mateus.info

Well, it was about time to separate things. From now on, my technical topics blog will be at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/velloso/ while this one will remain as my personal one. Will be posting stuff soon.

And social network madness keeps going

For Outlook:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=ce8b7517-234c-48a1-a655-324a88893b02

And for Messenger:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/outlook-social-connector-partner-listing-FX101812910.aspx

Ever had to take photos of a group of people and every time you try, someone had the eyes closed, made a funny face or something else?

Your problems are over!

This very powerful tool, now part of Windows Live, can do awesome tricks, mixing two or more photos together and doing replacements with nearly zero effort!
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/02/microsoft-rolls-out-impressive-enhancements-to-windows-live-essentials-suite/

Recently the official Microsoft blog posted quite a few interesting numbers that worth spreading.

First, the source:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2010/06/25/microsoft-by-the-numbers.aspx

Then, the numbers:

150,000,000
Number of Windows 7 licenses sold, making Windows 7 by far the fastest growing operating system in history.
7.1 million
Projected iPad sales for 2010.
58 million
Projected netbook sales in 2010.
355 million
Projected PC sales in 2010.

 <10%
Percentage of US netbooks running Windows in 2008.
96%
Percentage of US netbooks running Windows in 2009. 
 

Who was the smartypants who said netbooks would kill Windows??

 
0
Number of paying customers running on Windows Azure in November 2009.
10,000
Number of paying customers running on Windows Azure in June 2010.

700,000
Number of students, teachers and staff using Microsoft’s cloud productivity tools in Kentucky public schools, the largest cloud deployment in the US.
 

16 million
Total subscribers to largest 25 US daily newspapers.
14 Million
Total number of Netflix subscribers.
23 million
Total number of Xbox Live subscribers.

9,000,000
Number of customer downloads of the Office 2010 beta prior to launch, the largest Microsoft beta program in history.

(Doesn’t really look like a number related to a dying product, does it?)

21.4 million
Number of new Bing search users in one year.

24%
Linux Server market share in 2005.
33%
Predicted Linux Server market share for 2007 (made in 2005).
21.2%
Actual Linux Server market share, Q4 2009.

8.8 million
Global iPhone sales in Q1 2010.
21.5 million
Nokia smartphone sales in Q1 2010.
55 million
Total smartphone sales globally in Q1 2010.
439 million
Projected global smartphone sales in 2014.

9
Number of years it took Salesforce.com to reach 1 million paid user milestone.
6
Number of years it took Microsoft Dynamics CRM to reach 1 million paid user milestone.
100%
Percent chance that Salesforce.com CEO will mention Microsoft in a speech, panel, interview, or blog post.

(he he)

173 million
Global Gmail users.
284 million
Global Yahoo! Mail users.
360 million
Global Windows Live Hotmail users.
299 million
Active Windows Live Messenger Accounts worldwide.
1
Rank of Windows Live Messenger globally compared to all other instant messaging services.

$5.7 Billion
Apple Net income for fiscal year ending  Sep 2009.
$6.5 Billion
Google Net income for fiscal year ending Dec 2009.
$14.5 Billion
Microsoft Net Income for fiscal year ending June 2009.
$23.0 billion
Total Microsoft revenue, FY2000.
$58.4 billion
Total Microsoft revenue, FY2009.

(for those who are not familiar with the terms, income is what really matters)

Maybe I was unfair about the IPad. Let’s see what others are saying:

Yahoo Finance: “Apple’s iPad Debuts to Great Expectations … and Disappoints”

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/apple’s-ipad-debuts-to-great-expectations-…-and-disappoints-414370.html?tickers=aapl,amzn,%5Eixic,mhp,nws,hpq

 Gizmodo: “8 Things That Suck About the iPad”

http://gizmodo.com/5458382/8-things-that-suck-about-the-ipad

 Business Insider: “The iPad Is Such A Bad Product Name That MadTV Was Mocking It 4 Years Ago”

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ipad-is-such-a-bad-product-name-madtv-was-mocking-it-4-years-ago-2010-1

PCWorld: “Apple iPad Reviews: The Critics Weigh In”

http://www.pcworld.com/article/188073/apple_ipad_reviews_the_critics_weigh_in.html

Case closed

According to recent data, 1% of the world’s GPD is enough to clean the world. That’s it, a lot, lot less than what was wasted with bailouts of banks that were incompetent in managing their own assets and we could have a whole new, clean shinny world to live at.

So we don’t have an environmental problem anymore. We have a political problem. Wrong politicians, wrong decisions consistently being made, world sinking in debt when the real problems that we should be focusing on fixing are proven easy to solve and here we are.

