Different video gamers will need different Xbox 360 packages

I really should have bought myself a video games console by this point, for I have wanted one for a long time now. After the recent hubbub involving the theft of personal data from the PS3 network, I have decided that I should buy myself a 360 console from Microsoft!

Acquiring and 360 can be a trifle intimidating though, as there are several different systems available but I just want to play a game of Duke Nukem Forever Balls of Steel edition when it appears in September!

The 360 Core System is white shelled and (importantly) does not use controllers that operate without wires. Most players will want to save their game progress and save downloaded content and so Core is not suitable for it fails to include a much needed memory unit. The 360 Arcade package eventually replaced the Core option as the basic Xbox package which does come with the necessary 256 MB memory unit, as well as wireless controller set up and the benefits of Xbox Live Silver.

Xbox 360 Premium contains that within the Arcade package and more, including a 20GB detachable hard drive for storing data of all types, headset, HD AV cable, Xbox Live Silver and a free trial for Gold. The 360 Elite system is the essential kit for Xbox fans, comprising a sleek black casing and is HD compatible - games graphics have never looked so good!. The package also includes the previously mentioned peripherals and Xbox Live trials, and also a whopping 120 GB hard drive!

Hard drives can be expensive in their own right and so, I am sure that the Premium deal would be ideal for me. I plan to play the LA Noire game when I receive my pre order and am likely to pre order NCAA Football 2012.

Windows Phone 7 Smart Phones - A Look At Some Of Your Options

The smart phone market is increasingly saturated with offerings from all the big technology giants, including Apple, Blackberry and various Android devices. Microsoft has recently got in on the act too, releasing 10 new phones, all of which run the Windows Phone 7 operating system, and theyre manufactured by a variety of companies. There are offerings from LG, Samsung and Dell, plus 5 by Android specialists HTC. We take you through some of the best Windows phones, their advantages, disadvantages and key features.

One of the most eagerly anticipated Windows Phone 7 phones is the HTC HD7. This phone is generally very good. It has a decent sized screen of 4.3inches, and its also a touchscreen. There are good apps available, including Photo Enhancer and Notes. It also has up to 16GB storage capacity, a 5 megapixel camera and HD video recording capabilities. A couple of flaws include the below par display quality and comparatively low number of pixels, plus a slightly low build quality.

By contrast, the HTC Mozart boasts excellent build quality more familiar to regular users of HTC phones. Its also thought to be the most successful Microsoft phone and it comes with an impressive specification, including an 8 megapixel camera with Xenon flash. This provides good picture quality. Theres a 3.7inch touchscreen, making it an ideal size for carrying round. The apps are similar to those on other HTC phones but theyre definitely worth the money, as is the 8GB storage capacity and attractive phone appearance.

The Omnia 7 is the Windows phone produced by Samsung. The best feature of this is the brilliant high contrast AMOLED screen, which is easily better than any other LCD offerings. It has a good 5 megapixel camera, although the focusing capabilities could be improved. It has a good loudspeaker that streams sound with only minimal distortion. One area where its lacking is in the number of apps available from Samsung. Also, the power button is in an odd place but overall the layout and phone appearance are good.

If you like a QWERTY keyboard, then you should go for the LG Optimus 7Q, which is currently the only Windows Phone 7 phone to offer both touchscreen and keyboard. The downside of this is that the keyboard adds a lot of bulk to an otherwise good phone, making it slightly uncomfortable for typing. The 480 x 800 pixel, 3.5inch screen is good and theres also a good 5 megapixel camera. It boasts good connectivity as well as 8GB storage capacity.

Manage Knowledge Bases with SharePoint Hosting Template

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hosting providers provide easy-to-use templates free with their SharePoint hosting service plans. The SharePoint hosting templates are meant to meet the challenging needs of your day-to-day business operations. These application templates implement scalable business solutions which require minimum administrative effort and speed up operations. These templates take into account common functionalities, roles and requirements for a specific business operation and can be applied to business tasks for creating useful web-based applications.

