March HERO Newsletter for Developers and IT Professionals

  • Article
 
 
Microsoft Issue 3
 
DEVELOPER AND IT PROFESSIONAL NEWSLETTER
     
 
Welcome to another edition of the Hero Newsletter. Through this, we hope to bring you anything and everything IT-related happening around the region. This time's newsletter is not only about IT Pro news on all the latest in Microsoft products and services but also about ideas, innovations, excellence, cool new tools, releases, announcements, exciting sessions and much more. Prepare yourself for a deep dive into this exciting and rewarding world of information. Enjoy! The Hero Team
 
 
Microsoft Egypt Open Door & Phone Camp 2012
On Feb. 20th and 21st, Microsoft Egypt held an Open Door event at the Fairmont Heliopolis. The first day's keynote was by Haitham Desoky , winner of the first prize in the 'Stars of Science' Competition which included 7000 young inventors from all over the Arab world. It was a very exciting and motivating session for the audience to kick off the day with. Attendees had more than 8 technical sessions over the two days, plus 6 booths and 2 labs showcasing Microsoft's latest technologies. There was also the launch of 'Kinect for PC' and the new Technical Support service hotline 16880, corners / booths for CSR; CPE; IE; Office 365; SQL; Website spark; CMIC (ATL) AFKAR booth etc. in addition to 50+ MSPs and interns helping and managing booths. The second day's keynote was given by a team of very innovative young students, who were Microsoft Interns and currently Microsoft Student Partners (MSPs). Omar Aboul Kheir and Ahmed Refaat are the first to take 'Kinect for PC' and build the first prototype application for kids to improve learning and imagination. Following that were the 'heavy weight' sessions around 'ALM; Testing, Win 8 Development and Azure' . Microsoft Egypt Open Door & Phone Camp 2012 Microsoft Egypt Open Door & Phone Camp 2012
    TOOLS FORDEVELOPERS ANDIT PROS
• Web App Gallery – Create websites the easier way
• Windows Phone SDK link – All you need to write world-class mobile apps
• Azure SDK - Get the tools and learn how to develop Cloud apps
RESOURCES FOR DEVELOPERS AND IT PROS
• Microsoft virtual academy – Free e-courses on Virtualization and Management
• TechNet Portal – The essential portal for IT Professionals
• TechNet Wiki – Collective knowledge from Microsoft experts and your peers
• TechNet Downloads – Download free trials and betas of the latest Microsoft software
• IT Skills for the cloud – All you need to set the sky as the limit for your career in a cloud IT environment
• MSDN link – The key portal to knowledge base and free tools
• MSDN Virtual Labs – It's like a big full scale data-center but for your experiments and creativity only
• MSDN News Flash – Subscribe for key news and special offers
      		    
     
  On Feb. 22nd and 23rd, Microsoft Egypt held the Phone Camp event at Fairmont Heliopolis. The first day's keynote was really exciting, it was a demo by Sherif Abbas, Egypt DPE Lead, on Windows Phone 7 live to 500+ phone developers. Later, Ahmed Adel, MEA DPE Sales & Operations Director, joined and delivered a stellar demo by actually coding and developing phone apps in just a couple of minutes. The idea of the Phone Camp competition was to submit App ideas on codevnext, then submit the actual App on Yalla Apps and collect the biggest number of votes for Apps to qualify for the finals of the 'Best App Contest' to win cool phone prizes from Nokia, Samsung and HTC. In parallel, the Citizenship team ran another contest to encourage the audience to develop Apps for the community to serve health, education or any other purposes. The Camp yielded 100+ App ideas submitted on codevnext and 56+ App submissions on Yalla Apps. 9 teams won prizes in the camp, and Microsoft distributed the 'Yalla Apps Extravaganza Contest' prizes for the winners too. The best App winners were: 'Chess; Arkab Eh, Netflix and Easy Recharging', for CSR the winners were: 'Literacy Helper', 'Fady ya Asta', 'Alphabetica', 'Donation C', and 'Press Save a Life'.  
Call Center Campaign Technical support 16880 Contact Us
     
