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Mihai Moscovici

 

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Propeople is a Microsoft BizSpark Network Partner

Propeople is now a Microsoft BizSpark Network Partner, a global program designed to accelerate the success of early stage startups. As a BizSpark Network Partner, Propeople can identify startup companies and individuals in the Scandinavian market and provide them with guidance on their future prospects, technological know-how and validate their eligibility for the BizSpark program.

The program itself provides incredible value and the necessary tools to build highly innovative solutions using the latest Microsoft technologies. It provides entrepreneurs fast and easy access to current full-featured Microsoft development tools and productions licenses of server products, with no upfront costs and minimal requirements.

BizSpark links your startup to a wide range of incubators, investors, advisors, government agencies and hosters around the world that are equally involved and vested in software-fueled innovation and entrepreneurship who will provide a wide range of support resources. Microsoft BizSpark offers the opportunity to become a part of a rich, vibrant ecosystem of peers, partners and support resources around the globe, helping you grow and succeed. It's all you need to fire up your startup.

Within the BizSpark Network Partner program, Propeople is an entrepreneurial expert who know all about the unique challenges that young businesses face. We specialize in promoting and supporting startups like yours through mentoring, networking, consulting, and so much more.

Enroll your software startup in the Microsoft BizSpark Program. Simply indicate Propeople as your BizSpark Network Partner at http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark and complete your enrollment form. Once the simple enrollment process is complete, you will receive a welcome e-mail that includes a unique subscription ID that can be used to activate the software download benefits and all the information to establish your connection with Propeople, as your BizSpark Network Partner.

Contact Propeople today to find out more about the invaluable BizSpark experience and all the great benefits we have for your startup.

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Mihai Moscovici

 

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Propeople 2009 retrospective

Amazing! This is the word to describe Propeople in 2009. It has been a tremendous year. In just a year Propeople (1) expanded by establishing a new office in Moldova, (2) gained the higher status by becoming an Acquia Drupal Platinum Partner and a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, (3) supported and actively participated at the most important events in the Drupal and Microsoft communities, (4) as well as developed unique and outstanding projects for distinguished clients.

It’s hard to explain all this great stuff in just few words, so we made a 2009 timeline of the major events at Propeople. Take a closer look, as you may find yourself in there too.

February
First trip to Moldova to establish the Propeople office in Chisinau, Moldova.
Michael Drejer, Welin Welchev and Michel Samucha came to Moldova for headhunting. In just three days they met most of the leading Moldovan web designers and web developers. One month later, Propeople had its first five designers and developers starting the work in Moldova.

March
Propeople become an official Acquia Drupal Platinum Partner, the company that provides products, services, and technical support for Drupal.
This partnership strengthens Propeople leadership position in cutting-edge trends and technologies, and forges Propeople as the leading Drupal company in Scandinavia, being the only Acquia Drupal Platinum Partner in the region (along with other 5 worldwide).

Michael Drejer, Welin Welchev, Jens Beltofte Sørensen, Denis Chakarov and Svilen Sabev attended DrupalCon in Washington DC.

Microsoft Most Valued Professional (MVP) Award recipients from Propeople, Martin Kulov (VSTS MVP) and Coskun Sunali (ASP.NET MVP) have attended the MVP Global Summit, one of the largest multiday Microsoft MVP events. At the MVP Global Summit, MVPs receive access to exclusive technical content, participate in direct feedback sessions, and meet with Microsoft executives, product teams, and their peers from around the world. Microsoft executives and employees welcome MVPs to the Global Summit at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington and in Seattle.

April
Propeople got really serious about blogging and social media. Check out Propeople blog... (ah, you're actually reading it :) and follow Propeople on Twitter.

