Imagine Cup by Microsoft is the world’s premier student technology competition. It gives the opportunity for students to enhance their unique ideas and turn them into reality. Students also get to solve challenges and problems provided to them. In turn, Microsoft offers lucrative prizes and even a chance to meet with the big wigs in Microsoft.

Over the past 10 years, more than 1.65 million students from all over the world have participated in this competition and for this year, the final competition will be held in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Each year, the theme for the competition would be different. The purpose is to enhance the capability of the students’ creative thinking and their ability to come out with innovative products, system and applications.

Imagine Cup 2012 Champion. Category: Software Design

This is Team QuadSquad from Ukraine. They are the champion for the Software Design category.

Their project was called Enable Talk. The innovation meant that mute people can transmit their sign language through their mobile phones, recognize the patterns and then transfer the signs into audio.

Below is their introduction video.

What can I get if I enter this competition?

Well, the prize for this year is the biggest in the history of Imagine Cup. Microsoft is giving away USD$300,000 in prizes for the winners…. a lot if you are a student.

If you get to the finals, you also get the chance to visit the historic landmark of St Petersburg… all paid for by Microsoft.

In addition, if you are the winner, you might get to meet with the world’s top investors and with people who are interested with your project. Thinking of wooing some venture caps for your next big idea?

What do you need to do to get into this competition?

Well, first thing first, you must be a student and at least 16 years old. Create a team of your own, develop your own interesting software/games/apps and compete with other teams in your country. There will only be one winner in each country and the winner will represent their country and compete at the finals in St Petersburg.

Imagine Cup by Microsoft is a good way to explore students’ creativity as well as learn what is inside their mind. After all, creative students are the future of technology.

So what are you waiting for? Grab this chance and you could be the next champion!

For further information, feel free to visit Imagine Cup.

Microsoft has just released the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Release Candidate on the 26th of October, 2010. That is a mouthful of words, which if you didn’t get it – refers to the Release Candidate version of Windows 7 SP1, and also Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. Which means that the real thing (ie the SP1) will probably be out early next year. So if you’re into operating systems and have the time to try out leading edge technology before the rest of the people, head over to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ff183870.aspx to get your copy.

For the Release Candidate, the only languages available are English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish.

Windows 7 SP 1 RC Minimum System Requirements:

-OS: Windows 7 RTM (Final) -IMPORTANT!
-CPU: >1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
-RAM: >1 GB (32-bit) / >2 GB (64-bit)
-HDD: 16 GB available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit)
-GPU: DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
-Optical Drive: DVD-compatible drive

1. Review the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 system requirements, and the FAQ at the download page above. Probably the only interesting thing from the FAQ is this question:
“Q. Will I be able to uninstall the service pack RC?
A. Yes, you will be able to uninstall the service pack RC if you need to.”

2. Click the “GET STARTED NOW” button to start the download. Notice that there are 2 similiar looking buttons. The top most one requires you to login and register. The other one doesn’t. Guess which one most will prefer to go for.
Note that the difference, as stated on the page, if you bothered to read it, is: “By registering for the Service Pack 1 RC, you will receive updates on new builds and RC expiration dates. You are encouraged to register, but if you wish, you can opt out of registration and proceed directly to the download. If you choose to opt-out of registration, you will not be contacted further.”

How to locate explorer.exe

"Do you want to end explorer.exe?"

How To Kill Windows Explorer (Windows 7/Vista/XP):
Press Ctrl-Shift-Esc (-Ctrl-Alt-Del no longer brings up the Task Manager in Windows 7, it brings up an interim screen) to bring up the Task Manager and click on the Processes tab, then find all instances of explorer.exe and press “End Process” to kill them.
After killing Windows Explorer, you will notice that the taskbar has disappeared, and you will no longer have any access to the Start Menu. The only access you have is the Task Manager itself.

Note: If after you kill Windows Explorer, you get something like “Dr Watson (Not Responding)”, kill it as well.

Press "Enter" to restart explorer.exe

How To Restart Windows Explorer (Windows 7/Vista/XP):
Press Ctrl-Shift-Esc (/Ctrl-Alt-Del) to bring up the Windows Task Manager, then from the menu, click on File > New Task (Run …), type in “explorer” and the Windows taskbar should regenerate itself before your eyes. You will now have Start Menu access and everything is back to normal.