 
Microsoft Sql Server Join us for the only virtual event dedicated exclusively to the cloud-ready Information Platform! Meet the Sql Server
 
  The Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Virtual Launch Event on March 8, 2012 is an exclusive, online event designed to give you an overview of Microsoft SQL Server 2012's exciting new capabilities All material will be available online for the coming 60 days. So even if you missed the March 8th first hand streaming, you can see all sessions online at your own pace. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 ensures mission-critical confidence with greater uptime, blazing fast performance, and enhanced security features; breakthrough insights with managed self-service data exploration and interactive data visualizations; and cloud on your terms with extended on-premise and public cloud solutions. Go Further. Forward. Faster. With Microsoft SQL Server 2012! Register Today!  
     
  Download Microsoft Private Cloud Evaluation Software  
  Microsoft® System Center 2012 Release Candidate plus optional Windows Server® 2008 R2 SP1 download  
  Get Started Now  
  private Cloud  
  A Microsoft private cloud dramatically changes the way your business produces and consumes IT services by creating a layer of abstraction over your pooled IT resources. This allows your datacenter to offer true infrastructure service capability as well as optimally manage application services. Microsoft private cloud solutions are built on Microsoft System Center and Windows Server. Microsoft System Center 2012 Release Candidate empowers you with a common management toolset for your private and public cloud applications and services. Microsoft System Center helps you confidently deliver IT as a service for your business. Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (optional download) will give you improved powerful virtualization capabilities that can transform how you deliver IT services to your end users and enable you to lay the foundation of a private cloud infrastructure. Please Note: Many Microsoft private cloud scenarios require Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. If you are using an older version, we highly recommend upgrading to experience the full Microsoft private cloud evaluation. Need more information? See the product details page. Register to access technical product resources at the Microsoft Private Cloud Evaluation Resource Page.      
  System Center System Center Advisor is a cloud service hosted on Windows Azure that regularly analyzes your servers' configuration, drawing on the wisdom and experience of Microsoft support staff and its countless interactions with IT professionals to automatically highlight server configuration problems and their solutions for Windows Server and Mirosoft SQL Server. System Center Advisor (formerly Microsoft codename 'Atlanta') enables IT Professionals to proactively avoid server configuration problems by assessing static, runtime and operational data to identify potential issues that cause outages or poor performance. System Center Operations Manager is great at alerting you to server issues as they happen, enabling you to quickly respond - but what if you could actually prevent server configuration problems before they ever impact your server's performance or availability? You check for any recommendations by logging into the Advisor portal. You also have the option of email alerts and recommendations delivered directly to your inbox. System Center Advisor is a new benefit of Software Assurance for Microsoft SQL Server or Windows Server, currently available in 26 countries. You can evaluate System Center Advisor now through the 60 day free trial . If an organization is already covered by Software Assurance on either Microsoft SQL Server or Windows Server they can activate the full Advisor service immediately. Further information is also available on the System Center Advisor web page.  
Hot Topic
  Get Ready for Windows Server '8' Beta! Windows Server '8' Beta was announced to the public on March 1st, 2012. The beta download is available NOW!!! Customers and partners can download the bits, whitepapers and training from here. The evaluation engines are already populated with the latest bits! This is a major release in terms of our virtualization capability to compete better against VMware. Try it out NOW!  
 
Get ready for windows server 8 beta   Make sure you bookmark the Server and Cloud What's New Page on Microsoft.com so that you can participate in the excitement, watch the latest video from the technical folks, and share the great content with your teams.
 
