Recently I learned ASP.Net, Its really nice technology for web application development. Google’s Orkut is ASP.Net application. But i just seen the webserver details of Orkut, they are running linux OS !!. I just shocked to see the working of ASP.Net on linux platform. So i did a bit research for it.

There exists one open source .Net development framework for Open source lovers, named MONO. Most probably Google is using Mono on their Linux servers to run the ASP.Net application.

According to Wikipedia,

Mono is a free and open source project led by Novell to create an Ecma standard compliant, .NET-compatible set of tools, including among others a C# compiler and a Common Language Runtime. Mono can be run on Linux, BSD, UNIX, Mac OS X, Solaris and Windows operating systems.

We can also use .htaccess file of linux servers to give any extension to serving pages to fool the users, this might be the case with orkut, but the WordPress developer Matt Mullenweg have seen many ASP.Net error pages on orkut in early days of orkut. (Ignore fatal error on Matt’s blog). so we can say that Google is orkut using ASP.Net for Orkut.

Google’s survey site i.e. survey.googleratings.com is using Microsoft IIS to serve the dynamic ASP.Net pages, so will Google use the ASP.Net technology in future for few more products ? It will be really interesting to see whats next.

After bad performance of Windows vista, Microsoft was looking for someone who will take place of its flagship product i.e. Windows XP. Microsoft already stopped retail sales of windows XP and also moved its support from mainstream support to extended support. In 2014 microsoft will end support for windows XP family and updates & security releases will be terminated.

Windows vista was one of the major flop in Microsoft’s history, but still it is the one who gave new look and feel to Microsoft’s windows lineup. Its awesome Aero looks and many such features gave a windows a new and fresh look.

Taking all good points from Windows vista, Microsoft developed a new operating system called windows 7. Windows vista bootup time was very high but here at windows 7, its very less. Microsoft improved many such features of windows vista to make this featured packed Windows 7.

New in Windows 7 :

Windows media player 12
New improved taskbar
Multi touch facility
Improved support for SSD [Solid State Drives]

Not in Windows 7

Few programs like Windows movie maker, windows calender, Photo gallery are removed from windows 7.

System requirements

More resources :

Windows 7 home page at Microsoft.com
Windows 7 page at Wikipedia

My most favorite Windows 7 advert

Toronto-based company i4i Inc won the patent war against Microsoft. Actually i4i Inc own a patent of reading the documents formatted with XML (Extended Markup Language). But the Microsoft word have capacity to read such documents which is against the patent policies.

Now, Microsoft can not sell or import the Microsoft word software which have capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML. XML allows users to customize the format of word-processing documents, enabling them to be read by various word-processing programs. Court forced Microsoft to pay over $290 million to i4i Inc. !!

You can read more and detailed information about this incident here at Seattle PI.This page contains legal details about this petition and also contains the judge’s decision in depth.

Microsoft.. yes. One of the biggest software company providing you the chance to learn directly from there experts. Microsoft Virtual TechDays is an event where we can learn some of the new technologies directly from Microsoft professional and yes,, Free of cost. !!

Microsoft Virtual TechDays will be held between August 19 to 21 [2009]. The registration is open and free. Just go to VirtualTechDays.com register yourself using “Live” account and get ready to get the knowledge about latest Microsoft technologies.

This event will be held on august 19 to 21 , timings are from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM (GMT+5:30 i.e. IST). Actually there will be broadcast of various seminars during this time (see the event agenda) This broadcast can be viewed online with internet connection with download speed of 256kbps or higher. To view the Live Meeting Sessions, you are required to and install the Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 client and silverlight.

Expert speakers are there for taking the sessions. These sessions are interactive, means you can ask questions directly and can participate in other interactive events like polls, etc.

The main highlight of the session is Windows 7 and Silverlight 3, both are the latest products by Microsoft. They are also covering topics like Cloud computing, .Net fundamentals, Web development, and many such new technologies.

In my city i.e. Nagpur, several colleges will be showing this sessions on projector screens, this facility is provided because most of the students dont have high speed internet connections at there home. I will watch these sessions at home as i have BSNL unlimited broadband plan with the download speed of 256kbps though college timings are clashing with the session timings, still i will try to attend maximum sessions.

NOTE: If you have bandwidth limited broadband connection don’t watch the sessions on such connections, go to any friend’s home who have unlimited broadband connection to watch it, else it will eat up the whole bandwidth and the free session will turn into paid sessions for you (in form of internet bills).

Download windows live writer

Download WLR.
Home page of WLR.
System requirements of WLR

The windows live writer provides features like uploading image directly, formatting the text, adding links etc etc.

Few of the best features of Windows live writer provided are:

• Instant uploading of images with awesome effects to the images
• Croping, resizing, tilting of images with single click.
• Spell check for more than 20 languages.
• Live preview of post.
• Support to Plugins which will enhance your experience with Windows Live writer (visit:Windows live gallery for plugin list)

But currently it do not have support to WordPress All in one seo pack and similar plugins, so to add such custom fields you need to login to your wordpress admin area.

I think you should try windows live writer if you are blogger. Its amazing experience to use it. Simple and awesome.

Microsoft is now planning to enter into every field, from Software to now launched Bing search engine with big bang, and now here is the software for blogger. They are planning to make themselves as the major player in computer industry. so lets see whats next..