Homework:

You can easily practise this now by following the steps above to kill Windows Explorer, then restart it again. As a precaution, save your work before doing this but generally Windows is more resilient to explorer crashes these days compared to the days of Windows 95, so the crash itself should not take down other running applications.

Disclaimer: In a less than perfect Windows installation, killing Windows Explorer may cause system instability, and causes other applications to crash. So, try this on your system if you have a stable system that you have confidence in. You are on your own in this, be warned.

Read the disclaimer above, cross your fingers, and do this at least once as HOMEWORK, so that you can remember how to apply this when the real thing happens. Repeat as many times as necessary – especially if you are a slow learner.

This requires you to have a certain amount of Windows skill, esp Regedit knowledge for the part that calls for it.
*Note that by using Regedit – though it has been built into every Windows since Windows 95 – is not encouraged by Microsoft, which has disclaimed all responsibility if you messed up your Windows with it. If using this rendered your computer into a giant door stopper, be prepared to swear to your manufacturer’s and Microsoft’s tech support that you have never heard of or know anything about it. Don’t bug us either as we had already warned you.

Also, before you do this, check that the particular program which startup you want disabled has no options to disable auto startup anywhere within its program’s Options or Preferences, or in the system tray when you right click on its icon.

I am sure you are aware that Windows programs NORMALLY start up automatically by having:
a) their program shortcuts in Start > Programs > Startup folder OR
b) a String Value in the Registry, especially under the “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run” keys

So for:
Program which has its startup shortcut in the Startup folder:
1. Create a “Startup_Disabled” folder.
2. Go to Start > All Programs, right click “Explore All Users”.
3. On the right pane, right click and select “New Folder”. Name it “Startup_Disabled” or anything you want.
4. To prevent programs from starting up: From the Start Menu, just navigate to
Start > All Programs > Startup, left click and hold the link of the program-to-be-disabled, and drag the it over to the Startup_Disabled folder and then release the mouse button.

Program which has its startup string value in the Run registry keys:
1. In the registry, Create a Run_Disabled key for where you can find its startup string:
Depending on your Windows version, the keys below will be different; but generally the idea is to create a “_Disabled key” for each string you want to disable. No need to create the “_Disabled” keys for all the Run folders, just create on-demand for the key where the string you want to disable resides in, whether in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run OR
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce OR
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce OR
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce OR

eg. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run_Disabled

2. Put all the links you want to disable inside this key.
Windows will only check the Run key for auto startup programs and will be unaware of the existence of the Run_Disabled key.

Why I don’t use msconfig to do this, you asked?
Cause it requires a restart and your computer will be eternally on “Selective Startup” after this, which slows down the system.
Also, it is designed to be a troubleshooting tool, not for permanent use. There are programs out there that make doing this easier but this is my quick fix method without installing any program to do this.

Personally, I have Gladinet and Bluetooth as permanent residents here in my _Disabled folder as I rarely use them but for the one or two times when I really need to use them, I just re-enable them here. And when you get used to doing things this way, you’ll find that you can also copy a registry autostart string, make it into a shortcut in Startup_Disabled folder, and then move or even delete the original registry key. To enable it, just move it the to Startup folder. It’s easier to check Startup_Disabled folder than to go through all the registry keys.

After using the beta for a few months, I find that the stability is great, although the software sometimes lags for no apparent reason, possibly due to the unique Click-and-Run method it uses in order to deliver the beta experience. Anyway, the RTM, or release to manufacturing, version will be out in a few more weeks as Microsoft is targeting a May release date for their corporate customers, followed in June for the general availability to people like you and me.

The 2010 suite is also the first time Microsoft is updating their Visio and Project programs, which are often widely used in corporate environments for project management and other commercial applications. The new interface should make it easier and more user friendly for people to work with.

“Stephen Elop, President of the Microsoft Business Division, [will] announce the launch of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 on May 12, 2010 at 11 a.m. EST. The live Microsoft keynote focuses on the next wave of productivity that delivers: end user productivity across the PC, phone and browser; IT choice and flexibility; [and] a platform for developers to build innovative solutions,” the details of the event read.

