Microsoft Student Partners

In case you haven’t noticed, Microsoft has updated its clothing line (dubbed "Softwear") with a few more shirts. So before you continue reading this post, please take your time to have a look through the different shirt designs and the gallery of models showing off said attire.

Done?
Right, here is my question then to Microsoft: Why focus so heavily on the nostalgic aspect of when computers were just starting? Seriously?

For those of you who think that this is ‘brand building’ and an excellent marketing exercise, let me explain my position. These clothes are targeted at non-geeks, this is evident in some of the language used on the site ("geek-chic icongraphy") and the fact that it is being sold at Urban Outfitters (a quick look at their site shows it to be *far* more fashionable then what most geeks I know (myself included) wear). The problem here is that presenting the view that Microsoft is reminiscing the good ol’ days of DOS and the command line shows Microsoft to be even more out of touch then most people had thought. One of the themes that I have been working hard at Curtin to create is the idea that "this is not your fathers’ Microsoft" – namely that Microsoft has changed and moved on from the days of DOS and Windows 9x and is now a stronger company that builds far better software. These shirts entirely undermine that notion.

So, what is to be done? 
My recommendation is for "Softwear" to focus heavily on the new technologies that Microsoft is releasing. For the non-geek, have something with the Windows Live Messenger logo, or a modified Windows 7 logo (eg here or here). However, for the geeks (myself included) focus on the developer and server-side technologies. At the moment Microsoft has a *ton* of cool logos (example: anything to do with Windows Azure), putting any of these logos on a shirt with a quick, 3 or 4 word, slogan beneath will sell to the geek community, especially if Microsoft partners with a company like Think Geek to do distribution. And even if people are not sure of what the logo or the slogan means, the geek wearing the shirt would be more than happy to explain (they become a walking bill-board…)

Finally, I’d just like to add that if you are a person from Microsoft’s marketing department then please, *please*, leave a comment to explain to me (seeing this from the Australian Geek perspective) what Microsoft was aiming for.

- Daniel
Curtin MSP

The OfficeLabs team have released an add-on for OneNote which allows you to browse and organise your content using a canvas, rather than just plain tabs.

If you haven’t checked it out already, OneNote is an awesome Microsoft Office program that allows you to take notes quickly and efficiently without having to worry about the constraints of a word processor.

It’s include in the It’s Not Piracy version of Office Ultimate.

Check out Canvas for OneNote and get even more value from OneNote.

Luke
Aussie MSP Lead
The University of Western Australia

Based on user feedback (that’s right – Microsoft *does* listen to your feedback), the Office Live Team has decided to roll out a number of features for Office Live.

The first update is the ability to create folders. This allows for better organisation and removes the need to create new workspaces in order to group documents. Secondly, online storage space has been increased to 5Gb. And finally, ‘Moving’ files has been replaced with a Cut\Copy\Paste system.

Want to know more, keep up to date with changes in Office Live or want to ask for more features? Then check out the Office Live Workspace Blog.

There has been a lot of press recently regarding Microsoft taking a lot of customers feedback (in fact over 500,000 “send feedback” submissions) but not communicating back to the community updates on changes.

The Windows 7 blog has been updated with just this, communication back to the community on changes made directly based on users’ feedback.

Check it out.

Luke
Aussie MSP Lead
The University of Western Australia

The UWA IEEE Student Branch won the top Region 10 (Asia-Pacific) student branch for 2008, and are leaders in promoting and fostering technology for students at UWA.

The biggest event they are involved in each year is the IEEE Networking Forum, the largest careers fair of its kind for WA engineering and computer science students.

WA MSPs are excited to announce once again they will be teaming up with the UWA IEEE Student Branch to bring even bigger and better events to students in 2009.

Luke
Aussie MSP Lead
The University of Western Australia

Check it out!

On Thursday and Friday last week, MSPs from all over Australia gathered at Microsoft’s Australian HQ for the Aussie MSP Summit 2009.

We were treated to two awesome days of presentations, workshops, gaming, food, prizes and plenty of free stuff.

Day 1 kicked off with some intros to awesome programs available to students such as DreamSpark, Imagine Cup, Students 2 Business, Microsoft Student Partners, MSDN-AA, Student Tech Clubs, Channel8 and more. Microsoft provided lunch with a chance to checkout some cool technologies in the cafeteria. The afternoon continued with presentations from Microsoft staff on Microsoft programs such as It’s Not Piracy, Microsoft Learning, MSPress, IT Academy, Imagine Cup and technologies such as Windows Live and Windows Mobile.

After a big first day, we all jumped into the bus and headed to the Great Northern Hotel for dinner and drinks.

Around 9pm we made it back to Microsoft Australia and went straight to the Xbox room. We were lucky to be able to play Halo Wars before its release along with other great games. Gears of War 2, Call of Duty and Forza seemed popular!

At the end of the night the MSPs were shocked to hear they would all be given Xbox 360s along with 4 games and an extra controller! Microsoft has gone out of their way to ensure when MSPs share their love of technology with the community, they can actually share it!

After a quick refresh on the previous days content, Day 2 started with a presentation from GP on where MSPs fit into the big picture at Microsoft. Michael Kordahi followed with an awesome presentation on the future of technology. Andrew Coates demonstrated Live Meeting and Nick Hodge presented on Microsoft’s Open Source program. Lunch was provided by the guys from Atomic Magazine who asked us to give away their magazines at our events… awesome for students all-round!

But one of the highlights for me, was each MSP getting up to present a 5 minute demo on stuff they are passionate about.

Of course there were prizes throughout the event, for the best questions and the most involvement from MSPs.

After  2 full days, MSPs headed back to their homes, Xbox under one arm, and various other loot under the other and heads full of ideas on how they can share their passion, excitement and love of technology with their fellow students.

