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Imagine Cup 2011–Day 1–Opening Ceremony

Imagine Cup 2011 – Day 1

Tonight in New York City, Steve Ballmer along with Jon Perera, General Manager of Microsoft Education, Arthur VanderVeen, CEO of the Office of Innovation at the New York Department of Education, Jeffrey Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and Dennis Crowley, co-founder and CEO of Foursquare officially opened the 2011 Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals.

The energy in the room was electric. The passion and the excitement from the students here is incredible. As soon as Ballmer’s name was announced the noise level in the room intensified. It was crazy.

Ballmer talked to the students about how they are in a business that is constantly working to change the world. He talked about the importance of the cloud and the impact it is having on the world and the students’ projects by enabling real time collaboration, commerce, and social interaction. Ballmer also talked about how devices of the future would be dynamic, faster performing, and include more sensors and do more things. Ballmer also mentioned that Natural User Interfaces would open up new possibilities and enable even more people to use computers.

To close out his remarks, Ballmer gave the students three key pieces of advice. The first is that ideas matter. When you come up with an idea make note of it. Stick with it. The second is to be passionate about what your idea and what you do. The third is to be tenacious. Don’t give up. Stick with it and see the idea through until the end.

Jeffrey Sachs then came to the stage and talked to the students about how the world has changed and there are many challenges that we face. These challenges range from strain on world food supplies to population growth, climate change, hunger, and others. He told students they were being given a lifetime homework assignment, and that this assignment was to find ways to better the world and to solve these tough challenges.

To close out the evening, Dennis Crowley came to the stage and talked to the students about sticking with their ideas and seeing them through. He talked about his experience with startups and said that Foursquare’s success is “built off of 10 years of failure.” He told students to never give up on their ideas and that even if the present wasn’t the best time for their idea, it could be a year from now, two years for now, or even ten years from now, but to be persistent and stick with it.

Tomorrow the competition begins.

Taking a bite out of the Big Apple

I’ve arrived in New York City for the 2011 Microsoft Imagine Cup. For those of you just joining us, the Microsoft Imagine Cup is the premier student technology competition. I tend to tell people that it’s the Olympics of technology.

At the Imagine Cup, the top students from around the world come together to compete against each other in categories such as Software Design, Game Design, Embedded Development, and the Windows Phone 7 challenge just to name a few.

I’ll be here covering five teams and their progress throughout the Worldwide Finals. My teams are as follows:

The Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals begin this Friday, July 8th and end Wednesday, July 13th.

For more on Imagine Cup please visit www.imaginecup.com, or search for #ImagineCup on Twitter. You can also follow me on Twitter, @tziegmann, to follow along this week as well.

Microsoft Office 365: First Impressions

Yesterday in New York City, Steve Ballmer announced the general availability of Microsoft Office 365.

Office 365 is the long-awaited successor to Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS). BPOS at the core was Exchange Server 2007 and SharePoint Server 2007 in the cloud. Also included was Office Live Meeting which could be used for hosting conference calls and presentations.

Office 365 in some ways is an evolution of BPOS, but there is so much more to Office 365 that I see it as an entirely new offering. The offerings in Office 365 are much improved from a cloud services architecture standpoint I’ve included a chart below listing the differences between the two products.

With Office 365, collaboration and communication are on a whole other level. By combining Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync in a cloud solution, Microsoft has made it easy for small businesses to have access to enterprise size technologies at a reasonable price and without having to deal with any of the infrastructure, licensing, and personnel overhead.

What do I mean by enterprise size technologies? Let’s take a look.

Mail, Contacts, and Calendar powered by Exchange 2010
Instant Messaging, Live Meetings, and Audio / Video conferencing powered by Lync 2010
Collaborative Team Sites powered by SharePoint 2010

Best part about Office 365 though, is that they have a pricing model to fit everyone’s needs. Starts out at $2/user all the way up to $27/user based on the services provided. For small businesses and individuals, it’s only six bucks a month!

I’m currently in the process of migrating my single person Google Apps account to Office 365 and will then be migrating my personal e-mail over and then I’ll be relying entirely on the cloud. So far so good. The only hitch I have run into is that I signed up as a partner and there is a bit of a lag between account setup and when the actual licenses show up and are available to be used. Not a big deal. Other than that, I strongly recommend that users keep control of their DNS settings and manually set the appropriate Office 365 settings. I’ve seen too many comments in the Office 365 forums about inability to modify when MS Online has control.

