Entries categorized as ‘Windows’
“How to get a Windows Tax Refund” – Linux.com
If you buy a computer, you often pay for Microsoft Windows even if you didn’t ask for it and aren’t going to use it. This article shows you how to return your unused Windows license and get your money back, freeing yourself from the Windows tax.
I recently purchased a new laptop computer from Dell. As a GNU/Linux user and believer in Free Software, I knew from the start that I wasn’t going to run Microsoft Windows. Unfortunately, Dell didn’t offer this laptop with Ubuntu or a no-OS option, so I tried getting my Windows refund from Dell after the purchase. After working with customer service, I received a refund of $52.50. In the course of getting my refund, I found some techniques worked better than others. By knowing what works, you may be able to get your refund quickly and easily.
read more…
Categories: Windows · business · technology
Lipikaar – is a QWERTY keyboard overlay driver for Devanagri and related languages.
A close friend introduced me to Lipikaar recently. It is an excellent tool to use if you enjoy blogging in Hindi, Marathi, or other languages that rely on the Devanagri script. I have begun using it myself. I find it to be extraordinarily simple to use and very effective.
Now I can work on improving my Hindi 
.
From the website.
Lipikaar takes only ten minutes to learn. No keyboard stickers, no clumsy key strokes. Makes typing in Indian Language an intuitive enjoyable experience. It is also the fastest – takes fewer key strokes to type than others. For example, it takes only three strokes each to type 
and four strokes each to type 
and 
Categories: India · Pune · Windows · blogging · startup · technology
I read it first at: “Why smart people are no longer at the big companies” – NewDelhiTimes.org, Gaurav Bhatnagar.
Imagine your pet project being sidelined due to investor (Wall Street) pressures. Unfortunately, that is more common-place than you think.
From Niall Kennedy’s blog,
What do you do when the market responds to your 6 month-old online services strategy by reducing your valuation by 1.5 Yahoos? Windows Live is under some heavy change, reorganization, pullback, and general paralysis and unfortunately my ability to perform, hire, and execute was completely frozen as well.
Niall was hired by Microsoft in April this year, to create a new team around syndication technologies for Windows Live. He has decided to leave Microsoft due to what I perceive to be lack of faith in his vision for data publishing and syndication.
Interestingly, I left my first job for a Masters in Computer Science. The hope had always been that I would realise my vision and get my execution right while working towards my Masters. I found that the priorities there too are different.
The only real lesson one can draw from this is that at some point you have to stop waiting for others to believe in your vision and begin believing in it yourself.
Categories: Seattle · Windows · programming · startup · technology
Free Download Manager
Highly recommended to help get around slow download speeds, intermittent connections and mobile offices.
Categories: Windows
Microsoft announced that their long overdue Vista will be delayed even further.
This annoyed a number of Microsoft employees, some who don’t work with Windows, some who don’t even work with Microsoft anymore (ex). But seriously, the effects are far-reaching. I am sure there was considerable thought put inot the decision.
Anyhow, one voice piped in that automation of tasks, including Quality Assurance wasn’t helping: (from Mini-MSFT)
In the last 18 months this org:
1) Cut the number of testers (several times) from approx 50 to now much less than a dozen. Of
course, many top performers also left MS entirely because of middle mgmt in this org.
2) Hired more PMs
3) Cut the scope of testing (anyone done any real code coverage testing lately?)
4) Cut the number of promotions in the test orgs – nothing like a little ‘de-incentivization’ to increase ‘bad attrition’
5) Dictate that everything can and should be automated.
(Ignore that eyeballs catch more in less time…) way to go Darren. Of
course, you
were probably lied to by your underlings, so it’s not entirely your
fault. Uhh, yes it is – you made the call.
6) Hire only a small handful of devs to write automation
code. Oh, and don’t forget to swamp them with added process and have
embittered leads review their code…
7) Hire more PMs
Outsource all testing to non-accountable and barely trained CSG firms
overseas (Ever try to translate/clarify a bug written not by a tester, but by their lead based on notes? )
9)
Limit the number of heads
the abovementioned overseas firms can use. > Fewer testers, less
experienced, with little training, a much (ahem) ’slower’ approach to
testing. Results: Client appcompat % hovering at <40% (GASP -
INTERNAL INFO… better moderate this one out!!!!)
Here’s
an anomaly for PM’s to ’splain away. If automation is such a great
tool, why is it not finding more bugs than a small handful of testers
in a lab on the other side of the planet?
Very Interesting observation. The largest software projects are
traditionally proving grounds for automation techniques. I wish the
authors of Windows Vista come out with a sequel to The Mythical Man-Month.
Updated: San Jose’s Mercury News also cites the same book and the Vista delay but in an altogether different context.
The challenge of big software projects was probably best
described by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. in his classic 1975 book, “The
Mythical Man-Month.” Brooks, a professor of computer science at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, stated then what he called
Brooks’ Law: “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it
later.” The need for latecomers to get up to speed and communicate
with their
predecessors, Brooks says, takes up more of the team’s time than what the added workers contribute.It’s even theoretically possible to reach a kind of software
gridlock, where the team is so big that all its time goes to
communicating among
each other and making revisions — with the project never reaching
completion.
Categories: Windows · management · programming
An interesting development, the newest version of Treo now ships with Microsoft Windows Mobile. This CNet article nails it right on the head – “Treo 700w: a marriage not made in heaven“. It’s an in-depth review, the author has found many pain points with the new handheld and its OS. While I did feel he was being very picky, overall I found him to be scarily accurate. For example, there seems to be a mismatch between the buttons implied meaning and its true function.
Palm didn’t help matters by adding a prominent OK key, which actually means just the opposite. That is, instead of Yes, Go or Forward, it means Cancel, Back or Stop. You use it, for example, to cancel out of a dialogue box or window, to backtrack to a previous screen, or to close a menu without making a choice. It must have been designed by the same person who, in the full-blown Windows, put the Shut Down command in the Start menu.
However, for that one mistake, Palm has succeeded in getting so many other things right. It involved tremendous effort for Palm since this development required them to throw out their existing Palm OS. Is it a move in the right direction? With any dramatic changes you also get a number of new aspects that will not seem to work as they did in the original version. I would echo the authors views, the replacement OS will not appeal to the core Treo user group. I would also add that eventually Treo fans will warm up to the new device. Palm will try to ensure that with the next few software upgrades.
RIM ought to sit up and take notice. It appears to me that if RIM were to guarantee the vitality and appeal of the BlackBerry handhelds, they should take their role as a device and mobile software platform developer seriously. While they are backed up by their decision to stick with the J2Me spec. they must also exploit the generality of the platform by providing more frequent hardware enhancements (not just one upgrade annually). Just providing the best email solution ever is not going to provide the steam necessary to prevent Microsoft from dominating the device space. The BlackBerry is a key device for the corporate user group and I hope it stays so.
To conclude, what is more important to RIM? Handheld sales or revenue from data-flow? I can’t answer that question definitively. RIM will probably continue to license BBConnect to other platforms and vendors to ensure its hold on mobile email. I would strongly suggest a greater share of the handheld market as a higher priority.
Categories: Windows · business · mobile computing
