How to Build and deploy workflow custom actions

SharePoint 2013

Learn how to model business processes whose requirements are not met by the existing library of workflow actions in SharePoint Designer by creating custom workflow actions in SharePoint 2013.

Last modified: March 09, 2015
Applies to: SharePoint Server 2013

In this article Core scenario for custom workflow actions Overview of custom actions Writing custom activities in Visual Studio 2012 Example: Create, package, and deploy a custom activity Updating and deleting custom actions Additional resources

SharePoint 2013 workflow: Create a custom action

SharePoint Designer provides a collection of workflow actions that are available through the Workflow Designer user interface (UI). Although the range of workflow actions that are included in SharePoint Designer) is extensive, it is nevertheless finite. In some cases, you may need to model a business process whose requirements are not met by the existing library of workflow actions that are available in SharePoint Designer.
Recognizing that business processes often have specialized requirements, SharePoint 2013 lets you create custom workflow actions. You can develop these custom actions by using Visual Studio, and then package and deploy them to SharePoint. At that point, the custom action becomes available to workflow authors in SharePoint Designer, exactly as if it were among the library of existing actions. This capability lets you customize the functionality in your workflow authoring environment to match any of your specialized business processes.

Note
A sample is provided that illustrates creating a custom action. The sample, along with a readme file, is available here: SharePoint 2013 workflow: Create a custom action (http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/SharePoint-2013-workflow-41e5c0f9).

Core scenario for custom workflow actions

The core scenario for custom workflow actions is captured in the following narrative line:

1. A business analyst or other non-technical information worker is using SharePoint Designer to author a workflow to model an internal business process—for example, a document-approval process. However, in this company, the final step of the process is, upon final approval, to automatically dispatch the document to an external printer who prints and binds a specified number of copies of the document.
   
2. No workflow action that is included in SharePoint Designer 2013 supports dispatching a document to an external printer. Therefore, the company managers decide to invest in providing this custom action (they call it the "Send Files to Printer" action) for the company's information workers.
   
3. Vendors expose printing web services. To capitalize, a developer creates a custom Send Files to Printer action, named SendFilesToPrinter. What the developer creates is a declarative workflow activity. The developer also, then, creates the workflow action to provide the drag-and-drop UI for the action in SharePoint Designer.
   
4. The developer packages both the SendFilesToPrinter activity and the Send Files to Printer action in a SharePoint solution package (.wsp) file and deploys it as a site collection feature to the SharePoint farm.
   
5. After the feature is deployed and activated, the information worker sees the new custom action, Send Files to Printer, in the SharePoint Designer UI along with all of the normally included actions and can use it just like all the others.
   

Overview of custom actions

An action is a wrapper that abstracts the functionality of its underlying activity in SharePoint Designer. At run time, the underlying activity, not the action itself, is executed in the Windows Server AppFabric. In this sense, actions are just design-time abstractions of underlying functions in the SharePoint Designer workflow authoring environment (in addition to being elements of the SharePoint Designer using interface.
Like all actions, custom actions are "web scoped"—that is, they are activated at the level of the SharePoint site collection, or SharePoint.SPWeb instance.
Actions are defined in XML definition files that have the .actions4 file name extension. The underlying activity (or activities), on the other hand, are defined in a XAML file.

Writing custom activities in Visual Studio 2012

Visual Studio 2012 now provides a "workflow custom activity" item type within SharePoint projects. You can use the item type to create a custom activity that you can then import as a custom action in SharePoint Designer 2013.

Example: Create, package, and deploy a custom activity

To create a workflow custom activity

1. Begin by opening Visual Studio 2012 and creating a new Visual C# project of type SharePoint 2013 Project, as shown in Figure 1.
   
   Figure 1. New Project dialog box
   
   
2. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project name node, and choose Add, New Item. This opens the Add New Item dialog box, as shown in Figure 2.
   
   Figure 2. Add New Item dialog box
   
   
   
3. In the Add New Item dialog box, choose the Workflow Custom Activity item type and give it a meaningful name. In the illustration, the name is "WorkflowActionsModule1". Then choose Add. The new item is created, and you are presented with the activity design surface.
   
4. If the Toolbox tab is not already showing, click it to expose the toolbox nodes. Click the SharePoint 2013 Workflow node to show the workflow development objects. There is a partial view of objects in the workflow toolbox in Figure 3.
   