     
     
   Introducing The Future of Productivity and Microsoft Office 365
  
  Microsoft® Office 365 provides the greatest set of productivity tools in the market today by bringing together online versions of our email and collaboration software with our familiar Office Professional Plus suite in the cloud. The cloud service is designed to help meet your needs for robust security, 24/7 reliability, and user productivity. Microsoft Office 365 is built upon the same software which Gartner rates as a leader in 8 of the magic quadrants for productivity and collaboration. It provides: • Anywhere-access to email, documents, contacts, and calendars on nearly any device • Business-class features including IT-level phone support, guaranteed 99.9% uptime, geo-redundancy, and disaster recovery • Pay-as-you-go pricing options and flexible online transition terms for EA customers which give you predictability and flexibility for your organization • Seamless integration with Microsoft Office your users already count on every day Microsoft Office 365 represents our next generation of the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) which has been our successful online service solution for the last few years. (For more information on BPOS please go here.) Microsoft Office 365 is today available in Egypt for Free Trial Subscription through the Microsoft Office 365 Trial Page, and will be generally available in mid-2012 in 40 countries. Learn more about the availability of Microsoft's Online Services solutions roadmap here. Microsoft Office 365 as part of Microsoft's Productivity Platform Microsoft Office 365 is the online solution in our productivity platform. This platform delivers a holistic business productivity approach with a unified set of technologies delivered on-premises, in the cloud, or a combination of both: 1. Unified Communications help streamline communications and collaboration 2. Business Intelligence tools enable efficient decision-making 3. Enterprise Content Management tools drive compliance, policy, and control with enterprise-grade security and reliability and 4. Enterprise Search helps people connect to the information they need to get their jobs done. How can Office 365 meet your IT needs? 1. Enterprise-class security and reliability. Companies depend on collaboration and communication to make their business successful. Services need to be available any time of the day or night. Microsoft Office 365 runs on a global network of data centers protected by multiple layers of security. By complying with International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001 standards, Microsoft Office 365 helps you meet industry-specific compliance needs with fewer resources and lower costs. Microsoft's cloud data centers are geographically dispersed and fully redundant, designed with enterprise-grade reliability, disaster recovery capabilities, and employ operational best practices so that your content and services are always available. As a result, the services come with a financially backed Service Level Agreement for a guaranteed 99.9-percent scheduled uptime. 2. IT control and efficiency Microsoft Office 365 reduces the burden of performing routine IT management tasks such as keeping security updates current and performing back-end upgrades. At the same time your IT staff retains control over user management and service configuration, so they can tailor the services the way your company does business. Around-the-clock, IT-level support is included. 3. User familiarity and productivity. People need to be always connected, even when they are away from the office. Microsoft Office 365 offers flexible, powerful, and familiar ways for your people to deliver their best work and stay productive—regardless of where they are or the device they use. Additional Microsoft Office 365 benefits include: • 25 GB mailboxes and the ability to send attachments up to 25 MB • Financially-backed, guaranteed 99.9% uptime Service Level Agreement • 24/7, IT-level support over the phone, the web or email • Single sign on capabilities with Active Directory deployment • Latest version of Office Professional Plus - connecting users to communication and collaboration services • Office Web Apps for viewing, sharing and minor editing of documents directly from a browser • Industry-leading, always-up-to-date anti-virus and anti-spam solutions • Integrated IM and presence, online meetings with audio and video conferencing and multiparty data sharing • Team sites to share, manage and search for information and resources  
Visual Studio
  Microsoft® Visual Studio® 11 Beta is now available for download – now developers can finally access the tools to build metro-style apps for Windows 8! Beyond the clean and professional look, the overall environment has been streamlined with simplified toolbars, a lightweight Find dialog, and less tab clutter by previewing files rather than opening them during debugging. It's now easier to manage the environment by rafting tabs on a second monitor, or by searching the IDE for a menu or command. Install and try Visual Studio 11 Beta today and seize the future of development. https://www.microsoft.com/click/services/Redirect2.ashx?CR_CC=200092092 https://www.microsoft.com/click/services/Redirect2.ashx?CR_CC=200092093  
Windows 8
  It's Windows reimagined and reinvented from a solid core of Windows 7 speed and reliability. It's an all-new touch interface. It's a new Windows for new devices. And it's your chance to be one of the first to try it out. Get it now Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Express Beta for Windows 8 is your tool to build Metro style apps. It includes the Windows 8 SDK, Blend for Visual Studio, and project templates. Downloads for Developers  
     
