As of now Mango is in beta. The beta update is available to those with a developer account and pretty much limited to certain countries which does not include India. But my Dell Venue Pro bought in India is powered by Mango Beta now! It was earlier running official NoDo update (OS version: 7.0.7390). Following is how I updated my Dell Venue Pro without rooting it, unlocking it and without a developer account.

First, I must give all credit to the following two links and Google:

Link 1: http://windowsphonehacker.com/articles/get_the_mango_update_now._without_being_a_developer.-06-30-11
Link 2: http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-install-windows-phone-7-mango-beta-update-on-any-wp7-phone-even-if-youre-not-a-developer/

While I followed these links to get Mango Beta up and running on my phone, the installation experience was not exactly as documented. Hence, I share my experience in place. I updated my Windows Phone using my laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit. The version of Zune software on my laptop was 4.7.1404.0.

Important note: Do not skip or say no to any question/prompt which asks you to backup your phone. More on this later.

First, I downloaded and installed Windows Phone Support Tool. The download URLs for 64bit and 32bit versions are given in Link 1 (refer to point 2, under the section “Updating to Mango”). I downloaded and installed the 64bit version.

Next, I downloaded mangoforall_0.2.zip. The download URL to this file can be found in Link 1 (refer to the third paragraph under the section titled ”Updating to Mango”).  I extracted the zipped file. This produced a directory called takesonetomango with four files namely prov.cab, readme.txt, restore.bat and Update.bat. While I think it wasn’t required, I extracted prov.cab (using WinZip) which produced a file named DeviceProvisioning.cab.pkg in the directory takesonetomango.

Connected my Dell Venue Pro to my laptop via USB. Double clicked on Update.bat. It started backing up my phone and created a directory named PreMangoState in C:\. After backup, it launched Zune. Unlike the instructions (in the readme.txt file), Zune did not prompt for any available update

I unplugged my phone, closed Zune, re-plugged my phone and double clicked on Update.bat. The Update.bat again started backing up. It prompted me whether to overwrite the files in C:\PreMangoState. I opted for All (overwrite all files). This time, the Update.bat did more than before. It rebooted my phone and my phone started updating! I felt moving closer to getting the Mango update.

After updating when my phone rebooted, I started checking my phone to spot any glimpse of Mango’s features, but found none. Then I checked the OS version (Settings>about>more information). Alas, the OS version remained the same as before (i.e. 7.0.7390).

I unplugged and replugged my phone. Zune launched. After a few seconds, my phone and Zune prompted me for an update! I started updating my phone via Zune. The update said something related to ISV (I did not note it down exactly due to all the anxiety). The phone rebooted and updated. After subsequent reboot, I again started checking for anything Mango-ish but was disappointed. Then I checked the OS version which was now updated to 7.0.7401.0. Some glimpse of progress!

I repeated the trick of unplugging and replugging the phone. And it worked!

Mango ISV Beta (version 7661)

I was again prompted for an update and this time the update clearly said “Welcome to the Windows Phone ”Mango” ISV Beta!” and “Your phone will be updated to version 7661″.

I followed the onscreen instructions. Note that it took a long time for this update to complete. After the reboot, the phone was stuck at the Dell logo for a long time. The subsequent screen showing Windows Phone logo also stayed for a longer time. This screen also showed “Not for resale” message in red, at the bottom.

I waited patiently and was rewarded with a successful Mango Beta update. I could see conversation thread in Email and  spotted Twitter under Settings>email+accounts>add an account – though it said “coming soon” . The OS version showed as 7661.WP7_5_Trial(mojobld).20110607-1657.

The entire process, starting right from the beginning, with all the backups, updates and anxiety took about a hour. What I’m trying to convey is, be patient and don’t unplug the phone during an update or stuck screen. You will see the fruit!

While it seemed the deed is done, but there was more to it. When I unplugged the phone and replugged it (in the hope to get another update ) , this time Zune prompted for an available update for Zune Software. But the update failed with an error message saying “can’t find the media for installation package ‘Zune WMDU Component’. It might be incomplete or corrupt”. I reinstalled Zune, it again prompted for an update and the same error showed up yet again.

