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How Microsoft has impacted my life and how I plan to bring a change in the society being an MSA?

Hello People!

I will begin with a short introduction about me. I am Arnab, an electronics engineer currently studying management at IIM Kozhikode. I have worked in the Information Technology domain for more than a year with Tata Consultancy Services before joining my management course here. I am very passionate about technology since I was a kid. During my early school days, I was fascinated by the Air conditioned computer lab in our school and would wonder when could I enter into it and see how the computer worked. Since then and till today, I enjoy technology.

I was a part of the Microsoft Student Partners program during my graduation and was closely associated with the developer and platform evangelism team of Microsoft for two years during my tenure as an MSP. I used to blog on Technology at that time as well. I was also a member of the Opera Campus Crew, a student evangelism body of Opera software. Here at IIM Kozhikode, I was a part of the Students’ IT Committee during my first year and was responsible for managing students’ issues related to software and IT Infrastructure. In the field of IT, intrusion detection, digital forensics and network security are my favourite areas.

Now, why Microsoft?

Microsoft Windows is synonymous with the word “Operating System” worldwide. All of us, at least most of us, would have noticed the boot screen having the word Windows 98/XP before learning how to operate a PC. From then, I was curious to know what “Windows” is. And gradually, I came to know about Bill Gates and “Microsoft”. Microsoft has impacted me largely since then and my passion led me towards being a Microsoft Student Partner. After becoming a part of the MSP India team, I came to know about a lot of MS products which I was not aware of earlier. I became aware of the various student initiatives Microsoft takes to leverage digital literacy in schools across India. I was proud to be a part of the Microsoft ecosystem. During my stint as an MSP, I conducted workshops, invited various speakers and organized national level event “Dreamspark Yatra” sponsored by Microsoft. Technology evangelism was something I love and was very satisfied when people would come out of workshops learning about new innovations in the field of technology delivered by Microsoft products and technologies. I remember screening videos showing the future of technology which were released as a part of “Future Vision” series by Microsoft in many events where the participants would be mesmerized by technology. I also developed a keen interest in developing Windows Phone applications using Visual Studio and even helped people eager to build apps to setup the environment. I helped promote digital literacy in government run schools as a part of Microsoft Yuva initiative. My association with Microsoft has been a memorable one and now, once again I have entered student life and have got another chance to start a new journey with Microsoft and would love to take this further.

How will I impact the society?

With passion and proper direction, it is possible to impact the society at large. Well, the impact would start from a specific group of people, which in my opinion, is the student community. Students are the future leaders of tomorrow and making them aware of tools and products which they can work upon and bring out new ideas and innovate is the key. I believe there are lots and lots of students undergoing primary education without any access to computers keen to know more about it. Promoting digital literacy with basic Office applications such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint will help them. At the graduate and post graduate level, many students are unaware of products such as Visio, Azure, Photosynth, Visual Studio, Silverlight and many more which can help them leverage their capabilities. My primary focus as a Microsoft Student Associate will be to evangelize technology among my peers according to their requirements. I believe that change starts from a small effort and if I am selected as an MSA, I am sure I will definitely be able to impact the society.

I would appreciate your comments and feedback. Thank you for reading my story! If you liked my story, please like the Facebook link.

#MSAIndia

Symbian Anna :An Overview

Nokia has recently released the Symbian Anna update for its symbian^3 devices such as the C6-01, C7, N8 and the E7. The update can be downloaded OTA by using the software update app in the phone or by using the OVI suite. Anna update is a very essential one as it significantly transforms the UI from the old boring s60 interface to a refreshed one. The icons are now transformed and look fresh and lively. Fonts have been enhanced greatly and most importantly, the default browser has been given the much required facelift and a portrait QWERTY keyboard has been added to make touch typing easier.