At this point in time, Office 2010 is yet to be released to manufacturing. A small group of testers worldwide is running the Release Candidate development milestone of Office 2010, which the company offered earlier this year. Office 2010 Build 4734.1000-110 is not available for the public, but users looking to get a feel of what the successor of Office 2007 brings to the table can still download Office 2010 Beta Build 14.0.4536.1000.

Fortunately the Malaysian build of the beta will still be able to run well into later this year, after which you will actually need to spend some money in order to get it.

Inking users (those who use a stylus with Office) might want to take a second look at Office 2010 as it has a much improved inking interface making writing a breeze on a touchscreen tablet. Integration with OneNote 2010 is also extensive and well well done, with some saying it’s better than Evernote, a popular free note aggregation program.

Office 2010 will be the first to come with the 64-bit goodness that Microsoft has been slowly rolling out. However, Microsoft is very careful this time with their approach to 64-bit by rolling out a pretty big disclaimer on the potential problems you will face if you choose to install this version over the 32-bit ‘standard’ version.

“We strongly recommend most users install 32-bit version of Office 2010 on both 32 and 64-bit Operating Systems because currently many common add-ins for Office will not function in the 64-bit edition. The 64-bit installation of Microsoft Office 2010 products will be available for users who commonly use very large documents or data set and need Excel 2010 programs to access greater than 2GB of memory. There may be technical issues with the 64-bit version and in order to install a 64-bit version of Office 2010 product users must have a 64-bit supported operating system on their PC,” Microsoft notes.

However, I’ve been testing out the Beta version and have no problems with 64-bit compatibility as I don’t use any other addons besides the one installed natively by Office. I suppose for bigger organizations who write their own custom addons, the 64-bit version might break compatibility and Microsoft have wised up and learned from their disastrous 64-bit introduction of Vista, which had huge compatibility issues with almost all major driver and software.

Honestly, I’m not sure why you would need a 64-bit version of Word. It allows you to access documents that need more than 2gb of memory to load, but this very rarely happens, unless your document is very very VERY long and contains lots of images and animations and such. For other applications like Access and Excel, perhaps it is possible that you will run into the memory load that necessitates using the 64-bit version. Some users note that the 64-bit version also starts up slightly faster, if you are really running out of reasons for wanting to switch.

Office 2010 also offers several new online versions of popular applications like Outlook and  Word. It will be interesting to see how this will tie in to Cloud Computing and Web 2.0 technologies being developed.

You can grab your free beta copy from this website and post your testimonials. Monthly winners get a chance of getting a HTC Touch HD2 phone!

My 3-year old notebook

The 5 Ways

Note that since there are so many different configurations for notebooks, what’s mentioned here in this article are suggestions which may or may not apply to you. You will need to google for more information and also read your notebook’s user manual as I can only give you hints. You will have to do more research.

1 Upgrade your memory to the MAXIMUM as indicated in your notebook’s manual

Upgrading your RAM from 512MB to 1GB, for example, can give you a much noticeable speed improvement.

-The maximum memory limit can be anywhere from 512MB to 4GB depending on when you bought the notebook. And for Windows XP, regardless of how much physical RAM you have, there is a 3GB max for 32-bit WinXP and 4GB for 64-bit WinXP. If you need to use past this limit, upgrade to Windows 7!

2. Use Microsoft ReadyBoost if you’re running Windows Vista or Windows 7

ReadyBoost works by using flash memory in an USB drive or memory card as a disk cache. It is not additional RAM. Think of it as a middle man arbitrating between the RAM and the Paging File.

3. If your laptop has a hard disk running at 5400 rpm - upgrade it to 7200 rpm

…. for faster disk access times and better Windows performance.

A Nvidia Geforce graphics chip on a MXM card

4. Upgrade the graphics adapter in your notebook

No need to buy expensive Home Servers. There are a lot of free open source Linux distros that allow you to configure such a server. Like I said earlier, you will have to do the leg work yourself.