Makes you wonder if there is intelligent life in this planet.

Putting it in a more simplistic way: I can choose another bank if I don’t trust mine. But I can’t choose another planet.

I’m quite happy with the results of the free beta of Vitamin D ( http://www.vitamindinc.com/index.php ) . Basically it turns your webcam or any other camera into an automatic surveillance system that will recognize movement and images. Then you can create rules, like to send you an e-mail when a person is detected, range of hours or days of the week, etc.

So even if someone breaks into your house and steals your computer, the images will be already sent by internet and you will be able to give them to the police to help tracking down whoever was there.

I am using the Microsoft LifeCam VX-7000 which is working great but the software also supports network enabled cameras and configuring different regions of the house if you are really some sort of security freak.

Also a very good idea to use bitlocker encryption on all your internal and external drives so your computer data cannot be accessed without the proper keys. At Microsoft this is now mandatory and I’ve seen several situations where customers lost their laptops with sensitive data, which is something you don’t want to experience.

If you encrypt your drives, remember to make a good backup of the recovery keys (preferably on some secure internet drive) so if something goes wrong with your keys you are not completely doomed.

And no, I’m not a security freak… Although I’ve also installed 6 window/door monitor plus a few motion sensors around the house. After all, why not?

After upgrading my Dell mini 9 to a 32 GB SSD Runcore HD and 2 GB of RAM, I decided to install Windows 7 RC on it to see how it behaves.

And I still can’t believe on the performance!

Total installation time: ~17 minutes (including booting, formating, etc)

Total full boot time: ~15 seconds!

It is running office 2007 and now I’m planning to install visual studio and virtual pc on it.

It is actually running faster than my work laptop. For those who don’t see a future on netbooks or windows 7, there you go.

Microsoft Synchronization Framework is a fantastic collection of classes that help you to deal with synchronization tasks, really commom mostly with ocasionally connected systems. It offers support for both data (database) related synchronization but also for files.

As a consequence of this framework Microsoft released a little but nice tool called “SyncToy” http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C26EFA36-98E0-4EE9-A7C5-98D0592D8C52&displaylang=en which is a file synchronization tool.

I’ve recently spent quite some time trying to find a good file synchronization tool so I could put my computers synchronized with my external storage. I consdered them all pricey and offering either way too many features or a “free” version with lots of limitations. Well, SyncToy solved my problem

Imagine you are managing two independent sites: something.yourdomain.com and somethingelse.yourdomain.com. Both use forms authentication, totally separated users and providers, different servers, etc.

You navigate to one site and everything is fine. You navigate to the other site and everything is fine too. You click in a link from the first site that takes your browser to the second and… forms authentication won’t work anymore!

Why?

ASP.Net generates an authentication cookie: .AUTHX which is valid for that domain and all subdomains. If your browser receives that cookie from the first site, then another cookie with the same name from the other site, it will get confused and from that point on, it will send both cookies. ASP.Net will also get confused and won’t know which of the values it should use so it will try to authenticate again.

So what should you do?

Option 1: Use single sign on across both sites if you can

Option 2: Rename one or both authentication cookies so they don’t have the same name

Option 3: Keep the cookies with the same name, but with no “.” so the cookie will only apply for that specific FQDN

Ok, so one year ago I’ve bought a brand new iMac. Yes, that’s right, iMac because the music editing software I wanted to use was only available for iMacs.

2 months later the wireless keyboard wasn’t working anymore. Then the not-so-happy Mac user here goes to the shop to have his keyboard replaced. I asked them if these things happen often and they said no, that I just had “bad luck”.

 4 months after that my new wireless keyboard stops working…

Totally-not-happy-Mac-user comes back to the shop, asks again if this happens often, again I hear that I’m just in a hell of a bad luck, and come back with a new keyboard.

Now, 2 weeks after my warranty has expired, guess what? The bloody motherboard died! How lucky is that?? Then I call the service and they tell me that in order to replace the motherboard, it will cost NZ$ 1740! That’s more than what you pay to replace a laptop’s motherboard.

Now ask me if I see any value in owing a Mac? Hell no.

If like me you also work with Microsoft development technologies for more than… er… 16 years (oh boy, I feel old) you will probably be very pleased with the next generation of Visual Studio. Simply because comparing what changed from the first VS .Net to VS .Net 2003, then from 2003 to 2005, then from 2005 to 2008 and now from 2008 to “Rosario”, you will notice that this last step is also the biggest one. Better features, better new concepts, better everything

So I want to start blogging about a few details here and there that not many people know about.

Today’s tip: Look mom! Debugging with no Visual Studio!