 
Grab it pin it love it Did You Know The sites you love are one click away with IE9·
• The IE9 pinning feature allows you to interact with your favorite sites instantly.
• Pinning is simple. Just grab the site's icon from the address bar down to your Windows task bar.
• You can add all your favorite sites Like Facebook and interact with them, get updates directly to your desktop, get notifications and messages from your favorite sites without having to open these sites from time to time
• The pinned site becomes like a native app on your PC and the web you love is just one click away
 
IE9 is partnering with more than 500 sites in MEA and all these sites are using Jumplists.
• Pin any site and interact with it instantly. Sites adopting Jumplists allow you to interact even more with the site.
• Jumplists are quick shortcuts to the most popular sections of the site.
• Jumplists allows users to go directly to his favorite content with one click.
• Some sites especially news sites adopt dynamic jumplists allowing quick shortcuts to change daily and get all notifications and news to users on a daily basis directly to there desktop.
You can learn about the new IE9 features in Arabic.
• The IE Arabia fan Page is Live on Facebook with more than 200K fans.
• The page contains all educational, interactive materials about IE in Arabic for all Arabia markets.
• Join our IE community and get daily updates about IE9 features, new HTML5 Apps and experiences with IE9 and interact with us.
https://www.facebook.com/IEArabia
 
     
     
Safety and Security Center
   

Most of us put a boundary between our personal and professional lives. But that's not so easy to do online. That's why, on Data Privacy Day 2012, Microsoft provided information and resources about how to manage your personal information online. Discover:     • How your personal information gets online • How to help protect your privacy on the Internet • How to take charge of your online reputation

Security updates for February 14, 2012The Microsoft Security Bulletin for February includes nine security updates, including five for the Windows operating system, one for the Windows Internet Explorer browser, and one for Microsoft Office. • Get updates from Microsoft Update  • See a summary or watch a video about the updates

PhishingDon't let phishing threaten your small businessSmall businesses are not immune to the threat from phishing scams. Discover how to reduce the amount of phishing e-mail messages that you receive, and how to report a suspected scam.

Malware New Ransomware Displays Bogus Police Alerts, Requests Payment of a Fine PCWorldRansomware Trojans detected recently in the wild display bogus messages from law enforcement agencies in Europe and ask users to pay nonexistent fines, Microsoft warned.'We have recently seen the emergence of several samples of a ransomware family localized into different languages,' researchers from Microsoft's Malware Protection Center (MMPC) said in a blog post Monday. Related Reading: Microsoft Security Center, Sophos  

  
   
•
•  MVA In March we launched the Microsoft Virtual Academy (www.MicrosoftVirtualAcademy.com ). This training portal offers quick and easy access to presentations, webcasts, whitepapers and other technical content about Microsoft's Cloud technologies. It is public, free and you learn at your own pace while earning awards and recognition for answering evaluation questions, while connecting with thousands of other IT Pros. New
• Configuring & Deploying Microsoft's Private Cloud
• Private Cloud: Infrastructure Components
• Private Cloud: Infrastructure Management
• Private Cloud: Service Delivery & Automation
• Private Cloud: Application Services Management
• Microsoft Private Cloud Infrastructure
• Microsoft System Center 2012: Configuration Manager
• Microsoft System Center 2012: Virtual Machine Manager
• Understanding Microsoft's High-Availability Solutions

Coming soon

• Other System Center 2012 Components
• Solution Accelerators

We now have over 473,000 students!

I.T. PRO AND DEVELOPERS SESSIONS  Don't miss this month's technical events. Remember to book your seat in advance on https://www.hero-eg.com Session dates and details

 
Date Topic Presenter
March 25 SQL 2012 Wagdy Ishac
March 26 Introducing Windows 8 Mahmoud Ghoz
March 27 Testing ALM Story Dr. Ahmed Bahaa
       
Microsoft respects your privacy. Please read our online Privacy Statement. If you would prefer not to receive future promotional emails from Microsoft Corporation please click here. These settings will not affect any newsletters you've requested or any mandatory service communications that are considered part of certain Microsoft services. To set your contact preferences for Microsoft Communications, click here. %%Member_Busname%% %%Member_Addr%% %%Member_City%%, %%Member_State%% %%Member_PostalCode%% %%Member_Country%%
   
•
•