Microsoft readies new ‘don’t blame Windows’ tool

Microsoft has begun privately beta testing a new tool, known as “Windows Advisor,” which is aimed at helping consumers better pinpoint why their Windows machines might not be up to snuff.

Microsoft officials have been saying that Windows — and especially the much-maligned Windows Vista — isn’t to blame for all of users’ PC problems. Faulty drivers and badly written apps are often behind users’ unhappiness with their new PCs. Microsoft is making sure that users will be able to place blame where it belongs with Windows Advisor.

From a source with access to the private beta information Microsoft made available to testers earlier this month. From my personal experience, I have not seen much problem and am happy with Vista in general. It is fast and stable and with SP1, my high XP game framerates has returned. Most of the issues I have seen are from the display drivers. The sleep issues that were known to have been bugging some of you were solely due to some shoddy display drivers from Intel and nVidia.

Much of the issues that had bugged Vista users when it was first launched are now things of the past. But I can see the purpose of launching the Windows Advisor now. It may seem like an overkill from the technology point of view but from the PR side, it is a much needed ammunition against the bad press that Vista has received. Instead of going through the media to explain that it isn't Vista's fault, Microsoft has choosen to let the Advisor convince you to point your fingers somewhere else.

Raffle's Place Ghost Revealed!

You may have seen the very well made Raffle's Place Ghost clips (see below) and wonder if it was real. Well, I just found out who was the one behind it and why they did it.
Turns out it is a viral campaign by The GMP Group, a HR consultancy. In an effort to promote work life balance, they started the No One Should Stay Late campaign. In their own words: "At GMP, we want to highlight the dangers of working late; stress, fatigue, ill health are just the few..and if you are really unlucky, you might see a ghost!.."

Personally, I like this campaign. It is viral and it is fun. If there is any complaints, it would be that the ghost footage is alittle too..err..polished. :)

Learning goes the way of Facebook and Wikis

There is an interesting article out on Straits Times today on the use of new social/new media in our schools and Universities.

Here's the quote I like:

'It's a mistake to see technology as a separate course. Students of today don't see it as separate from their lives. It has already been embedded into their everyday lives and educators need to realise that - and embrace it.'

It is absolutely essential, IMHO, that educators start to see technology and online media as something to teach with rather than teach on. I have friends who are teachers who refuse to use instant messenger and be part of Facebook network because they consider them as fads. Some even dissuade their students from using such online media. It's sad to see our educators as such myopic dinosaurs who will eventual go the way of the Do-Do if they don't start embracing New Media and start engaging their students in these new environments.

Read the article here: http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_241759.html

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer Demoing Windows 7 Live

Bill and Steve are live at D talking about Microsoft's history, Bill's retirement and Windows 7!

Tune in to Engadget live-blogging now.

Singapore Blogger's preview of the HP Mini Note

Channel65: HP 2133 Mini-Note PC - Singapore Blogger's Preview from Michael Cheng on Vimeo.

Excellent viral video from Samsung

The Biggest Drawing in The World: Created With the Help of GPS and DHL

I have to hand it to Erik Nordenankar and DHL for devising what has to be the most creative fusion of art and technology to date. The concept was simple but brilliant: place a GPS device in a briefcase and mail it via DHL with precise travel instructions over the course of a 55 day period. When all was said and done, the GPS data formed a virtual self-portrait of the artist that spread over 6 continents and 62 countries covering nearly 70,000 miles. [From Gizmodo]

GigPark: Bringing peer recommendations online

GigPark is social recommendation Website that launched last February, the site recently pushed out a major redesign. It’s like Yelp, but only with recommendations from people you know.

If you have at least a few friends, you would have experienced being asked for recommendations. "I am getting married, do you know a good photographer?" or "I am starting my own company, do you know a good web designer?" are 2 of the more common questions. If you know what I am talking about, GigPark is about bringing all these recommendations to one place. No more repeating yourself and no more keeping track of your "talent pool".

GigaPark is an online service but you can also install in as a Facebook application, plugging it right into the center of your social life. I am currently testing it. Give it a spin and let me know what you think.

Bill Gates: Virtualized

Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp, made a five-minute virtual appearance at the World Congress on Information Technology 2008 held at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

A 4.6m holographic projection of the billionaire enthralled the 400-strong audience at the congress yesterday at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, KLCC.
The image was shot in high definition and projected onto plastic foil which was stretched out in the centre’s Plenary Hall. The result was life-like and impressive and the crowd applauded the effort.

This marked the first holographic appearance of Gates anywhere in the world.
Making it happen involved rendering a pre-recorded image of Gates with speech that was filmed in Seattle, United States, two weeks ago. The holographic Gates spoke about the wonders of computing power and how it was growing and creating more opportunities worldwide.
“There are one billion people (in the world) who have a personal computer each but there are five billion others who don’t. Microsoft also wants to reach these people.”

