Microsoft Corp. has announced plans to bundle two “family” video games with its Xbox 360 Elite game console during the holiday season. The company hopes to attract more attention of non-core audience to its premium game console. The success of the plan is not obvious, to say at least.

Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite Holiday Bundle will contain Lego Batman: The Videogame as well as Pure game titles in addition to Xbox 360 Elite console with 120GB hard disk drive, one Xbox 360 wireless controller, an Xbox 360 headset, Ethernet cable, composite video cable and so on. The bundle will cost $299, a price-point that casual gamers consider rather high for a game machine. The Xbox 360 Elite Holiday Bundle is already shipping.

Separately, Microsoft unveiled Xbox 360 Wireless Controller Game Pack, which includes a wireless controller along with four popular Xbox Live Arcade video games and costs $59.99.

Microsoft announced several rather interesting Xbox 360 Elite bundles in the recent weeks in a bid to more successfully compete against Sony PlayStation 3 Slim 120GB. With the “Holiday Bundle” the company probably hopes to address casual gamers with increased budget by providing free “family” games with its premium console. Still, it is not obvious that a lot of people will choose a $299 game console instead of well-known Nintendo Wii, which now costs $199.

orginal :: xbitlabs

Access 2007 introduced a new concept called Layouts. The most useful scenario for the feature was tabular reports. It makes it very easy to resize and rearrange columns compared to the pre-Access 2007 days with absolute position. Layouts in Access 2010 are much more flexible—allowing you to split columns and cells similar to tables. In many ways, this makes it easier to keep controls aligned.

I could tell you all about it but this is one of those features that is much easier to show than describe. Chris from the User Assistance team has put together a super useful video helps people get started quickly with layouts:

<\/embed><\/object><\/div>”;” alt=”">

One tip Chris didn’t mention in the video was keyboard support. You move selection through cells with TAB and SHIFT TAB. Shift Arrow resizes controls and ALT Arrow moves the control to a different cell. You also will notice him deleting controls and then deleting the row. He could have used the new Delete Row and Delete Columns commands that were added after the Technical Preview.

Enjoy!

via :: msdn

Mozilla has announced that Firefox, the little browser that could, has nearly reached a sizeable milestone – one billion downloads.

It’s due to hit ten digits very soon, perhaps even this weekend, if the company’s predictions are accurate. To celebrate, it’s launching a website on Monday – www.onebillionplusyou.com. We hope that it’ll at least be opening a bottle of champagne, too, but there’s no official word on that one.

The foundation told Pocket-lint “Mozilla has come a very long way from the start and are very proud of this massive milestone. This accomplishment is a direct result of the continually growing Mozilla community and Firefox supporters”.

Mozilla says the new website will serve as “a hub of information about the one billion downloads”. We hope that’ll include some interesting demographics on Firefox users, but we’ll have to wait and see on Monday.

Although most of us are waiting for Microsoft to release Windows 7, the software giant is still hard at work maintaining the current versions of Windows; namely Vista and Server 2008.

Today it has made Service Pack 2 available for download after a fairly lengthy beta period – we first looked SP2 performance back in December last year and we found very little difference between SP1 and the SP2 beta.

Microsoft posted some important ‘things to know‘ about the Service Pack last month, where it says to uninstall any beta versions of the Service Pack before installing the RTM version and also noted that if you’ve used ‘vLite’ to customise your Vista install, you may have removed components that prevent SP2 from installing.

There is a workaround, though, which Microsoft has detailed in this entry on its knowledge base.

Another important thing to note is that the beta version of the Service Pack is time limited and will expire on 1st June 2010 – if you have a beta version installed, Microsoft strongly recommends upgrading before that deadline.

Unified installers for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista and Server 2008 are available – grab them from the links below if you’re still running Vista.

32-bit – Download
64-bit – Download

source :: bit-tech

Although it has not been confirmed until now it was expected that Microsoft would take advantage of some of the new features of Windows 7 in upcoming software releases. The first application to take advantage of Jump Lists is Office 2010 according to Robert’s Windows Now blog. Jump Lists provide quick access to program features. In the case of Outlook 2010 those are quick links to write a new email message, create a new appointment, contact or task and to go to various sections in Outlook like the inbox or the calendar.