   Figure 3. Partial view of SharePoint workflow toolbox
   
   
   
5. Add new action (.actions4) and activity (.xaml) files to your workflow module, as needed. To add these files, right-click the actions module icon in Solution Explorer, choose Add, and then choose either Add Action (to add a new action4 file) or New Activity (to add a new activity), as appropriate.
   

After you create your actions module and add your action and activity files, your project should look something like that depicted in Figure 5. You will see one .actions4 file for each action that you added, and one .xaml file for each activity. Additionally, you will have an Elements.xml file and the module’s .xaml file.

Figure 5. Workflow actions module in Solution Explorer

After you create your custom workflow activity, you can then package and deploy it. After it is deployed, the custom activity can be consumed by SharePoint Designer 2013 as a custom action.
Custom actions are packaged and deployed as SharePoint Features in SharePoint solution package (.wsp) files. The solution package contains a custom actions module, which is a set of files that are deployed on SharePoint. This module can contain any number of workflow activity definitions, each of which is a .xaml file. The module also contains actions (.actions4) files. Each actions file contains multiple actions that refer to the activities in the module, or to native activities that are available on a default SharePoint installation.
After a solution package (.wsp) file is uploaded and activated on the target website (that is, the SharePoint site collection), the features that are contained in the package are installed and available for activation. After the custom actions are activated, they are available for use in a workflow.

Updating and deleting custom actions

After your custom action is deployed, you can update or remove it very easily. All you have to do is open the activity project in Visual Studio, make the changes that you want, and then package and redeploy as described in the preceding procedure. To remove the custom action, you can just uninstall the feature on the target site collection.

Feature activation

Activating a custom action feature on a site collection (that is, on an SPWeb instance) succeeds only if the Azure/ Workflow Manager Client 1.0 (the multitenant workflow engine) is correctly configured. Two troubleshooting hints that may help ensure a correct configuration include:

• Going to the Site Features page and ensuring that the feature that contains the custom action is activated.
  
• Querying the Workflow Manager Client 1.0 database to ensure that the activity is successfully deployed.
  

What's new in workflow in SharePoint Server 2013

SharePoint Server 2013 brings a major advancement to workflow: enterprise features such as fully declarative authoring, REST and Service Bus messaging, elastic scalability, and managed service reliability.
SharePoint Server 2013 can use a new workflow service built on the Windows Workflow Foundation components of the .NET Framework 4.5. This new service is called Workflow Manager and it is designed to play a central role in the enterprise. Processes are central to any organization and workflow is the orchestrator of processes.
In this article:

• Two SharePoint workflow platforms
  
• SharePoint Designer enhancements
  
• Workflow Manager capabilities
  
• Windows PowerShell cmdlets that manage workflow
  

Two SharePoint workflow platforms

The SharePoint 2010 Workflow platform has been carried forward to SharePoint Server 2013. All of your workflows that were built by using SharePoint Server 2010 will continue to work in SharePoint Server 2013.
In SharePoint Server 2010 the workflow engine installed automatically with the product. This continues to be the case with the SharePoint 2010 Workflow platform in SharePoint Server 2013. If you simply install SharePoint Server 2013 and do not install and configure Workflow Manager then you will have a nearly identical experience with building workflows as you did in SharePoint Server 2010.
The SharePoint 2013 Workflow platform only becomes available to you, and your tools, after you download and install the new Workflow Manager service and configure it to communicate with your SharePoint Server 2013 farm. For a detailed guide on this process, see Start: Set up and configure SharePoint 2013 Workflow Manager.
The figure illustrates the concept.
Figure: Architectural changes in SharePoint Workflow

SharePoint Designer enhancements

SharePoint Designer 2013 includes new functionality designed specifically for Workflow Manager. In SharePoint Designer 2013 this new platform is known as the SharePoint 2013 Workflow platform. These new features include:

• A visual workflow development experience that uses a Visio 2013 add-in
  
• A new action that enables no-code web service calls from within a workflow
  
• New actions for creating a task and starting a task process
  
• New coordination actions that let you start a workflow built on the SharePoint 2010 Workflow platform from a workflow built on the SharePoint 2013 Workflow platform
  
• A new Dictionary type
  
• New workflow building blocks such as Stage, Loop, and App Step
  

When you create a workflow in SharePoint Designer 2013, you have the option of choosing the platform on which you wish to build a workflow in the workflow creation dialog as shown in the figure.

