VT's Blog

The Blog of Viral Tarpara A Smart 27 year old's thoughts on Windows, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, and Productivity

Last Day at Microsoft

Hello Everyone, With great reluctance, I am leaving Microsoft and will no longer be maintaining this...

Author: viralta Date: 04/29/2010

Why One Mac User Hates Google Docs

Why I Don't Use Google Docs By Rob Griffiths, Macworld.com When you need to collaborate with others...

Author: viralta Date: 03/31/2010

A Review of Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 from MIX 2010

Underbelly has a great chronological timeline of the what was announced at MIX regarding Xbox Live,...

Author: viralta Date: 03/15/2010

Explaining the Cloud

I did an academic presentation at Bucks University hosted by the Istitution of Engineering and...

Author: viralta Date: 03/11/2010

Buy Office 2007 Now and Upgrade to 2010 for Free!

Microsoft has kicked in its technology guarantee for customers who are waiting to upgrade to Office...

Author: viralta Date: 03/08/2010

Microsoft Releases Visual Studio 2010 RC!

Q: What was announced today? A: Today, Microsoft announced a Release Candidate (RC) for Visual...

Author: viralta Date: 02/08/2010

Weekender: Facebook, Silverlight, CSS, Guy Kawasaki

CSS Zen Garden Illustrates the Power of CSS This is a great site that shows real-time CSS design...

Author: viralta Date: 02/05/2010

Microsoft IT Talks about Snow and Unified Communications

Snow Problem What a winter! The long range weather forecasters got it wrong, traffic in south...

Author: viralta Date: 02/04/2010

Microsoft in Education – A Presentation by Steve Beswick

I managed to finally import, edit, and clean up the video from The SharePoint EDU Conference that...

Author: viralta Date: 02/02/2010

PHP SQL Server Driver for All You Communists

I’ve been meeting a lot of open-source devs lately and most tend to be genuinely surprised about the...

Author: viralta Date: 01/30/2010

Just Watched Obama Get Grilled by House Republicans QA for 90 minutes. WOW!

Sorry if politics isn’t your thing (it should be cause tech revolves around policy), and I am not...

Author: viralta Date: 01/29/2010

Apple iPad – A Microsoft Allegory (Part 1)

Kudos to Apple on a fantastic product launch!  I give props where it is due and they really did...

Author: viralta Date: 01/28/2010

Microsoft Releases Haitian Creole Translator for Haiti Aid Workers

Its been amazing to see the world community mobilize against the disaster in Haiti.  There...

Author: viralta Date: 01/28/2010

Microsoft Can Do Sexy Too…Pshh iPad

If you’ve heard or used our Arc Mouse, we now have a really cool companion item to go with it. ...

Author: viralta Date: 01/27/2010

Understanding Expression Blend Sketchflow in 5 Minutes

Taking the audio from the original recording presented during Oxford Geek Night, I created a video...

Author: viralta Date: 01/26/2010

February Live Webcasts from Microsoft

TechNet Webcast: Network Considerations for Deploying Communications Server 2007 R2 (Level 300)...

Author: viralta Date: 01/25/2010

Mr. Ballmer, Would You Sign My Mac?

Sorry, this was too funny not to post!  Well played Mr. Ballmer…well played.  Just out of...

Author: viralta Date: 01/22/2010

Deepfat Rationalizes the Ribbon UI in Microsoft Office

My colleague Andrew Fryer (@deepfat) was annoyed at BETT 2010 conference by the number of older...

Author: viralta Date: 01/22/2010

Office 2010 Tips – Co-authoring Tools and Web Apps

Cutting in line is encouraged With powerful co-authoring tools at your command, you never have to...

Author: viralta Date: 01/20/2010

Office 2010 Tips – Print, Share, and Communicate Easier with Office Backstage View

Use the Backstage view for quick access to the essentials The new Microsoft Office Backstage view...

Author: viralta Date: 01/19/2010

Office 2010 Tips – View, Edit, and Collaborate Anytime Anywhere with SharePoint Workspace

Pilot SharePoint Workspace! Ever open your computer, ready to work from home, and realize you forgot...

Author: viralta Date: 01/18/2010

Microsoft Office Web Apps License Information

Ars Technica has a done some reading in the in the “product use rights” document pertaining to...

Author: viralta Date: 01/11/2010

Exchange Server Deep Dive Content

Exchange Server in Depth: Master Concepts and Optimize Your Server Environment The latest release of...

Author: viralta Date: 12/03/2009

Windows Azure Interop with Ruby on Rails!