May
Propeople had the privilege to proudly support the Danish Drupal community by becoming a DrupalCamp Copenhagen 2.0 Platinum Sponsor.
"As the leading Drupal development company in Denmark and an Acquia Platinum partner, Propeople has the responsibility to be a part of the Drupal community and to support it. Sponsoring DrupalCamp Copenhagen 2.0 is a great privilege to support the Drupal community both in Denmark and around the world." said Michael Koefoed Steensborg Drejer.

June
Propeople Moldova is oficially registered and opens a fully functional office in Chisinau, Moldova. We're always glad to see you in Moldova.

July
Propeople representative, Martin Kulov, in the jury for Imagine Cup 2009.

Imagine Cup 2009, held in Cairo on July 02-08, is the world’s largest students contest on Microsoft technologies. Martin Kulov was invited to be part of the jury along with other very important and respected Microsoft professionals.

August
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and Small Business Specialist
Propeople is officially a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. The MS Gold Certified Partner status represents the highest level of competence and expertise with Microsoft technologies, and the closest working relationship with Microsoft. Propeople was also assigned the special competency as a Small Business Specialist through proven competency in marketing, selling, planning, and building solutions for small businesses.

September
Live blogging from DrupalCon Paris
As an Acquia Drupal Platinum Partner, Propeople has actively participated at DrupalCon Paris and has provided live coverage from the conference on Propeople blog. Check out our live coverage on the DrupalCon Paris tag.

November
ProPeople is now a Microsoft BizSpark Network Partner
Being a BizSpark Network Partner, Propeople can now identify startup companies and individuals in the Scandinavian market and provide them with guidance on their future prospects, technological know-how and validate their eligibility for the BizSpark program. The program itself provides incredible value and the necessary tools to build highly innovative solutions using the latest Microsoft technologies.

December
One of the greatest news for the New Year is that DrupalCon is coming to Copenhagen in August 2010. Propeople will do all the best to make DrupalCon Copenhagen an awesome and unforgettable event for the global Drupal community.

We would like to say a big THANK YOU to all our friends and supporters for being with us in 2009. For the new 2010, we promise to exceed all your highest expectations through full commitment, genuine passion and hard work.

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Written by:
Mihai Moscovici

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Contest: Microsoft .NET Framework - Tell us Your Story

The EPiServer Gadget Contest 2009 has officially ended and we're glad to announce a new contest from Microsoft: Tell us Your Story - Microsoft .NET Framework.

The contest is about telling your story about how did you use the .NET Framework to create a killer app and what parts of the .NET Framework did you use to develop it? What challenge did you solve and how did you integrate your solution with other solutions and systems?

Simply share your interesting, powerful and unique solutions based on the latest Microsoft technologies, and you can win one of $16,000 in prizes, or be the absolute winner to choose of a 12-day Galapagos Islands Adventure, or a new Smart Car.

There are two ways to win:
1) Judges Choice: Impress the panel of technology industry leaders and Microsoft gurus for a chance to win a trip, a car, a home entertainment system, or a media internet tablet PC.
2) People's Choice: Get friends, family, and colleagues to vote for your solution. Receive the most votes and win one of three ARCHOS 320 GB Media Internet Tablet PCs.

Get started today! Visit www.mydotnetstory.com to enter your solution now and you’ll automatically be entered in the People’s Choice category. Then create a demo that showcases the power and uniqueness of your solution, and come back to add a link to your demo so you’re officially entered in the Judges’ Choice category!

The Entry Period of the contest ends at 5:00 p.m. PT on December 31, 2009. For more information about the contest please visit www.mydotnetstory.com and make sure to read the official rules.

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Mihai Moscovici

 

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New Microsoft products released at the Professional Developers Conference 2009

Microsoft announced the availability of the Windows Azure Platform at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, thus making Windows Azure and SQL Azure as core elements of the company’s cloud services strategy.

In addition, along with Windows Azure Platform, Microsoft has brought up lots of new technology like the Windows Server AppFabric and Windows Azure platform AppFabric, ASP.NET MVC 2 Beta, Visual Studio 2010, .NET Framework 4.0, and many others.