Workflow Manager capabilities

Workflow Manager brings a new class of workflow to SharePoint Server 2013. Workflows built by using Workflow Manager can take advantage of several new capabilities. These include enterprise features such as:

• High Density and Multi-Tenancy
  
• Elastic Scale
  
• Activity / Workflow Artifact Management
  
• Tracking and Monitoring
  
• Instance Management
  
• Fully Declarative Authoring
  
• REST and Service Bus Messaging
  
• Managed Service Reliability
  

My Crazy Simple 7 Step Plan To Promote A New Post

Simple 7 Step Plan To Promote A Post

We all know how important quality content is, and I been known to write some here and there
But no matter how great your content is, no one will see it unless you promote it.
I’m not going to share mind blowing secrets here kids, but what I will share is EXACTLY what I have done to get my 12 month yr old blog to a PR4 and Alexa 117,000 and Ranking on first page for some big keywords.
Not bad for a 12 month blog that for 3 mnths I wrote NO posts and have a total of only 78 posts. 
That is about 1-2 posts a week,  I know pathetic lol,  but I been busy with my online businesses and family, but I promise to get on a tighter schedule.

So if what I’m sharing has worked for me with 1-2 post a week think what it would have done if I was on a consistent 3-5 posts a week.
*Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links to products that will earn me a commission. I only recommend products/services that I have used and that I like and trust.

Let’s get into it my 7 Steps…

______________________________

Submit To Twitter

This should be a no brainer for you by now.  Twitter if used correctly WILL send people back to your blog to read your post! Period!
Now more then ever, Twitter should be first place to send your new post, Read Why.

Submit To 20 Social Sites

I use Hootsuite and Ping.fm to send out my post to over 20 other social sites.
Go here is to be as efficient as you can be, using Ping.fm let’s you do that without having to sign into each and every account.
Facebook tip, is to post your link directly on facebook at least once before using Ping that way will get more SEO juice from it as a direct link back to your blog.

Bookmark To 30 Sites

Bookmarks works and with Onlywire I send my new post out to 30 sites with the exception of a few Capcha codes it is automatic.
Added to this I use firefox add on Shareholic to submit to another 15 sites that Onlywire doesn’t have.
So in about 15min of time I have my post out to about 45 sites.
Lately I been testing Social Maximizer to go crazy with bookmarks, to over 200 possible sites, so far I am very happy with it.
Both options work great Onlywire and Shareholic or , but if you have a little bit of money to spend then I Highly recommend Social Maximizer it is awesome.

Blog Carnivals and BloggersBase are no longer available.
Blog Carnivals No Longer Work
It is free to submit to carnivals and the more targeted the post to carnival is the higher your chance your post will be excepted.I did this manually for a few weeks and bitched and moaned the whole way thru lol  but in the end the effort is worth the hard work.I have been using a blog carnival submitting software called that pretty much automates the process to 1 or 30 carnivals at once.Have used it for 3 weeks and makes life A LOT easier..lol  especially if you have a lot of old posts that you would like to submit.
Post To Bloggersbase
I been posting on BloggerBase for few months see my BloggersBase Profile and each my post have been read (each my post get read 200-400 times.
Not bad for a site that lets you post on for free as many times as you like and let you read readers you may never have before.

Post To BlogEngage

BlogEngage is a new site I was invited to join a few weeks back.  Brian at BlogEngage has a nice system setup to let bloggers reach other bloggers, connect and share in the promotion of each others blogs.
I been very happy with the luv my posts have gotten and the comments, traffic and ReTweets I been getting all from BlogEngage.
You have to be invited to be  part of the community, which is Brian’s way of keeping things at a high quality and a benefit to all members.
If you email Brian tell him John Paul sent you and I’m sure he will send you an invite,  yea I got celebrity status like that

Comment On Related Blogs

I have talked about how I use blog commenting before so I won’t go to far into it, but I comment on blog posts that fit what my most recent post was about.
Also I learned recently is if you are blog commenting for a back link, then don’t waste your time commenting on a post with over 40 – 50 comments.
Google only spiders the first 60 links on a page top to bottom, so if you comment 55 plus the links on that page beside the comment links, then you wont get credit for that back link.
Now you SHOULD comment FIRST to offer something to the conversation, and back link benefit should be a bonus not your primary reason to comment.
That’s it, simple to read and simple to do if you take the time and do it for each and every post you write.
Any tips you can share?

