Content-Aware Fill is a wonderful feature of Adobe Creative Suite. Check this video, especially last 2min.

Adobe Creative Suite CS 5 will be released on April 12th.

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Check out the following video, Android running on Windows Mobile- The HTC Touch HD.

WiFi is working and applications are running without much problems. Want to try it yourself? Check the XDA Developers site.

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Blogger Cory O’Brien posted a snapshot of Google Phone- Nexus One. He tweeted about the phone as

“Google Phone = iPhone + a little extra screen and a scroll wheel. Great touch screen, and Android.”

Nexus One is thinner than the iPhone 3GS and it is unlocked(so you can you any SIM with Nexus One). Google handed over test units to their employees for testing. Hope we will get more details about the “Nexus One” coming days.

Phone details

Operating System: Android 2.1
Device Name: Google Phone
Manufacturer Branding: Google
Hardware Manufacturer: HTC
Carrier Unlock: Yes (You can use any SIM )
Network: GSM
Chipset: Snapdragon Processor
Launch Date: January/February 2010
Display: High-resolution Capacitive multitouch OLED screen
Keyboard: Onscreen keyboard only.
Hardware Buttons: HTC Hero like Scrolly ball
Size: Thinner than the iPhone 3GS
Other: 2 mics, one in the front for talking and one at the back to reduce background noise.

Photo from – http://theunlockr.com/

Updated – Few more details from @coryobrien tweets

• Almost forgot: Google Phone’s interactive backgrounds were AWESOME. Not distracting, but an interesting/unique addition to the phone.
• The Google Phone is exactly the same size as the iPhone. Screen is prob 5mm longer(not including the buttons)
• Scroll wheel worked well, and the screen was super responsive. Scrolling/sliding felt just like an iPhone
• Software was nice, though I haven’t played w/ many Android phones, so I don’t know what was unique to the Google Phone
• We’ll see, but it was a nice phone. Definitely going to give some competition
• The four buttons at the bottom are always there.
• I like my iPhone, but the Google Phone was nice. Will definitely be some strong competition.
• Trade-off for no HW keyboard is that it’s super thin and feels really solid though.
• Nothing too detailed, but my overall impression was that it was a really nice phone.
• Very responsive. Didn’t do any serious testing, but it felt very iPhone like when using the OS.

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Windows 7 licensing

Read detailed report

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Kerala Microsoft Users Group organized the Microsoft Community Tech Day in Technopark Park Canter, Trivandrum on 24th Oct 2009. I reached Park Canter by 8.25am and the registration started at 8.30. I was so excited because I am attending a MS Community Tech Day or a program conducted by K-MUG for the first time. I was little worried because I do not have much experience in .Net or other MS technologies. I have done my B.Tech mini project and main project in .Net but in my company, I work in PHP and I am not in touch with .Net for last 2yrs. Now I want to learn MS Technologies and this is a part of it. The registration completed by 9.30 and the program started.

The first session was by Rama (Ramaprasanna Chellamuthu). He works with Microsoft as a Developer Evangelist. His topic was “Windows Azure & Clouds”. He started with “Clouds”, what is cloud technology and its importance. After discussing about Cloud Computing, he moved to Windows Azure.

Windows Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web applications on the internet through Microsoft datacenters.

Windows Azure is an open platform that supports Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages and environments. To build applications and services on Windows Azure, developers can use their existing Microsoft Visual Studio expertise. In addition, Windows Azure supports popular standards and protocols including SOAP, REST, XML, and PHP.

I had only a small idea about Cloud Computing and Windows Azure but after that session I got a good knowledge. The session was very interactive, audience asked many doubts during his session. He showed a sample program using Windows Azure.

Mr. Vinod Kumar came to stage to give “SQL Server – Tips and Tricks”. He works as a Technology Evangelist (Databases and BI) with Microsoft India specializing primarily on SQL Server. He said he has 45minutes and he will give 45 tips and tricks. The first tip was how we can open SQL Server Management studio using windows authentication in a single click, then SQL commands to save our production time etc. I do not understand some advanced tips since I have only a small experience in MSSQL but I am sure all the tips were very useful and if you know those tips, you can save a lot of time.

