.NET From India

Phonetic Input Tool

I was just checking something else in Connect and stumbled on the Microsoft Phonetic Input Tool Beta. This is a cool tool if you are bilingual and use on of the Indic languages. 90% of the time you use English, but then sometime you need to write in a Indic language, but then it is too much trouble switching keyboard layouts or using the onscreen keyboard??

This tool allows you to type in English, but get the output in the equivalent in the respective Indic script. For example, I typed thamizh in english, but with the tools turned on I got தமிழ். Very cool and easy way to type out Tamizh blog posts (I am not sure if I will start one, but then முயர்சி செய்யலாமே) :)

And the other thing I love about this tool is that it is so easy to use and integrates into the normal IME.

After you install the tool, just go to a Unicode aware application and click the language toolbar. You now have a list of all the Indic languages that the tool supports. So you work with it as if you are working with the default IME. Then select the language you want to work with and you are ready to use it. The tool now shows the language selected and you start working.

The major problem I have had till now is that it does not support editing the text easily as once the conversion happens, what is actually there in the text is the unicode equivalent in the target language.

Vista and Broadcom NetXtreme II

Recently we got two Dell PowerEdge 2950 Servers at work and I wanted to run them on the Longhorn server Beta 2. So I went ahead and installed LH Server, but then it could not recongnize the highend NetXtreme II Gigabit network card. None of the drivers shipped by Dell worked. The problem seems to be that these drivers use NDIS client 5 while LH server requires NDIS6. I tried to see if Vista will work, but Vista RC1 still had the same problem. So I was stuck with a server that could not connect to the network.

Then I found a link to a RIS driver at broadcom for Win2K3 (I am unable to find this link now and it looks like the Broadcom site structure has changed). The help said that this was based on a monolithic older architecture and limits access to some of the newer features in the NetXtreme card. So I just gave it a try, setting compatibility and it worked fine. The server is now online and I have full network access!!!

MSN India Entertainment

Looks like MSN India is jacking up its entertainment value...

Changes to Vista License

Just read at the Vista Team Blog, that they are removing the only 1 device install rule from the license and allow you to reinstall many times, as long as you have uninstalled the previous copy.

Uninstall a patch

One of my co-MVPs pointed out to a recommendation from EA on one of their latest patch, "to uninstall a critical security patch" to get their game to run.

This is so surprising that I read the post multiple times, before I could believe it and this is in the readme of a recent patch!!

I can understand if your program is broken due to a security patch. You then go ahead and try and fix your application so as to work with that and then release a patch. But to release a patch and recommend users to uninstall a security patch for it is work, is surely not acceptable at all.

(Update: Looks like MS has has released a hotfix that makes it work with the game now)

SteveB live in India

SteveB is visiting India next week and one of the few public appearances he will be making is for the Indimix event in Mumbai.

If you cannot make it to Mumbai, you can still watch the event over the web by signing up via MSN for a live Internet TV relay to your desktop. If you do not have the bandwidth, you can go to one of the many Virtual Townhalls (at the local Microsoft Office), in multiple cities, where this event will also be simulcasted.