The other Microsoft Office 2010 programs are also supporting jump lists that provide quick access to the usual assortment of recent files and program quick links.

source :: windows7news

Microsoft Learning is providing three Windows 7 E-Learning clinics. The courses have been designed with three different audiences in mind and can be accessed by following the links below. Please note that a Windows Live ID and the latest version of Adobe Flash are required to access and view the clinics.

Clinic 10125: What’s New in Windows 7 for Consumers

This clinic covers the following topics.

* Desktop and Taskbar Enhancements
* Sharing, Search, and Security
* New Tools and Experiences

Consumers completing this clinic should have experience working with previous versions of Windows.

Clinic 10077: What’s New in Windows 7 for IT Professionals

This clinic covers the following topics.

* Overview of Deployment Enhancements
* Overview of Security Enhancements
* Overview of Manageability and Performance Enhancements

IT professionals completing this clinic should have basic familiarity with deploying, managing, and maintaining Windows Vista or the Windows XP operating system.

Clinic 10088: What’s New in Windows 7 for Information Workers

This clinic covers the following topics.

* Be More Productive with Windows 7
* Be More Secure with Windows 7
* Get Connected Faster and Easier with Windows 7

Information workers completing this clinic should have experience working with previous versions of Windows.

Microsoft Learning is estimating between 1-2 hours to complete a course.

source :: windows7news

A new credit card has been developed in the battle against credit card fraud
Credit card companies use a variety of methods to help battle credit card fraud. Some have implemented the placement of an owner’s photo on their individual card, and others offer hotlines, along with “tips for protection” guidance. Now, Visa is testing another security measure: the Emue Card.

Aside from the usual security code that credit cards show, the new Emue Card generates an additional four-digit code which is changed each time the card is used. Card owners would need a pin in order to view these four numbers, which would be required to complete a transaction.

The card will be on trial until the end of the year, before which it will be tested by 500 Deloitte employees. If the trial goes well, and the card is certified by Visa, it will be up to both banks and credit card companies whether they will choose to take on the product.

Employees at Deloitte, along with anyone else who has access to the card, can expect to see a rise in safety when it comes to phone, internet, and mail order fraud. According to the BBC, thefts occurring through these mediums, known as card-not-present or CNP fraud, are continuously increasing and make up over 50 percent of all credit card fraud. An Emue Card could help to bring down this percentage because it demands more information than what can be seen on the card – those attempting to use it would have to know the pin needed to generate its additional security code. This security measure would be especially important with transactions occurring without a salesperson present to check signatures or look at photos on the cards that offer them.

The Emue Card has brought about certain obstacles in its development. One example included finding a way to help card owners avoid the accidental pressing of buttons. Developers tackled this by creating buttons which need to be “pinched” to work rather than simply pushed down.

Sandra Alzetta, head of innovation at Visa, explained another problem-prevention system underway: “One of the things we’re testing is how long the battery lasts – the plan is for it to work for more than three years, which means your card should expire before it runs out of power.”

Alzetta also discussed the challenge and need of global compatibility features, including “embossed characters for mechanical swipes, a magnetic strip for systems that require a signature, the fixed three digit security code and now the unique four- figure code.”

“You have to remember that our cards work across the world, and not every country or retailer has access to the level of technology we might be used to,” she said.

source :: dailytech

Micros Systems, a provider of information technology services for the hospitality and retail industries, said it has acquired Fry Inc. for $31.3 million plus the assumption of $18.4 million in debt.

Full story at :: newsisfree

Google’s Gmail Labs adds a Google Web search bar to the e-mail service.

tutorial :: InternetnewsRealtimeNewsForItManagers

Microsoft shows off coming updates to its Visio diagramming tool, including support for Office 2007′s vaunted “ribbon” UI.

Full story at :: internet