I presented at London Geek Night a few days ago about the contributions that Microsoft made to the...

Author: viralta Date: 12/02/2009

Sky Player on Windows 7 Media Center

Sky Player, Sky’s online TV service launches on Windows 7 creating a new and innovative way for...

Author: viralta Date: 12/02/2009

TechNet December WebCasts and Videos

TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Virtualization Best Practices for SharePoint (Level 200) Wednesday,...

Author: viralta Date: 12/02/2009

What’s New In SharePoint 2010

There is a lot of noise in the SharePoint world post SharePoint Conference 2009 and PDC.  I’m...

Author: viralta Date: 11/30/2009

Pairing Jawbone Headset with Windows 7

Doing a search on this topic, it seems that many of you out there are frustrated by the fact that a...

Author: viralta Date: 11/23/2009

Discover the Future of Visual Data Mining with Microsoft Pivot

The world has too much information.  If you query any search engine for any topic, you will...

Author: viralta Date: 11/21/2009

Chrome OS Engineering vs. Windows 7 Engineering

Okay everyone, the moment has finally arrived!  Google just announced… A Big Pile of Nothing It...

Author: viralta Date: 11/20/2009

Classrooms with “Mini” Mainframe Using Multipoint Server

The idea of using a single machine with multiple simultaneous users is not a new concept. ...

Author: viralta Date: 11/17/2009

SharePoint VCX Conference Videos Posted! (FREE)

Attend at Your Convenience! If you weren't able to make the SharePoint Live Virtual Conference &...

Author: viralta Date: 11/13/2009

A Partner’s Objection Handling Guide for Exchange 2010

In my previous post, you read about the challenges and solutions that Exchange 2003 customers value....

Author: viralta Date: 11/11/2009

Pitching Exchange 2010 to Exchange 2003 Organizations

With the launch of Exchange 2010, I thought it would be a good idea to how the product team feels...

Author: viralta Date: 11/10/2009

Try Out Office Web Apps, Edit Office Docs with SkyDrive

I must admit, I don’t use SkyDrive as often I’d like simply because Microsoft is really good at...

Author: viralta Date: 11/05/2009

Hosted Microsoft Services on the Cheap? Yes Please!

There has never been a better time for hosted business software!  Software available today...

Author: viralta Date: 11/04/2009

Office 2010 Tips – Make Quality Diagrams with Visio

Get a backstage pass to vibrant diagrams Microsoft Visio 2010 gives you fast and easy access to a...

Author: viralta Date: 10/23/2009

SharePoint Conference Day 2 – IT Pro Overview of 2010

While I’m really busy tweeting live at this conference, I read a great overview for IT Pros who are...

Author: viralta Date: 10/20/2009

SharePoint Conference Day 1 – Keynote Bullet Points

What a conference! 7400+ Attendees 150+ Breakout sessions, Hands On Labs, and Chalk Talks 7.5 Miles...

Author: viralta Date: 10/19/2009

Office 2010 Tips – Language Translation on Steroids laughs at Google Docs

What language barrier? Find improved tools for translation in Word Word 2010 has great tools for...

Author: viralta Date: 10/14/2009

Office 2010 Tips – Visio “Quick Shapes” Remembers What You Use the Most

A home for your favorite shapes and functions! Microsoft Visio 2010 gives you fast and easy access...

Author: viralta Date: 10/13/2009

Orange Broadband Router SE572 Fix – Block UDP 500

I just got a Orange Broadband since they have a deal for Microsoft UK employees.  They...

Author: viralta Date: 10/12/2009

Super Fast Technical Overview of BPOS – Exchange, SharePoint, and OCS Online

Bpos Architectural Consideration Architectural Forum View more presentations from ukdpe. One of our...

Author: viralta Date: 10/09/2009

Microsoft is Having a Big Patch Tuesday – Webcast Announced

For October we are releasing 13 bulletins (eight critical and five important), addressing 34...

Author: viralta Date: 10/09/2009

Office 2010 Tips – Easily Edit Video in PowerPoint 2010

Break out the director’s chair Embed and edit video files directly in PowerPoint 2010. Easily...

Author: viralta Date: 10/09/2009

Microsoft OCS Improves Interoperability – XMPP Supported and AOL is Free

Starting October 1, 2009,, a PIC License will no longer be required for federation with American...

Author: viralta Date: 10/02/2009

Microsoft Gets Top Marks in SAML 2.0 Interoperability

Microsoft security experts have never really been fans of SAML, a markup language, that is crucial...

Author: viralta Date: 10/01/2009

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