Category: Latest

Well, after about 4 hours of travelling today, I’ve made it to Seattle.

Over the next two days, I will be at Microsoft’s global headquarters, located in Redmond, Washington. I’ll be meeting with people from all across the company, and will have the opportunity to join the Xbox team for a live taping of 1 vs. 100.

Upon arriving at my hotel this afternoon, I was greeted with an envelope containing a welcome letter from Microsoft, and a backpack filled with tons of swag.

In the backpack were the following things:

– ASUS eeePC 1005HA Netbook

– Flip UltraHD Camcorder

– Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath

– The Twitter Book by Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein

– MSDN Cup

– Some pens

– Microsoft Dynamics Pen / Flash Drive / Laser Pointer

– New Microsoft logo’ed backpack

After getting settled into my room, myself, along with two other Insiders who had arrived at the same time (Jeremy Bray of Global Geek News, and Ryan Bucinell of DreamInCode) decided to check out the Redmond Town Center area. After we walked around for a bit, we came back upstairs and chilaxed for a bit until Jeremy had to leave to meet some family for dinner.

Ryan, who had never been to Seattle until today, and myself decided that we’d go to dinner as well, and we made reservations at Anthony’s in Seattle. We had a great evening, great food, and great conversation!

Right now I’m working on getting my laptop all ready to go for tomorrow, and I think I’m going to get some sleep. We’re all heading to Microsoft at 8am.

To stay informed about what’s going on with me and the other Student Insiders, follow along on Twitter using hashtag #MicrosoftSI, and be sure to follow me directly, I’m @tziegmann, and to follow the blog feed, follow @tomontech.

I’ll be taking tons of pictures over the next few days, and you check them out by clicking here.

-Tom

After an extended period of downtime due to my web server being hacked, Tom on Tech is back!

It is my hope that over the next couple weeks to get caught up with posts about Tom on Tech’s coverage of CES, as well as other tech news.

However, I’d like to take to this time to make an announcement. I have been asked by Microsoft to join a new program called the Microsoft Student Insiders.

Here’s the description of the program as provided to me by Microsoft.

Student Insiders is a new program that engages exceptional technical community leaders who voluntarily share their expertise. Insiders are a highly select group and represent the best and brightest technical students with excellent communication skills.  They are committed to community and to helping others. 

As early adopters of new technology, Microsoft Student Insiders actively communicate their experiences to countless of other enthusiasts. Through their extensive involvement and experience, Student Insiders solve problems and discover new capabilities, helping people get the maximum value from their technology.  Student Insiders engages passionate and inspirational students for a specific technology area and provides training for students to gain skills, network, and to grow their impact.

Myself along with 6 other students from across the United States will have the opportunity to work with Microsoft on ways to help you our readers in getting the most from your computing, gaming, and media experiences. While you might be thinking that this means that we are selling ourselves out to be mouthpieces for Microsoft, this is simply not the case. We, as individual blog owners, retain all editorial control over our blogs, and we can post content that is either favorable or unfavorable towards Microsoft. What we gain from the program is the networking and opportunity to become “insiders” in different areas at Microsoft, and we will use these opportunities to produce content that we hope that will provide benefit to our readers and the community as a whole.

I’d also like to take this time to disclose that as a part of the Student Insider program, Microsoft is providing me with an ASUS eeePC 1008HA netbook, and Flip UltraHD Video Camera. Microsoft is also flying me along with the other students to Redmond next week for training and to meet with people from different product groups. Microsoft will also from time to time invite us to different Microsoft-sponsored conferences, and if we attend, Microsoft will cover all expenses relating to conference attendance.

It is my promise to you, my readers, that I will remain as objective as possible, and will try to avoid bias (unless I’m writing a post where opinion is appropriate).

Look for more next week live from Seattle where I’ll be posting and tweeting as often as I can about the new Student Insider program!

-Tom

On Black Friday, I went to the Microsoft Store in Scottsdale to check out their Black Friday deals and to chat with the store’s general manager about an unrelated matter.

While in the store, I couldn’t help playing with a Zune HD while I waited to speak with the manager (who as it turns out, I missed by about 15 minutes). As I was playing with the Zune HD, I was approached by a store employee and we began to chat about the device and its software, and then he mentioned a sweet deal. Buy a Zune HD and get a $100 gift card for use at the Microsoft Store. After he mentioned that, I was hooked. I purchased right there on the spot, and I even spent a little extra to have a custom skin made for my Zune HD.

The Zune HD uses the NVidia Tegra processor which allows for 720p HD output (which requires an optional dock). Also used is flash memory instead of standard hard drives, which help to keep the device small and lightweight. According to Microsoft, the Zune HD weighs 2.6 ounces, and I can definitely say that it is lightweight. I could barely feel it in my pocket.

Once I brought my new Zune HD home, I downloaded the software from Zune.net, and then connected the Zune HD. The software told me that my Zune needed new firmware, so about 5 minutes later, my Zune was all set to have content loaded. I loaded about 1000 songs, and a few movies. I also configured my Zune HD for wireless syncing so I don’t have to use the cable to sync content.

One very cool thing that I noticed was that since  my Zune was configured to connect to my wireless network, the Zune loaded information about my content. For example, I listen to the Eagles. When I selected the Eagles in my artist list, not only did it show me the albums on my Zune, it also showed me their entire discography, bio, and related artists.

Something else that I like is the screen. The screen on the Zune HD is downright beautiful. It’s an OLED screen, requires no backlight, and colors look stunning.

So far I’m very impressed with the Zune HD. I’m working on a detailed review, and should have it and pictures up by the end of this weekend.