The New Black

Why does Microsoft, primarily a software company, care about the physical design and style of a PC?

"We're interested in bringing choice and innovation to the total end-user experience," explains Poznanski, who came to Microsoft more than two years ago from the music industry. "The design of your computer is as important as the design of your handbag or living-room couch. After all, if a customer isn't attracted by a PC, they'll never get to experience our software."

That's why Microsoft supports its PC partners in their efforts to produce truly innovative designs. "We give these companies early feedback on the prototypes they show us, and we help showcase some of the most fashionable PCs, as we are here at PROJECT," he says. "It's a two-way street; our partners are constantly encouraging us to be as innovative as we can be."

Poznanski believes that a PC should be an extension of someone's personality and taste, just as their clothes, home and car are. "We don't think customers should be limited to PCs that are black, white or silver. PCs with Windows are available in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, colors, designs and accessories, so you can have a PC that reflects who you are — your personal style and fashion sense. There's a PC with Windows out there for everyone and with any style."

What are some of the design elements that consumers want now? The obvious ones are choice of shape, color, texture and pattern, but Poznanski notes that factors such as small footprint and light weight are particularly important for the road-warrior lifestyle and are also part of the latest design trends.

Shedding Your Skin

Users' ability to personalize their PCs doesn't end with the PC design itself. It can stretch into the software they use as well. Windows DreamScene, for example, is a utility that allows videos and animations — like waves breaking on a beach — to be used as desktop wallpapers.

A company called Stardock, a Microsoft partner that will also be at PROJECT, offers a utility called MyColors that can change the look and feel of the entire Windows environment so that it conforms to any one of a variety of themes, like a sports team or a car brand. Their visual "skins" change nearly every element of the Windows GUI (graphical user interface), including icons, title bars, push buttons, menus and the Start bar.

For example, environment-minded users can show their passion for the planet by downloading a Think Green skin, which will change their desktop to incorporate an animated start menu, a matching weather forecast gadget and many other similarly theme-related elements. Other available themes include animal prints, wood grains and sleek stainless steel.

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StartupNation (http://www.startupnation.com) and Microsoft Office Live Small Business (http://www.smallbusiness.officelive.com) have launched the second annual "Home-Based 100" to find the top home-based businesses in the country. Home-based businesses interested in making the list can submit their business profile at http://www.startupnation.com/homebased100, with results to be announced in November.

According to the Small Business Administration, over half of all U.S. businesses are based out of an owner's home, and home-based businesses contribute more than $530 billion to the U.S. economy each year. With more than 19 million entrepreneurs currently running a business from home, most experts believe this trend is at an all-time high.

"2008 is the year of the home-based business. While home businesses have long been the backbone of the U.S. economy — surpassing more than half of all businesses — this year's economic pressures have accelerated this trend and fueled a new crop of home-based entrepreneurs," said Rich Sloan, co-founder of StartupNation LLC and one of the country's leading small-business experts. "Our 2008 ranking of home-based businesses will showcase these unsung heroes of entrepreneurship and demonstrate that home is not only where the heart is, but also where passion, drive and tomorrow's business success stories live."

The StartupNation Home-Based 100 is composed of 10 top-10 lists making it not just an ordinary business list. Including the grungiest, the most innovative and the best financial performers, the unique and diverse list highlights the home-based businesses that are often unrecognized, but which still play a vital role in the economy today. The 10 categories for 2008 follow:

• Best Financial Performers

• Most Innovative

• Boomers Back in Business

• Greenest

• Yummiest

• Wackiest

• Grungiest

• Recession Busters

• Most Slacker-Friendly

• Most Glamorous

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And while PCs running Windows outsell Macs 30 to 1, based on an estimate by Microsoft's CEO in a company memo, Apple's recent momentum is hard to deny.

The biggest point to make, for an online investor, is that you'll most likely be fine with either a Windows PC or a Mac. Both will run Web browser software, allowing you to complete 99% of the investing and money management tasks you'd want to do. Just about every online brokerage website is compatible with all the major browsers, and the operating system you're running means nothing at all. I know of several high-powered stock research firms that use both PCs and Macs.

