The retail version of Microsoft’s Newest Suite is now available in Australia and as a student at an Australian University or TAFE you can grab the Professional Academic version of the Office 2010 for AUD 99.00 via Microsoft’s Its Not Cheating Program.

Following the great response to the Office 2010 beta with more than nine million beta users world-wide, Microsoft has continued to refine the dramatic overhaul that it began with the 2007 editions of the Office Suite to help users:

• Create great looking documents and presentations. With new video and photo editing features in PowerPoint 2010. Add extensive text effects and table formatting options in Word 2010. Reveal important trends in data with Sparklines in Excel 2010. OneNote 2010 makes everything you need simple to find, organise and share.
• Connect and work together more simply. Advanced e-mail management and calendaring capabilities in Outlook 2010. Work with others more efficiently using new co-authoring in Word 2010, PowerPoint 2010 and OneNote 2010.
• Get things done from anywhere. With Office 2010 and the Office Web Apps – the online companions to Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote, you have the freedom to view, edit, and share Office 2010 documents in the cloud with Windows Live SkyDrive.

One of my favorite improvements to Office 2010 is what Microsoft calls the Backstage view. You might remember Albert giving a demo on this if you attended our Cool Stuff & Cool Internships – Microsoft & AIESEC 2010 event. Offered as a replacement for the File menu, Backstage gives you a launching point to share documents, print out your work, set permissions, and other program specific options to get your project ready for distribution. You’ll find all of the usual document management features, like open and save, here as well, but you’ll also get a nice layout of templates for new documents, several different ways to share your work, and print settings and page layouts all in one place.

For a full overview on all of the new features and review by PCWorld, head here.

In addition to Office 2010, Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade is back again with the same low price of AUD 49.95 on Its Not Cheating Program. All eligible university and TAFE students, staff & faculty, with a valid email address are entitled to make a purchase from the offer website

More info and FAQs on the program and the offers can be found here.

There are some pretty cool things here, not only do you get online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote for free, but you can also collaborate on the documents. I can see a bunch of friends collaborating on a OneNote notebook during  a lecture, or working on a report using multiple machines, all at the same time – and no need for anyone to collate at the end.

These apps are available for free, and to access them, you just need to visit http://skydrive.live.com and login with your Windows Live ID. (You already have one if you use Hotmail and/or Messenger)

Or alternatively you can visit http://office.live.com and get the same experience. Skydrive binds all of these services together, and still keeps the 25GB of space that you can use to store not only documents, but any other file you want.

From there you can create a new document and share it, or upload an existing document you have already started working on.

There is no need for any special plugin, and it should work in all of the major browsers.

This one is for the developers out there. I’m that if you are a keen C#, VB or C++ developer, you have been trying out the betas and release candidate for Visual Studio 2010. Well great news, Visual Studio 2010 has been released and is ready for you to start developing on.

Now remember, before you start wondering about the price, or look towards those torrent sites, you can get it for free as a student through MSDNAA or www.dreamspark.com

No excuses!

VS2010 features some awesome new additions like true multi-monitor support, editor zooming using the powerful new WPF code editor, C# 4.0 and C++0x if either of those take your fancy. Microsoft has really added features to bring Visual Studio 2010 into the future.

One feature that is really amazing is the ability to box select in the editor. Forget normal text selection, this allows you to draw a box around code, and only edit that part. Say you want to change a bunch of public variables into private variables, just box select all of the public identifiers and type private, done!

C# 4.0 alone has tons of new features, including integration with the dynamic runtime (easy scripting), and all of the Windows 7 features integrated into the .NET library. (Touch, Jumplists etc)

If you aren’t a fan of angle brackets, there are plenty of new features in Visual Basic 2010 as well, including implicit line continuation (goodbye underscore!), auto-implemented properties, and collection initialisers.

If you want a full overview of all of the new features, then head here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386063(v=VS.100).aspx

Scott Hanselman has a great overview of the key new features here:

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/VisualStudio2010Released.aspx

Don’t forget that you can get all of these features for free through DreamSpark:

https://www.dreamspark.com/Products/Product.aspx?ProductId=25

Something special for all of those developers who want to take advantage of the new touch input features in Windows 7 and .NET 4.0. The Microsoft Surface blog has announced the availability of the Microsoft Surface Toolkit for Windows Touch beta. This is a set of Controls, APIs, templates and Docs that were previously only available to Surface developers, and now they can be used by anyone developing touch enabled applications for Windows 7.

More details at the surface blog here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/surface/archive/2010/04/12/launch-microsoft-surface-toolkit-for-windows-touch-beta.aspx

and a direct link to the toolkit download:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=801907a7-b2dd-4e63-9ff3-8a2e63932a74

Happy coding!

Hope you guys had a happy rabbit huntin season…  Opps! Err… I meant Easter! Muahaha…  >=]

Ever thought of becoming an IT professional, but couldn’t come up with the first step, or figure what steps to take to get you to where you wanna go?

Instead of having to take a trip to Mordor to find your ideal job, Microsoft have designed an IT Student Career Portal for you lucky kids!

In the portal, you can find info on career paths for:

• Web Developers
• Server Administration
• Windows Developers
• Consumer Support Technician
• Database Administration

It gives you a run-down of any job you so desire, skills you will need, experience required, potential future positions, and internships and jobs in countries worldwide!