According to Nokia, the browser is much faster compared to previous versions but I could find a little improvement in the page rendering. The controls of the browser have been neatly placed which makes web browsing enjoyable. Flash content is available in the browser. Next big improvement is the portrait mode QWERTY which enhances messaging speeds by a great extent. Symbian Anna provides better business class security and easy integration with company VPN and Intranet networks. Another business class feature is the inclusion of Microsoft Communicator mobile. Navigation was very good in Symbian^3 and is now even better with the launch of Anna. GPS lock is very fast and is comparable to a standalone GPS receiver. During adverse weather conditions amidst rains, it took my C7 around 6 seconds to get the GPS lock which is pretty fast compared to other devices of this range.

A new concept NFC(Near Field Communications) has been introduced by Nokia recently. This allows users with an NFC enabled device to connect to other capable devices just by touching both the devices. Symbian Anna update activates the NFC chip present in the next generation devices. Currently Nokia C7 is the only device to support an NFC chip available in India. Nokia isvery keen on developing this technology and says that all next generation of smartphones will be enabled with this technology.At the end, I find Symbain Anna to be very interesting and would say that its a good attempt made by Nokia to take the old boring Symbian OS to the next level and compete with other young players such as Android, Windows Phone and the iOS.

CPU + GPU = APU ??

AMD is working on its future line up of processing units for laptops and desktops and they would be a combination of both CPU and the graphics processing unit[GPU] in a single chip. Rightly codenamed as Fusion, the processors integrate the CPU with the GPU in a single chip and eliminate the need of using different chips for CPU and the GPU. These type of hybrid processors are now being called as APU or Accelerated processing unit. With the advent of APU by AMD, it is sure that others such as Intel will follow suit. The APU developed by AMD will be a direct competitor to sandybridge based Core i7 processors line up by Intel.



A few days ago, the first generation of APUs of the A-series were unveiled by AMD. Technically, it is based on 32nm architecture just like Intel sandybridge architecture and has the ability to support upto 4 cores. AMD and Intel both offer graphics processors along with the main CPU but AMD boasts of HD graphics along with HTML5 support built in. According to AMD, the battery life has increased by over 50% as compared to 2010 range of AMD mainstream processors. The Fusion range of APUs will shortly be available in the market with various major notebook and desktop brands. It is expected that this form of processing units will become more popular in the coming times as it can greatly improve performance of computing devices as well as decrease the size and weight and result in more portable notebooks.

Office 365 first look !

Office 365 is a new cloud based office software released by Microsoft. It enables users to access their files and the office software from virtually any device that is connected to the cloud. This version of office is mainly targeted on business class users as they can access all their files on the go. ALong with the office software hosted on the net, it also provides other services such as Exchange server and SharePoint server to the subscribers. There are three plans available for subscribers at this time which are Education plan, Professional plan for small scale businesses and Enterprise plans for large and medium size businesses.
Since the solutions are cloud-based, users can access their mails and files through a variety of devices like desktops, laptops and mobile phones and work on the move. Office 365 is a part of Microsoft's strategy to gradually move to cloud computing. This will increase business productivity and will be very instrumental in reducing response time and costs for enterprise level companies. It is expected that Office 365 will be a great hit because of its flexibility of services and plans and also because of its mobility based services. For more information on Office 365 and to download the trial, visit Office 365 official page !

Honeycomb : Android's latest Tablet OS !

After a huge success in the field of mobile phones, now android is all set to launch in tablets and other handheld devices. A new version of Android V3.0 named as "Honeycomb" has specially been designed for use with larger screens such as tablets. So what makes the Honeycomb different from other versions of Android such as Gingerbread(V2.3), Froyo(V2.2) and Eclair(V2.1). Lets take a look.

Honeycomb is optimized for use with larger display screens and supports a larger resolution display. It also supports dual core processors and most importantly, hardware accelerated graphics. Coming to the UI, a new Action bar has been implemented on the homescreen which replaces the hardware buttons for menu, home, back and search as were present in the earlier versions.This is a very nice addition as it improves the looks of the tablet device. Also, the contents in the Action bar change according to the app being used.Now thats a clever feature which makes handling of apps easier. The App switcher is improved and now shows the preview of the apps running in the background making it a truly multitasking OS.


