Ashish Shendure's blog™

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Windows 8: the beginning of a revolution

Yes after those many rumours, windows 8 release is official now (in fact its long time since that Jenson Harris video was released, have embedded that video below). There's no doubt that windows 8 would bring a revolution with its new look, features and support. Infact I would like to share something which I read in a blog recently.

8 reasons why Windows 8 will rock!!!....

1. Fast: Fast is the verb and super is the adverb. Yes, Windows 8 is super fast, fluid and a lot more sensitive. It is here that a swipe can make a difference. Prioritized for touchscreen tablets, laptops and PCs, Windows 8 has magnanimous power in handling instructions from the user and performs them exceedingly well without any bloopers or getting stuck. Be it switching between multiple programs and applications, processing two programs or applications on the same screen simultaneously, prioritizing one application to the other by increasing its screen size and lots more, trust Windows 8 to do it amazingly fast and it will never disappoint you!

2. Effortless multi-tasking: You can now enjoy switching between multiple running programs and applications in a seamless manner. You can play your favorite video “How Charlie Bit my Finger“, mail your boss about a holiday and tweet about your latest Singapore holiday experience, all within the same time frame. Not Possible? Well with Windows 8, it is actually possible. The development team has also focussed on providing the various start options at the side lines of the screen, all hidden behind a cute button which enables you to enjoy your work on a full screen without any visible middling options in between.

3. Powerful Apps: Microsoft, while previewing Windows 8, emphasized the importance of apps in a system. According to it, a system with more apps is more powerful with the ability to perform various tasks easily and quickly. And these apps can be easily visible on your start screen in the form of beautiful tiles which upon being clicked, open up the app instantly. This is a big thumbs up to developers seeking to experiment on the Windows 8 platform.

4. Be in your comfort zone: Finding it difficult to switch over to this new Windows 8 interface? Wait! Windows 8 actually allows you to continue using the usual Windows interface with its characteristic Start button at the taskbar and desktop icons. You may also switch between this environment and the new one which includes desktop tiles instead of icons, the characteristic Windows 8 environment effortlessly.

5. Refreshing new look: Windows 8 has got a refreshing new look and feel and this actually gives you an urge to stay on longer. With its user-friendly features and faster navigation and control options, you can enjoy the best of this experience to its hilt. For example, a weather app need not be opened to view the weather updates. Instead the tile itself posts updates regularly without the need to open it. Hence you have ‘everything’ on your start screen itself.

6. Compatibility: Lets clear the rumor that Windows 8 is only for touch-screens. No! In fact it works pretty well with systems of all shapes and sizes, be it a mini-laptop, a desktop computer or a tablet. However, basking in the Windows 8 environment through a tablet is a joy to treasure. You get the best, you use the best and you produce the best.

7. A developer’s boon: HTML5 is ‘in’ and Microsoft knows it well. Excellent support for HTML5 via Internet Explorer 10 makes Windows 8 stand out amongst others. You can develop your HTML5 apps, place them on the start screen in the form of a tile, update it seamlessly and be a happy developer.

8. Internet Explorer 10: This is one thing I am desperately waiting for. Internet Explorer 10, to be released with Windows 8 is sure to make waves and emerge as a winner all the way. Its sleek interface, extremely fast and pleasurable user experience and support for major Web Standards and technologies will help in reviving the Internet Explorer brand which started with Internet Explorer 9.

Happy New Year!!!

The new year has always been bringing great news for me. Last time it was the MSP selection and this year it is even bigger-placement in Tata Consultancy Services. I am proud to have become a part of such a huge culture I should say. The selection process went on smoother than I thought. Unfortunately some of my good friends didn't get selected. I wish them all the luck for other companies they'll be going for.

2011 promises to be a year of bigger and greater challenges ahead. Lots of pending work to be done. With the last semester ON very few days are left for my academic journey, so want to enjoy these days as much as I can. So here's wishing all of you a very happy year ahead. Keep following for more interesting posts. Suggest some if you feel the need.

Regards.

Register for Microsoft Students to Business (S2B) program

Microsoft Students to Business (S2B) program

What is S2B?

Are you a student looking for an entry-level job or internship in today's technology industry?

The Microsoft Students to Business (S2B) program is a Microsoft Community Initiative designed to connect Microsoft-skilled students with partners and customers for entry-level and internship positions.

Microsoft S2B will provide unique training opportunities and resources for students to establish the skill requirements to fuel innovation and enable employability of the next generation.

Students engaged in Microsoft S2B benefit from unique training and certification opportunities, compliments of Microsoft. Various offerings are available to students at each stage of Microsoft S2B—when profiling, in application and after job connection.