Pique Your Customers’ Palates with These Website Strategies

Putting your best practices forward is imperative, especially when you work in a business with as much competition as the restaurant industry. Preparing divine food and offering impeccable service are parts of the process, but so is establishing a website that directly addresses the needs of your current and prospective customers.
1. Gear the website toward your target audience. For example, you may be a Queensland catering website, so you want to make sure that the pages are crafted with individuals who are party planning in mind.
2. Use local SEO strategies. Not only do you want to reach out to people who are searching for a restaurant at their homes, but you also want to grab the attention of people nearby who are browsing on their phones. One of the best methods is getting listed on the site like Zomato.

3. Make sure that you include prices on your website. If you do not list the cost of your cuisine, then some people are simply not going to come to the restaurant, especially if they’re on a budget.

4. You should show photos of what the restaurant looks like so that people can gain a sense of what they should wear and what the style is. Also, make sure you have stunning pictures of the food or of your catering for wedding to entice them.
5. For those of who run catering services websites, you should include a list of your packages there. You do not necessarily need to write out the prices, but people should know what the package options are.

6. Include information about different specials and events on your website. Some people are specifically coming to your site to see if you offer anything that makes you stand out from the rest.
7. Provide the option to make reservations online. You may have your own system for doing so or link out to a third-party provider. In any case, many people prefer to make reservations online, and such a system allows them to do so at any time of the day.
8. Make sure that your hours and contact information are clear. People who have to spend a great deal of time trying to figure out if your restaurant is even open are probably just going to pick another restaurant.
9. If your restaurant does pick-up and delivery, give people the option to place their order online. The easier you can make tasks for individuals, the more likely they are to take advantage of the system.
10. Consider creating an option where people can provide you with their email addresses, and you can use this address to send them coupons. You may wish to offer a coupon just for signing up.
11. Be certain to infuse your style and vibe into the restaurant. By doing so, customers already begin to feel the atmosphere, which invites them in, and they also know what to expect.
12. Make all important announcements clear. For example, if you are closed for an event this upcoming Saturday, put that on the website so that people don’t show only to experience disappointment.
13. Infuse a blog into your website to speak more directly to your customers. You should also include links to your social media sites.
14. When you make new menu items, whether they are food or drinks, you should let people know. That can help to generate more business and to keep current customers coming back.

15. You always want to make sure that your website is updated. If people see the same content every time they visit, they may stop coming to the site.

SharePoint 2013 Interview questions

Q1: What is new SharePoint 2013?
Ans: SharePoint 2013 is the next Version of Microsoft’s famous Collaboration and Document Management Software called SharePoint.This Version follows SharePoint 2010 that was released back in May 2010.SharePoint 2013 was released (as Preview and RTM versions) with some new & exciting features such as Real Time Social Feed,Shredded Storage,SharePoint Apps,Cross-site publishing,Out-of-Box PDF support,Minimal Download Strategy and lot more.

Q2: Why should a Company Migrate to SharePoint 2013?
Ans: Microsoft has added some Incredible features to SharePoint 2013 that can be of huge benefit to all the Companies that use SharePoint on a large scale. Most of the new Features are Introduced for Improving SharePoint Performance (for both Browser and SQL) and to enhance the famous Web Content Management Capabilities.There is an Improvement for all – end users, developers and IT administrators.

Q3: What is the Licensing Model for SharePoint 2013?
Ans: With SharePoint 2013 Microsoft has Introduced User License Enforcement Capabilities – that means different licenses can be assigned to different users based on Active Directory security groups that are added in.A group of admins for example would need features that are offered by Enterprise license but a group end users on the other hand can work with Standard license and would not need to pay more.By default the User License Enforcement is disabled and must first be enabled to begin assigning, using, and implementing user licensing capabilities.

Q4: How does SharePoint 2013 Improve Performance?
Ans: SharePoint 2013 Introduces Minimal Download Strategy and Distributed Cache Service to Improve Page Load; and Shredded Storage to Improve Storage required for saving files.

Q5: What is Minimal Download Strategy?
Ans: Minimal Download Strategy in SharePoint 2013 improves rendering performance when browsing content where large parts of the page do not change providing a more fluid navigation experience. For example when navigating between a site’s home page and Shared Documents page only the Content that has changed between the source and destination page (controls and placeholders in the content area) are downloaded and URL subsequently updated where the chrome is persisted. For more Info on Minimal Download Strategy.

