December 2008 - Posts

• Windows Live Groups - a cool place for your club to hang out

  In the same vein as my previous post on calendaring, and its application to the implementation of groups calendars for clubs and societies, I thought I would also make some mention of our Windows Live Groups solution (see http://groups.live.com). The Windows Live team have just done an excellent job of blogging on this, and as their example are directly relevant to education, I would recommend that you take a trip over to their site and have a read. In the spirit of road-testing this, we now have a group for Live@edu customers to try out here: http://liveatedu.groups.live.com.  You will need to request to join. Jonny Technorati Tags: Live@edu   Posted Tuesday, December 30, 2008 2:55 PM from Live@edu | 0 Comments Filed under: None

• The Live Calendar service and Outlook

  It has been a little while since I blogged last... what with vacation, travel, holidays... so much to do, so little time; to borrow a cliché.  So perhaps it is appropriate now that I am posting on calendaring?  We all have different schedules that we need to keep, and if you are a student it is important that you keep appraised of the various schedules that affect your day to day activities. I had a chat recently with a few customers and some students about this, and here is a non-exhaustive list of the kinds of things they are trying to keep track of: Class Calendars - when/where are the lectures happening Assignments - what is due when? Campus Calendars - term times, exam times, etc Club/Society Calendars - sports, organizations Social Calendars - what is student life without the off party? Family Calendars - birthdays, anniversaries, etc Their own personal calendars - funny, this is usually the last one that people think of :) As a user of Microsoft technology, there are actually a number of options to consider when managing calendars in the Software plus Services world that we are building.  In this post, I wanted to take the opportunity to examine options with the Live Calendar Service, and how it interacts with Outlook.  Enjoy the demo! Double-click to view in full screen. Download Enjoy! Jonny Technorati Tags: Live@edu,Live Calendar Posted Monday, December 29, 2008 6:53 PM from Live@edu | 0 Comments

• MSDN Events

  Hello Everyone, As we race towards 2009, I’d like to let you know about a series of free events taking place around the UK. MSDN is offering lots of demos and code delivered by Microsoft experts who will bring you up-to-date on what’s happening in the world of Microsoft clients. MSDN: Catch up with Microsoft Rich Client Technologies for 2008 Date: 10 February 2009 Location: London MSDN: Catch up with Microsoft Rich Client Technologies for 2008 Date: 12 February 2009 Location: Birmingham MSDN: Catch up with Microsoft Rich Client Technologies for 2008 Date: 24 February 2009 Location: Edinburgh MSDN: Catch up with Microsoft Rich Client Technologies for 2008 Date: 26 February 2009 Location: Manchester   So why not start the New Year by attending a Rich Client Technology Day near you?   All the best,   Allison Posted Monday, December 29, 2008 8:20 AM from UK Academic Team Blog | 0 Comments

• Imagine Cup for Schools

  Information Technology Challenge   I’d like to tell you about the IT Challenge. As you may already know the Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition. It is one way Microsoft is encouraging young people to apply their imagination, their passion and their creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference in the world. Traditionally aimed at university students in the UK, Microsoft is encouraging secondary school students (over 16 years old) and college students to take part in the competition. To support individual institutions, we are offering out prizes of Windows Vista Ultimate or Office 2007 Ultimate to the top student competitors in the IT Challenge Round One at your school or college. The IT Challenge is a fun and engaging quiz based around general IT knowledge that aligns well to most IT courses or anyone who has an interest in IT. The quiz is held online at scheduled times throughout December and January and students would compete on the www.imaginecup.com site. All the details are on the website, but if you have any questions, or would like to receive some promotional emails to send to your students please do not hesitate to email ukacinfo@microsoft.com. In the meantime, here are the Terms and Conditions of entry: Terms and Conditions for Imagine Cup UK IT Challenge Invitational ELIGIBILITY: This competition is open to any person resident in the United Kingdom who is 16 years of age or older at the time of entry and who is actively enrolled as a student at an accredited educational institute that grants a high-school or college/university (or equivalent) degrees at any time between January 1st 2008 and May 31st 2009. Employees or interns of Microsoft or its affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising or promotion agencies are not eligible, nor are members of these employees’ families (defined as parents, children, siblings, spouse and life partners). TO ENTER: Entry into this competition may only be made by persons who have entered into the corresponding Microsoft Global Imagine Cup 2009 Invitational (the “Global Invitational”). Entry into the Global Invitational can be made by visiting www.imaginecup.com and terms and conditions applicable to the Global Invitation will apply. Once registered for the Global Invitational individuals who have registered as being UK entrants will automatically be entered into this UK invitational competition (the “UK Invitational”) and shall be deemed to have accepted these terms and conditions. Entries will not be returned. Only one entry per person will be accepted. Incomplete, damaged, defaced or illegible entries may be deemed invalid at the sole discretion of Microsoft. Entry constitutes full and unconditional acceptance of these Terms and Conditions. Microsoft reserve the right to disqualify anyone in breach of these Terms and Conditions. TIMING: This UK Invitational runs from 1st October 2008. The closing date of this UK Invitational is 15th April 2008. In order to stand a chance of winning entrants to the UK Invitational must have submitted their entry into the Global Invitation by no later than the closing date. USE OF DATA: Personal data which you provide when you enter this competition may be used for future Microsoft marketing activity. If you agree to this use, please tick the Legal Information box on https://imaginecup.com/Registration/Default.aspx. SELECTION OF WINNERS: The winner of the UK School and College promotion will be the UK entrant with the highest score out of all entrants from the school/college that has opted in. In the event that there is a tie between more than one entrant, each entrant will be asked to complete a tie-breaker question – ‘In 250 words or less please state how you believe technology can solve societies toughest problems’. The tie-breaker question will be sent to the entrants email on the 1st February 2009 and answers must be received by no later than 18th February 2009. The winner of the tie-breaker will be determined by a panel of judges on 19th February 2009 based upon the most innovative and technological feasible answer (given the technology available at the present date). The panel of judges will include at least one independent member. The winner will be notified by 19h February 2009 by email or phone. The winner may be required to become involved in further publicity or advertising and the winner will be required to verify their eligibility to enter this Invitational. PRIZE: The following prizes will be awarded to the winner. Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 or Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate. The prize will be sent 3 weeks after the close of the quiz. WINNERS LIST: The winner consents to their surname being made publicly available. The winners surname will be available for a period of two months after the closing date by emailing ukacinfo@microsoft.com. OTHER: No correspondence will be entered into regarding either this competition or these Terms and Conditions. In the unlikely event of a dispute, Microsoft’s decision shall be final. Microsoft reserve the right to amend, modify, cancel or withdraw this competition at any time without notice. Promoter: Microsoft Limited, Microsoft Campus, Thames Valley Park, Reading, RG6 1WG, England With best wishes, Allison Posted Monday, December 22, 2008 5:30 AM from UK Academic Team Blog | 0 Comments