The Knowledge Base Moss SharePoint Services hosting template is one such template that helps in efficient Knowledge Base management by standardizing and categorizing information. With the basic hosted Microsoft Office SharePoint Server price plan, you get access for unlimited users at a cost as low as $8.95 per month, from hosted solution providers such as Apps4Rent. Additionally available, is a free package of Microsofts 40 SharePoint hosting templates.

Organizations often strive hard to manage volumes of vital information and share it with all members across the organization. The Knowledge Base SharePoint Portal hosting template helps teams to efficiently manage information within their organization. Using this template, you can create new documents with the help of web-based content creation tools and also upload existing documents. It is also possible to tag documents with the intent that others can find and refer to these documents with ease.

The template can be utilized in two ways - a top down approach or a bottom up approach. In the top down approach, a central department passes down appropriate information to the specific members concerned. In the bottom up approach, information from the knowledge base is captured by all team members as a standard business process, and this information can be further dispersed to others within the organization. Thus searching information turns out to be simpler than ever with the Knowledge Base SharePoint hosting template.

SharePoint Service Architecture with a renewed feel in 2010!

With changing times and technologies, there have been a lot of changes to both the logical and physical topologies of SharePoint 2010. Thus, its very important for any developers to know the architecture of the new Windows SharePoint 2010 services.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 builds on the operating system and database services to add additional features, such as team sites and collaboration features. Specifically, WSS 3.0 provides the following platform capabilities:

* Storage: Through content databases, which are literally SQL databases managed by Moss SharePoint to accommodate the pages, data, and documents stored in the various portals, team sites, and workspaces
* Management: Administration pages with deep configuration options
* Deployment: Web farms, physical servers, and roles
* Site Model: Web application, site collection, and sites
* Extensibility: Features, Web parts, and templates

A well architected logical and physical SharePoint Portal environment tends to revolve around Search. Search drives much of the logical and physical architectures for SharePoint 2007. SharePoint 2010 has not changed from a Tier perspective. There are Web, Application and Database tiers. Whats important is it to understand how to architect those tiers. For SharePoint 2010, the Application tier has changed significantly as it is more sophisticated than what was available in SharePoint 2007. Some things that we will get into within this series are creating service farms and partitioned services.

Architectural changes in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

1. Shared Service Providers (SSP) which was used to host services in SharePoint 2007 have been completely removed from SharePoint 2010. Thus, the services are run independently in SharePoint2010

2. Some services in SharePoint 2010 will be referred to as Service Applications. Not all services in Central Administration are Service Applications. Service Applications tend to map to major features of SharePoint rather than services which could be considered part of the infrastructure of SharePoint

3. Service Groups have been introduced to logically manage Service Applications. When Service Applications are added they will be included in a Default Group. Web Applications can use that Default Group or use a Custom Group of Service Applications

4. SharePoint 2010 services can be reused within and across farms. This was not available in SharePoint 2007 and provides a significant amount of scalability options.

5. SharePoint 2010 supports Service Partitioning. If you are familiar with database partitioning, think of it is horizontal partitioning of data within a SharePoint service. Not all services support service partitioning; partitioning is only used in services that are data driven. A typical scenario is that a centrally managed/cross farm service with data that should not be exposed to all subscribing farms. If that is the case, a farm would subscribe to a partition of centrally managed service. In SharePoint lingo each partition is referred to as a tenant.

Thus, having a glance at these changes before diving deep into SharePoint 2010 would be really helpful!

How to sync Nokia E70 with Microsoft Exchange Server?

Nokia E 70 is a Symbian OS-based Smartphone with exclusive range of features. Being a Symbian based phone, Nokia E 70 can be configured to sync with Microsoft Exchange Server. Syncing with Hosted Exchange Server allows you to access your email, calendar, contacts (address book) and tasks of your Microsoft Exchange account on your mobile device. These entries on your mobile device are updated with the entries on Exchange account through the process of synchronization. The Mail for Exchange client synchronizes updates from your email, calendar, contacts and tasks content on your mobile device with the content of your Microsoft Exchange account.