Yes, in Visual Studio “Rosario” you can generate a debugger so you can step into your app without Visual Studio! In order to do that, just create your app, go to Visual Studio menu, debug and then choose “Create standalone debugger”.

 Yes, it will generate all you need into a folder of your choice, and that’s all.

 How cool is that?

It won’t hurt:

http://blogs.msdn.com/see/archive/2008/08/06/verdiem-launches-free-energy-monitoring-app-edison.aspx

Connected Systems User Group had a great first meeting at Microsoft with Ron Jacobs presenting REST. But what was a great surprise (at least for me) was finding out that 20% of the people there were Brazilians!

 Was a nice presentation about how to couple REST and WCF. Cool stuff.

O pior tipo de hacker é aquele que além de não saber escrever código, também não sabe escrever português.

Recebi uns 40 e-mails (de uma vez) supostamente do hotmail dizendo que meu e-mail está para ser “canselado”.

Bom, primeiro o cara deu uma orelhada enorme de mandar esse monte de e-mail de uma vez, o que já deixa óbvio que o e-mail é falso. Mas feio mesmo é ver que o coitado é semi-analfabeto e não consegue nem fazer de conta que o e-mail é sério, cheio de erros de português.

Triste viu, precisando voltar pra escola esse daí.

Ah, the wonders of a well integrated development environment…

http://www.zuneboards.com/tip-of-the-week/how-to-install-games-on-your-zune.html

And I’m already thinking about what to do with my (little) free time…

Finally, Zune 2.5 is released. The limitations I was struggling with, like not having smart playlists are over

 www.zune.net

Some time ago I wrote about how machines compete for resources against living beings, and how all Darwing theories could well be applied to machines as well they do apply for organic life.These days I’ve been reading several articles about the rise of food prices all over the world and how this can be related to some specific causes, among them, the biofuel.Several scientists are alerting now for the risks related to biofuel, and how likely this will decrease the offer of food around the planet and cause serious enrionmental problems.Do not be deceived: Machines and living beings are definitely competing for resources. We all need energy to function and as we run out of petrol the options available for machines become pretty much similar to the options available to the rest of us. And as I always suggested, the differences between organic and synthetic forms of “life” are getting less and less clear. 

Here I am, back to NZ. Had a great, great time at Microsoft Services University. Here’s a picture that I’m using as my desktop background:

MSSU group photo

With friends from MCS worldwide:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38fbQJt0GLs

And once again my life turns out to prepare me things that I’d never be able to predict one year ago.

Here I am in Redmond, Microsoft HQ, for the Microsoft Services University MSSU training with consultants, TAMS, PFE’s, SE’s etc from all over the world.

Just today I’ve met guys from: Spain, Turkey, US, France, Portugal, Dubai, Canada, Sweden…

So far it has been a great experience and I’m sure there’s more yet to come.

I tell you what. You may or may not like Microsoft for your own reasons. But if you don’t, you really should see how the company works from inside and get to know the people working there before complaining about it. I’m sure you would change your mind. Try creating an online mail service that handles 350 million users yourself and see how easy it is.

Quem sou eu para criticar a sagrada Igreja Católica?

Quem sou eu para criticar a instituição que colocou Adolf Hitler no poder, que colocou Mussolini no poder, que deu as costas quando todos aqueles judeus foram exterminados, que fingiu não ver quando seus padres abusavam sexualmente de crianças, que queimou mulheres vivas pelo crime de bruxaria só porque elas tinham coragem de pensar por conta própria, que ameaçou cientistas de morte só porque os caras descobriram que a terra não era o centro do universo…

Não, longe de mim criticar uma instituição dessas. Não é preciso, basta sentar a bunda na cadeira e ler um pouco sobre a maior folha corrida de atrocidades contra a humanidade que já existiu. Não tem nenhuma outra organização que chegou perto de matar e torturar tanta gente, mas nem de longe.

Eles lá e eu cá.

Só que agora eles vêm com essa bela preocupação pela vida (que ironia) dizer que não podemos pesquisar células tronco, afinal, coitados dos embriõezinhos…

Fico imaginando os índios da América do sul que morreram de doença porque os padres europeus queriam porque queriam ir lá catequizá-los, sem nenhum respeito pela cultura e religião que eles tinham.

Claro, temos que respeitar todas as religiões, inclusive essa daí.

Acontece que respeito é uma via de mão dupla. Eu respeito sua crença enquanto você respeitar a minha. Você não come carne? Bom pra você, eu como. Você tem tanto direito de não comer quanto eu tenho de comer. Então só porque você não come, não quer dizer que os fazendeiros estejam proibidos de criar e abater o gado.

