Microsoft releases Visual Studio 11 beta to developers

Along with Microsoft Flight, Windows Server 8 beta and the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, Microsoft has also released a beta of Visual Studio 11.

VS 11 beta

No matter the size or complexity of your organization or project, Visual Studio 11 Beta can help you turn your ideas into software. Large development teams will enjoy the full breadth of features offered in Visual Studio 11 Ultimate Beta and Visual Studio 11 Test Professional Beta, while smaller teams can enjoy success with tools optimized for their needs with Visual Studio 11 Premium Beta and Visual Studio 11 Professional Beta.

There are a number of different versions to choose from:

Visual Studio 11 Ultimate Beta

Visual Studio 11 Premium Beta

Visual Studio 11 Professional Beta

Visual Studio 11 Test Professional Beta

Download the Visual Studio 11 beta here

Let us know what you think if you are a developer.

Hands-on Review of the Lenovo ThinkPad X220

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Here we review the new business laptop from Lenovo – the ThinkPad X220. One of the selling points of this laptop is the claim of around 15 hours of battery life. So we put that claim to the test!

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This is how Lenovo describes the X220:

When your need for speed and your need for mobility converge, look to the ThinkPad X220 laptop to rise to the occasion. The same full-powered 2nd generation Intel® Core™ processors that fuel many 14″ and 15″ laptops are built right into the X220’s slim — it’s 2mm thinner than previous generations — frame. Energize graphics-intense programs with two-times-faster Intel HD Graphics, and instantly increase your startup and shutdown times with Lenovo Enhanced Experience 2.0 for Windows® 7.

Who are Lenovo?

From their website:

Lenovo creates and builds exceptionally engineered personal technology, but we are much more than a tech company. We are defining a new way of doing things as a next generation global company. That means we are years ahead of the game in terms of understanding what it will take to win 5, 10 years from now.

Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, Lenovo builds on its dominant position in China to grow globally. The expansion from East to West – such as by introducing our newest products in China and then spreading across the globe – is a new way of viewing the world, one we believe will be the way of the future.

That focus on the future is based on a strong history of success that is driving results today. Long the leader in China, Lenovo is growing rapidly and winning market share in all parts of the world. This balanced growth is what has made Lenovo the fastest growing major PC company and enabled us to consistently grow faster than the market.

Achieving optimal balance in all that we do is Lenovo’s operating philosophy. This mind-set encompasses every aspect of Lenovo’s business, from balancing leadership with consensus-building, to valuing both short- and long-term thinking. As a result, we have created a balanced business model and strategy that take maximum advantage of profit and investment across both core and new businesses. The result is balanced performance and market share growth across all regions, customer segments, products and business models.

Our mission is to become one of the world’s great personal technology companies. We aspire to achieve this objective by leading in three key areas:

  • Personal Computers: Lead in PCs and be respected for our product innovation and quality.
  • Convergence: Lead the industry with an ecosystem of devices, services, applications and content for people to seamlessly connect to people and web content.
  • Culture: Become recognized as one of the best, most trusted and most well-respected companies to work for and do business with.

Specifications

The specs vary on the X220, depending on what you order, but for this review, we had the following spec:

Lenovo ThinkPad X220, 4290

– 12.5″ HD Premium LED B/L (1366×768) AntiGlare, w/o Camera

– i7-2620M 2.70GHz Processor w/ HD3000

– Intel QM67

– Intel AMT

– Gigabit Ethernet

– No Modem

– Bluetooth

– 1 x USB 2.0

– 1 x USB 2.0 always on

– 1 x USB 3.0

– VGA Port

– Display Port

– HD Audio

– Energy Star 5.0

– Ultranav (Touchpad and Trackpoint) w/ FPR

– Express Card Slot

– 4-in-1 Media Card Reader

– 3 Year Carry-In

– Power Supply 65W

– Win7 Pro 64 Sticker

1 160 GB Solid State Drive No HW Encryption

1 4GB PC3-10600 1333MHz DDR3 SODIMM SDRAM

1 ThinkPad Battery 29++ (9 Cell) for X220

1 Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 – 802.11 a/b/g/n

WLAN activate

Microsoft talks about Windows 8 System Recommendations

In the next in their series of Windows 8 articles, Microsoft talks about system recommendations.

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This is how Microsoft starts the article:

We’re very excited to get to the point in the project where we can provide a pre-release version of Windows 8 that is broadly usable by the tech community on a daily basis. We know folks who are anxious to run the Windows 8 Consumer Preview are probably interested in suggestions around what hardware to use. This post provides the technical details behind system recommendations. These are not system requirements, and are not final, but simply a view of what works best for running the Consumer Preview.

Whether you have a logo PC or you’ve built your own PC, the recommendations for the Consumer Preview include:

  • 1 GHz or faster processor
  • 1 GB RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
  • 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
  • DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

To read the rest of the article, click here.

Learn more about the Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Have you downloaded it yet? What do you think of it?

Windows Media Center IS in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Now that I have the Windows 8 Consumer Preview installed, I wanted to check on Windows Media Center – and it is there!