That’s where Link 2 came handy. It suggested that I should download a beta version of Zune and provided the download URL (refer to the point 4 in the section “Here’s what you’ll need:” ). I disconnected the phone installed the beta version of Zune. Upon reconnecting the phone,  it started syncing again. With the Zune fixed, the first thing I did was to setup 24′s CTU ringtone (custom ringtone) on my Mango powered Dell Venue Pro

In the beginning, I wrote a note saying not to say no to any backup prompts. The reason for this is as follows. A phone updated with Mango Beta as per the above method may fail to update to Mango final release (as and when it arrives). Hence, it is utmost important to preserve the backup in C:\PreMangoState. As per the instructions in the links, the phone can be restored back to it’s last official update by running restore.bat (found in mangoforall_0.2.zip). I will try this out soon and update this post about success/issues in the restoring.

Update (July 21, 2011): I switched back to NoDo using restore.bat on 21st July. As I tweeted the steps to restore went a little haphazard. Hence I did not update this blog post. Nevertheless restore to NoDo works! I plan to again go back to Mango. Will update this blog post when I yet again switch back to NoDo with precise steps on restoring to NoDo.

Update (July 28, 2011): I’m now running Mango build 7712 (7.10.7712.60) on my Dell Venue Pro. This gives me the missing Twitter and Linkedin integration! How did I install it? Well, as I mentioned above, I had restored back to NoDo. Today I tried going back to Mango following the same steps mentioned in this blog post. And voila! the last update that got installed was Mango build 7712 instead of 7661

With reference to my comment:

Update (September 28, 2011): With reference to the following comment:

I’m back to NoDo (just to check if I can go back). Haven’t updated the blog post yet coz the downgrade steps went little haphazard for me. So I’m planning to again install Mango Beta, followed by a downgrade

and

the requirement to download Zune Beta

this time Zune prompted for an available update for Zune Software. But the update failed with an error message saying “can’t find the media for installation package ‘Zune WMDU Component’. It might be incomplete or corrupt”

I went back to Mango Beta. The good news is now Zune beta is no longer required. Zune will still prompt you for the update but will successfully update to version 4.8.2345.0 with which you will be able to sync your phone running Mango Beta. I found this a couple of weeks back. Sorry for the delayed sharing.  As of this writing I’m going back to NoDo hoping to get the official Mango update for my Dell Venue Pro. Will keep this post updated.

Update (September 30, 2011): Guys! Here is an exciting news! The moment I connected my phone via USB, to downgrade to NoDo, Zune prompted me for an update and I could update to Mango Final (OS version: 7.10.7720.68). I was tweeting while my phone was updating! You can find those tweets archived here.

Bottom line: my Dell Venue Pro running Mango Beta (OS version: 7.10.7712.60) got updated to Mango Final (OS version: 7.10.7720.68) without going back or downgrading to NoDo.

Prompt to update to Mango Final

Mango Beta Cleanup Update

Zimbra stores the E-mail users’ credentials in its built-in LDAP server. Hence it made sense to authenticate the login of other services or products like osTicket against Zimbra’s LDAP.

Following is a short tutorial on how I achieved it.First and foremost, ensure that the usernames in Zimbra and the usernames of Staff members in osTickets are the same. Thankfully osTickets allows to edit usernames of the staff members. Most importantly, do rename or match the admin username in osTickets with a username in Zimbra.

Note that, you must create users under Staff members in osTickets. The users will not be created automatically through LDAP, as you may have seen with other LDAP integrations. Since osTickets mandates to setup a password for the staff members, type in any password. This password will not be used for login.

Authenticating osTicket with Zimbra’s LDAP is a matter of adding and modifying a few lines in a file. Thanks to adLDAP, an easy to use PHP library for LDAP. Download adLDAP 3.3.2 from http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/adldap/adLDAP_3.3.2.zip?download. Unzip the zipped archive. Copy the resulting directory named adLDAP to <osTicket-installation-dir>/include/ directory.

Next, open the file named class.staff.php, found in <osTicket-installation-dir>/include, in a text editor. Add the following line towards the beginning of the file, just after <?php

include("adLDAP/adLDAP.php");

Next, append the following to the end of the file:

<?php

function zimbraAuth($username,$password){
$options = array("domain_controllers"=>array("<zimbra-server-name-or-IP>"),
          "ad_username"=>"uid=admin",
          "ad_password"=>""<zimbra-password>"",
          "account_suffix"=>",ou=people,dc=domain,dc=com"
          );

$auth=false;

try{
  $ldap = new adLDAP($options);
  $auth = $ldap->authenticate("uid=$username",$password);
  }
catch(adLDAPException $e){
  $auth=false;
  }
return $auth;
}