Asterpix: Tag Your Videos

Let me introduce you to Asterpix. This is one of the coolest video technologies I have seen in 2007. It has never failed to wow people when I demo it.

In essence, Asterpix is a web service that allows you to add some very powerful interactivity to your videos. You know how we like to hyperlink everything; we add links to text, to graphics, to banners and now we can add links IN videos. This may not sound very sexy, but if you know how links are done for videos traditionally, you would know how much of a time saver this is going to be. Normally, to add links, we either place them in the video as sub-titles or we drop them in the show notes by the side of the clip. Show notes are not very portable, when you copy the video or re-embed them on another site, you lose the show notes and the links are gone. And of course, you can’t sync your show note links with the video. The sub-title approach is a little more synced but you can’t click on them, not to mention the time required to add sub-titles in post-processing.

So, to show you how Asterpix does it, I have embedded a sample video here. Go ahead, play the video and hover your mouse over the blue glowing wifi logo on the t-shirt. I’ll show you how to create a tagged video later.

Notice how the player tracks the wifi logo through the rest of the video? You may also notice that I have tagged Chewy’s face as well. It is apparent that the technology has some form of pattern recognition that allows it to move with the tagged subject.

Of course, this begs the question on whether the pattern recognition is persistent. To test that I filmed 2 objects, a calculator and a Palm Treo and tagged them accordingly.

Notice how the player tracks the wifi logo through the rest of the video? You may also notice that I have tagged Chewy’s face as well. It is apparent that the technology has some form of pattern recognition that allows it to move with the tagged subject.

Of course, this begs the question on whether the pattern recognition is persistent. To test that I filmed 2 objects, a calculator and a Palm Treo and tagged them accordingly.

Notice that the recognition is lost once the subjects moved out of frame? (In case you are wondering, the calculator was tagged manually for its second appearance.) The player mistook the LCD monitor behind Chewy for the Treo in the later part of the clip.

Even though the test failed and it seems that the recognition wasn’t persistent, this is a very interesting technology nonetheless. This technology definitely has some real application. And the beauty of it is its simplicity. Let me show you now how you can tag just any video using Asterpix.

When you signed in and clicked on the “create your own” link, Asterpix allows you search for any videos. If you know the URL of a specific video on MSN Video or Youtube, simply enter it and you will be prompted to key in some meta-data. Click on “Go to add notes” and you are ready to tag.

Your video will load in the player and to tag an object, just click on it during playback.

You can drag and expand your selection box if needed. To add links or comments, just click on "maximize".

And that's it! Like I said, the service is really easy to use. If you already have your videos uploaded to one of the many online services, it will practically just take you a few minutes to tag and re-embed your videos to your blog or web sites.

Asterpix is currently a free service. You can download a beta version of their API here.

Meeting Vinton Cerf of Google

The Digital Movement, together with Google and IDA, brings to you an exclusive evening with the VP of Engineering and Chief Internet Evangelist of Google, Vinton G. Cerf. On 23 May 2008, Vint will be sharing his perspective of the latest web trend and other great stuff he is doing at Google.

This event is fully booked but thanks to my friend Michael (President of the PHP User group of Singapore), I will be able to sneak in. Thanks Michael!

My Old Comic Strip

I started this comic strip in 2001. The series was published in CIO Asia magazine until 2003. Recently, I have been toying with the idea to restart it. I just need the right inspiration. :)

Learn how to spot counterfeit software

Video: counterfeit

Ever wonder how you can tell a counterfeit Windows software apart from the genuine ones? Well, I had a chance to sit down with one of the Microsoft Singapore attorneys, Jonathan Selvasegaram, to discuss the differences and tell-tale signs.
I walked away enlightened. It is amazing to see how sophisticated the piracy industry has become. The same technology used in high-end currency counterfeit is now being used to pirate software. You can skip ahead to 3:24 to view Jonathan’s segment.

ClearContext’s Stab At Making Email More Manageable

If you are a fan of Xobni (Inbox spelt backwards, in case you were wondering), you should try ClearContext.

Unlike Xobni that focuses on the senders and your interaction with them, ClearContext focuses on the topic and attempts to organise your inbox by sorting your emails by examining the subject. This is where things get interesting. First, it analyzes 30-40 characteristics of each message that hits your inbox to determine its priority. Messages deemed important, semi-important, or unimportant are color coded as such, and you can sort by this prioritization so that all your most important emails show up on top.

If you are like me, you will lotsa emails from Facebook’s many applications and friends. In a merciful attempt to reclaim your sanity, ClearContext organises your facebook emails according to their types. Whether they are notifications, invites or any of the hundreds types of facebook emails, ClearContext will filter them and with just a glance, tells you facebook breakdown. This is extremely useful and cool.

ClearContext is currently in private beta.

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testing new blog