Friday, June 19, 2009

Remix sessions

For everyone that wanted to go to remix Australia or is interested in any of the content that was presented

http://www.microsoft.com/australia/remix/videos/

Thursday, June 18, 2009

IE8 Treasure hunt

Microsoft Australia is running an IE8 competition to find a $10,000 prize on in the internet. The only requirement is that to find the clues you need to be running IE8. Get started here.

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Sunday, June 07, 2009

Blind search

Michael Kordahi from Microsoft Australia has created a rather interesting website which lets a user test which web search service that they prefer. Currently the site let a person search for a term and the site returns 3 columns that are in random order, and have a uniform layout that represent bing, google and yahoo search results.

The blind search website is available here, and Michael’s blog entry in regards to the site is here.

Friday, June 05, 2009

Microsoft Internships

Microsoft in Redmond has started their recruitment process for interns over the Australian summer holidays. Below is an add for the intern positions, with details about how to apply.

 

MicrosoftLogo

Options are Good. In life and in your career.

A Real World Experience like No Other.  As an intern at Microsoft, you’ll have real responsibility, real work, and real opportunities to jumpstart your career. (You’ll get paid, too!) It’s an experience you’ll never find in a classroom. You’ll be given manageable assignments that you can complete while you’re here, and your efforts will likely take shape in Microsoft products—or be used by Microsoft teams—long after you return to school. And imagine millions of customers, not to mention your classmates, seeing your work! Some interns even parlay their experience into a job offer.

An Opportunity to Shine. Our interns make a real difference. Not by filing paperwork or running errands, but by developing real products. Here, you’ll run your own projects and put your skills to work. This is why our internship program is one of the most successful in the industry. You’ll learn more in 12 weeks than you would in a whole school year. It’s the kind of work that gets noticed by millions of people all over the world. Kind of redefines the whole concept of internships, don’t you think?

“An internship allowed me to identify areas in which I needed to grow and helped to validate that I am working in the right field.” - John, Software Development Lead, Windows Server Performance

Current Internship opportunities with Microsoft:

1)  Software Design Engineer (SDE) Intern

Work at the Core of Every Product We Build
This internship is where the fun begins for code gurus like you. As a hands-on Software Design Engineer intern, you’ll learn how to make decisions about design and feature implementation, using your mastery of technical tools to help make a product vision a reality. If you would like to write code and design efficient data structures and algorithms to develop next-generation applications or operating systems, listen up. This internship shows you how SDEs bring products to life by working with Program Managers to ensure strong design andSoftware Design Engineers in Test to ensure quality through testing. Ultimately for the SDE, it’s your code that turns concepts into new technologies and services.

Qualifications:

  • Fluency in C/C++/C# and a passion for writing quality code using computer science fundamentals
  • Ability to derive creative and innovative solutions by thinking "outside the box"
  • Ability to solve complex problems, sometimes by testing and debugging code
  • Expertise in feature definition, design, and feasibility
  • Demonstrated skill in estimating development time
  • Be available to relocate to our corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington, U.S.A for a 12 week internship (Microsoft Corporation pays all costs associated with relocation)
  • Functional level English Language skills, written and spoken requirement
   2)  Software Design Engineer in Test (SDET) Intern

Discover Life on the Last Line of Defense
As an intern Software Design Engineer in Test (SDET), you’ll own it, break it, fix it, and own it again. You’ll ensure a product’s quality by making sure it performs as users expect it to. Part of the fun is how creative you can be devising ways to manipulate, crush, and sabotage software into submission—while creating innovative testing technologies along the way.   Ultimately, as an SDET intern it’s your input that can help make the difference between joy and frustration for the customers. Since you’re keen on how things work, and making them work better, you’ll work hand in hand with the Program Managers and Software Design Engineers to design, develop, and maintain automation systems for use in development and testing cycles. Using the tools you create, you’ll help pour over source code for trouble spots, debugging and isolating problems, and executing creative tests to find new bugs while regression testing recent fixes.