?>

In the above code, replace <zimbra-server-name-or-IP> with the DNS name or IP address of the server running Zimbra. Replace <zimbra-password> with the password of Zimbra’s admin user. Set the account_prefix as per Zimbra’s domain name. For example, if Zimbra is setup for the domain abc.com, replace:

“account_suffix”=>”,ou=people,dc=domain,dc=com”

with:

“account_suffix”=>”,ou=people,dc=abc,dc=com”

Last, find the line which reads:

return (strlen($this->passwd) && strcmp($this->passwd, MD5($password))==0) ?(TRUE):(FALSE);

Comment out the line, by prefixing //, as follows:

//return (strlen($this->passwd) && strcmp($this->passwd, MD5($password))==0) ?(TRUE):(FALSE);

Add the following line just after the above mentioned line:

return (strlen($this->passwd) && zimbraAuth($this->username,$password))?(TRUE):(FALSE);

Save the file. Now you should be able to login into osTicket’s control panel using Zimbra password for the corresponding osTicket user. While, this blog post is specific to authentication against Zimbra’s LDAP,  there is no stopping you from authenticating against any LDAP server like OpenLDAP or Microsoft Active Directory. All you have to do is to tinker the following lines as per your LDAP setup:

$options = array("domain_controllers"=>array("<zimbra-server-name-or-IP>"),
          "ad_username"=>"uid=admin",
          "ad_password"=>""<zimbra-password>"",
          "account_suffix"=>",ou=people,dc=domain,dc=com"
          );

On the other hand, I’m at war with issues on the phone due to lack of my familiarity with a Windows Phone. After all, I had been using Android for almost two years. One issue that bothered me the most was, I could not dial toll free numbers in India using my Dell Venue Pro.For example, 1800-425-4026 is the toll free number for Dell India. When I dial this number on my Dell Venue Pro, a + (plus) is automatically prefixed to the number. Hence the number becomes +18004254026. On the phone dialer it shows up nicely formatted as +1 (800) 425-4026. This means it actually dials a U.S. number (+1 is the country code for United States). So forget toll free, I’m accidently dialing an international number for which I will be charged!

The crux of the matter is I was not able to dial any toll free numbers in India. What’s more, I’m was not able to call Dell using a Dell. For those who have seen the Hindi movie Karthik calling Karthik, the situation here was  ”Karthik not able to call Karthik”

So where did Dell screw up? Actually it is not Dell, it is Windows Phone 7. Seems the phone is tailored better for the U.S. customers than for Indian customers. But Dell must also not be forgiven. If they are launching a phone in India, they should have customized the bare bones for India. At the least they should have ensured that a Dell should be able to call Dell! After all, how would we call the toll free Dell support number(s) for any needed assistance for our phone.

Thankfully, the solution to the above is simple. The culprit is something called International Assist, found in the phone dialer’s settings. International Assist is defined as “Turning on this feature will help automatically correct some common mistakes while dialing internationally or dialing while abroad”. So it is the International Assist which decides that dialing a toll free number which starts with a 1 is a mistake and it corrects it by prefixing a +. And the worst part is, International Assist is turned “On” by default.

The Solution
To turn off International Assist, click on the Phone Tile or launch Phone from the list of applications. Tap on “…” on the bottom right. Select “call settings”. On Settings, turn off International Assist by tapping on the Toggle Switch. Now, you will be able to dial to toll free numbers in India and my Dell is able to call Dell

In my case, the issue sprung up on the night of 25th October. I switched on my Xbox after a long time, updated it (as prompted) and started playing a game. After a few minutes of playing, Xbox hung, all of a sudden. I rebooted the console. This time it hung immediately during the welcome animation. I did not miss to notice 3 Red Lights flashing on the front of the XBox. Red means something wrong, 3 Reds mean something screwed up.

3 Flashing Red Lights Issue. Source: http://support.xbox.com

The nightmare was short lived. Thanks to the excellent Xbox support service in India. By the end of the 6th day, I owned a replaced, brand new, console. Before getting into the interesting story of the entire support experience, following is my suggestion on what you should do if you are facing the 3 flashing red lights issue with your Xbox.

