As Life Goes Digital

If you can prove you are student by just having your school email address then you can download tons of bytes of free Microsoft 2008 software from Microsoft's Dreamspark. This is the place MSFT gives free software for the students.

The current offering available at this location -

Here are all free student software downloads from Microsoft which would otherwise cost many many $$.

> Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
> Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
> SQL Server 2008 Developers Edition
> Expression Studio 2
> XNA Game Studio
> XNA Game Studio
> Microsoft IT Academy Student Pass
> Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition

Other free tools

> Visual C# 2008 Express Edition
> Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition
> Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition
> SQL Server 2008 Express Edition
> Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition
> Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions
> Virtual PC 2007

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Labels: Deals, Dreamspark, free, microsoft

Wixi is a web-based service that users will be able to access it from practically any device (iPhone version on http://iphone.wixi.com). Users can access any time, anywhere, and from any device the media content without installing any application. Good news is that service is available for free for life for users who registers on their site before October 1' 2008. This unlimited storage is as per writings on their website and may be differently interpreted.

Web users who register within 1 month of the launch will enjoy the benefits of unlimited file storage for free. Beginning in October, new members will enjoy 3 GB of media storage on the network for free, or opt for Wixi's premium service, which will allow unlimited file storage for $4.99 per month and $50 per year.

Some of the not so good news --

-> Does not work in Chrome, Not compatible with Google Chrome, Safari and Opera. No opera then Wii users not be able to view these media files on their TVs through Wii Opera browser with wi-fi internet channel.
->If you were not the original uploader the you won’t be able to download a file.
-> Files greater than 100 MB are now restricted from public sharing - you’ll have to be someone’s friend if you want to stream a large file from their account, which makes movie sharing difficult.
-> Only media files and some users reporting problems storing zip and pdf files,

Alternative Free Unlimited Storage websites

1) Stixy - For To-dos, Notes, Reminders, photos and file sharing

To share a Stixyboard with friends, family, or your colleagues at work, is as easy as it gets. Sometimes it’s nice or in fact necessary to have an online space for common photos, reminders, files, and so forth. Each Stixyboard has a unique set of members. No one else can see or use your board unless you choose to open your board for public view.

2) Seetoo - Two friends can watch the media file.

3) Google Spreadsheets and Zoho Sheet -- Collaboration of files in real time.
Users can simultaneously work on the same spreadsheet and see the changes made by each other in real time. Check the browser compatibility.

4) Jooce - Virtual desktop like Cyber home away from home.

“Load up your browser-based Jooce desktop with files, music, videos, IM buddy lists, and anything else you might need and you can get to it just by logging in. And Jooce looks and feels like a real desktop, with a slick UI and good responsiveness.”

Currently, there is no limit to the number and size of files you can upload onto your jooce desktop. That’s right, it’s unlimited. So go forth and upload to your heart’s content.

5) Dropbox - good for file storage and membership by invite only

6) Foldershare from Microsoft -- Sharing files and complaints of cheesy interface

7) ADrive - with PCLinuxOS & Firefox - 50GB free storage

Do you use any other file sharing/storage/collaboration sites ? Please share with others via comments.

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Labels: Deals, free, Google, Google Chrome, IPhone, microsoft, Safari, Web application, World Wide Web, Zoho

A new innovative challenge from Google to increase the user base for Google apps in engineering and MBA colleges.

From India's GoogleApp team :

1. Sign up for the challenge by September 15, 2008.
2. Get approval from your college's administration to implement Google Apps by October 15, 2008.
3. Work with your IT department to implement Google Apps by December 15, 2008.
4. Achieve the highest level of Google Apps usage amongst all participating colleges by January 31, 2009 to be declared the challenge winner!

Here is video of Kellogg ( Northwestern University, Chicago, US) director of technology talks about how they have benefited using Google Apps for their intranet IT solutions:



This in my opinion is good for colleges as Google will assign one Google employee to each team to help answer questions through out the challenge. Drawback is that they are targeting only Engineering and MBA colleges. Google is trying hard to push collaboration tools like its "Google Talk" , "Google Mail" to compete with "Microsoft Instant Messenger", "Outlook" as Microsoft dominates the corporate as well university accounts.

