Skip to main content

Five Things You Didn't Know About Windows Vista

Microsoft's latest Windows Vista beta, in the field less than a month, has been getting a thorough going over from developers and early adopters.

Where are the games?


In a world where many PC users are heavy secret Solitaire players, curiosity abounds as to what games will come with Windows Vista. Two sites (here and here) have posted screenshots, apparently obtained at Microsoft's September 2005 Professional Developer's Conference, exploring this recreational angle.

Did you know that Microsoft isn't the only entity that's registered 'Windows Vista' as a trademark?

Microsoft is certainly covering all its legal bases when it comes to protecting the Windows Vista name. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Microsoft has registered Windows Vista at least seven times as a trademark.

What's a quick way to learn to write Vista-aware code?

On his blog, Tim Sneath, a Microsoft Windows Vista Technical evangelist, suggested setting up a series of developer challenges (essentially, coding tests), which would help programmer familiarize themselves with some of the different parts of Vista.

Want to work on Vista?


Like the Vista beta 2 so much you want to work on the OS for real? You're in luck. Microsoft's career site has posting for nearly 200 jobs which have at least something to do with Windows Vista.

What's the official Windows Vista launch Date?

Therein lies the apparent seeds of Microsoft's "Guess the Launch Date Contest" contest. Unfortunately not open to U.S. residents, it's hosted on Microsoft's EMEA site and is aimed at residents of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Winners get a trip to the international Vista launch event in the USA, whenever and wherever that may be, along with three nights in a four-star hotel. Interestingly, second through fourth prize winners might consider themselves even luckier, since they win a new Xbox 360 system.

Popular posts from this blog

iPod Nano 5G synchronization issues in Ubuntu

I was able to manage my iPod Nano using Ubuntu until now. When I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04 Natty which was a clean install, a weird problem started. I could not synchronize my iPod using any application like Banshee, Rhythmbox, gtkpod, Amarok etc. On closer look, I realized that when I transferred any file, it was copied to the iPod but the database on iPod was not updated. None of the applications seemed to work and it was same error in each case. Since the iPod database was not updated, iPod could not see the file and was unable to play it. It was an iPod Nano generation 5, which comes with a video camera on the back side. To debug the issue, I executed Banshee in debug mode (banshee -debug on the terminal), and I noticed the following error when trying to transfer any file on iPod. ‘Failed to save iPod database – GLib.GException: Failed to generate sqlite database (in `libgpod-sharp)’ I searched for solutions on Internet but was confused at various solutions suggest...

Sydney Trip

I went to Sydney on a business trip for 2-3 weeks. Since, it was a business trip I was going to travel alone and miss my family. Therefore, I appreciated the short duration of the trip but it did not feel like a short one. Most of it was work only and some time for me during the two weekends. I had decided to make the most of available time instead of idling and feel more homesick. Also, I was going to stay in the CBD area so it was a big advantageous factor since not much effort was to be spent for sightseeing. The journey began with the longest flight I’ve ever been on (17 hours) with a stopover at Bangkok for 2 hours. I had a terrible time in the flight from Delhi to Bangkok; I was struggling a lot in the airplane seats and couldn’t sleep at all. However, the flight from Bangkok to Sydney was much better. On my flight from Bangkok to Sydney, an Australian lady was seated at the window seat on my right hand side. She asked me if I wanted to swap my seat with hers as I had starte...

Busy or Lazy?

Either of the two. But that’s been the case after my wedding. I’ve not done a blog post, neither I did anything on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ for that matter. Whatever! Better late than never. So, in order of priority, I wanted to write down a few important events that happened since my last post - We were blessed with a baby daughter – Naisha. Literal meaning of Naisha is ‘Special’ and she justifies this meaning completely. She’s beautiful, cranky and a fighter. She’s awesome! Naisha is one creature in the house. She just celebrated her first birthday dressed up as a Barbie, which was cute. All the day she’s running around the house and interpreting various things and objects in her unique style. I cannot understand much of it, but most of it appears very logical somehow. I switched from X to Y organization. It was a long pending decision for me and thankfully it worked out this time. It took its own time and I was recruited after long six months of interviewing process. A...