You can get more tips and information from his website: http://extremeexperts.com/

Tea Break : Had Coffee and Cookies

After a 10minut break,  program resumed with Shobhan on stage. Shoban Kumar is a Microsoft MVP working as a Senior Software Engineer for Allianz Cornhill, Technopark. I know him before from his tweets and blogs. Yes, we are twitter friend and meeting for the first time. He actively writes .net articles in his blog www.codegeeks.net and www.dotnetcurry.com. His topic was “Coding for fun”. He explained how we can communicate with famous WEB 2.0 applications like Twitter, Facebook, Gmail etc. He showed some sample demos also. One was a GTalk chat responder and the other one was his famous TweetMy PC. Yes, we had fun.

He also gave a lot of Visyal Studio tips and tricks and information about useful VS utilities.

Shobhan has also published many open source applications which can be found in CodePlex : http://www.codeplex.com/site/users/view/shobankr

Next session was by Uday M. Shankar about “Rapid Prototyping”. He is a Principal Engineer in Yahoo User Experience team. He has been into UI development and Ux activities for around 10 years. Prior to Yahoo, he was with Nokia R&D Center. He started with “What is prototyping”. I had no much idea about prototyping and its use. He explained all those basic things.

Prototyping is the process of building a model of a system. In terms of an information system, prototypes are employed to help system designers build an information system that intuitive and easy to manipulate for end users. Prototyping is an iterative process that is part of the analysis phase  of the systems development life cycle.

Then he talked about Microsoft Expression Blend

Microsoft Expression Blend is a user interface design tool developed and sold by Microsoft for creating graphical interfaces for web and desktop applications that blend the features of these two types of applications. It is an interactive, WYSIWYG front-end for designing XAML-based interfaces for Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight applications. It is one of the applications in the Microsoft Expression Studio suite.

He showed us how a designer can create a prototype very easily with MS Expression Blend. That was a nice demo and he showed us a tutorial video also.

After Uday’s session. we had lunch break. We got lunch coupon to use in Rangoli restaurant for South Indian meals.

After lunch, the 1st session was about Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) by Praseed Pai. He is a .net consultant and a solutions architect associated with Envestnet ,Trivandrum.

LINQ is a set of extensions to the .NET Framework that encompass language-integrated query, set, and transform operations. It extends C# and Visual Basic with native language syntax for queries and provides class libraries to take advantage of these capabilities.

I had attend his session before about “Compilers” in BarCamp, so I was expecting another wonderful session. Yes, his session was really interesting and we all got a better idea bout LINQ.

After Pai’s session, Renuka Alex came to stage to talk about “WPF Customization and Interoperability”. She is working as a Technical Evangelist at Infosys, Trivandrum. She has around 10 years of varied training experiences ranging from colleges to management schools and IT industry. Her session was like teaching us something, started from the basic and I am sure everybody understand what is WPF, its uses and how we can create a WPF based application. I liked that session because I am studying Adobe AIR and WPF is like Adobe AIR. She also created a small demo application from the scratch and so we get a better idea.

The Windows Presentation Foundation (or WPF) is a graphical subsystem for rendering user interfaces in Windows-based applications. WPF was initially released as part of .NET Framework 3.0. Designed to remove dependencies on the aging GDI subsystem, WPF is built on DirectX, which provides hardware acceleration and enables modern UI features like transparency, gradients and transforms. WPF provides a consistent programming model for building applications and provides a clear separation between the user interface and the business logic.

WPF also offers a new markup language, known as XAML which is an alternative means for defining UI elements and relationships with other UI elements. A WPF application can be deployed on the desktop or hosted in a web browser. It also enables rich control, design, and development of the visual aspects of Windows programs. It aims to unify a number of application services: user interface, 2D and 3D drawing, fixed and adaptive documents, advanced typography, vector graphics, raster graphics, animation, data binding, audio and video.