1. Goto http://support.xbox.com/hi-in/pages/xbox-360/troubleshoot/flashinglights.aspx. Click on the Articles tab. Scroll down to the section Three flashing red lights
2. Follow the steps mentioned before submitting a service request.
3. To register a service request, goto https://myservice.xbox.com/en-in/Pages/Welcome.aspx and click on Start a repair request. Follow the instructions which will result in an E-mail with a Service Request Number.
4. Call  the Xbox support (http://support.xbox.com/hi-in/pages/call-us.aspx) immediately with the Service Request Number. After speaking to Xbox support, it may happen that you are assigned a new Service Request Number and the process of replacing your console speeds up.
5. The stated procedure is that the service center will courier you the replacement. But, when you get a call from the service center, ask them if you can pick up the console from the service center. If this works out, you may get your console exchanged in less in than 10 minutes – as it happened to me.

Note that, you can avail the support only when your Xbox is not tampered or modded. Also the above mentioned suggestion and the following story is based out of my personal experience and may vary across locations – I stay in New Delhi, India.

What follows is the story of what I went through to get my Xbox console replaced for the 3 Red Rings of Death.

Day 1: When my Xbox died
This was the night of 25th October. I switched on my Xbox after a long time, updated it (as prompted) and started playing a game. After a few minutes of playing, Xbox hung, all of a sudden. I rebooted the console. This time it hung immediately during the welcome animation. I could see 3 red lights flashing around the power button.

Googling around and reading information like this assured me that this is most likely a hardware problem. First, I went to the XBox support site and obediently followed the instructions like tightening up the power cables. This did not help. I did not have an alternate power outlet to try out the suggestion of changing the outlet.  My Xbox’s warranty had already expired. But googling around hinted that Microsoft offers a free replacement for 3 years for this specific issue of  3 red rings. So I clicked on “Start a repair request” and followed the onscreen instructions which prompted me to login using my Windows Live/Hotmail credentials and asked for my console’s serial number.

Once done, I received a detailed E-mail on the procedure to replace my console. The e-mail had my console number and a service request number. The E-mail also stated that “A service agent will come to your doorstep and exchange your non-working console for a working console” and “If you have not received a call from our service center after two days, please contact us by using the following contact information.” How cool it is. I was thrilled to read about this kind of quick and “at the doorstep” service. But things didn’t turn up as expected.

Day 2, Day3: The Wait Period
As suggested in the E-mail, I waited for the next two days expecting a call from the service center. But did not receive any call.

Day 4: 1 Month to Replace the Console?
I called the Xbox support at 1800-11-1100. After giving my service request number, the support person said that he will have to cancel this request and place a new request. Upon asking for the reason, he kind of implied that this kind of service (console getting replaced at doorstep) is no longer offered. I didn’t question him much on this. Once okayed, I got a new E-mail with a new service request number. But I was so heart broken to read the procedure mentioned in this E-mail. The E-mail instructed the following:

1. Wait for the shipping box: A shipping box for your Xbox 360 console is being sent to you and should arrive in 5 to 6 business days. Once the box arrives, you can prepare your console for shipping.
2. Prepare your console for shipping: Only send us your console. Please remove the hard drive, accessories, and discs before packing your console for shipping.
3. Pack and ship us your console: After you send the console to us for repair, you will receive a console within 2-3 weeks.

So if I add up the estimated time for the shipping box to arrive and the time taken to repair/replace the console, it was about a month. Also as said in step 3 above, Xbox service was hinting at a repair and not replacement.

Day 5: Glimpse of a Better Service
The very next day, in the morning, I got a call from the Xbox support. I told the person on phone that I’m waiting for shipping box. He asked me if I could go to the service center with my Xbox. The service center was about 30 kilometers away from my place. I promptly agreed. And there came the surprise, the service center person told me that at the service center I will immediately get a new console, on the spot. I was eager to visit the service center the same day, but due to some work, I postponed it for the next day.

Day 6: A Brand New Xbox
30th October 2010: I reached the service center at about 10:35 hrs and I was out from there by 1045 hrs, with a brand new console! Hail to Xbox support service!

DO NOT FORGET TO REMOVE THE HARD DRIVE

Remove the Hard Disk before giving your Xbox for replacement. Source: http://support.microsoft.com

While this was clearly stated in the E-mail from Xbox support, I did not read the instructions properly. I did not remove the hard drive from my Xbox console before giving it for replacement. I plugged in the new console on the night of 31st October. The console  reported about “No storage devices found”. Here’s where Xbox support, this time on Twitter, came to help. After a hour long exchange of tweets with @xboxsupport, I realized my mistake.

