{ sankool.net }

To start with I was really amazed by the time it required to install it on my machine, less than 2 minutes and to add that it didn’t even ask for a reboot, this gave me great sense of things what to expect from the product, though would have preferred if it was not compulsory to register to Norton during the installation.The next point is the user interface, I will say impressive. Initially it seemed to me like a news channel. The tracker at the bottom gives fell of live tracker of stock market, though it’s actually used to give information about the latest threats.

Later when I when I ran the full scan it did turn down my running applications a bit slow, but when I minimized the window the applications were working fine, it has a build in mechanism like scan priority which lowers the priority of scanning when its minimized, I guess most of us will prefer to run it when the window is minimized. Surely a much wanted feature.

There is also an option for Computer scan, Reputation scan and Facebook scan. Computer scan works just like other antivirus, scans your machine for the known threats. In reputation scan, you can see how your files are rated based on their Trust Levels, Age and Prevalence. It also compares your scan results against the rest of the community.

Well the results shows that maturity of the files and the prevalence of the files on my machine were much higher than community average.For the facebook scan it will open a new browser window and later will scan all the links on your facebook wall for the link and will make sure that they are safe.

The performance of the Antivirus is commendable. One can just click on the performance button and see how much CPU and memory your antivirus is consuming.

Moreover you can also see the processes that use your CPU cycles and memory bytes

It also provided you the file insight for the process. It’s much similar to that of reputation scan, though this is just for a particular file.

I know this is too short for a review, but details analysis coming soon. As of now I have for sure dumped my earlier antivirus and Norton Internet security 2011 is to stay on my machine.

When I start to blog recently and about 3 blogs in just a week people expected me to blog on regular basis specially knowing the fact that am in Austria and nothing much to do. Well I was preparing myself for WPF certification, and was busy in reading “MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-502): Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.5 Windows® Presentation Foundation” by Matthew A. Stoecker.

 

I was really impressed after going through the structure of the book. It was well organized and the flow of topics was well maintained. It covers most of the topics and concepts required for getting started with WPF and building your application but the author expects you to have a good knowledge of .Net framework and basic programming knowledge. Examples like in most of the books are provided in C# and VB, so language over here is not more of an issue, and yes XAML is used too.

After reading this book I found it more focused to a developer and many of designer related topics like 2D and 3D are missing, but after going through the skill set required for this exam I found it to be quite comprehensive.

Also the point that I will like to make is that this book is totally meant for preparing for the exam and not quite useful if you are new to WPF and want to start learning it right away. For this will really recommend Pro WPF in C# 2008, with a caution that this book is language specific while the preparation guide is not.

 

My final verdict:

·  In-depth coverage of exam objectives and sub-objectives—plus instructive case studies and troubleshooting scenarios to enhance your performance on the job

·  300+ practice and review questions (in CD that comes along with the book)

·  Test engine that enables customized testing, pre-assessment and post-assessment, and automated scoring and feedback (in CD that comes along with the book)

·  Handy exam-mapping grid available at the end of index.

When I wrote my blog about Mircosoft , I received extreme reactions from my friends; those loyal to MS (Microsoft) blasted me out on my data collection technique and tried to prove me wrong in all possible way, while those who oppose MS applauded me on writing such a blog knowing the fact, that myself being MS MVP, MS patron and whose bread and butter is earned by working on these technologies. But the most important thing was none came up with a reasonable justification (atleast for me) for the same.

The point that I want to make is the patrons are just loyal to their brand, I guess it should be the other way around too. I would like to associate my self with the technology that am interested to work in rather than who created it. I was Java programmer in my academic days but when I moved to professional world I started to work on MS technologies just as I found that it was increasing my productivity, which was more important in my career at that point of time.

I had faced the similar problems when I wanted to by a new bike for myself. After taking test drive of couple of bikes I was confused about which bike to go for and even posted the same on some famous bike forums,over there I received a similar response. People actually transformed the topic to brand wars. Patrons were just loyal to their brands, not wanted to accept the fact about the other brand is better is some places. Each one trying to prove the brand the follow is immaculate, while the other one is not even worth a penny

This might be slightly OT but at some places the brand just takes the name for a specific technology. Still back in

India photocopying is better known as Xerox, the brand that invented photocopying. Instant camera or one minute photography is known as Polaroid the brand that makes such cameras. There are many such examples like Aquaguard for water purifier, Bisleri for mineral water and so on.All these examples just lead to a fact that Brands relies heavily on their patrons and it’s the consumer that is at loss.I guess this kind of attitude makes the Brand a little fearless and they just rule the market on people’s sentiments, without retuning back much to their customers. We should try to compare the things being rational and not following our heart (except you are madly in love with the person who is selling you the brand), this attitude will give a brand a run for their money and they will have to follow a continuous cycle for improvement.

Well in my point it should be cycle of loyalty, brands being more loyal to their customers return them with better products in the market and in return they find more patrons.