I follow two sites for news one is computerworld and other is pc world. Both had an article on Zune today and the fun part is "PC" world article claims Zune is not Challenging iPod sales and Computerworld claims Zune could grab iPod Market Share.

Some interesting points I have noted from those articles...

iPod Marked share since Oct 2001 is more than 70% with more than 70 million units sold.
Which means 1% => 1 million units.

The same article claims Zune grabbed 9% market share, means 9 million units.

WOW... is it some misleading information or do I need to go back to school again or is it really that Zune is doing really good? I hope the later is correct.

"Zune"... where are you??? waiting for the launch in India

Grab Office 2007 too :D

Wait a minute... are you a corporate user??? So, you are not... Ok, wait 2 more months (not a minute)Minutes ago, Steve Ballmer announced the official launch of Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 Suite to corporate customers.

This is one of the first blogs coming out on this subject and there will be a flood of the same stuff following.

There are no official links on this topics yet. But, check this link for an analysis on how Windows Vista might fare.

I'll shift to Redmond when this goes live

Video: Microsoft Campus Monorail (of the future)

Guys,

The most powerful toolbar is finally here... it supports both IE and Firefox and has an auto update. So, everytime anychanges happen they'll be reflected directly onto your browser.

Now that is cool.

Try it and give me your feedback in making this even better. Clicking the below image will download the toolbar for you (it is just 752KB)

Please try this today!!!

toolbar powered by Conduit

I wanted to write a program to fetch all the groups I was registered with. I could see the list in my outlook, but could not get it in my program.

There are so many people talking about DirectoryServices, LDAP, Active Directory. But none of them were actually providing any solutions to the common problems (some are available in VBScript in WSH or using WMI).

So I thought of writing my own and now that I'm done with that, I'll probably save some other souls by posting it here. The code is what it is meant for... fetches the groups list for the user... thats it. Other parts of my program is not relevant to this context and hence will not be discussed.

class ActiveDirectoryQuery
{

const string FILTER = "(&(ObjectClass={0})(sAMAccountName={1}))";
const string MEMBEROF_PROPERTY = "memberOf";
const string ACTIVEDIRECTORY_ELEMENTTYPE = "person";

public void Test()
{
List<string> groups = this.FetchGroupsForUser( "userId", "domain");

for(int iterator=0; iterator<groups.Count; iterator++)
{
Console.WriteLine( groups[ iterator ] );
}
}

public List<string> FetchGroupsForUser( string userName, string domain )
{
string[] properties = new string[] { MEMBEROF_PROPERTY };
List<string> groupsList = new List<string>();
string filter = string.Format( FILTER, ACTIVEDIRECTORY_ELEMENTTYPE, userName );
DirectoryEntry directoryEntry = GetActiveDirectoryObject( filter, domain, properties );

if ( directoryEntry != null )
{
directoryEntry.AuthenticationType = AuthenticationTypes.None;

int count = directoryEntry.Properties[ "MemberOf" ].Count;

if ( count <= 0 )
{
return groupsList;
}

for (int iterator = 0; iterator <= count - 1; iterator++ )
{
string rawValue = directoryEntry.Properties[ "MemberOf" ][ iterator ].ToString();
string group = rawValue.Substring( 0, rawValue.IndexOf( ",OU" ) ).Replace( "CN=", string.Empty );

groupsList.Add( group );
}
}

return groupsList;
}

private DirectoryEntry GetActiveDirectoryObject( string filter, string domain, string[] properties )
{
DirectoryEntry adsRoot = new DirectoryEntry( "LDAP://" + domain, null, null, AuthenticationTypes.Secure );
DirectorySearcher searcher = new DirectorySearcher( adsRoot );

searcher.SearchScope = SearchScope.Subtree;
searcher.ReferralChasing = ReferralChasingOption.All;
searcher.PropertiesToLoad.AddRange( properties );
searcher.Filter = filter;

SearchResult result = searcher.FindOne();

DirectoryEntry directoryEntry = result.GetDirectoryEntry();

return directoryEntry;
}

}

Off technology:
Not all topics deserve a discussion, but this one certainly do.

Not all people can do these kind of experiments and have success. Keeravani has done this wonderful adventure of having a Sanskrit song in a Telugu movie. Probably for the first time in the Indian movie (not sure though).

