver model was introduced with the latest Windows release. The vast majority of Vista end users might not be aware of this but they use the new display driver model on a daily basis, because it is at the foundation of Windows Aero.

So far Microsoft has failed to reveal in which manner it will move Vista's visual interface technology further in Windows 7. In fact there is no telling how the architecture in the next version of the operating system will end up at this point in time.

"In addition to a big focus on user experience and customer feedback, we’re a highly technical organization that is focused on developing automated testing collateral. To that end, we’re big into testability (separate the UI layer so you can automate without the UI!) but also passionate about making sure we have the right experiences – something much more visceral", Microsoft added.

Vista takes full advantage of graphics cards with GPUs supporting the display driver model and with consistent volumes of dedicated memory. This is the main reason why the latest Windows platform fails to play well with hardware that doesn't live up to its requirements. One thing that Microsoft has done in Vista, was to focus the display driver model on its user-mode driver component, effectively taking it out of the operating system's kernel.

In this manner overall stability of the product increased, since graphic driver issues no longer delivered OS-wide critical errors. What Microsoft needs to do next in Windows 7 is to kick the componentization of the display driver model up a notch and make it completely independent of the kernel. But also work on delivering more performance with fewer resources, essentially perfecting the Windows Aero design.




Source: news.softpedia.com
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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Microsoft Will Shut Down Book Search Program

SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft said Friday that it was ending a project to scan millions of books and scholarly articles and make them available on the Web, a sign that it is retrenching in some areas of Internet search in the face of competition from Google, the industry leader.

The announcement, made on a company blog, comes two days after Microsoft said it would focus its Internet search efforts on certain areas where it sees an opportunity to compete against Google. On Wednesday, Microsoft unveiled a program offering rebates to users who buy items that they find using the company’s search engine.

Some search experts said Microsoft’s decision to end its book-scanning effort suggested that the company, whose search engine has lagged far behind those of Google and Yahoo, was giving up on efforts to be comprehensive.

“It makes you wonder what else is likely to go,” said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of the blog Search Engine Land. “One of the reasons people turn to Google is that it tries to be a search player in all aspects of search.”

Mr. Sullivan said that the number of people using book search services from Microsoft and Google was relatively small, but it included librarians, researchers and other so-called early adopters who often influence others. These users are now likely to turn to Google with increasing frequency, he said.

Both Microsoft and Google have been scanning older books that have fallen into the public domain, as well as copyright-protected books under agreements with some publishers. Google also scans copyrighted works without permission so it can show short excerpts to searchers, an approach that has drawn fire from publishers.

Microsoft’s decision also leaves the Internet Archive, the nonprofit digital archive that was paid by Microsoft to scan books, looking for new sources of support. Several major libraries said that they had chosen to work with the Internet Archive rather than with Google, because of restrictions Google placed on the use of the new digital files.

“We’re disappointed,” said Brewster Kahle, chairman of the Internet Archive. Mr. Kahle said, however, that his organization recognized that the project, which has been scanning about 1,000 books each day, would not receive corporate support indefinitely. Mr. Kahle said that Microsoft was reducing its support slowly and that the Internet Archive had enough money to keep the project “going for a while.”

“Eventually funding will come from the public sphere,” Mr. Kahle said.

Some libraries that work with the Internet Archive and Microsoft also said they planned to continue their book-scanning projects.

“We certainly expect to go on with this,” said Carole Moore, chief librarian at the University of Toronto. “Corporate sponsors are interested in whatever works for their commercial interests and their shareholders. Long-term preservation is not something you can look to the commercial sector to provide. It is what research libraries have always done.”

Microsoft acknowledged on its blog that commercial considerations played a part in its decision to end the program.

“Given the evolution of the Web and our strategy, we believe the next generation of search is about the development of an underlying, sustainable business model for the search engine, consumer and content partner,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s senior vice president for search, portal and advertising, wrote on the blog.

Microsoft said it had digitized 750,000 books and indexed 80 million journal articles.

Google, which works with libraries like the New York Public Library and those at Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan and Oxford, said it had scanned more than a million books. It plans to scan 15 million in the next decade. Google makes the books it scans freely available through its search engine but does not allow other search engines to use its database.

“We are extremely committed to Google Book Search, Google Scholar and other initiatives to bring more content online,” said Adam Smith, product management director at Google.

John Markoff contributed reporting.




Source: nytimes.com
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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Neverwinter Nights 2 for Mac: Role-Play Fantasy World

Neverwinter Nights 2 for Mac (ESRB: Teen) is a game with interesting and in-depth story line, and dynamic characters and interaction. Anyone who likes role-playing games should love this game.

Sure to please everyone, this Macintosh game lets you design the character you like - good or evil, chaotic or lawful - as well as to role-play the way you want, and choose your alignment, allies, companions, and how you want your character to develop.

There is a pool of 12 non-player characters who can join the player’s party. In addition, the player can gain or lose influence with party members, which dictates outcomes to certain quests or causes strife in the party. Gameplay is not a continuation of the original Neverwinter Nights campaign, but makes references to the “Wailing Death” plague and the war with the rival city of Luskan from the original NWN.

Neverwinter Nights 2 is set in the fantasy world of the Forgotten Realms, one of the popular campaign settings of Dungeons and Dragons. The game centers around a powerful force of evil named the “King of Shadows” and an artifact that can ultimately defeat this arch-enemy. The game itself is divided into three Acts.

Throughout Act I, the Player’s Character witnesses and later endures an attack by a deadly warlock who is responsible for the Blacklake murders. The PC is initially led to believe that the warlock’s identity is the King of Shadows.

Act II is more role-play oriented than Act I, whereas a Luskan ambassador to Neverwinter, Torio Claven, frames the Player’s Character for the massacre of a Luskan town. The Player’s Character becomes a squire of a Neverwinter knight to protect him/her from the draconian Luskan justice system and must gather evidence to prove their innocence in several locales. Act II concludes with the search for a hidden stronghold, the magical Haven of Shandra’s ancestor Ammon Jerro where answers could be found regarding the silver shards, and Ammon’s subsequent surrender.

The main antagonists of Act III are the Shadow Reavers, powerful undead mages that include a revived Garius, intent on allowing the King of Shadows to reemerge. The player must prepare Crossroad Keep for imminent battle by fortifying its troops, lands and by finding allies from other lands. Once Garius is defeated, the surviving non-player character’s on a Good-aligned player character’s side must battle the King of Shadows and his avatars. Evil characters may choose to side with the King of Shadows and, as a result, must defeat every remaining non-player character party member to complete the game. The game ends once you either kill the king of shadows or your remaining companions.

As with the original Neverwinter Nights, the Mac version does not include the toolkit for users to create their own adventure “modules.” This toolset, called Electron, is included with the Windows version of the game. The Mac version can use player-created modules, however. Neverwinter Nights 2 is available through Aspyr’s web site, for $49.99.

System requirements:
Mac OS X v10.4.11 or 10.5.1 or later, Intel-based Mac running at 2.0GHz or faster, 1GB RAM, 6.5GB hard disk space, ATI Radeon X1600 or Nvidia GeForce 7600 or better with at least 128MB VRAM and DVD drive.




Source: palluxo.com
Posted By: IndoSourceCode

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