How the Program Works?

Apply on-line by completing the registration form;
The Microsoft Skills Development Team will match your profile to current opportunities at the entry level that exists in our Partner and Customer base;
The Partner/Customer company may contact you directly for an interview. In other cases the Microsoft Skills Development team will contact you to set-up an interview between yourself and our Partner/Customer
Once you have been interviewed and selected, the Partner/Customer company will sign a fixed term internship contract with you. Salaries are set at no less than R36 000 per annum, but it may vary from one company to another;
You will then join a technical training class at a training provider for a short period;
After successful completion of the technical training you will rejoin your new employer and start working. From hereon your career is in your hands and only your performance can win you a further contract or permanent position.

Minimum Requirements

· You must have an IT or business related degree or national diploma (3 year qualification) from a recognised Indian University or University of Technology;

· You must be a resident of India;

· You must currently be unemployed;

· You must be able to start on this programme immediately;

· You must be under the age of 35 years.

How to Register?

Before registering for Microsoft’s S2B program you should have a HOTMAIL or WINDOWS LIVE ID account. If you already have one then proceed with the following steps to register. If you don’t have a HOTMAIL or WINDOWS LIVE ID account then create one (it hardly takes 2 minutes).

You can create a HOTMAIL or WINDOWS LIVE ID account by clicking on the following direct link-

https://accountservices.passport.net/reg.srf?roid=2&bk=1273673737&cru=http://login.live.com/login.srf&sl=1&vv=750&mkt=EN-IN&lc=16393

After you get a HOTMAIL or WINDOWS LIVE ID account follow these 5 simple steps to register for Microsoft’s S2B program(It takes just 2 minutes)-

1. Visit the Microsoft S2B program website by following this link-

http://www.s2bprogram.com/india

2. Click on the Register button on the right center of the homepage of the website.

3. On the register page click on the blue colored link provided to link it to your HOTMAIL or WINDOWS LIVE ID account. You’ll be asked to sign in with your HOTMAIL or WINDOWS LIVE ID account.

4. After signing in with your HOTMAIL or WINDOWS LIVE ID account fill in the registration fields properly.

***In the “Referral code” field fill “ashishshendure” (without quotes) i.e. ashishshendure

5. After filling your details click on the “Create new profile” button and you are done!!!...

You’ll get the following screen when your profile will be created.

Thus create your profile and avail all the benefits of the Microsoft S2B program. For any doubts contact me on my email ID below.

For students from PVPP, you can visit IT HOD Prof. Lokhande's blog for this post-

http://pslokhande.blogspot.com/

Regards,

Ashish Shendure

Microsoft Student Partner

ashish.shendure@hotmail.com

Interested in internships,projects and job opportunities from Microsoft???

Keep following my blog for internships,projects and job opportunities from Microsoft. I'll be putting up details soon....register accordingly and experience the change!!!!.....:)...or contact me if u just can't wait!!!....:P

Regards,

-=aShIsH=-

Microsoft DreamSpark Yatra 2010, Bangalore - Live broadcast

EVENT REPORT

Microsoft Tech·Ed-India 2010 was broadcast LIVE from Bangalore by MSPs Saurabh Raje and Ashish Shendure at Padmabhushan Vasantdada Patil Pratishthan's College of Engineering (PVPP CoE), Mumbai under the Microsoft DreamSpark Yatrabanner as a part of MSP activity.

Initially on learning of this great opportunity, we had planned to broadcast the event on all the three days. However, as our college was closed on the 14^th of April due to a public holiday, we were able to screen the event on 12^thand 13^th April, 2010 only. Moreover, since the college granted us permission to use the auditorium onlyduring working hours, the schedule ofthe event had to be restricted to 09:30 AM - 04:45 PM.

We had pasted DSY and MSP Event posters at prominent locations around the campus. The screening was done in the Manohar Phalke Auditorium located in the college building. Unfortunately, the college authorities were unable to provide us an Internet connection and Saurabh had to buy a wireless USB connection.Further, we had to use his personal laptop and stereo speakers.

Although the auditorium could seat a maximum of 135 students, we registered 140 students for each day (expecting a minor dropout). Day 1 was attended by 132 students, while 118 turned up for the 2^nd day. Thus, we achieved a total turnout of 250 students for both days combined.We had also reserved a classroom to be used in case there were any on-the-spot registrations.

First, we introduced the audience to the Microsoft Tech·Edtechnology conference. We also spoke on how much Microsoft is doing for the student community through DreamSpark, and on the DreamSparkYatra initiative.

Most of the attendees were students of the Second Year and Third Year Information Technology and Computer Engineering Degree courses. We switched between tracks throughout the two days and screened those sessions which we thought would be of most interest to the students.

