Cranial Soup

How to Download Microsoft TechNet Spotlight Videos

2009-01-12T02:11:00.002-05:00

Microsoft offers a lot of great presentations on their TechNet Spotlight site.

The problem is that for some of them they will offer downloads, and some they will not, or they will not offer everything for download, as is the case with the Advanced Malware Cleaning presentation. They only offer the Powerpoint slides for it.

What if I don't want to or can't install Silveright? What if I want the high or low resolution video for offline viewing? Or the audio, too? Or what if I have issues with streaming the video and need to have a local copy in order to view it, at all?

I have seen some tutorials that require you to use various applications such as URL Snooper, Firebug, and VLC media player, to obtain an .asf file, but doing it that way is making it much more complicated than it has to be. Besides, you can't get everything. All you can get is a lower quality video intended for streaming purposes.

There is a simple solution, though. Whether the materials are offered with a download link on the page, or not, they do exist at the following URL's:

Powerpoint (ppt or pptx): http://microsofttech.fr.edgesuite.net/msexp/download/spotlight/XXX/XXX_pres.zip

Video - Hi Res (wmv): http://microsofttech.fr.edgesuite.net/msexp/download/spotlight/XXX/XXX_high.zip

Video - Lo Res (wmv): http://microsofttech.fr.edgesuite.net/msexp/download/spotlight/XXX/XXX_low.zip

Audio (wma): http://microsofttech.fr.edgesuite.net/msexp/download/spotlight/XXX/XXX_audio.zip

Just replace 2 XXX's with the number of the presentation, which in the case of the Advanced Malware Cleaning one, would be 359.

Bill Gates Cleans Out His Desk and Leaves Behind a Priceless Email

2008-06-28T06:01:00.005-04:00

The internet has been cluttered lately with tributes and articles devoted to Bill Gates and his contributions to the world of computing, on the eve of his retirement from Microsoft.

Out of all of these, one in particular stands out...

Back in 2003, Bill Gates tried to download and install Windows Movie Maker, unsuccessfully, and then sent a whopper of an email rant to the proper department heads.

I chuckled and felt a great sense of satisfaction as I read this, because this is a whole different side of Bill that we have never seen. This is not the smiling Bill you see in all the publicity photos. This is not the Bill you have seen in interviews and videos.

This is "Bill the XP user"...one of us. And he was pissed as all hell, at all the crap he had to go through to download & install an application from Microsoft.com, which in the end, he still wasn't able to do.

This email rant is a priceless gem.

It is the email we all wish we could have written, a million and one times over.

Each and every time that we have blamed and cursed out Bill over the years because of some stupid-ass Windows crap that has annoyed or confused the hell out of us, Bill Gates has been annoyed and confused right along with us, and bitching at the people responsible for the bullshit.

Thanks, Bill. You changed our lives. And I hope, even though you are retiring, that you plan to keep on bitching.

Win a Microsoft Visual Studio Team Suite Package Worth Over $10,000

2008-06-08T05:48:00.002-04:00

DonationCoder is running another whopper of a coding contest, with the help of Chris Hanscom (who runs veign.com).

The prize is a copy of Microsoft Visual Studio Team Suite with MSDN Premium subscription (almost every application from Microsoft!), worth over $10,000!

So what do you have to do to enter?

Code a new, never-released application, using one of the free versions of Microsoft Visual Studio Express.
Provide the source code for your application (but you do not need to release this publicly if you don’t want to).
The winning program must be freeware or donationware.
Code any kind of program you want.
Post a reply to this forum thread and email mouser stating your intention to enter, well in advance of the deadline.

When is that deadline?

July 1st, 2008

Oh, my! That’s not too far away, so go read about the full contest rules and information and get coding.

Good luck!