Finally, consider buying a netbook. It’s small, it’s cute, it’s adorable and it’s drawing all the admiring glances. Netbooks are also in line with the current focus on saving energy for a greener style of life. Notebooks are so boring and so last millenium. It’s like those Compaq luggables of old 80s. They were the portable computers of their time. Now, the baton has been passed to the netbooks.

From Microsoft & HP…


From Dell…

From Nvidia…

OK we know that looks alone will not win your hard-earned dollar. If that were so Apple would rule the world right? So here are some specs to look at:

Tablet PC / Slate Comparison Table

Microsoft HP Slate

Dell Mini 5: View at Vimeo

We are still lacking details on all the slates out there but at least this will give you a rough idea on what is it and how it looks like. We’ll be monitering the Apple iSlate closely for an expected announcement this month end, stay tuned.

….millions of people depend on Windows Vista software. While Windows dominate the market, feedback about Vista has been less than impressive. One of the key reasons is the fact that while you may have a PC with the minimum system requirements, excess codes from its graphics and utilities would reduce the performance of your pc. Another irritating fact about vista is the fact that many applications cannot work without a vendor update. Imagine the horror one goes through when basic applications like anti-virus, CD burning tools and even browser tools like Firefox require updates to be able to work. To add to one’s misery, Vista is also a favourite target for malware authors!

Nightmare of Windows user

Besides that, Vista’s 64-bit versions complicate matters further by prohibiting any drivers besides the signed ones for kernel mode installation. Even via system administrators to override this feature is an uphill task. Another reason why Vista users are frustrated is the fact that it has a flawed memory protection system that can be easily bypassed! With a weak file backup, problems arise when you attempt to backup files unless it is thought to be part of the operating system.

Premium Price, Hopeless Performance

For the price paid, many of the features Vista offers to its users are a nuisance that do nothing but slow down the computer. These include the rather redundant Super Fetch and even background services like Web Client and PnP-X IP Bus Enumerator Service to name a few. It is rather amusing to know that the software has many features that makes it not only annoying but unproductive!

Last but definitely not the least is the fact that Vista is guarded by a rather severe licensing system that allows allows the transfer of the license only once. This is a fact that many of us overlook when reading the terms and conditions. Value for money? Likely not!

So goobye Windows Vista, so long, farewell, adieu… . RIP

XP Mode is Windows 7′s new way of integrating a virtualization experience directly into the operating system. In the past, it was cumbersome to set up a virtual computer and required some special knowledge that most users are not bothered to learn. As a result, Vista which broke certain applications that only worked on XP earned the wrath of many a consumer. It might be a case of too little too late, but XP Mode for Win 7 attempts to make using virtual computers a seamless environment for legacy applications.

Virtualization Technology

One caveat to XP Mode is that your processor needs to support Virtualization Technology, and most AMD processors have this support enabled as a default so it will not be a problem for you. Unfortunately for Intel processors, only certain models have VT, and most of them are disabled by default in the computer BIOS. If you are running Intel, it is highly advised that you Google your processor’s compatibility with VT. Intel had a quirky way of working out which class of their processors support VT, and you may find it surprising that some of their high end quad core models DO NOT have VT.

Nevertheless, once you have enabled VT support from the BIOS, it is a simple matter of downloading and installing Virtual PC and XP Mode from this torrent.

The new XP mode supports the following features:

• USB device support
• Seamless application publishing and launching
• Support for multi-threads
• Clipboard sharing
• Printer redirection
• Smart card redirection
• Drive sharing
• Integration with Windows Explorer
• Known folder integration between host and guest
• Support for higher resolution
• Requires AMD-V or Intel-VT CPU features
• Integration with XP Mode

It’s definitely a virtual computer system done right, as the seamless integration means you won’t notice that the application is running within a virtual computer. It will just pop up and behave more or less exactly like it is running natively on your Windows 7.  However, note that XP Mode is only available for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate.

Why XP Mode?

Why run XP Mode? Besides offering you a way to run applications that wouldn’t run using Windows 7 XP Compatibility Mode, you can also use this to run 32-bit versions of applications from a 64-bit computer. An example of this would be engineering software like CATIA, which refuses to run on a 64-bit system unless you purchase the proper version of it.

Happy downloading and good luck with Windows 7.