The next day I called up the support center person. Despite being a Sunday, he took my call and assured me saying that he will remove the hard drive and I can collect it back from the service center. On Monday morning, I collected the hard drive back and the evening I plugged it back into the replaced console. Rock-n-Roll!

Bottom line: Xbox support service in India rocks. Plus Xbox Support is very active and helpful on Twitter.

I own an Android Dev Phone 1 (a.k.a. ADP1). It was just today that Microsoft Tag Reader app for Android was announced. The Tag Reader app allows to scan, extract and store information in Microsoft Tags using the phone’s camera.

I wasted no time in firing up Android Market on my ADP1 and searched for “microsoft”. And voila Microsoft Tag Reader showed up on the top, in the list of apps. Installed it. Alternatively, one can browse to the URL  http://gettag.mobi using the Android’s web browser. This will automatically launch the Android Markert app, prompting to install Microsoft Tag Reader.

To see the app in action, you will need to have a Microsoft Tag handy. One of the quickest way is to create your own at http://www.microsoft.com/tag/. The different types of information that one can store in a Tag are URL, Free Text, vCard and Dialer. The Microsoft Tag Reader is well integrated with Android and invokes the appropriate actions for each of these types like - launching the web browser with the URL, displaying the text, storing the vCard into Android’s Contacts and launching the Dialer with the number.

Pros

• Instant and fast scanning
• Integrated with Android apps like Web browser, Contacts and Dialer

Whilst there are some cons too

Cons

• VCard: Does not store IM Address in Contact’s Chat addresses.
• VCard: This seems to be a bug. In case of commas (,) in the address or any other fields, the Tag Reader prefixes a backslash (\) to each comma. For example: an address like “124-A, New Delhi” is stored as “124-A\, New Delhi” in the Android’s Contacts 
• The app displays the text for Free Text but does not allow to copy (for copy-n-paste) – a good to have feature.

Cons aside (its likely that these will be fixed in the next version), the noteworthy point is Micrsoft Tag Reader is the first ever Android app from Microsoft!

It all seemed to have gone smoothly and the new server has been up and running. But one not-so-fine day, the client started complaining that some HTML pages are not displaying properly. These were showing question marks (?) and some other weird characters. I figured out that these HTML pages were generated using Microsoft Word and had those special characters (closing quotes, double hyphens etc.). I discussed with the client that this could be a web browser problem because it is not able to use the correct character set.But the client insisted that such pages used to display properly earlier, before the upgrade.  This meant I have missed redoing some configuration. The obvious suspect was at Apache web server side. After all it is Apache which is serving these web pages to the browser. Hence, if the culprit is not the web browser then it better be the web server. After parsing through the Apache’s configuration file I spotted a comment against a directive (or configuration option) called AddDefaultCharset which said:

# Specify a default charset for all content served; this enables
# interpretation of all content as UTF-8 by default.  To use the
# default browser choice (ISO-8859-1), or to allow the META tags
# in HTML content to override this choice, comment out this
# directive:

I followed it and commented out the directive and voila it worked!

To sum up, if HTML files served by an Apache web server  are not displaying special characters properly in a web browser (IE, Firefox etc.), the solution is:

• Open the Apache’s configuration file named httpd.conf (found in the directory /etc/httpd/conf for RedHat based Linux distributions) in a text editor
• Comment out, by prefixing a hash (#), the line which says “AddDefaultCharset UTF-8″ such that it looks as follows:
  # AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
  
• Save the file and reload/restart Apache server. For RedHat based distributions you can do this via “service httpd reload”

Many may believe that Steve² and Linus are very different personalities and have different agendas in their life and different questions for which they have been trying to find the answers. Surprising (or not so), they all had the same question to ask. Following is what they asked God:

Steve Ballmer: Hey God, seeing you gives me the same excitement as seeing Windows, when I saw it the first time.

God: Steve, this means you are really glad to see me. Im happy with your devotion to Windows, since it is an indirect devotion to me. I’m everywhere, in you, in others and even in MS Windows. Ask for a wish.

Steve Ballmer: Oh God, you have given me everything including the strength to lift and throw chairs at this age. The only answer to the only question that I’m looking for is: when will Windows become the de facto (the standard, the only used) operating system

God: Steve, Windows is dominant and is doing pretty well. Within ten years it will become the de facto, despite your mistakes like Vista.

