Cue Scoble tears. This is one hell of a technology from Microsoft Research that I think will have a huge impact on how amateurs and hobbyists write music. The technology and software prototype is called MySong.

In a nutshell, the software records your singing (preferably in tune) through a microphone, and it systematically generates an instrumental accompaniment for your song. The quality is even comparable with a professional accompanist, not to mention the cost and time involved.

If you don’t believe me, have a look at this quick 5-minute demo with loads of practical examples.

The technology was developed by Ian Simon from University of Washington in collaboration with Dan Morris and Summit Basu from Microsoft Research. They’ve published all of their research and methods in a paper (PDF) of the same name to present at the CHI Conference 2008 in a couple of months in Italy.

Without getting into too much detail, the technology uses the Hidden Markov statistical model which has been ‘trained’ by preprocessing a database of nearly 300 musical lead sheets. The sheets come from a variety of sources, genres and popularity to

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Microsoft has announced an update which will detect two cracks commonly used to activate pirated copies of the operating system. One of the cracks refered to as Grace Timer, extended Vista's activation grace period, upto 2099. The other called as OEM BIOS, modified system files and the PC's BIOS to mimic the product activation done by computer-makers at the factory. If the sniffer detects an activation hack, it will pop up a warning that includes a link to the removal tool. Although SP1 will block these two cracks, "it's important to note that this update does not disable the exploits it finds," says Alex Kochis "It simply alerts customers that exploits exist." However, MS will release a separate crack-removal tool at the same time that it rolls out the detection update.

Update for Windows Vista (KB940510)

Download size: 3.0 MB

You may need to restart your computer for this update to take effect.

Update type: Important

Install this update to enable Windows Vista to detect software that bypasses product activation and interferes with normal Windows operation.

More information:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=99255

Help and...

Yesterday was the first Windows 2008 event in Canada. The first event was in Toronto and had almost 3000 attendees. Twenty MVPs participated in Ask-The-Expert and I was one of them :). One of the commonly asked questions was question about “What NAP is and how it works?“

So, I’d like to show what posted on TheLazyAdmin.com about NAP:
With the recent launch of Windows Server 2008 you are no doubt spending all your free time playing around with everything new. One thing you might be playing around with is Network Access Protection. There is a great document on getting a DHCP based NAP lab set up but one thing the document is missing is how to configure the NAP client in XP SP3. In Windows Vista you simply start the service then enable the client through the NAP Client Configuration MMC (napclcfg.msc) but XP SP3 does not include the MMC. So how does one configure the NAP Client without a Nap Client configuration tool? Netsh, that is how!

To enable the NAP Client on XP SP3 you need to do the following:

1. Start –> Run –> Services.msc
2. Change the Network Access Protection Agent service

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To delete or replace a file in Windows Vista this is not always as easy as it sounds since the system files are protected better by the file system than in XP. There are two steps that you need to do in order to be able to replace or delete a system file:

• First you need to take ownership of the file. Run takeown /f "path and file name" to take ownership from a command prompt.

• Next, you need to give your account full control permissions on the file. Run cacls "path and file name" /G :F

The Basics

• Stop page from loading
  Esc
• Refresh a page
  F5
• Set focus on address box
  ALT+D
• Go back a page
  ALT+Left Arrow
• Go forward a page
  ALT+Right Arrow
• Open link in new window
  Shift+Click
• Add site to favorites
  CTRL+D
• Open context menu
  Shift+F10

Tabs

• Open new tab
  CTRL+T
• Open link in new tab
  CTRL+Shift+Click
• Open link in new behind current tab
  CTRL+Click or Middle mouse button over link
• Switch between tabs
  CTRL+Tab or CTRL+Shift+Tab
• Close tab
  CTRL+W or Click middle mouse button over tab

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As in last post I have mentioned few points about vista slow working. And here is more update about why Vista Runs Slowly. Again I can say that most of the time two major issues are registry error and virus issue(Free spyware doctor and Nortran security scan) for windows vista running slow.




Hear are few more check list for why does vista run slowly.

1) First of all Disable the fancy high graphics Vista Interface and return to the "Classic" windows interface. To do this right click on the desktop and go to "Personalize" you can then click on "Theme" and change it to "Windows Classic".


2) Go to the Control Panel and hit "Classic View" on the left side panel, this will bring easy navigation.
Then click on the "Performance Rating and Tools" button.
This will provide lot of features for select / deselect to improve the windows vista performance. Uncheck the unnecessary features it may solve the vista runs slow problem.

3)Again on the left side click on "Advanced Tools" and go to "Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows" somewhere at the bottom....