There is so much new stuff that many developers confessed they are having a hard time to get up to speed with all the new codenames that Microsoft just announced. However, the most important thing we want to focus on is the benefits of the new technology for us and our clients.

First, AppFabric will significantly improve websites’ caching, performance and monitoring capability. It will also improve scalability, reliability and performance of complex applications, regardless of where an application will be deployed. This means our clients' websites will perform better, and will have an advanced level of scalability and reliability.

The newly ASP.NET MVC 2 Beta helps to reuse the code through easier implementation of unit tests, thus increasing websites’ performance by reducing the output HTML. We are already using ASP.NET MVC 2 Beta in projects run at Propeople.

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET framework 4.0 increases development productivity by providing language enhancements and new improved libraries. Also, Visual Studio 2010, specifically Team Foundation Server 2010, will enhance our Application Lifecycle Management with better tracking and reporting tools, as well as improved work item management and integration with third party systems.

This is for the first time when Windows Azure is announced to support deploying of virtual machines. This will help EPiServer and SiteFinity clients to get unprecedented availability and scale up and down performance/capacity on demand depending on their current needs and on a demand-oriented price.

Finally, Microsoft released the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta suite that is available for download today. Propeople will be evaluating the beta in the next few months and we will be ready for the official release in the beginning of next year. This will give Propeople and our clients’ competitive advantage in resource and project planning, and will increase human resources utilization and efficiency.

Photo: netfusioncorporation.com

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Mihai Moscovici

 

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Propeople is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a Small Business Specialist

Propeople is officially a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, acknowledged as the highest level of competence and expertise with Microsoft technologies, and the closest working relationship with Microsoft.

The Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status gives Propeople has the full access to exclusive online content provided by Microsoft and strengthens us to offer multiple benefits to our clients. Our clients will have the advantage to enjoy more resources and improved support, customized technical service coordination, and access to the partner knowledge base, as well as to be the first to find out the latest news, promotions, and updates delivered by Microsoft.

Propeople was also assigned the special competency as a Small Business Specialist through proven competency in marketing, selling, planning, and building solutions for small businesses.

We are fully committed to provide online solutions and support for small businesses; to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through quickly addressing customers’ technical questions within few hours on a variety of Microsoft products, issues, and questions.

The Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and  Small Business Specialist status confirms Propeople as one of the best companies in the world providing Microsoft technologies.

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Mihai Moscovici

 

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First impressions about Windows 7

As soon as Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) was made available yesterday, I was ready to download and install it on my Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop. I knew the transition to Windows 7 will be smooth because I explored Windows 7 features in the previous article.

The first thing before even downloading Windows 7 is to make sure your PC is suitable for Windows 7 minimum system requirements: 1 GHz or faster processor, 1 GB RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB RAM (64-bit), 16 GB available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit), DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver. In case you have such a PC, you're ready to move forward.

Downloading Windows 7 RC was pretty easy. First you need to choose between 32-bit or 64-bit version of the system; then register with your MSN e-mail account, introduce some personal information and after confirming the ownership of the e-mail you'll be given the product key. Make sure you print or write down you product key, as it is very important for activating Windows 7 RC.

The next step is to burn the setup package on a DVD and to make sure the DVD works properly. Now you just need to do one very important thing: Back up your PC . Ideally, install the system on an formatted partition of your harddrive, but if you have only one partition, you'll need to save your data on an external harddrive, DVDs or other memory devices. Having your data backed up, you're ready to install Windows 7. You can find detailed Windows 7 RC Installation instructions on Microsoft's website.

The beauty of Windows 7 installation process is that the system guides you through the entire process and you literally do nothing. After inserting the disk and indicating the specifc partition for installation. Installation was complete in about 15 min. The system detected and installed all necessary drivers for video, audio, LAN, wi-fi, chipset, etc. When I first logged in, all the system elements were up and running. The whole system was perfectly tuned up and ready for work.