When it comes to investing, you want to keep your costs down. As investors we've been trained to reduce the commissions we pay, limit ourselves to low-cost mutual funds and reduce our capital gains taxes. Why then, should you overpay for a computer?

Let's take an example. For less than $500, you can buy a Compaq Presario CQ50Z laptop. It comes with a 1.9 GHz dual-core processor, 1 gigabyte of memory, an Nvidia GeForce graphics card, 120 gigabyte harddrive and wireless networking. A capable machine by today's standards and more than adequate for an online investor, for less than $500.

Now, let's see what's available from Apple. You'll need to spend at least $1,099 for a MacBook, which comes with the same memory and hard drive. The MacBook has a slightly faster microprocessor, 2.1 GHz, but you won't notice the difference if you're just Web surfing.

Dozens of companies build computers that run Microsoft's Windows, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo and Sony. But the list doesn't stop there. There's an innovative Asian PC maker, Asus, which is making interesting miniature laptops called the Eee. The Eee weighs just two pounds, is about the size of a tissue box and costs less than $300. These tiny PCs could be great machines for online investors on the run. Then there are even smaller PCs, like the FlipStart, which runs Windows too.

Microsoft has a nearly unblemished history making sure that files and data you have created in its operating systems are readable in the future. Floppy disks created with Microsoft's early MS-DOS operating system decades ago will open on standard Windows Vista machines today, if you spring for an external floppy disk drive. Apple on the other hand, will often start from a clean slate, and doesn't appear to hold backward compatibility as dear. Maybe some readers know if disks formatted using Apple DOS on an Apple II computer will open on a modern Mac PC?

This is a key factor with financial data. If you burn a CD with your past tax records, for instance, you want to know that in 20 years you'll be able to call up those records if you need them. Microsoft has demonstrated it will make sure your old data are readable.

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Called the Enhanced Digital Guide Experience (EDGE), Circuit City's new mobile devices can speed the sales process by providing associates with immediate access to product recommendations, demos, usage questions, competitive pricing and more for thousands of items across hundreds of categories. EDGE is helping transform the retailer's customer-service model in new-format stores known as the city™ by enabling any available associate to sell or discuss any product with any guest using a boundless selling approach to consumer electronics.

"With EDGE, sales associates can engage the guest, ask questions and input feedback for product recommendations that match the guest's preferences and budget," said Brian Leach, vice president of new concepts for Circuit City. "Because EDGE puts a wealth of information at our associates' fingertips, we can hire from a broader talent pool and prepare them for the sales floor more quickly."

"With consumer electronics products being upgraded as often as every 90 days, retailers are pressured to stay on top of all the latest trends while at the same time ensuring competitive pricing, clean stores and well-stocked shelves," said David Gruehn, U.S. retail industry director at Microsoft. "By using a Tablet PC running a Windows-based application such as EDGE to elevate sales associates' knowledge and effectiveness, Circuit City is differentiating itself from other retailers and tackling a key issue that all retailers face: how to increase customer loyalty and sales with a frequently evolving workforce."

"What started as a selling tool turned into something that has removed boundaries from our service model and changed the way that we run our business," Leach said.

Circuit City Innovates Stores With Interactive, Assisted Selling Capabilities

Circuit City teamed with Microsoft and its partners to design EDGE to extract product information, inventory data, in-store promotions, third-party reviews, and other information over the Internet and from multiple back-end business systems. Once the information is extracted, EDGE is then optimized with decision-support intelligence and a friendly user interface.

"Working with Microsoft was critical to getting us moving with this concept," said Dave Romero, senior manager of new concepts for Circuit City. "We knew we had to create a more consistent approach to how we engaged guests in our stores, and Microsoft had the insight to show us where the industry was heading and provided knowledge and resources to move us in that direction."

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A leading gaming and entertainment platform just became a leading platform for change. Microsoft Corp. and Rock the Vote today announced a groundbreaking partnership that will allow Xbox 360 owners to register to vote, participate in presidential polls and voice their opinions to the presidential candidates. It will all happen through Xbox LIVE starting Monday, Aug. 25, the first day of the Democratic National Convention.

"Xbox is a natural partner to help us reach out to youth voters," said Heather Smith, executive director, Rock the Vote. "To realize our goal of registering 2 million young Americans by this fall, we need to go where young Americans are, and there's no doubt in our minds that many are on Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE."