In fact, some already have, such as Sean’s O-Week Presentation along with his post on new stuff added to DreamSpark.

All Aussie MSPs are fired up and equipped, so join us for an awesome 2009!

Luke
Aussie MSP Lead
The University of Western Australia

As I am the newest WA MSP I figured the best place to start is to introduce myself.

My name is Mitchell Sullivan, I am currently studying Information Technology at Curtin University. I work for a web development company called Nutworks. Nutworks is the company behind Loconut, a WA based website which incorporates social networking. Nutworks is also responsible for many external projects as well and our tool of choice is Asp.Net.

I decided to become a MSP after seeing the great work the other WAMSP people did last year and as I am part of the Curtin University computing social club (ComSSA) it would be easier for me to execute events. The fact that there are so many perks also helps greatly but I really was unprepared for all the additional perks introduced for this year’s partners.

That’s a long enough introduction for a person you probably don’t want to know that much about.

These are exciting times for technology, for Microsoft and to be a MSP and I shall be posting here regularly about all of those.

Mitchell
Curtin MSP

To celebrate its 25th Anniversary, Microsoft Press is offering  two free E-Books:

Windows Vista Resource Kit, Second Edition

By Mitch Tulloch, Tony Northrup, and Jerry Honeycutt with the Windows Vista Team
ISBN: 9780735625969

An in-depth resource kit with all the information you need to administer Windows Vista (now with info on SP1). Sign up to download the entire e-book from here (PDF, 44.8 MB).

Microsoft® Visual C#® 2008 Express Edition: Build a Program Now!

By Patrice Pelland
ISBN: 9780735625426

Not sure where to start on Visual Studio, .NET and C#? Then grab a copy of this book and Visual Studio Express and start learning! Sign up to download the entire e-book from here (PDF, 7.8 MB)

Having recently returned from the MSP Bootcamp in Sydney, I decided that my first task would be to try out my brand new Xbox 360 (courtesy of Microsoft).

Having never played the original Forza Motorsport (FM), I was unsure of what to expect: was FM a more traditional racing game (like Gran Tourismo), or one of the newer variations (like the Need for Speed: Underground (NFS:U) series). Much to my delight it turned out to be a mix of the two, taking the track styles from Gran Tourismo but also incorporating the car purchase\credit\upgrading system from NFS:U. Another game play element that I thought unusual was having to select the “region” that you’re purchasing your cars from (US, Europe or Asia). This makes a bit more sense after I pulled up the FM website, which explains that there are over 300 cars available in the game.

Once I selected my region (Asia (I want to try to get my MX-5…)) and selecting my starting car (A Silvia K’s S14 (unfortunately there is no CA-18…)) I was presented with a feature of the game that almost knocked me off my feet. If you thought that the tuning and upgrading you could do in NSF:U was impressive, wait until you see the options that FM2 has. Although I had just started the game and most upgrades were out of my price range and most tweaks unavailable (due to stock parts); but I could see that what ever I wanted to change was there. The upgrades ranged from the typical turbo, engine block and weight reductions right down to the spark plugs\coil packs, tyre material and flywheel. The only tune-up available to my stock Silvia was its tyre pressure, but I could also see tweaks for camber, drive ratios (each gear independent and the final drive ratio) and suspension stiffness among many others.

The only thing that was more glorious than the customisability of my car is the physics engine that FM2 employs. Your tyres initially start out as being cold and perform poorly until they warm up, conversely doing doughies overheats your tyres, resulting in even more screeching and drifting before they cool down. The old trick of NFS:U of dropping a gear before hitting a corner also backfired as I oversteered heavily and also ended up damaging my engine(!). However, once you get used the realism of the physics engine (I found that playing using the first-person view really helped), steering, counter-steering and drifting through the dog-legs and zigzags comes naturally.

Overall, from what little of Forza Motorsports 2 I have played, I have been thoroughly impressed. The game is an excellent example of how good research, programming and game mechanics can come together.

Daniel
Curtin MSP 

DreamSpark is now available to any university student who has an edu.au E-mail address.

DreamSpark is a program that gives university students access to 100% free software, including Window Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 along with others.

DreamSpark together with the It’s Not Cheating program empowers students to reach their potential with awesome free tools.

Even better, very soon all TAFE students will also have access to DreamSpark. Watch this space!

Luke
Australian MSP Lead
UWA

The Australian MSP Summit 2009 has kicked off today, for 2 packed days of fun and information for all Australian MSPs at the Microsoft Australia HQ in Sydney.

MSPs from over Australia are here for the event to get the resources to help students to reach their potential over 2009.

Luke
Australian MSP Lead

I blogged recently about an awesome initiative Microsoft has to bring Outlook / Exchange features to students.

Microsoft has now announced some great new features for this service, and is renaming it Outlook Live.

Some major new features are:

• Multiple browser support (IE, Firefox, Safari)
• Instant Messaging within Outlook Live
• Threaded conversations in Conversation View

All the Microsoft Student Partners in Australia are currently on Outlook Live so you should be hearing a lot more about it in the near future.

Checkout the official press release at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/feb09/02-1220MLiveEduPR.mspx

Checkout awesome video demo at http://edge.technet.com/Media/Introducing-Outlook-Live/

Luke
WA MSP

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&#038;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:533e05d2-9f12-4a86-bdda-efd0455fcd36&#038;showPlaylist=true&#038;from=msnvideo" target="_new" title="Kylie" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US_038_playlist=videoByUuids_uuids_533e05d2-9f12-4a86-bdda-efd0455fcd36_038_showPlaylist=true_038_from=msnvideo&amp;referer=');">Video: Kylie</a>

Some of the Aussie Interns have made a video about their internship.

Aussie Interns @ Microsoft 2009 from Edmund Tse on Vimeo.