The portal also gives you links to apply for those jobs!

You can find the Student Career Path Portal at: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/start/start-career-student.aspx

Have fun with your new toy kids! =D

-Albert rollin out!  (…with RPGs to hunt for those pesky Easter bunnies!)

Microsoft has kicked off its “Technology Guarantee” program for Microsoft Office 2010 meaning that anyone who buys and activates Office 2007 between now and September 30, 2010 will get to upgrade to Office 2010 for free when it becomes available, so you don’t have to wait.

The deal is yet another great offer for Australian students who can purchase a copy of Office Ultimate 2007 for only AUD 75.00 via the “It’s not Cheating” program.

This offer is also open to all University/TAFE students & faculty, who possess a valid email address at an educational institution geographically located in Australia.

All you have to do is:

1. Head to It’s not Cheating program website and buy Office 2007 between March 5 and September 30, 2010 for AUD 75.00 by getting yourself qualified as a student.
2. Save your Office 2007 dated sales receipt plus install and activate your copy of Office 2007 by September 30, 2010.
3. When Office 2010 is available, request your upgrade at the Technology Guarantee program website.

More info and FAQs at Technology Guarantee and It’s not Cheating.

Note – If your University/TAFE does not provide you with an email address, here is how you can help verify your eligibility to the program.

Also the Windows 7 Professional Upgrade offer priced at AUD 49.95 is still up but this offer will only last until the end of this month.

Source: [It’s not Cheating]

There are some interesting additions to the API this time around, and some changes that existing creators will need to take note of:

• Windows Phone 7 Hardware Support
• Visual Studio 2010 Integration
• Microphone Input
• Dynamic (Unbuffered) Audio Output
• New built-in Effects
  • SkinnedEffect
  • EnvironmentMapEffect
  • DualTextureEffect
  • AlphaTestEffect

They have also worked to improve portability, and pave the way for platforms to branch away from cross-platform support. (ie Take advantage of platform specific functionality)

They did this by adding two profiles: Reach and HiDef. The first gives you a guarantee your code will run on the different platforms. However developing for HiDef lets you take advantage of functionality present on the system, that might not be on other platforms.

Alongside those huge features, they have made many graphics improvements, and split Microsoft.Xna.Framework.dll into multiple assemblies so you can include only the things you need.

For those of you more interested in the games than the development, take a look at this: http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/09/microsoft-shows-off-xna-games-running-on-windows-phone-full-3d/

Sounds like we’re getting an emulator that is 3D capable eventually, so you can test your games.

Watch this blog, and creators.xna.com in the coming weeks for the official release, and more news on exactly what we are getting. More news about Windows Phone 7 development should also come out tomorrow, after the GDC sessions by the XNA team run.

Wakey wakey! It’s ime to shine, and yank open those curtains to your penthouse…. wait! did I say penthouse?!

That’s right kids, a new competition hosted by Microsoft is giving you and 5 mates a chance to win a penthouse of your choice (whichever city) FREE for 7 MONTHS! (Rent up to $1500 per week) And in the spirit of all geeks, loaded with Dell notebooks, Xbox game packs, and HTC Windows Phones!

All you have do is:

1. Be a university student
2. Get Facebook, if you miraculously don’t have it  O.O
3. Become a fan of The Student House: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/TheStudentHouse?v=app_4949752878&ref=mf
4. Go to the “Win A Share House” tab and sign up
5. Run around your uni and show people how much you luuuuuvvvv Windows 7!

It’s that simple!

And one more thing, just make sure that if you DO win that penthouse, don’t forget to leave a space there for me!  XD

Albert moovin out! =]

CES has reminded us that some great things are coming out this year from many companies, but of course the focus here is on Microsoft.

This year we can expect to see Natal hit shelves, one of the most interesting input devices to appear in a while, and by the end of the year you will be able to try it as well.

We will also see a great way to play classic arcade games, on both the XBOX 360 and Windows PC, called GameRoom, with 1000 games to be added over 3 years. (30 games on launch)

Not only that, but many cool games are coming, including Halo Reach, which is sure to be a huge launch. (Lets see if it can beat XBOX sales for Modern Warfare 2)

Gaming aside, there should be more details on IE9, Windows Live Wave 4, Windows 7 SP1, and Office 2010. Although I do not know what deals will be available for students yet, I think that there will be some cool stuff (going off last year) and you can expect some cool events this year as well, so keep an eye on this blog.

I will be attending the MSP boot camp some time in January/February, and hope to get some great information and opportunities that I can pass on to everyone.

For those interested in XNA after the Game Camp last year, I have been posting resources and information on my own blog about XNA, you can check it out at http://mquandt.com/blog hopefully you find some of the stuff on there interesting, and I will be keeping it updated with more information, samples and resources as I make/find them.

So enjoy the rest of the summer break, and have a great 2010!

Registration is open from 10:30 to 11am, but trains take ~2hrs to get there, so be sure you know what train you need.

Let me know if you are going to the camp!

-Michael

Microsoft expects Office 2010 and related products to be generally available in June 2010.

In the meanwhile, remember that you can get free access to the beta, which you can use for free and unrestricted until October 2010.

http://officebeta.microsoft.com/en-us/

[via Ars Technica]