Então se você é contra pesquisa com embriões, quando você sofrer um acidente de carro e virar paraplégico e um médico vier com a cura, que foi descoberta através de pesquisa com embriões você diz para ele que vai contra as suas crenças e que você prefere viver numa cama de hospital sem conseguir mover um músculo do seu corpo e respirando através de aparelhos pro resto da vida. Já eu e outros tantos usaremos os benefícios dessa pesquisa, porque pensamos diferente.

Pronto! Problema resolvido!

Chega de viver debaixo do controle dessa instituição! Isso aqui é século 21, pô! Vivemos numa democracia, temos direito de escolher nossas crenças, até quando temos que ter medo do conhecimento? Quem tem medo do conhecimento é quem lucra com a ignorância, quem ganha dinheiro e poder controlando as multidões de gente ignorante pelo medo e por promessas ilusórias.

Você é contra a pesquisa com células tronco? É contra o aborto? Mesmo depois de tantas e tantas pesquisas e provas de que países que legalizam o aborto reduzem drasticamente os índices de violência, de gente vivendo em condições sub-humanas, passando fome…? Tudo bem, problema seu. Não compre nenhum remédio ou tratamento que venha dessas pesquisas! Não cometa aborto! Mas deixe o resto do mundo em paz, temos tanto direito de usar essas coisas quanto você tem de não usar.

Isso sim se chama respeito, vai aprendendo, porque de um jeito ou de outro isso vai acontecer. Goste você ou não. Pode não ser agora ou no ano que vem, mas a ciência e o conhecimento sempre acabam superando a ignorância.

I just got the so bad news. Mr Clarke died at age of 90.

Big, big loss for all of us.

I suggest you to read (or at least watch the movies) 2001 and 2010, and if you are really keen, also read the 2061 and 3001 (this is the best one in my opinion).

 Great mind, the world needs more people like this one.

If you ever tried to configure your outlook to download your hotmail or live.com e-mails, you probably hit on a few issues. One of them is that the download for some strange reason is synchronous, what “locks” your outlook every time the download happens.

 To overcome this issue, download the Outlook Connector here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7aad7e6a-931e-438a-950c-5e9ea66322d4&displaylang=en

After setting up you will see a huge improvement in the way outlook communicates with these e-mail services.

Ok, I spent the last 2 hours in battle with my Windows Vista after destroying my partitions with an open source defrag tool (yes, I know, I know).

 First, what destroyed my windows:

I had two volumes using a dynamic disk, and if you have a dynamic disk you should be aware that repairing this one can be way more complicated than a normal partition. So as I was having space issues I decided to run a defrag so then I would be able to resize my partitions, but the defrag tool I decided to use… well, it simply messed with the allocation tables and even booting with the windows setup CD didn’t work, since windows couldn’t detect the partitions anymore.

 How to fix that:

First, I used a very nice (but limited) tool called Active Boot Dist (www.ntfs.com)

With this tool I could boot with a recovery CD and try to recover my partitions. Unfortunatelly, the tool could not recover it since the allocation tables were way too messed up. So then I went to the command prompt and converted my dynamic volume back to basic again using DISKPART tool. This allowed the tool to recover my 2 crashed partitions.

Cool, but not enough. When I tried to boot again, no sucess. so next step was booting with my windows vista CD and asking it to repair the boot. All done, still not booting.

Then I booted with Windows Vista CD again and went to the command prompt. And that’s when I realized Windows Vista doesn’t have FIXBOOT or FIXMBR anymore! But it has a nice little command called BOOTREC that handles all of this. So, checkdisk /f, BOOTREC and reboot.

YAY! Windows back and running!

pfew…. No more open source defrag here. And I need a bigger HD.

Well, as promised, the first cool news was my interview with Mara Luquet for a radio in Brazil. Not really a big deal but was cool. I’ve got quite a few e-mails about this one.

The second news, and the most important, is that I’m leaving Gen-i and will be working for… Microsoft!

 Yes, I’m really happy about this, mostly because deep inside feels like it perfectly makes sense and that’s the job I always wanted for me. I’ll be working for the Microsoft Consulting Services, here in Auckland (well, hopefully I’ll be travelling overseas too!).

Will be hard to leave all my friends at Gen-i but I’m sure we will always be in touch and having drinks together.

Well, that’s all I’ve got so far

SOA is the only thing Chuck Norris can’t kill.

SOA invented the internet, and the internet was invented for SOA.

SOA is not complex. You are just dumb.

In the last year, SOA increased Turkey’s GDP by a factor of 10.

One person successfully described SOA completely, and immediately died.

Another person successfully described SOA completely, and was immediately outsourced.

