Just a reminder that the IEEE Networking Forum is coming up on Thursday 30th July 2009.

In this economy, you want to give yourself the maximum exposure to recruiting companies as possible. The IEEE Networking Forum gives you a chance to talk to future employers and also get valuable information.

Students from all four major universities in Perth will be attending.

Head to http://www.ieeenetworkingforum.org for more info.

Something useful to all students…  $10,000.

Microsoft is running a treasure hunt, where you download IE8, look out for clues on Twitter to find $10,000 on the Net.

As posted often on WA MSP, Microsoft Internships are an awesome way to get a headstart in your career, while learning a bunch and having heaps of fun.

A Real World Experience like No Other.  As an intern at Microsoft, you’ll have real responsibility, real work, and real opportunities to jumpstart your career. (You’ll get paid, too!) It’s an experience you’ll never find in a classroom. You’ll be given manageable assignments that you can complete while you’re here, and your efforts will likely take shape in Microsoft products—or be used by Microsoft teams—long after you return to school. And imagine millions of customers, not to mention your classmates, seeing your work! Some interns even parlay their experience into a job offer.

An Opportunity to Shine. Our interns make a real difference. Not by filing paperwork or running errands, but by developing real products. Here, you’ll run your own projects and put your skills to work. This is why our internship program is one of the most successful in the industry. You’ll learn more in 12 weeks than you would in a whole school year. It’s the kind of work that gets noticed by millions of people all over the world. Kind of redefines the whole concept of internships, don’t you think?

More information and full details can be downloaded at AU Internship 2009

If interested, please send your resume by July 22 to: ausrec@microsoft.com

For a heads up on the Internship process you may also like to read my earlier post at http://www.wamsp.com.au/2008/09/how-to-get-a-microsoft-winter-internship-for-australian-students/

We have posted often about Microsoft’s It’s Not Piracy offer for students, allowing us to get a completely full, legit copy of Office 2007 Ultimate for $75.00.

Making it an even better deal, when you purchase Office for $75 you go into the draw to win $5,000!

The competition ends June 30th, 2009 so get your copy of Office now to go into the draw!

Luke
Aussie MSP Lead
The University of Western Australia

As a quick recap, these are the betas\CTP’s that are making news:

• Windows 7 RC
• Server 2008 R2 RC (<- Site is up, and linked to form the Server 2008 home page, but no download likely until tomorrow)
• Exchange 2010 Beta
• Visual Studio 2010\.NET 4 CTP
• Windows Azure
• Live Mesh Beta
• Office 2010 (No beta\CTP available yet…)

So, the question you probably asking is "Why should I care? Why should I spend my time looking at this stuff when it isn’t even finished yet?". The answer to that is simple…

Consider: most of the people reading this blog are students interested in technology and, most likely, Microsoft technology. Most of the betas above are likely to be ready, deployed and industry standard by mid to late 2010. By which time you should have either graduated or be close to it. This means that you’re going to be looking for a job that involves the final versions of there products (on that note, open Microsoft Students to Business in a new tab and register after reading the rest of this blog). At the point where you are in the interview where your potential employer asks "How much do you know about Program X Version Y" how much better will it appear when you can honestly say that you have not only been using "Program X" but you have been running "Program X Version Y Beta" for the last few years and helped submit a number of bugs which were then fixed. Not only does it show that you have a few years experience with the program, but also the fact that you participated in a beta program indicates that you enjoy learning and experimenting and that you aren’t afraid to do some testing and go the extra mile.

Other than that, there is nothing more enjoyable then playing with (and breaking) pre-release software…

- Daniel
Curtin MSP

Either way, take some time to check out http://talkingaboutwindows.com/ – here you’ll find videos portraying all aspects of the Windows 7 development and the Industry’s response to it. Not only this, but below each video is a comment section where, unlike watching the same video on YouTube, you are likely to get a response from Microsoft.

(As a side note, its also a pretty cool demonstration of the power of Silverlight)

- Daniel
Curtin MSP

THIS COMING TUESDAY 7th APRIL, UWA IEEE Student Branch presents:

THE IEEE ICE CREAM SOCIAL

Tuesday 7th April, 12:30pm, EE Courtyard

Calling all CSSE students, bring your friends and come by the EE (Electrical Engineering) Courtyard this Tuesday during common lunch (between 12:30pm and 1:45pm) for a refreshing, ice-cold snack on a hot day – and find out about the benefits of IEEE membership.

There is a selection of *FREE* ice-creams for those who show their

2009 IEEE membership card and with great ice-creams starting at only $1, even non-members can get in on the action!

There has never been a better time to join IEEE – The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers – be a part of the world’s largest professional technical society and find out what the Branch can offer you. With the tough economic climate, cool-off and relax with an ice-cream and drink and learn how IEEE membership can give you the edge.

Looking for Grad or Vac work? Put yourself ahead of the rest with IEEE.

Take the opportunity to come down and sign-up or renew your existing membership while enjoying a selection of ice-creams and drinks.

IEEE memberships are now HALF PRICE (just $12.50 USD, and you get membership until 31st Dec 2009), so it is a great time to be a part of

*your* organisation. Get involved in your degree, join the IEEE.

See you there!

Cheers,

Yang-Lit Phay

–

2009 Vice-Chairperson

University of Western Australia IEEE Student Branch http://www.uwaieee.org/ enquiries@uwaieee.org

Winner of the 2007 and 2008 IEEE Australia Council Most Outstanding Student Branch Award Winner of the 2008 IEEE Asia Pacific Most Outstanding Student Branch Award

Want to be a part of the award winning UWA IEEE Student Branch Committee? See us today!

The CSSC E-mail out is copied below:

Hello to all the club members out there!

There are times when getting together with your fellow intellectuals
and enjoy some mindless FPS action.

With that in mind the CSSC has grouped up with our UWA Microsoft
student partners and organised what is planned to be the first in a
monthly Halo Tournament.

So here’s what you need to know:

When : Tuesday the 31st of March, 6pm – 9pm 

Where : 1.24 seminar room (the seminar room outside administration on
the first floor…of csse)

What else? : the Halo tournament will run like this, there will teams
of two (either find a friend or be randomly assigned) with a round
robin style set up. No sign up is required, and we will be doing a
pizza run at some point.

It’d be great to see you all there, so get ready for killing some
aliens.

Luke
Aussie MSP Lead
The University of Western Australia

The Microsoft DreamSpark program provides students access to an awesome list of free Microsoft software and has just got better. Students now have access to free Microsoft Technology Specialist Exam vouchers to be used at Prometric test centers.

This is a limited offer and the voucher must be redeemed before June 30th 2009, so get in quick.

Additionally Microsoft has added several free e-books for download, along with access to the IT Academy program.

Learn more at www.dreamspark.com

Luke
Aussie MSP Lead
The University of Western Australia

More information on his blog.

Luke
Aussie MSP Lead
The University of Western Australia

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

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

Check it out!

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

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 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

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

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

Aussie Interns @ Microsoft 2009 from Edmund Tse on Vimeo.