This is not a recent movie, but I could get the lyrics just a couple of days when my brother found it at last for me (after several months of search). So here goes the lyrics and the link to the song if you want to listen to this wonderful composition.

||Agni Skalana Sandhaghdharipu Varga Pralya Radha Chatrapathi
Madhyamdhina Samudhyath Kirana Vidyuddhumani Khani Chatrapathi
Thajjem Thajjenu Thadhim Dhirana Dhim Dhim Thakita Nata Chatrapathi
Urvii Valaya Sambhavyavara Swacchanda Gunadhi...||

||Khumbhi Nikara Khumbhastha Guru Khumbhi Valaya Pathi Chatrapathi
Jhanjha Pavana Garvapahara Vindhyadri Samadruthi Chatrapathi
Chanda Prabala Doardhandajitha Dhurdhanda Bhata Tathi Chatrapathi
Shatru Prakara Vicchedakara Bheema Arjuna Prathi...|| (2 times)

||Dhig Dhig Vijaya Dhanka Ninada Ghantarava Tusshhitha Chatrpathi
Sangha Svajana Vidrohi Gana Vidhwamsa Vratamati Chatrapathi
Aarthatrana Dhustadhyumna Kshaatra Spuurthi Dhidhiti, Bheemakshmapathi,Shiksha Smruthi Sthapathi....||

Listen to the song here

As there is not much activity happening around... I thought of browsing links within links and found this one.

I'm not validating any data here nor commenting on any... its up to you to decide.

Well... as the debate still goes on...

Somebody somewhere in this world found a security flaw in... nope.. not IE... its FF and now FF beats IE black and blue in the number of security flaws... may god save IE.

So, the latest fuzz is all about the passwords that browsers have been saving for the users and the analyst (Chapin) says... if you are using FF, *Do not save your passwords*. remember them, write them on a paper, tell somebody to remember or do anything else, but "Do not save your passwords".

If you still dont believe me... check this

Ok, if you don't know what it is till now... there are only two things possible.

Either you are have never heard anything like a computer game or you are dead. This is certainly the most talked about (hyped) game of this year.

Here are some of the images from the game:

Though there were not much news about its release so far... MS felt that it should *now* release this to have something special for the folks to buy XBox 360 this Christmas and I dont find a single reason why it should not.

Not sure when this will be released in Indian markets though!!! Tekcurry... are you listening???

Here goes the news and here goes the official site

A comparision between Oracle's new database software Oracle 10G R2 and Microsoft's new database software SQL Server 2005 shows some astonishing facts that most people dont expect.

I'm not judging on which is superior... no question.. on Windows... SQL Server is the king (more than 50%) of databases on Windows run SQL Server.

The point here is security. According to NGSSoftware research the number of security issues identified in Oracle are way more than SQL Server... check these graphs (taken from the link below)

For the complete analysis, click here

I'm using a laptop to write this blog. I've a wireless mouse... wireless internet connection. But I always wondered if I can get away with my power cable... please god save me from this huge adaptor.

Can I get something like a dongle at one end and a wireless adaptor that charges my laptop? Wow.. what a wonderful thought. I can sit in my lawn yet work on my laptop with internet connected and more importantly *NOT* on battery.

Seems like some people heard me... Researchers at MIT are working on something that is similar to this. Not sure how long will it take for this to land in India. Hopefully... 2007??? Lets see.

If you are wondering what I'm talking about... check here

First they take an idea that is already shaped up... then they try to compete them... then they acquire them???

Who ever thinks all that is done at Google is innovation needs to learn that the *new* (supposedly) Spreadsheets was actually a borrowed (or stolen not sure... so better take less fire) idea.

iRows was there before google spreadsheets and now google has bought the founders of iRows so that they can get their product aswell ;)

here goes the fire. And here goes the comparision chart

any takers???

The time has come...

I did not have any idea on what it is till I downloaded and installed. The first thing I noticed about this is that the look and feel is *SAME* as Windows Live Mail. Who ever says MS does not innovate, you can say so... this time I demand to differ.

Here goes my first impressions on this tool, after using this for 3 days and doing pretty much playing around on this...

Pros:

1. Outlook type of interface. This is important because, I'm used to this and I like this than any thing else (with respect to mail interfaces).
2. Auto Configure for hotmail/live mail. No need for any kind of settings, just give the email id and it synchronizes the mails.
3. Offline mode is awesome. Now I can use this to type my mails on the move and draft them, and click send/recv when I'm connected. For dialup users, this is a money saver. But who uses dial ups nowadays? If you are then its easy to download this and install than having to open the mail box to send mails infinite times
4. Works with Hotmail/Yahoo/Gmail. Are there anybody out there using any other internet mails apart from these? If you are... wake up man.
5. No Configuration for Gmail. Now I know this is a googly for most of you guys ;)
6. Ability to directly copy the contents of the mail into your Windows Live Writer. Any takers? I've already used this and this is especially helpful if are a spam blogger, meaning blogging all the spam forwards ;)
7. You can use it as your RSS Aggregator/Reader. It works awesome
8. All Contacts. This will merge you contacts in you multiple mail accounts to maintain unique list of your contacts. This is a cool feature.
9. Have a consistent mail format for all your outgoing mails.
10. Active Search. Gets ads based on your mails. The good part is that you can hide this. So no forceful ads. Google... are you listening???
11. Ability to search your mails. This is not new, but you can search all your mail accounts at a single place.
12. Several inbuilt mail backgrounds. And you can add your own to this list (check stationery)
13. WYISWYG mail composer. Now this is windows world.
14. Create rules that applies to all your mail accounts.
15. Get your news delivered to your desktop using the News section.
16. Automatic Updates available. Now, this is in beta... so auto updates will be helpful
17. You can group the mails by conversations. This is the MOST useful feature. Now you have the best of both worlds.