WMC in Win 8

It appears to be the same as the Windows 7 Media Center app, so it’s not been “metro’d” just yet, but at least its there.

Have you tried the consumer preview yet?

Synology Launch the DiskStation DS1512+ NAS

Synology today announced DiskStation DS1512+, a 5-bay next generation NAS server for delivering high performance and scalability with complete business solutions to small and medium businesses.

Synology DS1512

Synology DiskStation DS1512+ offers a high-performance, scalable, and full-featured network attached storage solution that meets the needs of small and medium-sized businesses that require an efficient way to centralize data protection, simplify data management, and rapidly scale storage capacity with minimal time spent on setup and management. The Synology DS1512+ is backed with Synology’s 3-year limited warranty.

  • 194.83 MB/sec Writing, 200.31 MB/sec Reading
  • Scaling up to 15 Drives with Synology DX510
  • Featuring SuperSpeed USB 3.0
  • Expandable RAM Module (Up to 3GB)
  • 2 LAN with Link Aggregation Support
  • CPU Passive cooling Technology & System Fan Redundancy
  • VMware®, Citrix®, Microsoft® Hyper-V® Compliance
  • Running on Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM)
Learn more from the Synology website

What’s New in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Earlier we told you that you could now download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Now we can tell you a little about what’s new.

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At a Windows 8 Consumer Preview event in Barcelona that was attended by partners from Europe and around the world, the company shared some key new updates in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview:

Broad range of product changes and improvements. Since the Developer Preview in September, designed to preview the programming platform, Windows 8 has progressed across every dimension. From completing the user experience for touch, keyboard and mouse to refining the development platform, the Consumer Preview improves performance, quality and reliability across all subsystems. With the added features, it represents a more complete view of the capabilities of Windows 8.

Windows Store with new apps. The Windows 8 Consumer Preview marks the beta opening of the Windows Store, which is filled with a variety of new Metro style apps from both third-party developers and Microsoft. During the Consumer Preview, these apps are available to try and experience at no cost to users. The Windows Store will offer personalized recommendations, and Windows 8 gives users the ability to take their apps and settings with them across multiple PCs, making it easy to discover and try new apps while offering developers the greatest opportunity of any platform.

Connecting to the cloud across Windows-based PCs and Windows Phone. The Windows 8 Consumer Preview offers seamless integration with the content people care about across their devices. An optional additional sign-on with a Microsoft account provides access to a host of features, including the ability to roam all settings, use cloud storage, communicate with email, calendar and contacts, and connect to a broad range of services. Your connection to the cloud works across your Windows-based PCs and your Windows Phones.

Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview 5. The best way to experience the Web on Windows is with Internet Explorer 10. The browser has been re-imagined to create a new experience designed specifically for Windows 8 devices. It provides an edge-to-edge user interface that is all about less browser and more Web. Fast and fluid, Internet Explorer is hardware-accelerated to enable Web performance.

Preview of new hardware capabilities. At the event, Microsoft also showcased Windows 8 running on a wide range of new x86- and ARM-based reference hardware. This hardware will be available to select developers for trial and testing as previously announced.

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview will be available worldwide for download in English, French, German, Japanese and simplified Chinese languages. More information about Windows 8 and how to download the Consumer Preview is available at http://preview.windows.com or http://windowsteamblog.com.

Have you downloaded it yet? What do you think of it?

Windows Server 8 Beta now available to download

Along with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, you can also download the Windows Server 8 beta.

Win 8 server

Windows Server “8” is the broadest, most scalable and elastic platform for web and applications. Its consistent, open set of tools and frameworks give developers the flexibility to build and deploy applications on-premises, in the cloud, and in a hybrid environment. Windows Server “8” will empower you to deliver:

  • Flexibility to build on-premises and in the cloud: Developers can use the same languages and tools to build on-premises and cloud applications, allowing them to build applications that use distributed and temporally decoupled components.
  • An open web platform: Windows Server “8”, combined with Internet Information Services (IIS), offers a solid platform for both open-source web stacks and ASP.NET, opening up a wide range of choices for application development.
  • A scalable and elastic web platform: Hosting providers can use new features in Windows Server “8” to increase density, simplify management, and achieve higher scalability in a shared web-hosting environment.
Download the Windows Server 8 beta

Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISO images available now

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISO images are now available to download – start your engines!

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Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISO files (.iso) are provided as an alternative to using Windows 8 Consumer Preview Setup. If you are on a PC running Windows and want to install the consumer preview on another partition, another PC, or a virtual machine, we recommend you download Windows 8 Consumer Preview Setup and use the built-in tools for converting an ISO image into installation media, such as a DVD or USB bootable flash drive. You can find additional information, including a list of supported upgrades, in the FAQ.

Note before you download: Windows 8 Consumer Preview is prerelease software that may be substantially modified before it’s commercially released. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to the information provided here. Some product features and functionality may require additional hardware or software. If you decide to go back to your previous operating system, you’ll need to reinstall it from the recovery or installation media that came with your PC.

