Windows 10 features - what's new and cooking in Windows 10

Windows 10 will be free for existing Windows users running versions of the OS, going back to Windows 7. That includes Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows Phone. Microsoft specified the Windows 10 upgrade would be free for the first year of release, but users would need to pay for it after that. However, Microsoft will support the upgrade for the "lifetime of the device," according to the announcement.

"We want to make Windows 10 the most loved release of Windows," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at the event. "We are going to have services everywhere. But when it comes to Windows, we're not bolting on apps."

One of the biggest announcements was a new web browser for Windows 10, codenamed "Project Spartan". It'll be the primary browser in Windows 10 and will be available on PCs, tablets and phones.

Microsoft's Corporate Vice President of the Operating Systems Group, Joe Belfiore, showed off some of the new features in Windows 10. Microsoft had already announced it would bring back the much-missed Start Menu, but Belfiore revealed it would also have a full-screen mode that includes more of the Windows 8 Start screen. He also said Windows machines would go back and forth between to two menus in a way that wouldn't confuse people.

Windows 10 will have two versions of the resurrected Start Menu, a familiar one with some "Modern" tiles and a full-screen version show here.

IMAGE: MICROSOFT

Belfiore also showed a new notification center for Windows, which puts a user's notifications in an Action Center menu that can appear along the right side, similar to how notifications work in Apple OS X.

We also learned more about Continuum, the feature in Windows 10 that will help so-called hybrid devices change from mode to mode. Removing a keyboard from a tablet like the Surface Pro 3, say, will call up a dialog box asking if the user wants to switch to tablet mode.

Cortana comes to the PC

Microsoft is also bringing Cortana to the PC with Windows 10. Users will be able to access it via a search bar next to the Windows logo in the taskbar.

Describing Cortana as an "extra member of the family," Belfiore showed how users could ask her to play music, answer queries ("Who will win the Super Bowl?" "Show me photos from December") and even launch apps and open specific files, like a PowerPoint deck you've been working on.

Belfiore showed how Windows 10 would work on devices smaller than 8 inches, which would have a special version of the OS tuned to the precise touch capabilities needed. Calling such devices great "companions" to a PC, they'll have integrated messaging, including Skype, which would work together with apps on the PC.

As an example of Universal Windows Apps, which are apps that provide a multi-modal experience across devices, Belfiore showed off revamped mobile versions of Microsoft Office. 

The Office suite for Windows 10 will include a new Outlook mail client, and the Office apps will work together across devices — when you want to project a PowerPoint presentation from a phone to a PC, for example.

Windows 10 will also have a new way to handle photos, giving users a "collection" view of photos that indexes all of a user's photos across devices, and ignores duplicates in a thumbnail view. It will also automatically enhance some photos, in a manner similar to Google's auto-awesome feature.

Project Spartan, the new browser revealed publicly for the first time Wednesday, allows users to "draw" directly on a web page for quick sharing of notes. It includes a fully integrated reading list that follows a user across devices, as well as a built-in PDF viewer. Cortana is also built into Spartan.

Project Spartan is the new web browser for Windows 10.

IMAGE: MICROSOFT

Xbox head Phil Spencer also revealed that there would be an Xbox app for Windows 10, and that gaming on the platform would be "more social and interactive" than before. Voice chat and text chat among players would work across platforms. Windows 10 apps will be easily transferrable to the Xbox One, he said, and Xbox One owners will be able to transfer gameplay across Windows devices for many games.

The consumer preview version of Windows 10 will be available for PCs starting next week, and for phones in February. Some of the Windows 10 features Microsoft showed at the event would not immediately be available in preview builds of the software, but would roll out in the next 3 to 4 months.

Alex Kipman, one of the architects behind Microsoft Kinect, revealed the biggest surprise of the event: Windows Holographic, an ambitious project that combines aspects of virtual reality, holography, augmented reality and wearable technology. The experience is powered by a new device called the HoloLens, a headset that can immerse the wearer in a virtual experience as well as create individual "holograms" overlayed on real objects.

The popularity of Windows 10

Microsoft Executive Vice President of Operating Systems Terry Myerson revealed that 1.7 million people had downloaded the Windows 10 developer preview, giving Microsoft more than 800,000 pieces of feedback.

Myerson mentioned three main goals for Windows 10: letting users transfer seamlessly from device to device, instilling trust in users, and providing the most natural ways to interact with devices.

"You should be able to to print with a flick, or transfer a Skype call with a simple, intuitive gesture," Myerson said. "It's important that our users' privacy is protected, and that they trust the experience."

Windows 10 has been anticipated for a long time. Originally codenamed "Threshold" by Microsoft, the OS was rumored to be called Windows 9 — which would make sense, given that the last release was Windows 8. But Microsoft decided to skip a version number, ostensibly to convey the weight of the upgrade.

The new OS is also intended to address complaints about Windows 8, and later 8.1. While Windows 8's touch-first approach worked well for tablets, it could be unwieldy for traditional mouse-and-keyboard setups, and some found the disappearance of traditional user-interface elements — notably the Start Menu — jarring. Windows 10 reasserts many traditional Windows design elements (including the Start Menu), but also provides a platform that Microsoft can build on for the future.

Microsoft hasn't yet set a date for the general release of Windows 10, but it's expected to launch in the fall 2015.

Note:  Windows 10 will be a one-time upgrade, free for the first year of release, and there will not be a subscription model attached, as this post initially reported.

credits: mashable

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Use of NOLOCK in SQL Server Database - SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2012, 2014

Intro:

In case of OLTP systems, where the person making the recommendation wants to ‘improve’ the performance of the data base by reducing and removing the locks (that are held for SELECT queries), NOLOCK is generally used.