The browser is also excellent and page rendering is very smooth. It makes the browsing experience enjoyable. Switching between windows is easy and fun.Only drawback is that out of the box flash support is not yet available but Adobe has confirmed that work is in progress and it will be available soon so that is not going to be a major problem. Private or Incognito browsing is also supported which doesn't save your browsing history or cookies ;). Another useful feature is Quick Control which can be activated by swiping from left to right of the screen on the browser which displays an array of important shortcuts instantaneously.

On the multimedia side, the Honeycomb doesn't live up to its expectations as in the previous versions of android. The camera interface is not as cool as in other OS such as the iOS and is dated.The Multimedia experience is better than previous versions and the UI has been completely revamped.A 3D view of the albums and songs is displayed which looks pretty cool.As far as video playback is concerned, popular codecs like H.263, H.264 and MPEG-4 are supported.Third party codecs can be also downloaded from the app store.The Maps works pretty well and the GPS locks in very fast displaying near accurate positions.The apps run in honeycomb in native resolution unlike that of the iPad which runs a lot of apps optimised for the smaller screen iPod touch in strech and fit format.

At the end, we can conclude that it is not just a smartphone OS that has been tweaked to be fit in a tablet but it is a dedicated OS built and optimised for the tablets and I hope that in the coming days,the minor flaws and bugs in the OS will fixed.An article about upcoming Honeycomb tablets will be updated soon. Keep reading !

Windows Phone 7 : The latest smartphone OS by Microsoft !

Windows phone 7 is the latest mobile smartphone operating system to come from Microsoft. Windows Phone 7 is the successor to the very popular Windows mobile 6.x version. WP7 has already been launched by Microsoft and companies like HTC, Dell, Samsung, LG have started selling phones running with this OS. Nokia recently announced its collaboration with Microsoft and their phones loaded with WP7 are expected to hit the shelves in the first quarter of 2012.

Now, how far is WP7 better than its successor? Well, I would say its far better than the previous OS and has the potential to be very successful in the long run.The primary reason is that all the phones running in this platform have to meet the minimum required specification to run it. The minimum specifications to run the OS are :

- 1 Ghz or better processor
- Capacitive WVGA screen with a resolution of 480 X 800
- DirectX 9 capable graphics unit
- Accelerometer with compass, A-GPS
- 5 Megapixel camera with flash
- Standard 7 dedicated buttons for various functions

On the hardware side, the minimum requirements look pretty impressive which also assures that the OS runs smoothly in any hardware on which it is loaded. So, the performance would be greatly imporoved rather than devices running on Symbian ana Android whose minimum requirements for running the OS is much lower. This also proves that WP7 is targeted to the enterprise audience who doesn't want to compromise on quality.



Coming to the UI, I feel that it is very clean and impressive. Microsoft calls this UI as "Metro UI". The home screen or the start screen consists of various tiles which link to the respective applications. The most important thing about the UI is that it is clutter-free and displays only the information required to the user. Text input is by a virtual keyboard on the screen. The web browser provided is obviously a mobile version of the IE. Gaming is impressive with the integration of xbox live and syncing to a Windows PC is done by Zune. For the office needs, a full fledged mobile version of the MS Office is present. Windows Marketplace is the online store for purchasing and downloading apps. Microsoft is trying to attract more and more developers to WP7 by introducing simple IDE for development[Visual Studio] and API's to create a huge library of apps.
There are also a few drawbacks of the new OS. Video calling facility has not been provided. Connecting to hidden wifi networks, static IP addresses and tethering to the PC are not yet available in this new platform. To add to this, flash player is also absent. But we can hope an update from Microsoft in the coming days to fix these problems as copy paste feature was recently enabled in the last update by Microsoft.
Finally, I think the WP7 is really a great effort by Microsoft to regain its share in the smartphone market. Although this platform has a few shortcomings, I strongly feel Windows Phone 7 will prove to be the trump card of the Redmond based company in the long run. Any thoughts guys??