Category: microsoft

TechEd 2008, Blogger’s Lunch Thursday 4th September

“Discussion: Are Social Networks the New User Groups?”

An ever popular feature of Tech Ed is the Blogger’s Lunch and this year should be no exception. Hosted by Roger Lawrence, Evangelism Manager at Microsoft Australia, this years Blogger’s Lunch will debate the proposition that Social Networks are the new User Groups. Make sure you add the Blogger’s lunch in your schedule builder and make your opinion count.

Topic: “Are Social Networks the new User Groups” hosted by Roger Lawrence

Panelists For: Deeps de Silva

Panelists Against: Andrew Coates

Date: Thursday , 4 September
Time: 1:00pm– 1:50pm (lunch available in foyer from 12.30pm)
Venue: Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour

Room: Bayside Terrace, Level 2

Cost: complimentary for Tech Ed Delegates (limited seats available)

Fixing nickhodge.com (quickly) for IE8

Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 has been released. The night before a big PR thing in Melbourne (Premier of Victoria, etc) and I decided to install it on my demo laptop. Brave, yet safe move.

What about this website?

Not so good. Something is broken somewhere. In the week before TechEd 2008 I don’t have time to completely diagnose and fix the wordpress template. So, sort of like welding it together for a few weeks until things die down – it is time for a simple fix.

How can you tell? See the “broken document” icon on the right of the URL: this indicates that the site has been designed for older browsers.

IE8 Fix

 

There are two potential fixes. One is to click on the broken icon, and Internet Explorer will revert to Internet Explorer 7 mode.

A smarter fix for this web site is a one-line change to my template (in my case, header.php for this template)

<meta http-equiv=“X-UA-Compatible” content=“IE=EmulateIE7” />

 

IE8 Fix

 

Refreshing the site, and magically it renders correctly, and there is no “broken” document icon.

IE8 Fix

Hello Photosynth, Love from Australia.

I live only 5 minutes away from the most awesome vista in the world: the Sydney Harbour.

Now you can experience the Harbour on a not-so-sunny day (that is, this morning) thanks to Microsoft Photosynth (note: Mac users: we’re working on it. In the current term, you will need to Bootcamp to see Photosynths. The VMWare Fusion guys say that their Beta 2 of Fusion 2.0 works OK with Photosynth)

Photosynth is available for public creation of synths. Grabs some photos of an object or place, and synth them.

For fun, I also added a synth of “Rambo”, The Big Merino from Goulburn, NSW.

The on10.net Shutterspeed episode has an interview with the Photosynth team.

Wireless Live Streaming

At yesterday’s Matt Bai; Politics and Technology Forum in Canberra, I experimented. Without testing, nor a safety net.

Having just received a new imate Ultimate 9502 phone with NextG HSDPA from @JonoH I wired up in the following way:

  • Dell XPS1330, using Bluetooth Personal Area Connection from within Vista SP1 x64 to…
  • imate Ultimate 9502, using Internet Connection Sharing at 7.2Mb/s HSDPA on Telstra NextG running…
  • ustream.tv putting priority on audio quality over video quality
  • Placed laptop on the floor with camera pointing to stage. I used the inbuilt camera in the Dell, and the same inbuilt microphone.

The result is this: