There are 4 people in this group namely andrea, andrew, brian and zahn who are here to answer your queries. So if you have a twitter account and use Windows 7 or are planning to get one this is the best way to get it through.

Got a Question on Windows 7 ? Ask MicrosoftHelps@Twitter by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on November 2, 2009, 1:17 pm. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

For example if you are building a website using WordPress or Sugar CRM, can you think what are the things you need to make it run ? Database ? Server ? Arggg there are too many things and this is exactly what Microsoft Web Platform is trying to solve for you and You can check out the number of applications that are included with the installer.

You can download the installer from here and then you can install the most famous applications or web apps using this tool. After you download it, it would go through minimum configurations and then you would be greeted by this screen which would list out the latest Web Platform Products.

Like you can see above, you can select any of the web applications which is well categorized into Blogs, Content management, e-commerce etc and install it locally into your computer. This application will take care of installing the latest and complete required products like database, server, frameworks etc and will make it ready for you in minutes.

Microsoft Web Platform is definitely a nice tool for people who use windows and still want to try other products which run on environments like Linux etc and is a golden bullet for installing everything in a shot.

Microsoft Web Platform : Turbocharge to build and run Web sites and applications on Windows by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on October 21, 2009, 5:44 pm. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• Learn whether you have the symptoms of H1N1 flu (swine flu)
• Help you decide what to do next

As seen on the about page of h1n1 swine flu Response Center –

“H1N1 (Swine flu) Response Center is an online service that helps people learn whether they have the symptoms of H1N1 flu (swine flu) and gives guidance about next steps.

The self-assessment questions and guidance were developed by experts at Emory University, based on their research. The Web site was created by Microsoft.

The site aims to help people make informed decisions about seeking access to medical care when they’re sick with flu symptoms. By effectively “triaging” potential flu cases online, patients, health care providers, and the public can help limit their exposure to the flu virus as well as wait times for health care services.”

This tool takes you through a questionnaire and based on the options you chose, it suggests you whether you should meet a doctor or not.

So, go ahead and check it out, next time you doubt your flu to be H1N1, try out this tool.

Visit h1n1 swine flu Response Center

Microsoft Launches H1N1 Response Center by Manav Mishra originally appeared on Technospot.Net on October 11, 2009, 2:53 pm. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Here is another list of Shortcuts; most of them are basic shortcuts which could be quite helpful to you, if you work with Excel pretty often.

Print and Preview Documents using shortcut keys –

Work in print preview –

Outline data by using shortcut key –

Keys for menus –

Keys for using the Office Assistant –

Keys for toolbars –

Hope you find them useful, go ahead and get them printed to keep handy.

Basic MS Excel Shortcuts every user should know by Manav Mishra originally appeared on Technospot.Net on September 30, 2009, 12:21 am. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

No-doubt MS Office comes with several good looking and wide range of templates, but at times they might not suffice your requirements. Here I have tried to enlist some resources which allow you to download free PPT templates, have a look.

#1 Free PPT Templates

Here you can find several PPT Templates for free. These templates are categorized in categories like

• Abstract, Medicine, Nature, Patterns, Shapes, Textures
• Genera, Maps, Globes, and  Color PowerPoint Templates.

List of latest templates can be found on the homepage itself, as shown below. Download it from here

#2 Free PowerPoint templates @ Presentation Helper –

This resource has several templates to suit your PPT template needs, there are several PPT templates and categorized as, Business, Transport, Sports, Maps, Wedding etc. Hundreds of awesome templates can be found here for free download. Download it from here

#3 Free PowerPoint Templates for Microsoft PowerPoint @ Sonia Coleman’s Digital Studio –

Here you can find loads of free templates for download, there are premium templates as well, but that will require an active subscription (paid).

Free templates have sub categories, and clicking on any sub category you will be redirected to page which has all the templates under that particular category, also if you want you can download all the templates under the particular category in one go, and save as a zip file. Download these templates from here

It has 12 template sets, i.e. 12 sub categories for templates.

#4 TemplatesWise.com –

Another awesome resource for templates download, here you can choose to browse by category, categories are –

• Abstract PowerPoint Templates
• Business PowerPoint Templates
• Finance PowerPoint Templates
• General PowerPoint Templates
• Nature PowerPoint Templates
• Travel PowerPoint Templates

Download it from here

#5 PowerPoint Templates and Backgrounds @ Brainy Betty –

Here you will find 100s of free PowerPoint backgrounds, ready to download PowerPoint backgrounds (no exactly templates), this resource has really some lovely templates, and there are several animated backgrounds from different domains which can be used in your PowerPoint presentations.