Larry Ellison once died in a terrible accident, but was quickly given SOA. He came back to life, built a multibillion dollar software company, and now flies fighter jets.

Guns don’t kill people, the SOA WS-* stack kills people.

SOA can write and compile itself.

SOA is an anagram for OSA, which means female bear in spanish. It is a well-known fact in the spanish-speaking world that female bears are able to model business processes and optimize reusable IT assets better than any other hibernating animal.

SOA is so great 10 facts aren’t enough.

SOA is the mistress to all CIOs.

SOA is just one letter away from SOB. On purpose.

If a tree falls in the forest, SOA knows about it.

If you google ‘SAP’ and ‘Chuck Norris’, the top site is SOA Facts.

SOA is being used in the developing world to solve hunger. Entire populations will be fed on future business value.

SOA can always win at TicTacToe. Even if you go first.

SOA singlehandedly saved SOA’s bacon.

J2EE can sometimes make a diamond from a lump of coal. SOA can make diamonds from air.

SOA knows what you did last summer, and is disappointed that it wasn’t SOA.

SOA thought Mensa too easy, so it founded Sensa. SOA is the only member.

In a battle between a ninja and a jedi, SOA would win.

SOA violates the first and third laws of thermodynamics. But not the second, as all energy flows from SOA.

On the eigth day, God created SOA, then SOA created Rock and Roll.

Pluto is no longer the ninth planet, because SOA wanted the job.

SOA taught Chuck Norris everything he knows.

SOA is the secret ingredient that makes the colonel’s chicken so tasty.

For years Theoretical Physicists have searched for a grand unified theory that explains the architecture of everything … DUH … SOA

SOA can’t be named BOA (Business Oriented Architecture) since that would be too constricting for SOA.

SOA is also a yoga posture that consists of performing all other yoga postures simultaneously.

Dante has a special level in hell for consultants whose resumes do not say SOA.

SOA is the correct answer to all zen koans.

Mike Tyson never physically beat an opponent. He ‘Edumacated’ them about SOA.

SOA is a power source more efficient than nuclear, cleaner than solar/wind, more available than coal, and more geopolitically stable than oil. Its too bad you can’t afford it.

SOA can do it in one line.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of SOA.” – Jane Austen, opening line to Pride and Prejudice.

The first rule of SOA is you do not talk about SOA.

SOA in a Nutshell is 7,351 pages spread over 10 volumes.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. So does SOA.

SOA actually stands for SOA Oriented Architecture. Let THAT bake your noodle.

The solution to SOA is 42, which begs the question…

If you plug SOA into the back of your head, you’ll know Kung Fu.

Neo didn’t bring down the Matrix. SOA did.

Ancient lore promises the day when a single unifying technology will bring openness and peace to all lands. That technology is not SOA. because SOA killed that technology.

Another ancient legend tells of ‘One technology to rule them all, One technology to find them, One technology to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.’ Again, not SOA.

SOA is the answer to the question nobody ever asked (or if they did, you couldn’t tell what the question was from SOA).

Saddam didn’t have WMD, he had SOA. But SOA is so powerful, they went with the WMD angle instead to quell fear.

Kazakstahn uses SOA to produce the world’s best Potassium.

SOA actually stands for Same Old Architecture – whatever your old architecture is.

SOA is so tough, Police around the world are replacing their SWAT teams with SOAT.

Not content to just best sliced bread, SOA is actually the best thing since beer, wine, coffee, ice cream, chocolate… oh, and sliced bread.

SOA – building contractor jobs, one Visio slide at a time.

SOA is the only TLA (Three Letter Acronym) you will ever need. Until you actually implement it – then you’ll also need DOA.

Implementing SOA for the first time is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

Implementing SOA for the second time is the triumph of hope over experience.

Peace is not merely the absence of violence, but also the presence of SOA.

The most dangerous animal in the IT jungle is the SOA constrictor. It has been known to squeeze the life out of all other IT initiatives.

It has been said that an infinite number of monkeys pressing their buttocks against keyboards for an infinite amount of time will eventually produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. 100 monkeys typing for 10 hours will eventually produce a SOA project plan.

Unlike it’s predecessors, SOA actually is a real silver bullet. Capable of slaying legacy apps and werewolves. And your career if you really mess up the implementation.

Einstein settled on E = mC2 after first rejecting soa = mC2 as too powerful and volatile.

SOA beats Particle Man, Person Man, Universe Man and even Triangle Man. But SOA really beats the crap out of nerd-rockers like They Might Be Giants.

Software architects don’t use SOA. SOA uses software architects.

The Answer to the Ultimate Question about Life, the Universe, and Everything is ….. SOA