Qualifications:

  • Fluency in C/C++/C#/VB.NET and experience designing and developing tool architecture
  • Ability to solve complex problems and write automation systems and device drivers
  • Ability to author test plans and cases, conduct security and stress tests, and debug at source level after identifying, investigating, and prioritizing bugs
  • Demonstrated skills in negotiation and conflict management
  • Demonstrated interest in customer advocacy derived from a holistic understanding of the product from the code level to delivery
  • Be available to relocate to our corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington, U.S.A for a 12 week internship (Microsoft Corporation pays all costs associated with relocation and helps with housing)
  • Functional level English Language skills, written and spoken requirement

Whatever position you choose, you’ll make a real impact in the dynamic world of product development at Microsoft. All positions are12 weeks and located in the United States at our corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

Send Us Your Resume
Submitting a resume is the only way to get to the next stage of consideration, the interview. Our recruiting team travels to Australia regularly to meet bright and enthusiastic people like you, and we look forward to receiving your resume.  Here are a few things to keep in mind when you are updating your resume to send to us:

  • Clearly state your graduation date, degree/major and the university are attending
  • Specify your technical skills (including programming languages and other development tools you know well), project details (both within university and at any jobs or internships you have held), and technologies you have used on those projects
  • Describe your role in the projects that you worked on, and what you personally achieved
  • Provide an active e-mail address, physical address, and current phone number  where we can reach you

If interested, please send your resume by July 22 to: ausrec@microsoft.com

A recruiter will review it, and if interested will set up a phone interview as a first step.  And, by the way, we have many positions available, so if there is someone else you think we should know about; please share this information with them.

If we invite you to interview, we will cover your travel expenses. If you receive an offer, we will cover costs for visa processing and provide help with relocation.  Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer and supports workforce diversity.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Bing search is live

Just a quick notes, Bing has been released to the general in ‘preview’ mode.

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www.bing.com

Friday, May 22, 2009

Review – How we software test at Microsoft

How we test software at Microsoft Alan Page, Ken Johnston, BJ Rollison

How we test software at Microsoft is one of the more interesting computer books that I have read. I have learnt a considerable amount through reading the advice and anecdotes that are spread throughout the book written by the authors and other experienced testers at Microsoft.

The book begins it’s story from the basics of testing, the engineering cycle and where testing fits in at Microsoft. The story then continues to how Microsoft tests software including techniques that are used by the company. The way that How we test software at Microsoft differs from the array of other testing books out there that explain how testing can be conducted is all testing methodologies are linked back to arguments of why Microsoft does this. Additionally the book is filled with anecdotes and other stories by testers at Microsoft on what they did or experience in their roles.

The story then continues into what I believe is the unique section of the book, and this is the tools that Microsoft uses and has built themselves. The experience and insight of the authors is shown in this section as they discuss what they, fellow test leads and test architects have managed to achieve in create unique and specialised software to achieve to the colossal task of testing software such as windows and office.

The authors all of whom are part of the engineering excellence team, which is responsible for directing the overall engineering process in the company, describe their visions for testing at Microsoft. Their insight into the future of testing especially when the world transitions from web 2.0 to web 3.0 explores how Microsoft is evolving to test software faster with an emphasis on virtualisation and automation in all aspects of the testing process.

The book is enjoyable to read with humorous sidenotes in regards to testing at Microsoft inserted through out. The add-ins provide a respite from the explanations of testing techniques that are used in the company. The authors put in considerable efforts to not delve into what can be the dry topic of explaining countless testing techniques that exist.

How we test software at Microsoft is published by MSPress and written by Alan Page, Ken Johnston and Bj Rollison.

Imagine cup finals

The imagine cup finals will be held on the 27th May (this Wednesday) and it will be held at the Microsoft Sydney office in North Ryde. For more details go to Link.