• Imagine Cup Registrations

  Hello Everyone, Interest for the Imagine Cup has been strong and we can confirm the various categories are now open for competition. From experience we know that the next couple of months will be key in getting great UK representation in the Imagine Cup. Here are just a few of the reasons for  encouraging  your students to compete: - PR: The Imagine Cup attracts the attention of both regional and national newspapers, together with  technology and education press and news websites such as the BBC. Having students from your university compete in the Imagine Cup is great for raising the profile of your university in two important ways. Firstly it demonstrates the quality of your graduates to IT employers and makes them more attractive as employees (e.g. Dominic Green, UK winner of the 2008 competition) and secondly, it attracts new students to your university. - Skills Development: Fundamentally the Imagine Cup is about helping students get real world experience with Microsoft technology. The skills learned during the various competitions compliment their studies and are invaluable when students apply for jobs with IT companies. - Students Inspiration: With every technology interest area catered for, the competition is a great way to channel students’ passion for technology out of class. We want as many UK institutions and students to get involved with the Imagine Cup as possible, and to help you participate we provide: - Giveaways for students: Every week we give away web cams and Starbucks vouchers. We also hold a monthly draw for a Dell laptop, providing everything a student needs to see them through their studies and the Imagine Cup competition. - Donation of an Xbox 360 gaming lab kit for your university: The university with the most registrations will receive 4 Xbox 360s, 8 wired controllers and an assortment of the latest Xbox 360 titles. You are free to use them for XNA development or as a social/recreation area for students.  If you would like to receive regular updates on the registration numbers from your university then please let me know and I will happily send them to you. You can contact me by telephone (0118 909 3409) or if you prefer by email (mailto:ukacinfo@microsoft.com). And just to give you an idea of how we are doing so far, here are the top fifteen universities with the highest number of registrations:   University Registrations Brighton 89 Birmingham City 38 Cumbria 38 Bradford 37 Reading 35 Robert Gordon 35 Derby 31 Nottingham 24 De Montfort 23 Keele 23 Cambridge 20 Hull 20 Imperial College 20 Brunel 18 RHUL 20   If you would like to know more, them please email or telephone me. I’ll look forward to hearing from you. Good luck, Allison Posted Tuesday, December 09, 2008 6:44 AM from UK Academic Team Blog | 0 Comments Filed under: Events, Imagine Cup, XNA, Students, Technology, competitions, Academics, Embedded, Student, Games, Microsoft, Software design

• Delete a mailbox using PowerShell

  In the last week, I got a couple of emails from folks who simply wanted to know how to delete a mailbox from Exchange Labs.  They had listed the available cmdlets, and tried the one that looked right, but they got an error message when they tried it...  here is what happened... Get-Command -CommandType All This produces a list of the available cmdlets on the Exchange Labs PowerShell interface.  One of the cmdlets is 'remove-mailbox'. If you simply try 'remove-mailbox <mailbox name>', you will get an error message.  This is primarily because there is a tie between the Exchange mailbox and the LiveID that is associated with it.  What you actually need to enter is: remove-mailbox <mailbox name> -DisableWindowsLiveID -Confirm:$false So, I'll not hold you back any more, you might have mailboxes to delete! Jonny Technorati Tags: Exchange Labs,PowerShell Posted Sunday, December 07, 2008 8:02 PM from Live@edu | 0 Comments

• Talking about Microsoft Generation 4.0 Data Center Vision

  This new video is pretty cool, I thought, so if you want to know a little more about our datacenter strategy with the aid of some pretty pictures. Give it a watch. Talking about Microsoft Generation 4.0 Data Center Vision     Video: Microsoft Generation 4.0 Data Center Vision Posted Friday, December 05, 2008 1:19 PM from Live@edu | 0 Comments

• Custom List: Webcasts

  Webcasts Exchange Labs Deployment Forum Toll free: +1 (866) 500-6738 Participant code: 838972 Powershell Setup Managing mailboxes Managing distribution groups Posted Monday, December 01, 2008 3:19 PM from Live@edu blog | 0 Comments