My concerns after attending Microsoft Open Door event today at 11th ITCN Asia

Went to attend Microsoft Open Door event at the 11th ITCN Asia held at Karachi Expo Centre. The content was not that impressive because as a developer’s point of view most of the technologies discussed are already adopted by the developers community and are into the market for quite some time. And I strongly have this opinion after viewing videos of some of the sessions at Microsoft Build conference (www.buildwindows.com).

But my post is not about the technology and event feedback. Its about my concern over the collective turnout of ITCN and Microsoft event. I remember some previous ITCN events when there were delegations coming to Pakistan from all over the world to attend this event. The event being attended by the President, Prime Minister and top officials of the country. Presence of top giants of the technology world. To sum it up, an obvious excitement was seen in the town about the event.

I also remember some past Microsoft’s PDC events, used to held at multiple hotels in Karachi and Lahore at the same time, having all their conference rooms filled with attendees. Whereas, today both events being held together (I understand that Open Door is not as big as PDC but still it’s a Microsoft event) could not produce a noticeable crowd.

What is the reason behind this disappointing fact? Is global recession is responsible for this as companies like Microsoft does not have enough budget to spend on big events in countries like Pakistan? Is our security issues to blamed for this? let us find out.

How to install Windows 8 (Developer Preview version) with Windows 7, side by side (Dual Boot)

Microsoft has just released a developer preview of their upcoming operating system Windows 8 (download here). Users can download the preview and install it on their systems.

Windows 8 has following System Requirements:

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
• Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch
• To run Metro style Apps, you need a screen resolution of 1024 X 768 or greater

If you want to install the Windows Developer Preview without any DVD or USB then follow the steps below:

1. Download the ISO file from Microsoft (download here).
2. Mount the ISO using any mounting tool. Virtual CloneDrive in my case.
3. Do not use the autorun installer. The autorun installer only allows you to upgrade your existing Windows installation and does not allow you to install on a separate partition.
4. Navigate to the virtual disc and go to the folder "sources".
5. Run setup.exe and proceed.

To make Windows 7 the default:

You will notice upon first boot of Windows 8 you are presented with a graphical boot menu that will let you choose between your Windows 7 and Windows 8 operating systems. Windows 8 will be the default, meaning if you don't manually choose Windows 7 from the menu, your computer will boot with Windows 8 after three seconds of inactivity.

If you don't want to make Windows 8 the default, here's how to make Windows 7 the default:

1. On the boot menu, click on the button at the bottom that says "Change Defaults or Choose Other Options".
2. Hit "Choose the Default Operating System".
3. Pick Windows 7 from the menu.

Melbourne most suitable for accommodation

The Economist magazine's Intelligence Unit Liveability Ranking Report August 2011survey ranked Melbourne first, Vienna second  and Vancouver as third.

For the first time in almost a decade the Australian city of Melbourne has become the best city to live in the world after replacing Vancouver city of Canada.

Vancouver was on top since 2002 in this survey. However, after this year's survey it is at the third position.

Overall, seven cities of Australia and Canada are in the top 10 positions and Zimbabwe's capital Harare, Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka are on the bottom.

These cities were sampled at five points including stability, medical facilities, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.

Melbourne and Vancouver were on joint top position in 2002 survey.

Britain's capital London is ranked 53rd among one hundred and forty cities. Honolulu is at the top among American cities.

According to The Economist magazine's Intelligence Unit, the financial crisis has affected the European countries, while Arab countries have been affected by the revolution. This can be witnessed from the fact that Libya's capital Tripoli on 135 from 107.

Top Ten cities

1. Melbourne
2. Vienna
3. Vancouver
4. Toronto
5. Calgary
6. Sydney
7. Helsinki
8. Perth
9. Adelaide
10. Auckland

Tokyo is world’s most expensive city while Karachi is the least

A survey released from the Economist Intelligence Unit revealed that Karachi, Pakistan’s economic hub is world’s least expensive city while Tokyo, Japan is world’s most expensive.

India’s Mumbai and New Delhi are also among the bottom 5 cities.

Worldwide Cost of Living 2011

European cities covers almost half of the top 50 having 4 of them in the top 10 including Paris, Zurich, Frankfurt and Geneva.

As Australian dollar is getting stronger, the cost of living in Australian cities is raising day by day. Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane are among the top 15 most expensive cities.

American cities rankings are generally on the drop with New York at 49th position among world’s most expensive cities.

Top 10 cities

1. Tokyo
2. Oslo
3. Osaka
4. Paris
5. Zurich
6. Sydney
7. Melbourne
8. Frankfurt
9. Geneva
10. Singapore

Bottom 5 cities

129. New Delhi
130. Tehran
131. Mumbai
132. Tunis
133. Karachi

Facebook launches video chat with Skype

The world’s number 1 social networking giant Facebook has introduced video chatting feature in partnership with Skype (an internet calling service) on Wednesday. The feature is introduced a week after Google introduced a video chatting tool called ‘Hangouts’ with its social networking service Google+ . Google has limited the number of users at the moment.

The agreement, announced by Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg at the company's Palo Alto, California, headquarters on Wednesday which also unveils the company's relationship with Microsoft Corporation as Microsoft in the process of buying Skype.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and chief executive said, “The new feature allows users a way to connect with friends other than just posting messages”. Zuckerberg said, “Facebook has hit a record 750 million users. The new service, rolling out from Wednesday, could be a huge boost for Skype, which currently has about 145 million regular users”.

The feature will display a "call" button at the top of users' profile pages. By clicking that, Facebook users can talk to each other as long as they have webcams. The company began turning that service on for millions of users on Wednesday and will add it to more accounts over time, a Facebook spokesperson said.

Facebook also added a group messaging function to its existing one-to-one text chat but Google+ has an edge over Facebook’s video chatting facility as ‘Hangouts’ let users video chat with several friends at a time. Zuckerberg hinted that video chat for multiple people could eventually be available on Facebook. But he said that most video chats today occur between two people.