This is the first time that Rock the Vote has joined forces with an entertainment partner such as Xbox to reach voters under 30. Xbox LIVE is the largest online social network connected to the television, with membership totaling 12 million — if Xbox LIVE were a state, it would rank as the country's seventh largest, giving it approximately 20 electoral votes.

"The Xbox LIVE community is active, vocal and passionate," said Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox LIVE. "We're thrilled to partner with Rock the Vote to make it easier than ever for youth voters — and our members — to register and be heard."

Through the Rock the Vote partnership, Xbox LIVE members will be able to register to vote, voice their opinions to the candidates through an exclusive forum and participate in potentially election-predicting polls. They will also be able to download Rock the Vote public service announcements.

Xbox also will have a presence at both the Democratic and Republican conventions, promoting the Rock the Vote partnership and educating delegates about creating a safer entertainment environment on Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE using the built-in parental controls known as Family Settings. These industry-leading settings allow parents to limit their children's access to video games and movies and manage their activity and communications on Xbox LIVE. For more information on Family Settings and other safety-enhancing gaming tools and resources, delegates can stop by the Xbox on-site kiosk or visit http://www.xbox.com/isyourfamilyset.

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As parents send their kids back to school this fall, many families will be spending less on their annual back to school purchases. With current economic conditions putting a damper on spending, people are looking for the best value on everything from clothes to computers.

On Aug. 14, Microsoft teamed up with designer Genevieve Gordor of HGTV's "Dear Genevieve" in New York to provide some useful tips and tricks on designing a dorm room that can strike the right balance between value and style.

Genevieve's Digital Dorm Room Tips:

• A Windows PC can provide all the functionality college students need for as little as $860. The PC can serve multiple functions, from recording a recent episode of your favorite TV show to helping write a history paper.

• Layer the bed with sheets, a coverlet, a duvet, and a throw. All of these pieces add texture, dimension, color and function. The bed will determine your whole color palette. Remember, keep it light, keep it simple and add color and pattern with accent pillows.

• Use oversize box pillows against the walls to act as a couch during the day; a bolster at either side can serve as armrests.

• Utilize the space under the bed by lifting it up on wood posts cut at your local home improvement store. You can then put sliding drawers beneath the bed; the wood ones are best and last the longest.

• Like the bed, the floor is all about layering. Nobody loves industrial carpet. Buying several inexpensive floor mats and layering them creates a look that's more luxurious than just one carpet.

• Turn off the fluorescents! Instead, bring in task and mood lighting. A desk lamp or a floor lamp will give you control of the environment instead of it controlling you.

• Once students are settled, they can keep in touch with friends and family back home using Windows Live services. With Windows Live, you can share your favorite photos with friends, send and receive e-mail from your Web-enabled mobile phone, even talk face-to-face with Windows Live Messenger video features.

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First there was the snapshot, and then came video. Now there is Microsoft Photosynth, a new service from Microsoft Live Labs that goes far beyond how you now view, experience and share photos.

You can share or relive a vacation destination or explore a distant museum or landmark; with a digital camera and your own creativity and inspiration, you can use Photosynth to transform regular digital photos into a three-dimensional, 360-degree experience. Anybody who sees your "synth" is put right in your shoes, sharing in the same sense of exhilaration and wonder that you did at the time, with detail, clarity and scope impossible to achieve in conventional photos or videos.

Imagine yourself beneath the Eiffel Tower or in the heart of Times Square. Now imagine being able to see that exact scene in an amazing new way. With Photosynth, you can look up or down, pan from left to right, zoom in, or pull back to reveal the full sense of where you were. Photosynth provides incredibly realistic close-up detail of a place as seen in the collaboration with National Geographic. Exclusive synths of some of the world's most renowned locations, such as Machu Picchu and the Parthenon, were created using photographs taken by National Geographic.

An Entirely New Medium

Synths constitute an entirely new visual medium. Photosynth analyzes each photo for similarities to the others, and uses that data to estimate where a photo was taken. It then re-creates the environment and uses that as a canvas on which to display the photos. The potential uses of Photosynth can range from sharing experiences to storytelling and documentation:

• Share experiences. Think about the times you have been in the midst of a beautiful location or having a once-in-a-lifetime experience and wished you could share it with more immediacy and sense of place than still photos or video can capture. Photosynth puts viewers in the center of the moment and in control of how they experience it.