Q6: What is Distributed Cache Service?
Ans:The Distributed Cache service provides caching features in SharePoint Server 2013. The micro-blog features and feeds rely on the Distributed Cache to store data for very fast retrieval across all entities. The Distributed Cache service is built on Windows Server App-fabric, which implements the App-fabric Caching service. Windows Server App-fabric installs with the prerequisites for SharePoint Server 2013.

Q7: What is Shredded Storage?
Ans: With Shredded Storage feature enabled, every document and the Changes made to the document, is stored in SQL as multiple “Shredded BLOBS“. Whenever a new Version of a document is Created, only the BLOBs of the document that Corresponds to the Change are saved as opposed to the entire document as a new version.This feature helps to lower down the amount of storage required for saving files.

Q8: How does Shredded Storage Work?
Ans: Every Document in SharePoint 2013 is now stored as multiple “shredded BLOBS” in the new “DocStreams” data table.Whenever a new Version of a document is created, a new Record is written in this data table that contains only the “Shred BLOB” of the original document that corresponds to the Change, merged with the new Changes.In other words a new Blob with Changes is added as a new row in the table.Each BLOB that gets added Contains a numerical Id that represents the source BLOB.At the end it is the job of BLOB Index to keep the track of Blobs and to create a full file with the Combination of entries that point to the unchanged shreds of the previous version(s) and the entries that point to the newly added Changed shreds.

Q9: What is the new Analytics Processing Component in SharePoint 2013
Ans: The Analytics Processing Component in SharePoint Server 2013 analyzes both the Content and the way users interact with it.The results from the analysis are added to the items in the search index to be used by Search Webparts,Recommendation Reports,Most Popular Items reports and other WebParts.

Q10: What analysis are done by Analytics Processing Component in SharePoint 2013
Ans: The Analytics Processing Component runs two main types of analyses: Search analytics and Usage analytics. Search analytics analyzes content in the search index, and usage analytics analyzes the user actions.

Q11: What are Device Channels in SharePoint 2013
Ans: With device channels in SharePoint 2013, you can render a single publishing site in multiple ways by using different designs that target different devices for example mobile devices etc.These device channels can each be given a different master page and CSS file to give users a more optimal viewing experience.For more Info.

Q12: What is Device Channel Panel Control in SharePoint 2013
Ans: Device Channel Panel is a new control that you can include in a page layout to control what content is rendered in which channel. The Device Channel Panel is a container that is mapped to one or more channels.

Q13: How does Backward Compatibility works in SharePoint 2013
Ans: In SharePoint 2013 with the new “CompatabilityLevel” parameter of Install -SPSolution cmdlet you can now deploy your .wsp or Solution to either 14 hive or 15 hive or both. For more Info on CompatabilityLevel

Way To Richness

Money

Everybody yearns for it,
then find out.... how to get it?
Visit the workshop only once to know the royal highway to riches.

It is easy to grow rich!

As we live and grow as human beings; our capacity to know increases and so does our ambition. The dreams forever stay young. Everybody is after comforts, satisfaction and prosperity. The rich wants to grow more rich, the poor somehow wants to come out of poverty and become a moneyed man. The uneducated thinks of money, whereas the educated also keeps on harping 'money and only money'. Money brings maturity and rich experience. Your social status also depends on money. What exactly is the nature of money which imparts meaning to your life?

Even the eminent find it exhausting to crossover the mountains of day to day problems and inflation. The common man, much maligned as middle-class is at the Centre of our system. He too strives to progress. Money makes homes lose their homeliness, strains relationships to breaking point. Misunderstandings storm minds with strife. Man's life constantly revolves around Me and Mine. The common thread that runs through all these happens to be ''Money'' !

Is it really difficult to earn 'Money'?

Why only those who flaunt their riches, have money? What is their funda that leads them to ever progressive state? Can a poor middle class person earn a lot of money? Can he repay loans? Wherever he goes, money remains the major barrier. Even those with prodigious qualities remain unsatisfied. A lot many slog like donkeys. If you have decided to enter the web of money, then we intend to strike the dialogue with you. After tireless efforts of many days and studious research we are presenting this programme called 'money' in public interest. You will be treated with witty comments on investing and planning money, the coverage and 'source' of Money in the workshop. Enroll into the workshop with this brainstorming of money and it will make you think - "It is really easy to get rich!"

