Gyaati

Many people around this time are upgrading computers and such. Most of them I observe are getting cheated easily by the vendors using Microsoft Windows Vista and other latest software releases as the bait.

I just thought I could help you all by listing here in short what to look for when you want to purchase a "Windows Vista Ready" computer.

1. Intel Pentium D (Dual core) and Intel Core2Duo are not the same. I had to send back three of my friends to their dealers who had tricked them into buying the "latest dual core processor" Pentium D.
2. Go in for a good processor. Start with the entry-mid range and look for the "big leap" as I call it. A "big leap" occurs when the cost of the next best model in the same item class is significantly more than the current model. Say, by a thousand rupees more. This is when you stop looking for the next best model unless the benefit from the next best model is significantly more. Significantly. Come on, can't let all the trade secrets out, can we?
3. After the processor is settled, get in a nice bit of RAM. 1 GB ought to do for most people even today. Those who expect a lot - yes a LOT - of multitasking should go for 2 GB or RAM. Common 2 GB RAM scenarios include: Windows Development, Graphics Design, Audio Engineering, Gaming, etc.
4. The manufacturer (brand) of the RAM module doesn't matter if you don't know to tweak it (commonly known as overclocking). Just make sure it is the fastest of its type. DDR SDRAM (DDR1 now) tops at 400Mhz, DDR2 SDRAM (DDR2) tops at 833Mhz in most places. Even higher in some.
5. Talking about speed of RAM, make sure your motherboard supports your RAM and at the same speeds. Also, check if your processor's "bus speed" is supported. The higher the bus speed of the process, the better the performance. Also look out for more cache in your L2 and L3 of the processor.
6. Your motherboard is very critical to the overall performance of all these independent components. Make sure you get a nice board with as few fancy features as possible. In general, pick one that keeps out a heavy on-board video accelerator, high sound stuff (like a 7.1 or something). We can add the graphics card separately - which is both better performing and offers a higher value for your money.
7. The graphics card can be anything from the 6xxx series to 8xxx series from nVidia. Or any of the X series from ATi. The only thing to watch out for are the cards that are specially modded. Some cards from nVidia come as the LE variant - which is literally a "limited edition". Go for pure cards or the heavy, top-end varieties in the lower range. For example, if you can buy a top-of-the-line 6xxx series in nVidia instead of a entry-mid range 7xxx series, go for the top-of-the-line 6xxx series unless you know what you are doing.
8. Now the hard disk. This piece of hardware is the major limiting factor for your computer. This and RAM are actually the ones that control the speed of your computer like a wall-fan regulator. Better the hard disk, the faster your computer runs overall - right from boot time to shut down.
9. Optical drives are all pretty much the same. Just ask your friends around for the drives and the media they use to write on them. If that combo suits nice, just go ahead and pick it. You would be surprised when you have a look at the number of manufacturers who have sprung up these days.
10. Just pick a nice cabinet you would like on your table. These guys take care of ensuring that most cabinets are well ventilated, so we can just sit back and pick one. Just go in for a higher model of SMPS if you buy a high-end graphics card.

More on this later, looking at posting this differently as well. Hope it helps.

I just had to post this again. Expression Studio comes with Visual Studio Standard Edition too. Also, check out this well compiled Expression Studio FAQ.

Just wanted to post the system requirements here. A pretty interesting read isn't it?

Expression® Studio System Requirements

Windows

• Operating System: Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista™
• Processor: 1.0 Ghz with MMX or equivalent
• Memory: 1 GB RAM
• Hard Drive: 1.5 GB
• Graphics processor: Microsoft® DirectX® 9-capable or DirectX 9.0-capable video card with 256 MB or more of memory-for example, ATI Radeon X300 or NVIDIA GeForce™ 5600 class equivalent or better.
• 1024 x 768 monitor resolution with 24-bit color
• QuickTime 7.1.3
• DVD-ROM drive

Macintosh

• Operating System: Mac OS X version 10.4
• Processor: PowerPC or Intel Core
• Memory: 512MB RAM
• QuickTime 7.1.3
• Monitor set to Millions of Colors
• Hard Drive: 20 MB
• DVD-ROM Drive

I would say that the 1.0 Ghz processing power and 1 GB RAM requirements are a bit too low for running the applications in the suite. But, you can't even call this a minimum system requirement specification because the graphics memory required is a bit on the recommended system requirement specification if there was one.

I personally suggest you go in for a strong processor and get at least 2 GB of RAM for good performance. A strong processor really helps. Trust me. I am not a Mac guy, can someone explain the 20MB hard drive space requirement in the Mac section? Do most Mac applications run like that off the DVD or something? Or is the Mac suite limited? Have to check that out.

This has been a pretty interesting few weeks. Plenty of heavy-weight releases from Microsoft.

1. Longhorn Server
2. Expression Studio
3. Silverlight
4. Expression Blend 2 May Preview

Remember? I am lazy. So, unlike in most other blogs, you wouldn't find that those points up there are linked. And, I wouldn't even bother to talk about these things here. Just go on to http://www.live.com/ and search.

But, beware. Search is information. Information is power. Power is death. Well, eventually :P

Silverlight. ^_^

WPF/E (codename) is now officially Silverlight. What is Silverlight? To quote from the official website: Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.

Since there is already enough talk about this elsewhere. I will limit this post to a simple link pool.

BUZZ
MIX07
Silverlight

DEV
Getting started with Silverlight Streaming
Creating applications for Silverlight Streaming
Silverlight Streaming API reference

Oh, and also, the Expression team has some announcements. They've finished compiling Microsoft Expression Studio and Microsoft Expression Blend 2 May Preview is out with support for Silverlight. Also I suggest you get Microsoft Expression Media Encoder downloaded if you are interested in developing Silverlight applications.

And, guess what, Microsoft now offers a 4GB FREE space at http://streaming.live.com/ for use as a media hub. Awesome stuff, isn't it?

Experiment and discovery. Probably the two most important words in the english language. Not because of how it is spelt or just how it looks, but because of what they mean. Science. Religion. Existance. Ah, where are you?

I am going to start a new experiment from yesterday. Yesterday.

Yesterday - We had Academic Developer Conference Build 2007.1 at Chennai, India. This is the first mega-event in India organized entirely by the Microsoft Student Partners with no help from Microsoft besides the venue. We had sessions on XNA Game Studio Express (by Eshaan Anand, MSP), the Windows Presentation Foundation (by this.Author, MSP Lead), Windows Vista versus Windows XP (by Mohamed Reza, ADE, MSFT and Krishnaa G, MSP Lead) and an Introduction to Microsoft Robotics Studio (by Vishnu, MSP).

I must say the event went well. We had an almost full audience at Vani Mahal (capacity 800). We've got some photos but knowing myself, I really dont think I can summon enough energy to go look for it and put it up here. The XNA GSE session was well recieved - not just because it was the first session of the afternoon. My session on WPF should have included atleast three to four instances where tha audience stand up and clapped till I threw them some goodies. Should have. I really dont know if we can ever push the bar up for most of the people sitting out there in our sessions. All they'd appreciate is goodies. And more goodies. Still more. Much more. Much much more. I must have hit the limit, didn't I?

I like developers and designers, so maybe I can go to !Lazy mode and get you my presentation and demo code uploaded sometime. Sometime. Damn, I'm lazy.

Any big community meet doesn't end without us grabbing tons of food. This time around, it was Subway. We then rolled off home on three wheels and settled down to watch what was to be a world record performance by the Indian national cricket team at the ICC World Cup 2007. I'm not deep into cricket. But every indian has that gene, don't we?