• Tell a story. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a synth composed of 20 or 50 photos makes visual storytelling as rich and compelling as a short story. Synths capture the totality of important moments in time, such as the anticipation and joy of an entire wedding party and guests at the moment vows are exchanged, or the elation of a child scoring a winning soccer goal as the fans cheer.

• Form a community. Synths can bring the best of your digital photos together with the best of everybody else's. Imagine if you took a trip to Rome with your friends and each of you took photos of the Trevi Fountain. Later, you can tag and upload all of the photos from each person's camera to create a synth of it. In addition, you can share that experience and your favorite places with others by embedding the synth in your profile on a social networking site.

• Educate or archive. If you want to re-create how you decorated your home for the holidays or how you planted your garden last season, the ability of Photosynth to provide intricate detail allows documentation impossible to achieve with conventional photos.

Using Photosynth

Getting started with Photosynth is easy:

• To begin, just take a few dozen digital photos — 20 to 300 photos are required, depending on the size of the place or object — with overlap between each shot, from a number of locations and angles.

• Next, download a small, free software application to your computer from http://photosynth.com. This software works in concert with the Photosynth Web site, which is also a free service.

Is this a product and service you'll use? Tell me how you will use Photysynth in your daily personal and work life.

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"DATAllegro is a tremendously innovative company that has started to redefine the data warehouse market," said Ted Kummert, corporate vice president of the Data and Storage Platform Division at Microsoft. "Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers enterprise-class capabilities in business intelligence and data warehousing, and the addition of the DATAllegro team and its technology will take our data platform to the highest scale of data warehousing."

"Integrating DATAllegro's nonproprietary hardware platform and flexible software architecture into Microsoft SQL Server will provide customers with the strongest offering in the market," said Stuart Frost, CEO of DATAllegro. "We are excited to join forces with Microsoft and continue the innovation this company was founded on."

Unlike most data warehouse appliance vendors targeting the 1--25 terabyte range, DATAllegro has specialized in large-volume, high-performance data warehouses. DATAllegro's data warehouse appliance installations boast some of the largest data volume capacities in the industry — up to hundreds of terabytes on a single system. DATAllegro clients span such markets as retail, telecommunications and manufacturing.

According to a report by Donald Feinberg of Gartner Inc., "As data warehouses are becoming more strategic to organizations and as data warehouse appliances mature, the adoption rate of the data warehouse appliance is increasing rapidly." ("Data Warehouse Appliances Are More Than Just Plug-And-Play," July 13, 2007.)

In addition to offering large capacities, DATAllegro's patent-pending technology is designed for complex workloads including high concurrency and mixed queries. DATAllegro is one of the few data warehouse appliances built on a nonproprietary hardware platform including Dell and Bull servers and EMC storage. This flexible architecture makes it ideally suited to integrate with Microsoft SQL Server.

After completing the acquisition, Microsoft will retain most of DATAllegro's team as well as its headquarters in Aliso Viejo, Calif., making it a Center of Excellence for data warehousing. Existing DATAllegro customers will continue to be supported.

What this means for you and me, is faster and more effecient service from any company.

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My name is Brick ONeil, and i've been with the 451 Press Network since March 2007. I'm the new blogger for Microsoft Talk. We'll be discussing 'About Microsoft' itself. What's happening, who's coming/going, what new technologies they're coming out with, updates and upgrades. I'll try to bring you news each day that impacts your daily life and use of Microsoft products, or just interesting information I think you'll enjoy.

I, myself, use a HP/Compaq TC1100 Tablet PC loaded with Microsoft XP for tablet and Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007. I would be lost without these. I bought my tablet in 2007 preloaded with XP for tablet and was offered the chance to upgrade to Vista. I thought long and hard about it, but decided my tablet wasn't powerful enough to load and run Vista appropriately. I really need to upgrade the RAM/memory to be more effective, and thats on 'the list' of things to do, if you know what I mean.

What computer and op system do you have?

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Feel free to drop me a line anytime in the comments or email!

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