The Mail for Exchange application allows you to customize synchronization with the following:

* Select the content you want to synchronize email, calendar, contacts, tasks, or any combination of the four.

* Set up a schedule by which Mail for Exchange automatically synchronizes. (You can also synchronize manually at any time).

* Resolve content conflicts during synchronization by specifying whether the content of your account on the Microsoft Exchange or your mobile device prevails when a conflict occurs.

* Select Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to increase the security between your mobile device and the Exchange server.

* Select how you want to be alerted when you receive an email.

How to sync Nokia E70 with Hosted Exchange 2010?

In Nokia E70, the Mail for Exchange client comes pre-installed (built into the firmware), so no files need to be downloaded and installed (.sisx files). You can perform the following steps to create a Mail for Exchange mailbox:

1. Press Menu.
2. Select Email.
3. Select New.
4. Select Start.
5. Enter your Email address for your corporate email account.
6. Enter Password.
7. Select Mail for Exchange.
8. Enter User name.
9. Enter Domain.
10. Enter Mail for Exchange server name (web address for Exchange server hosted).
11. Select Ok.

The PIM data (Contacts, Calendar and To-do's) synchronization is disabled by default perform the following to enable:

1. Select Menu.
2. Select Email.
3. Select Settings.
4. Select Personal Information Manager.
5. Select Applications (the following steps will give a general configuration for any of the 3 items).
6. Select each of the items (Calendar, Contacts, To-do) that you desire and change as needed.
7. Select item sync change to Yes if desired.
8. Select Initial sync - delete from phone will erase all items from the device and replace with those on the Microsoft Exchange 2010.

Use your E70 and stay connected as the brand tag says!

A Selection Of The Best Windows Phone 7 Phones

Windows Phone 7 is Microsofts latest move to become the dominant player in the extremely competitive smartphone operating system market. Windows Mobile was quickly overtaken by other more powerful operating systems and has been shut down altogether. Windows Phone 7 has now become Microsofts primary weapon in this battle and several high-end smartphones are running this operating system. What follows is a summary of three powerful smartphones and the features they employ to showcase the Windows Phone 7 operating system.

HTC HD7 - HTC introduced this model to replace the HD2, which ran the Windows Mobile operating system. The HTC HD7 utilizes a 4.3 inch LCD screen with a cool little kick-stand built in for easy viewing of movies at a table or desk. The battery is a 3.7V 1,230 mAh, which is only rated for 6.5 hours of talk time; less time than many in its class. There is 16 GB of built in storage on this unit, and the camera is a 5 mega-pixel auto-focus camera designed for either still pictures or 720p HD video.

Samsung Omnia 7 - The Omnia 7 was introduced by Samsung as their Windows Phone 7 offering. This unit boasts a 4 inch AMOLED touch-screen display with 800 x 480 pixel resolution, which is a standard on all of the Windows Phone 7 units. This phone has the good solid feel of a substantial piece of smartphone hardware due to its metallic body and solid design. A 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 chipset runs this phone and its connectivity options include GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. This phone also has a popular FM radio and its autofocus camera is of the 5 mega-pixel persuasion.

LG Optimus 7 - LGs Windows Phone 7 entry is similar to the Samsung, in that it offers a 1 GHz Snapdragon chipset, as well as GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. The major difference lies in the AMOLED screen size which is a bit smaller at 3.8 inches. This phone body has a metal back plate rather than an all metal body, but the back plate still gives the phone a good feel. It is also quite slim. The Optimus 7 has a 5 mega-pixel autofocus camera capable of HD recording as well.

Since Windows Phone 7 smartphones are required to have certain features as standard, manufacturers will have a difficult time differentiating themselves and will have to rely heavily on aesthetics and design to win customers. With so many great smartphones available to run Windows Phone 7, it should not take long for Microsoft to become one of the strongest operating systems on the market.

If you liked this, try : Windows Phone 7 Deals