Last session was “Writing Secure Code” by Jairam Ramesh, Security Research Consultant with Microsoft Corporation for the last 2 years. He talked about Desktop application security, Network security and Web application security. “Writing Secure Code”, the name itself is interesting. First he described Desktop application security. He showed an example of small C program, which demonstrates Buffer-overflow attacks. Since that was the last session, he got only a less time and it was not enough . He mentioned some hacking tools like Poision, Tamper data, Blue Pill, Fiddler etc to try. His session was very interesting and I felt sad because we didn’t get enough time.

At last they gave some cool gifts like Thumb Drive and CD/DVD’s to few lucky audiences and I thought I will get one, but I didn’t get any gift- unlucky .

I really liked all the sessions, met a lot of great developers and I learned a lot from them. The CTD 09 was really inspiring and I will try my level best to attend upcoming CTD’s or the events like this.

Thanks to Microsoft and K-MUG.

Join

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The NetBeans IDE is an open-source integrated development environment written entirely in Java using the NetBeans Platform. NetBeans IDE 6.8 Beta is the first IDE to offer support for the entire Java EE 6 spec.

Feature Highlight

• Java Enterprise Edition 6
  • JavaServer Faces 2.0 for web interfaces and the ability to use EJBs in web applications
  • Java Persistence JPA 2.0 and RESTful web services support
  • Broader use of annotations instead of deployment descriptors
  • Deployment, debugging and profiling with GlassFish v3
• JavaServer Faces 2.0 (Facelets)
  • Code completion, error hints, namespace completion, documentation popups, and tag auto-import for Facelets
  • Editor support for Facelets libraries, composite components, expression language
• JavaFX
  • Support for JavaFX SDK 1.2.1
  • Improved navigation, code completion, and hints
• PHP
  • Full PHP 5.3 support
  • Symfony Framework support
• Kenai.com: Connected Developer
  • Full JIRA support
  • Improved issue tracker integration
• Maven
  • Improved support for Java EE 6, Groovy, Scala projects
  • Customizable dependency exclusion in dependency graph
• Ruby
  • Support for JRuby 1.3.1, Ruby 1.9 debugging, and RSpec 1.2.7
  • Improved rename refactoring, type inference, and navigation
• C/C++
  • Profiling: New tools for I/O Monitoring, Thread Analysis and Race Detection
  • Faster synchronization during remote development

The final release of NetBeans IDE 6.8 is planned for December 2009.

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I have selected 3 winners using a small PHP program. I gave the list of my twitter followers and the comment authors and the program selected a group of winners. The people who tweeted/posted comments more than once got more chance.

So the winners are

1. vautrin
2. maxio75
3. arianjm

Winners: Please post a comment to this post so I can send you the invitation to that email id. Make sure that you are entering the correct email address in the email field. I am not sure when they will send you the invitation, my friends get my invitation in less than 12hr.
I have a small request to the winners: I wish I can invite all the friends who requested for the invitation, but I cant. I have selected few more winners and I asked my friends to send them an invitation when they get an option to invite friends. I will be thankful if you spend one of your invitation for them. Happy waving

The following people are selected for that.

• tavernello
• poarousasp
• Ma_c_hi
• vidalster
• olterman
• barbatus
• witer

I request you to post a comment to this post so I can ask my friends to invite you also.

PS: I wont use your email address or any other data for spamming or any other purpose

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Google Wave!, that’s the trend now. People are screaming for Google Wave invitation. Check twitter, facebok, emails, blogs, forums, everywhere, all are requesting or talking about wave. The truth is that many of them don’t know what really it is. Everybody is asking for it and so all think that its something big.

(The above cartoon is taken from http://lifesacomicstrip.blogspot.com/ . Visit her blog to view other wonderful cartoons)

What is Google Wave?

Google wave is not another facebook or myspace or orkut or twitter or simply not a social networking site. Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration.