Cons:

1. Folder hierarchy works only for Hotmail. Yahoo accounts does not show the folders created in the yahoo mail account. This is a major drawback for me. I love folders.
2. It takes so much time to synchronize the mail accounts.
3. Mail in live messenger opens the WLMD instead of the online account. Why did they integrate both of these? This should be configurable.
4. Hiding Active Search will display the static Live mail image ad (though.. it does not have any hyperlink)
5. Mail limits (usage limits) are not displayed. So need to occasionally go to the websites to check the size.
6. Yahoo account requires POP enabled. Though this is a yahoo issue... its an issue. Sometimes, yahoo insists you have mail plus account for this. (For co.in accounts... it works)

Overall, as you have seen.. this is a winner with both thumbs up.

Try it before everybody start looking at you like a rock age person.

Cheers!!!

Sid

Lately, some of my blog readers asked me about the amount of posts I'm writing on the all new (yes all new) Zune...

Here goes my answer...

It could be because of these reasons:

1. I'm excited
2. I need one
3. I can get it at a discounted rate ;)
4. Need something to write (and iPod is old)
5. Everyone else is talking about it (+ve or -ve)
6. Zune is cool

Yes it can... break the shell... do some hardware level changes... get a new shell... install embedded linux... develop the software to play music... play it. As simple as it goes.

Will it still be Zune? Yes, it will be... but will be Zune that can play pirated music ;)

i guess its a solution for all those Microsoft haters... for Zune haters, get yourself an old, sick iPotty from Banana :P

Get More from Your E-mail

We're building a better e-mail service-and you can help.

You've used MSN® Hotmail® and participated in the Windows Live (TM) Mail beta. Now we need your expertise to help us develop the newest version of Windows Live Mail beta for the desktop. We've been testing the product, but your input is key. Download the innovative desktop Mail beta, try it out, and tell us what you think.

Get Windows Live Mail for the desktop

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• The ability to compose, delete, and organize e-mail even when you're offline
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Want a sneak peek before you sign up? See it now.

Please share your feedback! Download the program, test the features, and tell us how we can make them even better. Input from valued users like you will shape the final product.

Provide feedback at any time.

Thank you,
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This thing totally rocks!!!

Posting this blog was the easiest thing I every did online. Goto Actions > Blog. This opened WLW with the mail content and CTRL + P to post it :) (It works with all the messages and not just this...LOL)

This link does not say so...
If you are facing problems with the previous link... then check this (only if you are facing problems)

Now, I understand why they give soda for free @ MS ;)

Whatever people say about Zune...

This is an excerpt from one of the reviews...

"I dragged a key across the Zune's screen, -- pressing pretty hard -- and it didn't leave a scratch.  Same goes for other surfaces of the device.  Apple should start buying their screen plastic from wherever Microsoft got these.

I was really impressed by the menus and graphics.  Animation is silky smooth when it appears, like when you enter a menu: the wallpaper zooms in (again, a subtle touch, but pleasing). Within a couple of minutes, I had mastered navigation and could use the device by feel.  Navigation is really, really easy -- like, iPod-easy -- and the five-way controller has a muted, high-quality feel to it."

You can check the complete review here

What is Google upto now-a-days?

They've designed a way to peek into the past and look at the globe as it was. Unfortunately, we cannot navigate to India.

This come to show our satellites are not as old as others :).

Pun apart, this is really good. Even if it is a collection of maps from history books, it surely is pretty educating stuff... So next time you want to plot the roman empire in your history exam... you can take the help of google.

Check out here for more info

For those who dont know what a vhd is...

"The Microsoft VHD format is the common virtualization file format that provides a uniform product support system, and provides more seamless manageability, security, reliability and cost-efficiency for customers."

Microsoft is now giving away vhd files with different configurations. What does it mean for you? It means.. you dont need to spend long hours configuring your machine to test if something works for you. It means... you dont need licenses to (selected) Microsoft products until the vhd evaluation period is valid. It means.. so many other things aswell.

So, the next time you need Exchange Server 2007 on Windows Server 2003... you know where to look for... It's right here