#6 POWERBACKS –

POWERBACKS claims to have 120 Free Templates for PowerPoint, all you need to do is click on any category for which you need the template, and later you can download them all in one click. Download it from here

If you search around there could be several resources for downloading PPT Templates, these were the ones I liked, some of them have facility to download multiple templates, some have some very different kind of templates etc.

If you know some other resource which has something unique in them, do share with us in comments.

Best Resources to download free PowerPoint Templates by Manav Mishra originally appeared on Technospot.Net on September 23, 2009, 9:55 pm. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

There are 3 ringtones and each of them has different mood set and perfect for ringtone. Not long not short. You can download the ringtones officially from Bing Tones which comes with an installation guide to copy it to your phone.

However I would like to have more ring tones with more variety and MS should spend sometime on this if they really want to get Bing Ringtones into phones for longer time.

When I asked Manav , this is what he said :

Well pretty different and unique kinda stuff. Can be good for some test riding it for sometime but there are couple of things missing :

• Less instruments, You gotta make it a hype you need to make it more live.
• Something more than bing bing bing. Well a little more.

But still you should give it a try and give your feedback. Give it a try!!!

So I guess MS should start a survey to get more input so if they are really planning to use ringtones for marketing strategy, this is the right time to start.

Download Bing Ring tones by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on June 7, 2009, 8:41 pm. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Update : Also you can add it on Firefox using this addon https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12205

Bing.com has many interesting  features of what I liked mos about was the text snippet and related links it shows for every search result. Pretty awesome. Gives you more insight of the page you might visit

You can also use advanced search of Bing to limit yourself to any domain, country or language. This way you can make your search narrower and chances are you woould get much accurate search result.

There are lot more features in Bing, which I will be covering in next post to see how it can benifit you more. Till then make it your default search engine in IE

Make Bing as default search engine in IE and FF by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on June 2, 2009, 12:08 am. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We had talked a lot about Windows 7 but not the multi touch section. Doing everything with touch is in built in Windows 7, we just need the right device. Slowly the softwares will grow up which will be built keeping the touch features in mind.

As an example today Windows Blog announced Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 . Touch pack is set of six multi-touch optimized applications and games that are designed to showcase the power of Windows 7.

• Microsoft Surface Globe
• Microsoft Surface Collage
• Microsoft Surface Lagoon
• Microsoft Blackboard
• Microsoft Rebound
• Microsoft Garden Pond

Last 3 of which are games.

I hadn’t got a chance to grab my hand on one of such device but this year I should have one which works with Windows 7.

So now the next obvious question is are we ready for Multi Touch and are there enough softwares availble which can utitlize the power of multi touch ? Would you be investing in Touch devices or would wait couple of years more to see it  growing  ?

Are We ready for Multi-Touch laptops and desktops ? by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on May 29, 2009, 4:58 am. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• Office Development in Visual Studio 2010
• Multi-targeting create an application that works even for lower version of .Net Framework  even if you have developed it for high version.
• Parallel Computing
• Workflow Foundation
• Multi-targeted Silverlight development
  
• Editable design surface for Silverlight.

You can check out the video on Downloading and Installing this version of Visual Studio 2010 and Framework 4 here

Download Visual Studio 2010 and .Net Framework 4.0

Download Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Free by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on May 22, 2009, 8:21 am. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

For example errors like It takes much longer than expected to download an e-mail message from a POP3 server in Outlook 2007 or You tried to set up your Xbox 360 console as a Media Center Extender, but the Setup program did not start can be solved with just one click.

Fix small windows problem

Fix it has introduced a Vista gadget which runs on Vista and Windows 7 as well but seems there is no dektop application for Windows XP.

Fix it is a good solution for many people. Since you dont need to install or do any manual work it works out very smooth. Just run the file you get for a particular solution and you are done. This should solve problems for most of the people and you should save yourself from calling the support.

Fix It: Quick solution for Small Windows Problem by Ashish Mohta originally appeared on Technospot.Net on April 21, 2009, 7:03 am. Please see our terms for use of feeds.