Once I start using Office 365 on a daily basis, I’ll post more of my thoughts, but so far, it’s been pain free.

For more on Office 365, visit http://www.office365.com

If by some chance, you’re a small business in Arizona, and want to talk more about Office 365 and how it might fit in your business, send me an e-mail. tom (at) tomontech (dot) com

Imagine Cup 2011–Team Argitech (Spain)

As we near the start of the 2011 Imagine Cup World Finals next week, it’s time to introduce the final team in this series.

Please extend a warm welcome to Team Argitech of Spain. The members of Team Argitech are Aitor Akizu Santacruz, Javier Sierra Navarro, Josu Lopex Olivenza, and mentor Xabier Mardaras.

Team Argitech is competing in the Embedded Development category with their project, Smart Light.

Smart Light is a management system for use with public street lighting systems. By gathering real-time data, the lighting grid can dynamic enable or disable lighting based on need. The premise of the system is that power consumption can be reduced thereby saving municipalities money.

I’m intrigued by their project, and I’m excited to see it in person and learn more. I see some real potential here.

For more about Team Argitech and Smart Light, stay tuned right here July 8th-13th.

Imagine Cup 2011–Team NeaSoft (Italy)

Today, I’d like to introduce you to Team NeaSoft from Italy, and their project OMCR.

Team NeaSoft hails from Naples, Italy, and their team name means “New Software.” (Nea meaning “new” in Greek.) The team is lead by Clemente Giorio, a current Microsoft Student Partner, and is joined by Raffaele Galiero, Marta Ponari, and mentor Sergio Di Martino. Clemente and Raffaele are students at Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, and Marta is a student at Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli.

With over 16 million people in the European Union suffering from motor disabilities, Team NeaSoft is working to bridge the digital divide to enable these individuals to communicate, learn, and be entertained.

OMCR (Oculorum Moto Computer Regere) aims to be a tool of expression for those with disabilities. Team NeaSoft is aiming to simplify the computing experience for those that currently do not have the ability to use a computer.

For more on Team NeaSoft, stay tuned here, July 8th-13th, and join them on Facebook to keep up-to-date.

Imagine Cup 2011–IT Challenge–Sinescu Ionut (Romania)

One of the best things about the Microsoft Imagine Cup is the variety of competition categories that span all of Microsoft’s technologies. One such category is the IT Challenge.

The IT Challenge tests competitor’s skills and knowledge about everything IT. Competitors are given a case study on an organization and have to write a document telling the judges exactly how they would meet this organization’s needs. If they do well and move on to the final round, the competition heats up.

From the Microsoft Imagine Cup website:

“This lab will challenge you to build servers, server images, and configurations on a Hyper-V host server to prove your practical knowledge and experience with the technologies. You will be asked to setup, install, and demonstrate knowledge and expertise around Windows 2008 R2, Exchange 2010, Windows 7, Office 2010, System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2, System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, TMG 2010, SQL 2008 R2, Office Communications Server 2007 R2, etc. You will be given 24 hours to complete the hands-on lab challenge.”

One such competitor is Sinescu Ionut, a student at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Romania. Sinescu will be competing against five other students in what Sincescu calls “a one man show” of information technology excellence.

For more on Sinescu, feel free to check out his blog (in Romanian), or visit him on Facebook.

Suddenly being a tattle-tale is cool

Recently, a friend and fellow Microsoft enthusiast, Robert McLaws, had gone to an AT&T store to check out Windows Phone. Much to his dismay, the demo unit was in a location out of sight and wasn’t even plugged in. When he spoke with a sales rep, that individual tried talking him out of Windows Phone and into Android.

Not happy with this, McLaws began to talk with different people only to find out that they were having the same type of experience. He decided that there needed to be a way for people to share their experiences in hopes of Microsoft and the mobile carriers taking notice.

He created Windows Phone Tattletale, a website where people can post what happened to them when they inquired about Windows Phone from their carrier or nearest reseller.

As a proponent of Windows Phone myself, I think having a website like this can be a great catalyst for change. Already Microsoft has admitted to retail sales not being in good shape and goes on to use the excuse that things should improve when Nokia begins selling Windows Phone. Their statement makes me want to say, “Shame on you Microsoft. Shame on you. You’re doing your current partners and potential customers a disservice by saying that things won’t improve until Nokia joins the party.”