We also showed videos of Microsoft products during the short 15-minute breaks between two sessions in order to maintain the audience’s level of attention. These included the Fun IE8 Videos posted on the MSP SkyDrive, Bing’s Search Overload Syndrome series (which many found pretty amusing) and other adverts, as well as a few on Surface, Project Natal and Windows 7.

Students were interested in knowing more about Microsoft’s latest offerings and how using these will make their work easier and faster. The presentation, speakers and quality of information provided were highly appreciated.

We faced problems, however, due to the poor quality of the video stream, with part of the audience losing interest during sessions involving demos of Visual Studio 2010 (many complained that the code was illegible). Most attendees - in their feedback forms cited this as the one area which they would like to be improved upon.

The following tables show all the sessions that were broadcast by us:

Day 1: 12^th April, 2010
Time	Track	Session
09:30 AM - 11:00 AM	-	Tech•Ed-India 2010 Keynote & Visual Studio Launch Speaker: S. Somasegar
11:15 AM - 12:15 AM	Visual Studio Pro	Windows Development with Visual Studio 2010 Speaker: Sanjay Vyas
12:30 PM - 01:30 PM	Tech•Ed-LIVE	Interview with Nikhil Chinappa: Intel ATOM Guest: Santosh Bhat
02:30 PM - 03:30 PM	Tech•Ed-LIVE	Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4 Guest: S. Somasegar
03:45 PM - 04:45 PM	Virus Attacks I Data Leaks	Closing the Network Backdoor: Using Threat Management Gateway 2010 to create a Safe Web Experience Speaker: Anirudh Singh Rautela

Day 2: 13^th April, 2010
Time	Track	Session
09:30 AM - 10:15 AM	-	Tech•Ed-India 2010 Day-2 Keynote I Office 2010 & SQL Server 2008 R2 Announcement Speaker: Kamal Hathi
10:15 AM - 11:00 AM	-	Partner Keynote: Intel’s Developer Story – How Parallel Studio works with Visual Studio 2010 Speaker: Kevin J. Smith
11:15 AM - 12:15 AM	Tech•Ed-LIVE	Microsoft’s Commitment to Innovation Guest: Srini Koppolu
12:30 PM - 01:30 PM	Powered by Windows 7	Break the Application Compatibility Hurdle in Windows 7 Speaker: Vijay Raj
02:30 PM - 03:30 PM	Tech•Ed-LIVE	Microsoft’s BI Story Guest: Kamal Hathi
03:45 PM - 04:45 PM	Powered by Windows 7	Migrate your Windows XP Machines to Windows 7 using free Microsoft Deployment Tools Speaker: Gopa Kumar

On the whole, the event was a great success. We gained a lot of experience in organising and managing an event of this magnitude, apart from the respect and recognition that comes with it.

We would like to thank Microsoft and the StudPart Team for giving us this wonderful opportunity and for providing us this platform for sharpening our communication skills through the Microsoft Student Partners programme.

Regards,

Ashish Shendure (ashishshendure@student-partners.com)

and

Saurabh Raje (saurabhraje@student-partners.com)

Serious work with some serious fun!!!!.....:)

My 6^th semester started with a great note with the news arriving that I had topped the 5^th semester university exams. I was just awestruck and was on 9^th cloud because this was the first occasion ever that I had topped any examination…..:) . Everyone in college was in a festive mood since the sports and cultural festivals were on!!! Though our team didn’t do that well in sports, still we were able to achieve a GOLD in football-that moment was so enthralling…also we managed to bag some runner-ups and qualified for the semi-finals in some games but lost unfortunately. With a spirited note from the sports fest we moved on to FUSION ’10-the big cultural festival of our college. We being in third year had the responsibility of being the organizers. Preparations were on for sponsorships and publicity as different committees were appointed. I was appointed as the “Head of the Creative team” and had lots of work to do-right from designing the sponsorship brochures, digital posters, invitation cards, I-cards, certificates to managing a group of 40 members, designing hand-painted posters, some road-graffiti and lots more stuff-it was really an uphill task before and during the three days of Fusion. The poster below was the one being made by our team for in-house and out-house publicity.

After such a hectic task I was hoping to get some recognition award at the annual meet of the fest but was happy enough with the support of my team members since we had put up a successful show and were praised by one and all, also the news that I had topped the semester exams kept me motivated throughout the festive schedule. After the exhausting festive month I with my friend and a MSP Saurabh Raje were ready for a Microsoft Student Partner activity which I would be mentioning in my next topic. That’s it for this time. Keep following the blog. Wishing you good health.

Regards,

-=aSHIsH=-