(Steve Balmer starts crying)

God: Why are u crying my child ?

Steve Ballmer: I’m crying because this will not happen in my lifetime

God: Don’t worry my son, your name will still be remembered with WIndows.

(God disappears leaving Steve Ballmer sad as well as happy)

Next, God appears before Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs asks the same question – when will Mac OS become the de facto operating system.

God: Steve, you are my son and you are as creative as me. You create beautiful things like me. Yet it will take about 20 years for Mac OS to become a de facto OS. Being more open and less self obsessed will lead to it, but will take not less than 20 years

(Steve Jobs starts crying)

God asks: Hey why are you crying my son. I thought I gave you good news.

Steve Jobs: I’m crying because this will not happen in my lifetime.

God consoles Steve Jobs and disappears after blessing him.

Finally God appears before Linux Torvalds and blesses him for his open and free efforts.

Linus Torvalds: God, if my efforts have been so pure and unselfish, my question to you is – “WHEN WILL LINUX BECOME THE DE FACTO OPERATING SYSTEM”

(God starts crying)

Linux Torvalds: God, why r you crying

God: I’M CRYING BECAUSE THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN IN MY LIFETIME

—————————————————————————————————————————————-

DISCLAIMER: This is, as you would have guessed, A JOKE. Request you to not start arguing why God had to cry for Linux and not for Windows. . Also, after writing this post, I felt a little guilty about the “lifetime” point. This post is a joke and I genuinely, wish the longest life to Steve, Steve and Linus.

Many of us cut out articles from the newspapers if we find them interesting. Think of Web Slices to be cuttings from Web sites. But with a difference. If these cuttings (web content) are updated on the respective web sites, you will be notified, as well as your cuttings will be updated. Technically, you “subscribe to a Web Slice”, instead of saying cutting it off which may offend the webmasters

The latest post on my Blog is Web Slice enabled (or say, it is a Web Slice). In fact, it is Web Slice enabled since some time. Perhaps, some of you (who are using IE 8 ) would have noticed it.

Other web sites which are Web Slice enabled are digg.com, ebay.com, facebook.com, msn.com etc.

How to subscribe to a Web Slice

To slice out the latest post or to subscribe to the latest post on my blog:

• Download and install IE 8 from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/default.aspx
• Once installed, browse to my blog at http://www.shekhargovindarajan.com.
• Wait for the site to load up completely.
• Once loaded you will notice, the “Subscribe to Web Slices” icon (the second icon, after the home icon on the top right) turns green as shown in the screenshot below:

A green icon indicates Web Slice(s) on the page

• Clicking on the green icon, will show you a dialog box which prompts you to add the Web Slice. Clicking the Add button, on the dialog, will place a bookmark on the Favorites bar.
• Alternatively, if you move your mouse over the latest post, you will see a green border around the latest post, and a green icon on the left, as shown below:

Move the mouse over the latest post to subscribe to the Web Slice

• By clicking on the green icon you can subscribe to the Web Slice.
• Clicking on this bookmark will show you the preview of the Web Slice (the content of my latest blog post), as shown in the screenshot below:

Web Slice Preview

• Clicking on the arrow (->) icon on the preview window will take you to the full blog post.

How does it work ?

If I write a new blog post which, upon publish, becomes my latest post, the Web Slice bookmark on your IE will turn bold. By default, the Web Slice is checked for any updates once in a day. Upon an update, the Web Slice bookmark can turn bold or even play a sound.

Right click on the Web Slice bookmark. Click on “Bold on Update”. This will make the bookmark bold, upon an update.

To play and sound, right click on the bookmark and select Properties. Click on the Settings button under “Update Schedule”. Check the box labeled “Play a sound when a monitored feed or Web Slice is updated.

Notice the numerous other options in the Properties window. Note that you can setup when to check the Web Slice for updates – which is by default set to 1 day.

How to enable Web Slice on your site

Refer to the URL http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc848871(VS.85).aspx. Read the section titled “Creating Web Slices”.

The rules are:

1. The Web Slice Block: You should have a HTML tag (like a <DIV>) enclosing the content that you want to Web Slice enable. This <DIV> tag must have the CSS class name set to “hslice” and must have an id. If you view source (the HTML source) of this blog, you will notice: <div id=“latest_post” class=“hslice”> Note that this <div> has the class set to hslice and id set to latest_post. The id must be unique. That is, no other element or tag on the page must have the same id. If you search for latest_post in the source, you will not find any other element with the same id.
2. The Web Slice Title: The title of the Web Slice or the content should be enclosed within a tag with the classname as entry-title. On my blog, I have given this class name to the anchor (<a>) tag which encloses the title of the latest blog post.
   