To learn more about GoogleApps watch this video from google - Googleapps Youtube video:

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Image by Getty Images via DaylifeSays who ? The report from John Miano titled -- The H1B Visa Sham -- discussed the mismatch between number of H1-B visas approved for the fiscal year and the number of jobs created in that industry (both computers and engineering).

As opposed to popular belief John's argument is that there is no direct relationship between H1-Bs and their job creation. Is this measurable ? I doubt it as you cannot just count numbers from the same industry. It is possible that as a result of H1-Bs the jobs are created in related industries if not in the computer industry. This is difficult to quantify.

H1-Bs approvals are 16000 where as jobs lost is 76000 -- This to some extent may account for H1-Bs converting to permanent residents and the conversion is not accounted for. Probably H1-Bs are filling the jobs of once H1-bs but now legal residents.

large percentage of those who legally enter United States on H-1B visas go into the illegal alien pool -- No wonder we hear daily the companies scams and their arrests news. Recently Nilesh Dasondi of Cygate Software & Consulting Inc illegally sponsored visas for six people and they came to US and never worked on H1-Bs.

John's report may be very well true but statistics presented may tell us a different story that a person obtaining H1-B in California usually doesn't work in California but may go to some other city which I think was happening for the unaccounted numbers.

Overall the report puts the focus on numbers mismatch with the reality. correct measures (or system) are required to track this H1-B non-immigrants.

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Labels: California, Employment, H-1B visa, Immigration, John Miano, microsoft, RAND, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, United States

To compete with Google in ad space Microsoft unveiled its plan to give users who buy from livesearch links the advertised cashbacks. First thing is to set up your free cashback account using your email address. Buy the products from the stores listed through live search link. Microsoft pays you advertised % off to your cashback account.

I feel for deal mongers instead of coupon clippings and searching through deal sites for deals, Microsoft is making the job easier by combining the power of "Price Grabber" comparison with discounts shown right away. At least this is much better than Mail In Rebates (MIR) or online coupon codes. MIR is pain and needs discipline and patience to get back the checks. Online coupon codes gets expired from time to time and finding them is a challenge. The only doubt is that if all merchants will participate in this and can give good cashback percent to the consumers.

Also there are so many deal opportunities for instance find a good deal from sites like slickdeals or FatWallet or Deals2Buy and then use livesearch link to knock off few more dollars on your buy making the deal much more sweeter.

Here are listed top merchants and % of cashback you can get :



I've tried "Wii Fit" and market price for this item is $89.99, Any deal thats better than the listed price is deal worthy.

-> Go to this link
-> Search for item (say) WII FIT

Here is what search results and cash back is $1.70.

Labels: ads, Deals, microsoft

If you are a student you can avail this opportunity to get free software from Microsoft.

DreamSpark has partnered with JourneyEd to verify U.S. students at schools throughout the country. JourneyEd will help you through a simple verification process – it will be just like an online purchase, but it will cost you nothing. At the end of the process you’ll get an email with your personal verification link back to DreamSpark. Click here to get started.

Link 1 here

Link 2 here

Labels: Deals, free, microsoft

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Update : Morning - Feb'26'2008 Hotmail is not accessable
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This morning February 06 2008 when I tried logging on to my hotmail account it failed with the following error.




I hope this outage is not big as the one that was reported back in 2005 where a large chunk of hotmail users (165 million) who lost their new and saved messages. I pay yearly $19.99 as hotmail is my primary personal mail account which gives me some peace of mind as a paid user but last outage wiped out accounts of even paid users.

Here is embarrassing Microsoft outage that is worth reading

In 1999 -- Microsoft is rescued by a Linux programmer from an outage

Microsoft owes a small debt of gratitude to a lone Linux programmer.

The software giant confirmed today that its popular Hotmail email network was partially paralyzed over the Christmas holiday when it failed to pay a $35 registration fee for the domain name Passport.com.

As previously reported, the oversight was remedied by Linux programmer Michael Chaney, who covered the payment with his personal credit card. Within hours, Hotmail was back online.

Labels: microsoft