Consider a real-time situation: We are a group of people are working on the same project but working from different locations of the world. In a project, we have to discuss the project details with everyone in that group or have to prepare a document. So what we do? First we discuss the things via email or phone and then someone in the group creates a draft copy of the document and sends to all. Then everyone in edit that document and sends back. One will collect all the documents and can you imagine how much difficult it is to find the changes made by others in copies of the same document and how much time we have to repeat this process to create a final document?

But using Google wave, we can do this very easily. First we create a new wave and add all the others in that project to the wave. We discuss about the project in that wave. Waves are real-time, so in most instances, you can see what someone else is typing, character-by-character. We create a the document in a wave and everyone can work on that document at the same time. Every changes you do will be updated in all the other’s document. So it is like we are sitting together and working on the same document. All the confusions can be cleared at there itself and you can finalize the document. If we want, we can share files, photos, videos etc. If later, you want to add some one else to that group, you can add them to your discussion and he can see all the past conversation and files in that wave. Also we can send private reply to our friend/project mate.

What is a Wave?

In google wave, everything you do is as a wave. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. For example, I got the option to invite my friends to wave as a wave.
A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Some of the main features of Google Wave

• Real-time: In most instances, you can see what someone else is typing, character-by-character.
• Applications and Extensions: Just like a Facebook application or an iGoogle gadget, developers can build their own apps within waves. They can be anything from bots to complex real-time games.
• Wiki functionality: Anything written within a Google Wave can be edited by anyone else, because all conversations within the platform are shared. Thus, you can correct information, append information, or add your own commentary within a developing conversation.
• Open source: The Google Wave code will be open source, to foster innovation and adoption amongst developers.
• Natural language: Google Wave can autocorrect your spelling, even going as far as knowing the difference between similar words, like “been” and “bean.” It can also auto-translate on-the-fly.
• Drag-and-drop file sharing: No attachments; just drag your file and drop it inside Google Wave and everyone will have access.

Gadgets

You can add gadgets to your wave. For example, you can add a poll gadget to create a poll  or a game gadget to play with your friend. Also you can add maps, videos etc.

Security

One of the main feature is that Google Wave is open source and you can install it on you local server. Why we want to run this on our own server? As I said before, Google wave is an online communication and collaboration tool and so this is very useful for companies and organizations for the communication between their employees. In such a situation, security is an important factor and no organization/company wants to save their data in some other server. Since Google wave can be installed on our own server, companies can install it on their own sever and setup and an environment so only the people working in that company have access to their wave server and so data is secure.

Conclusion

Google wave is not a messenger or a social networking site, so it will never replace facebook or twitter or orkut or yahoo/MSN messenger. If you want to communicate with your friend through wave, then  your must must have an account in the same wave service. So this will not replace your gmail/hotmail or any other mail service.

Need a Google Wave invitation? Click here

Watch this video to get a detailed idea about the Google wave

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Today I got a wave from Google Wave team saying "Invite others to Google Wave". Yes, so now I can invite 8 people to Google Wave. I have invited 4 friends so far and one invitation is booked by my friend. Now I decided to give the remaining 3 invitations to my twitter followers and blog visitors.
So if you wish to get one, follow me @arunmvishnu ( http://twitter.com/arunmvishnu ) and tweet the following message

Need Google Wave invitation? Visit http://theweb3.net/ #wave #googlewave (via @arunmvishnu)

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Now you can pre-order Windows 7 Ultimate for just $174.99. This is the OEM version of Windows 7 ( Click here to know the difference between OEM Version and Retail versions).

Following is the complete pre-order list. Click on the price to go to the www.newegg.com shop to pre order.

	Version	32-bit		64-bit		Upgrade
		Retail	OEM	Retail	OEM
	Home Premium	$199.99	$99.99	$199.99	$99.99	$119.99
	Professional	$299.99	$134.99	$299.99	$134.99	$199.99
	Ultimate	$319.99	$174.99	$319.99	$174.99	$219.99

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