3. The Web Slice Body/Content: The content should be enclosed within a tag whose classname is entry-content. Earlier the content of the latest post was enclosed within a paragraph tag (<p>). But giving the <p> tag, the class name as entry-title did not show the preview of the Web Slice (as shown in one of the screenshots above). Changing the <p> tag to a <span> tag showed the preview. Note that on my blog, the content of the latest post is either the full content (in some cases) or a part of the full content. In the latter case, clicking on continue reading shows you the full content. In the latter case, the Web Slice will be marked as updated only when I update the part of the content which shows in the latest post.
   

To summarize, following is the markup structure of my latest blog post which is Web Slice enabled:

<div id=”latest_post” class=”hslice”>
—
—
<a class=”entry-title”  href=”…”> the post title </a>
—
—
<span class=”entry-content”>
the post content
</span>
—
—
</div>

Issues with Web Slices

Though Web Slices seem to be easy to implement, I thought of the following issues with them:

1. For an existing site it may not be always straight forward to implement Web Slices if there are issues like <p> not working (as explained in point 3 in the above section). I would like to have no structure change to use Web Slices.
2. If you go through the link http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc848871(VS.85).aspx, you will notice a line which says “The Web Slice preview window will not always display content the exact same way it appears on a Web page; some of the formatting is stripped away”. I could not find the documentation on what formatting is stripped away. I can see that, the Web Slice preview magically removes the continue reading, comments and category links (which are at the bottom of the latest post). And it magically redirects to the full post, when clicking on the -> (arrow) on the preview button. How come, it is detecting the first link as a useful link and discarding other links. I like magic but would like to read the documented logic behind it.
3. Web Slice only works with IE 8, officially (read “Web Slices with Firefox” below). Perhaps, RSS still remains the cross browser standard which works well to notify about updates.

Web Slices with Firefox

With Firefox 3 and a plugin called Webchunks, you can use Web Slices in Firefox! It is very similar to using it in IE. First install the plugin from the following link http://disruptive-innovations.com/zoo/webchunks/webchunks-0.30.xpi. This is the direct link to the plugin. So launch it in Firefox 3.Once installed, it will ask for a Firefox restart. After restart, if you navigate back to my blog (or any other Web Slice enabled) site, you can subscribe to the Web Slices in a very similar way as shown in the screenshots below:

Clicking on the blue icon (on the left) will allow you to subscribe to a Web Slice (if any) on the page

You can also subscribe to a Web Slice by moving the mouse over the content, as in IE 8

The Web Slice preview in Firefox 3

To sum up, I do like the visual slicing out (e.g. by moving the mouse over on the latest post) of content from the web pages. It is like I’m indeed cutting and taking off something from the website

Update:

“And it magically redirects to the full post, when clicking on the -> (arrow) on the preview button. How come, it is detecting the first link as a useful link and discarding other links. I like magic but would like to read the documented logic behind it.”

Found the logic behind this one. It follows the link (<a>) which has rel=”bookmark”. My latest blog post has two links (the title link and the continue reading link) whose rel=”bookmark”. Both of them point to the full post. So Web Slices is picking up one of them, either the first one or the last one.

condom-a-cappella

I must admit that the post title is just meant to be catchy. The ringtone was launched, day before, by a campaign funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill Gates is ex CEO and founder of Microsoft. That’s the one and only connection with Microsoft

http://www.condomcondom.org/ is the website of this campaign. The ringtone can be downloaded from this site too.

The website is meant for Indian masses and aims to create awareness about HIV and AIDS, But note that the website is Flash based and slow to download. Most people in India use slow (slower than broadband) Internet connections, many are on dialups and Flash is not installed by default. Could have been a normal, fast loading, HTML site.

Nevertheless the ringtone idea seems to be a killer idea to spread awareness and kill the condom taboo. The mobile penetration is ever increasing in India. People esp. youngsters always want to do something new with their mobile – which includes setting up an interesting new ringtone.

• Microsoft Biztalk: Jitterbit
• Microsoft Commerce Server: osCommerce
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM: SugarCRM
• Microsoft Exchange Server: Zimbra
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server: Alfresco