The details:

  • Date: 27 May 2009
  • Time: 6:00pm start, finishing approximately 9:00pm
  • Where: Microsoft Australia office
                1 Epping Road
                North Ryde, NSW 2113
  • Cost: Free to attend
  • email to register: Australian Imagine Cup

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Its not piracy competition

180x150_piracyThe its not piracy website is running a competition, which enters anyone who buy office ultimate for $75, enters a draw to win $5000. This is being run until June 30th. Addition they are also selling windows vista for $80 for those of you who are interested.

Just a reminder this offer is open to students, so you will need your unipass of STA student card if you are from UNSW .

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Windows 7 RC1 Disks

As many of you probably know Win7 RC has been released on the internet for the general public to download, you can download it here. The problem with the download is that it is logo_windowsover 4GB, and that will eat a big chunk of anyone's download limit. I am therefore working on getting some disk that I will distribute to anyone who wants a copy.

Anyone who is interested in a disk leave a comment, additionally I  will make another post when I have the disks.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Dream-Build-Play Challenge

Microsoft’s Dream-Build-Play challenge of 2009 has just started, and it is running from April 6 – August 6, so if you are interested in getting involved register here.

The dream-build-play challenge is an annual competition that is run by Microsoft that encourages anyone over that age of 16 to build their dream computer game. The prizes for this competition are pretty good, and include a share of $75,000 and more importantly a possible Xbox live publishing contract – if your game can cut it.

The basics of the competition are, use XNA and build the game for the Xbox. Additionally everyone that enters will get a free copy of a 12 month XNA creators club trial membership.

Monday, April 13, 2009

An introduction to cloud computing with Microsoft technologies

As we all know there have been a considerable amount of interest and talk about cloud computing solution and over the past couple of years the large computing companies have started offering their solutions. Microsoft has also thrown its hat into the preverbal ring offering .Net framework.

Rob Bagby is writing a series on how to start using the Azure framework – Link

The video podcast by Rob of his blog entry can be found here

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Free Microsoft Exams

Microsoft is offering students free certification exams in any test that is for a technology specialist exam! This offer is available till the 30th June 2009, and is being offered as part of the Dreamspark program.

MCTS_Banner

Anyone that is even semi interested in taking an exam I encourage you to sign-up before June 30th. If there are any problems with the offer leave a comment.

 Click here to be redirected to the website

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The new Dreamspark

Several days ago Dreamspark was updated in include a new design\interface and also there is new software and goodies for students on the site. The first thing that you can notice is that there is more software to download now.

  1. The latest full version for visual studio
  2. The new SQL server
  3. XNA 3.0
  4. Windows server 2008

and much more.

The biggest change is that there are now free vouchers for MCTS certifications, these will let students get Microsoft certification for free. These free tests are available for specialist exams.

If anyone has any issues redeeming any of the software or any other offers leave a comment.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Students to business (S2B)

Some time ago Microsoft introduced the students to business program, this is a graduate/recruiting program that is run by Microsoft match up graduating students with Microsoft partner businesses that have graduate and/or intern positions.

S2B site states- “The goal of Microsoft Students to Business is to provide students with the key competencies they need to excel in their future jobs and to further grow an industry that is empowering, inclusive and highly skilled. Strong local skills enhance economic growth and employment; promote innovation, and further encourage technological and cultural advances.”

For those of you graduating in the near future or have recently finished have a look at the site.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Its not piracy

Microsoft currently is running an offer for heavily discounted software that include the companies flagship products that are not free with the university’s MSDN subscription. Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007.

This is a program that is being offered for the seconds time after its success due to its popularity last year.

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

New year, new software

Happy new year, and hopefully everyone had a good start to your uni year. This year there is going to be most likely one major piece of software from Microsoft that you all will be hearing about, and that is windows 7. At this point there are two public versions, the first is an early build and the second is the beta version also know as build 7000. If you are interested in a copy of the software and haven’t downloaded it yet, leave a comment and I will see what I could dig up. Additionally if you have a copy of the software and need a cd key it is available here.

There are lots of new things coming out with Microsoft this year so stay tuned!