When it comes to the success or failure of Windows Phone, there is a shared responsibility. Microsoft, the mobile carriers, the hardware partners, and the independent retailers all play a role. Microsoft needs to improve its efforts to get people past the stigma of a) “Windows” (people hear it and think Windows running on a phone), b) the Kin disaster, and c) Windows Mobile. The mobile carriers need do to more to train their direct sales people on Windows Phone and provide better marketing and visibility of the platform. The hardware partners need to do better quality assurance on their hardware (see Samsung Focus), and the independent retailers need to provide better training for their employees.

If you’ve had an experience (good or bad) at retail with Windows Phone, I strongly recommend you share it over at Windows Phone Tattletale. The more data that can be gathered the better, I say.

Imagine Cup 2011–Team Software4Life (Spain)

Earlier this week, I introduced you to the first of five teams competing in the 2011 Microsoft Imagine Cup, Team Note-Taker. Today, I’m going to introduce you to Team Software4Life from Spain.

Team Software4Life is made up of Cristian, team mentor, and Luis, Pedro, Cesar, and Gonzalo. Their project is called WaterSense, and the goal is to streamline the availability of drinking water. Why is a project like this needed, you ask? In some areas of the world, drinking water is not as plentiful as it is in developed nations.

WaterSense aims to change this with their 3-part solution. The first part is WaterSense Mobile. This is a tool designed to be used by volunteers in developing countries to identify potential water shortages. The second component is WaterSense NGO. This is what is used by NGOs to examine and analyze the data collected by volunteers through WaterSense Mobile. The final piece is a social component called WaterSense FB. This component lives on Facebook and enables users to see where projects are going on and enables users to donate and track where their donations are going.

This is one project that I am incredibly curious to see in person. Water is an absolute necessity for life, and I believe that any project that can bring clean drinking water to those who need it is worthy of praise.

For more on WaterSense, I strongly encourage you to visit their Facebook page, YouTube channel, and stay tuned here for more from New York City.

Imagine Cup 2011–Team Note-Taker (USA)

The Worldwide Finals of the 2011 Imagine Cup by Microsoft will be upon us in about three weeks. Over these next few weeks, I’ll be introducing you to some select teams that will be competing July 8th-13th in New York City.

Today, I’ll be introducing Team Note-Taker. Team Note-Taker is based out of the Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing (CUbiC) at Arizona State University.

Led by team leader David Hayden and Mentor John Black, along with Shashank Srinivas, Michael Astrauskas, and Qian Yan, Team Note-Taker has created a portable assistive device consisting of a robotic camera, a tablet PC, and Microsoft OneNote 2010.

Inspiration for this project comes from David Hayden who is legally blind and decided he was not going to let his blindness get in the way of pursuing a dual degree in both Computer Science and Mathematics.

The Note-Taker presents its users with a split-screen view of live video from the camera and a Microsoft OneNote notebook. By using gestures (pinch to zoom, tap to focus, etc.) users can control the camera and take notes at the same time.

By using a solution such as the Note-Taker, students who are vision impaired can reduce the time and struggle in keeping up with their sighted peers in classes.

The Note-Taker is an innovative approach combining software and hardware in an easy to use way and at an affordable price point.

Team Note-Taker took first place in the Software Design category of the US Imagine Cup finals. Will they take it all the way in New York City? Stay tuned right here to find out!

(All images property of their respective owners. Imagine Cup logo, property Microsoft Corporation, Team Note-Taker photo, property Microsoft Corporation, Note-Taker prototypes photo, property Wired.)

Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 | Part 2: Installation

In Part 1 of this series, I introduced you to Windows MultiPoint Server 2011. Today, in Part 2, I’ll show you just how easy it is to get setup with MultiPoint Server 2011.

System Requirements (minimum)

2 GHz 64-bit processor with at least two cores
2 GB RAM
32GB Hard Drive space
DVD Drive for installation

For more on system requirements, I recommend reviewing the Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 Planning Guide.

Installation

The initial setup for MultiPoint Server 2011 is straight forward. Starts out with the ever familiar Windows 7 / Server 2008 R2 setup process and then leads into a customized Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE) for MultiPoint Server 2011.

Post-Install

After installation and OOBE have completed, display drivers need to be installed as well as any other drivers necessary for the proper function of the MultiPoint Server. After drivers and Windows Updates were installed, I rebooted and was greeted by the MultiPoint Manager. MultiPoint Manager is the central console for managing any and all MultiPoint servers on the network.

In part 3, we’ll take a deeper look at MultiPoint Manager.