Microsoft Quick Hits
Written by Alan Tuesday, 5 October 2010 11:00
There’s been a spate of recent news rolling out of Redmond. Here’s a roundup.
Windows Phone 7
This was recently announced on the Windows Team Blog.
Windows Phone Press Event on October 11th
Today I’m happy to share that invites have been distributed for a press conference with Steve Ballmer and Ralph de la Vega of AT&T that will happen October 11th in New York City. It will be an exciting day, and while we won’t yet have phones available for all to buy, that time is nearing! The day will include remarks from Steve Ballmer and Ralph de la Vega, a demonstration of the new Windows Phone 7 capabilities and a preview of several apps, as well as hands on time with the devices for attending media. Later in the day we will showcase all our consumer offerings at the Microsoft Open House press event that immediately follows the Windows Phone 7 press conference. Windows Phone 7 is nearly here!
Windows Family Pack
Windows 7 Family Pack mad a comeback this week. It’s $149.99 for three (3) licenses of Windows 7 Home Premium. There’s an article explaining it at
It’s back! Microsoft offers discount on Windows 7 Family Pack Upgrade
Windows Photo Contest
With last weeks release of Windows Live Essentials 2011 a contest has been announced. Here’s the details from Microsoft:
Windows Live + Bing Photo Contest
Last week, we announced the release of the new Windows Live Essentials 2011 for everyone to download which includes Messenger, Mail, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Writer, Mesh and Family Safety. To celebrate the release of Windows Live Essentials, the best way to connect your PC to the cloud helping you to share and communicate for free, we are doing a contest with our friends from Bing to highlight Windows Live Photo Gallery.
Photo Gallery is the best place on your PC to organize, edit and share your photos and videos with friends and family and social networks in the cloud. With that in mind, we’re looking for some breathtaking and stunning photos of clouds! We are looking for photos of clouds that somehow illustrate and show how Windows Live connects your PC to the cloud – but in a creative way of course! We then want to put one lucky winner’s photo of clouds on the homepage of Bing for the day! So send in your photos of clouds or anything that relates to clouds – rainbows, thunderclouds, airplanes, orographic clouds, etc. You can take pictures of landscapes, cities, objects, and just about anything so long as clouds are the primary focus of the image.
When taking your photo, you should think about how the photo can draw people in as a starting place for exploring Bing. It should strive for subtlety and poetry. For example, if the photo was taken on a day of celebration, you shouldn’t have to know that it’s Halloween, Columbus Day, or Mother’s Day to enjoy the photo.
Here are the requirements for your photo submissions (5 entries per person):
- No recognizable people.
- No 3rd party trademarks or logos (such as distinctive packaging or building exteriors / interiors) owned by others.
- No objectionable content, such as alcohol, smoking, guns, violence, or nudity.
- No content that is defamatory to any group or individual and/or violates any law.
- JPEG format only.
- Minimum photo dimensions 970px width by 528px height.
- We prefer to have the image submitted in its original size and aspect ratio, which will allow us the most flexibility when sizing and cropping to meet the needs of the homepage.
- Horizontal orientation.
- At least 1MB in size.
- No watermark, signature or photographer name can be included in the image file. The photographer credit for the winner will be added to the page separately.
To enter the contest, send your submissions to WLcontest@hotmail.com by Friday October 22nd, 2010. Your email should include your image(s), image title, short description of the image(s), your first/last name, and a contact email address.
A panel of judges will review all eligible photographs and select winners. 10 winners will be selected to have their photo featured in a Windows 7 Theme Pack to be featured in the Personalization Gallery. The grand prize will be selected that will have their photo featured on the Bing homepage US-English homepage on November 8th, 2010. The winning photographer will be given credit for the photo.
I strongly suggest reading over the complete contest rules and guidelines here before submitting your photos.
Have fun!
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