System Requirements

Windows 8 Consumer Preview works great on the same hardware that powers Windows 7:

  • Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster
  • RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
  • Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
  • Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device or higher
  • To use touch, you need a tablet or monitor that supports multitouch
  • To access Windows Store and to download and run apps, you need an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768
  • To snap apps, you need a screen resolution of at least 1366 x 768
Download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview now

Let us know what you think of it!

Download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview Product Guide for Business

In advance of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview launch later today, Microsoft have posted the Consumer Preview Product Guide for Business.

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The Windows 8 Consumer Preview Product Guide for Business provides a detailed look at the many new and improved features in Windows 8. The guide is designed as an accurate source of information that can help businesses understand how Windows 8 enables users to be ready and productive practically anywhere, allows for a personalized user experience, and provides IT with more secure, easy-to-manage intelligent infrastructure.

Download the Guide from here

WaterField Designs release Sony PlayStation Vita cases

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We are big fans of WaterField Designs here at UWHS having reviewed a number of their cases. Word has reached us that they have just released three cases designed for the Sony PlayStation Vita, and as usual they look very nice!

The PS Vita Case — constructed of ballistic nylon, a double-layered luxurious, leather flap, and a padded, lined interior — stylishly protects the PS Vita for both sophisticated gamers and hobbyists alike. Pockets stow the PS Vita memory cards and the in-ear, audio headset. The naturally-tanned, leather flap is available in four colors: black, brown, kiwi and orange.

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Price: $49.00. Leather flap colors: black, brown, kiwi, orange. Pre-order now for shipping April 1, 2012.

The PS Vita Suede Jacket is washable and light. Made from soft, washable Ultrasuede, the Suede Jacket protects the PS Vita from nicks and bumps and can even be used to clean the PS Vita screen. The minimalist design allows gamers to tote the console in a pants pocket. An optional, stretchable rear, case pocket may hold an audio headset, memory cards or other accessories.

TN-41047_5

Price: $12.00. With stretch pocket: $15.00. Color: black. Available now.

The PS Vita Gear Pouch Pro keeps the active gamer organized and game-ready with the PS Vita and accessories all in one place. The sleek and uniquely-fashioned, nylon case is available in green, silver or tangerine, textured, environmentally-friendly, metallic material, each with a bold stripe. Soft, lightly-padded, interior pockets hold the PS Vita, the cord and USB cable, and the charger. Self-locking zippers keep contents secure. Compact and light, the PS Vita Gear Pouch Pro makes taking entertainment on the road effortless and cool.

TN-41044_2

Price: $45.00. Colors: green, silver, tangerine. Available now.

Learn more from the WaterField Design website

First Windows 8 Consumer Preview application ready to download

Later today Microsoft should be releasing the consumer preview for Windows 8 and they have already released the PlayReady PC Runtime.

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Microsoft PlayReady technology is optimized for the mobile industry to support the growth of online content services, and includes features designed to make it easier than ever for consumers to enjoy mobile digital entertainment. This runtime allows Windows 8 Consumer Preview PC based applications to access PlayReady content using the PlayReady PC Runtime API.

Download the PlayReady application now

Are you excited about the consumer preview later?

StableBit DrivePool Moves to Beta M4 Build 5824

There has been another beta build from CoveCube! StableBit development marches on – now its beta M4 build 5824.

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Here is how CoveCube describes this application:

  • Combine all your hard drives into one big storage pool (except the system drive with the OS).
  • Add and remove drives from the pool at any time without re-partitioning or manually moving folders.
  • Create duplicated folders on the storage drive pool that are protected against single drive failure. If a drive fails on which a duplicated file was stored, the contents of that file will remain readable even without the drive.
  • All your data is stored in standard NTFS files. You can always access your files even if the Windows Home Server completely crashes or this add-in can’t be used.

This version’s change log:

1.0.0.5824 ———-

* [D] Allow simulated volume read.

Get More Information About the Beta Here Download Stablebit Drivepool build 5824 here

Microsoft Flight takes off today

Today is going to be a big day for Microsoft, and it starts now with the launch of Microsoft Flight.

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The sky’s the limit! Now anyone can enjoy the fun, freedom and adventure of flight. Feel the power at your fingertips as you take to the skies and launch into thrilling missions and exciting challenges over the free-to-play Big Island of Hawaii. Take off today and fly into the ever-expanding world of Microsoft Flight.

Learn more from the Microsoft website

I was fortunate to be on the beta and I loved it. I am downloading the release version right now!

Let us know what you think of it.

Amazon Kindle App for Android Updated to 3.4.2

The Amazon Kindle app for Android has been updated again.

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I use the Kindle app all the time on my iPad to read books and I know a number of people who use it on their Android devices, so it is really good to see that real page numbers are finally being used!

What’s New in v3.4.2

  • Tablet users – read more text per page with improved margins and line spacing.
  • Fixed several issues that were causing crashes on some devices.
Download the Kindle App from the Android Market