For e.g.:

USE [dbo].[ssamd]

GO

SELECT * FROM [MANF] WITH (NOLOCK);

It’s a known fact that NOLOCK allows dirty reads.  Data that has not been committed can and will, be returned.  In straight view, an insert, update or delete that is in process, will considered for the result set, regardless of the state of the transaction.  This may mean:  returning rows from an INSERT statement that may potentially rollback, or returning rows that are being deleted.

There are times when a query is returning rows that you know for certain are not being modified. Let us consider a real life scenario:  Suppose, you are updating rows for one potential client and need to return rows for a second client.  In this case, will the use of NOLOCK be safe?  The data isn’t being modified for the second client, so you might assume that the returning that data won’t have an opportunity for dirty reads.  Unfortunately, this particular assumption is not correct.

Side effects of NOLOCK (a real-time scenario):

1^st Session:

Suppose, there is a table for storing information for a client that represents ‘Points’ which the client has in his system.  In the code below, let’s add in 10 rows for the client with ‘personid’ equal to’ –1’.  Then the script will loop through an INSERT for random clients and adding in more points.  Since the table uses a ‘unique-identifier’ for the clustering key, the inserts will cause frequent page splits.

2^nd Session:

In this session, the below query is executed that returns a summary of the data for the client where ‘personid’ equals ‘–1’. In this query, NOLOCK is used (since we are working under the premise that it is safe to use the hint on rows that we know are not affected by the ongoing inserts.).

On the first execution of this query, the loop exited almost immediately.  (See the image below) The first time it ran in less than a second.  Instead of returning a total of $100 in points, the result was $90.

On second execution, the same script returns different results.  Instead of the $90 returned on exit last time, the total is now $110 in points.  Looking at the results, this time it took 7 seconds to get an incorrect total !!

While these two executions did return rather quickly, there were a few subsequent executions that ran for 6, 10, and 24 minutes before incorrect results were encountered.  Even though the length of time increased, the risk for incorrect results was equal.  There is no guarantee that correct or incorrect will results won’t be returned at any time.

Analysis and Cure of the problem:

The cause for the incorrect results (in the example) is the occurrence of page splits from the data modifications.  While the secondary client’s data wasn’t being changed, the pages that contained this data were being changed.  When the pages were being split, all of the data on the pages is affected, even those that are not related to the actual rows being changed.  And depending on the state of the page split and how the data is currently stored, this may result in either more or less rows data being returned.

Ø  The typical protection for this type of operation is the use of ‘READ COMMITTED’; which prevents dirty reads from occurring. Of course, this uses ‘locking’ (which it should) to guarantee that the dirty reads do not occur.  But this provides that guarantee that the data returned is the data that is committed, regardless of whether a page split is moving around your data.

Ø  One of the main concerns that people have with ‘locking’, is the blocking that is associated with two users trying to access the same locked resource.  As an alternative to using NOLOCK, try using ‘SNAPSHOT isolation level’ instead.  Through this, readers won’t block writers; which will reduce the amount of lock blocking on your data platform.

Final words:

So, try not to use NOLOCK if you have a choice. If you have to use NOLOCK, please keep in mind, a page split can change the location of the data being queried, which in turn changes the data in-flight.

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Advanced Pedometer app for Smart Phones

Well, everyone wants to be in a good shape, be it men or women. But sometimes it becomes impossible for some really ‘busy’ people (yes!! whom else I’m talking about...) to exercise a bit, to stay fit, to trim down cholesterol, to limit BMI, to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Believe me! I understand.

Few days earlier, I came across this app that can act as a pedometer whenever you are walking, thus measuring how much calories you have burnt, how much distance did you cover, how much Carbon footprint did you help reduce by walking etc… etc... 

Generally, we all imagine that these apps cost a lot, but thanks to Sony, they have come up with an android app “WalkMate” that does all those sweet things for you (well!! Who wants it to, of course…) and all that for free.

                         If you have a smartphone (like: Samsung galaxy Grand I9082), you can easily install the app and start measuring your foot counts today.For those who love to train themselves, this app offers pretty cool features: speed, laps, calorie burnt, time taken to complete one lap etc. The training regiments can be configured too: light, moderate and intense.                                          If you can chip in few extra bucks for an armband to hold the phone to your arm, it will be a perfect daily trainer, or morning jogger etc. You can get those armbands from any leading online stores. Happy Walking!

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Project Loon - Balloon Powered Internet

Meet Project Loon : a unique project from the Google, which is being developed and will be available in few months. The project uses high-altitude balloons placed in the stratosphere at an altitude of about 20 km (12 mi) to create an aerial wireless network(AWN) with up to 3G-like speed.

The Balloons will be able to travel around the world three times, or for a period of 100 days. They are maneuvered by adjusting their altitude to float to a wind layer after identifying the wind layer with the desired speed and direction using wind data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Users of the service will connect to the balloon network using a special Internet antenna attached to their building. The signal travels through the balloon network from balloon to balloon, then to a ground-based station connected to an Internet service provider (ISP), then onto the global Internet. The system aims to bring Internet access to remote and rural areas poorly served by existing provisions, and to improve communication during natural disasters to affected regions.

These balloons must be exceptionally resilient to heat and cold, expansion and contraction, UV radiation, so that they can withstand anything that comes their way (..needless to say, not missiles *wink*)


SOURCE: News Tabloids and Wikipedia

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