Exploring Windows 7 on my laptop, I noticed two important improvements: extended battery life and cooler processor. First, when running Windows XP, my battery was good for about an hour, but with Windows 7 my battery stays half longer, that is for an hour an a half. Second, Windows XP was heating up my laptop very quickly, but with Windows 7 I can feel my laptop is less warmer and the coller is working less frequently.

Indeed, Windows 7 is much faster than Vista and XP. Graphics are great and enjoyable. Improved navigation between windows and programs makes a better working experience. Windows 7 is definitely worth trying, and it is free untill June 2010.

Propeople expert

Martin Kulov is Microsoft department manager at Propeople with more than 10 years of experience. He is a leading expert in such technologies as WCF, VSTS, ASP.NET and IIS. Martin is member of INETA Speakers Bureau and often speaks at international events. In 2006, Martin has been awarded with the award Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) in Team System category. Feel free to contact Martin info (at) propeople . dk write "Martin" in the subject.

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Mihai Moscovici

 

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Windows 7 and the buzz around it

Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) will be made publicly available for download starting May 5, but the news already generated a big buzz on the web lately. The buzz is all about the great features of the conceptually new Windows 7: Windows XP Mode for Windows 7, driver compatibility between Vista and Windows 7, Windows 7 is much faster than Vista, and other multiple small, but nice changes.

The buzz around Windows 7 is also a marketing trick, as there are already discussions that XP Mode in Windows 7 is a scam, not all Vista drivers are supported in Windows 7 and for most part Windows 7 feels like Vista Second Edition. However, the marketing trick has its effect over the development process and support around the product.

Making the beta and RC1 available to millions, Windows 7 development team is able to receive huge feedback and fix an incredible amount of bugs before releasing the final product. This is what Windows 7 developers say about their feedback experience: “At the peak of the feedback cycle, we were receiving a “Send Feedback” report every 15 seconds for an entire week.” Finally, the RC1 will be used by manufacturers to adjust their driver support for Windows 7 before it is officially released as the final product.

Nothing is better than the personal experience and Propeople already tested Windows 7 Beta extensively. Thomas Sørensen, Senior Project Manager is using Windows 7 as the main OS on his computer for the last few months. Thomas described Windows 7 in just few words: “It’s much lighter and totally faster. The new navigation and interface is awesome.”

However, there are some bothering issues. The main problem is that “the beta is graphically buggy, missing some GFX drivers. Hope the final product will be 100% driver supported.” In addition to drivers, many programs that are running on Vista are not working on Windows 7. Another problem is that the system comes with IE8 preinstalled and Thomas believes “it is a shame that it comes embedded in the OS, because IE8 is not for everyone.”

Beside bugs, Windows 7 has its nice part: “Super cool and functional Office integration and very fast navigation on Toolbar makes the work process a lot smoother and easygoing” Thomas says. Finally, another new great thing about Windows 7 is the library system: “It doesn’t matter where files are placed on the hard drive u can group them by interest or filename. It’s pretty similar to iTunes library, but I liked it better.”

It seems Windows 7 is touching not only the market, but user’s hearts too. Even a high-profile tech analyst, Joe Wilcox, who describes himself as "neither Mac fanatic or Windows fanboy" said the Windows 7 beta was enough to make him switch back to PCs from the Mac.

It’s somehow premature to predict whether Windows 7 will conquer the market and outbid the competition, but it is clear that Windows 7 is already a huge step for the OS industry and for the final user experience.

Propeople expert

Martin Kulov is Microsoft department manager at Propeople with more than 10 years of experience. He is a leading expert in such technologies as WCF, VSTS, ASP.NET and IIS. Martin is member of INETA Speakers Bureau and often speaks at international events. In 2006, Martin has been awarded with the award Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) in Team System category. Feel free to contact Martin info (at) propeople . dk write "Martin" in the subject.

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