Once you get into Money workshop, you will come to know the technique of earning maximum money, and handling the planning, the shortcut keys. The ways of riches will be opened for you and you will also know how to carry and maintain a rich poise.

Who will benefit from 'Money' workshop?
Those fraught with monetary problems
Those reeling under pressure of loans
Those who keep on losing in whatever they undertake
Those who can not invest properly
Burgeoning expenses with negligible savings
Those to face losses in trading and business
Those who merely slog, but are not rewarded properly
Those with lots of money but do not know how to manage it

If such lost people participate in the workshop, they will find the right direction. They will experience rich golden moments.

Some topics in "Money" workshop

• Mental ability
• How to build confidence
• How to alleviate fears
• Relations with relatives
• Controlling thoughts
• The mystery of universe
• How to decide on your mission
• Time management
• Financial planning
• The law of attraction
• Solution of problems
• How to dream to become rich
• Rules of money
• The mantra of Money
• How to overcome obstacles while earning money
• Pendulum
• Rules of getting rich
• How to buy
• Decentralization of power
• Power of imagination
• Concentration of money

Can you get Money in a day?

St. Kabir has said, Do today what you plan for tomorrow and do now what you want to do today. That is why we don't just impart information but also use audio and video media. First we try to convince about the importance of money in practical terms. Then we show the Royal way to earn money. This begets a lot of confidence in you. You are motivated to rise to your goals. You get the right direction to become rich. Those who have attended the "Money" workshop have given a grateful feedback thus : "The money workshop brought joy to life. Home became a happy home"

You can also become rich -

Everybody is free to become rich. All the problems of your life will be resolved by this "money" workshop. We are sure that you will certainly benefit if you fully employ the knowledge we give and work towards it.

What do we teach in this day long workshop ?

It is really difficult to allot a particular timeslot for a specific thing in this fast moving age. We are aware that Mantra of this age is to earn the maximum in minimum possible time. We encourage you to implement schemes which will help you attract money towards you rather than you getting attracted to money. This is explained with the help of audios and videos. We strongly believe that if you throw yourself fully and receive 'knowledge' at money workshop it will not only ease your life but will also realise your various wishes and desires by a variety of ways of money. Your train which had been trailing so far will gather full speed on the track of riches.

Think the fees are a bit high?

Despite inflation, are we not prompt in fulfilling our basic needs of bread and butter? Decorating your home is expensive, so is buying a house and so also is getting good education.

We blindly spend on entertainment and clothes. We care for our prestige and our social status and spend heavily and whereas here we are handing over the key to get rich for generations together. Use this as per our guidance and we are sure that you will exclaim, ''getting rich is really easy''.

How will the workshop 'Money' change my life?

All the chronic problems of your life will wither away. They will never come back to you again. The secret of Success of those who created a history of riches will be known to you. The positive feelings about money will realise your ideas in practice. By studying the importance of money in life, the enriching experience will lead you on the highway to riches. Rather than harping on the fact that poverty is a curse, considering the riches as blessing will transform your entire life. Your personality will bask in divine light. And you will always keep on chanting, '' Life is beautiful''!

How Search works in SharePoint || Basic Concept

Today we will try to check how search works in MOSS??
Once indexing is done MOSS 2 major server roles are responsible for search:

• Web Service
• Search Service
  Rest other are known as application role. These 2 roles can be configured in a single server or different server as per the farm architecture.

The basic action of a web server role is very simple. A user requests a web page by typing the web address in a browser. Out of two type of request GET request(Put request is used in entering request on server i.e. filling forms) makes a connection with web server, webserver send the requested page to the client in html format. Main thing is that SharePoint always makes a stateless connection. So once the request is fulfilled connection/session is disconnected and when the user makes another request different connection/session is developed . so if there is different web server in an environment different web server can serve request to single user.
Now the things come when a user do a search how it works:
a) When a user enter any query in the search column of a page. Web service of a web server will get this request.
b) Web server will send this request to search server/service. If in a farm webserver and search server lies in same server. Web service will send request to search service in same server itself.
c) Search server will look for that query in it index files.

Note: Index files are propagated to search server after the indexing/crawl done by index server and propagated to search server at this default location: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\12.0\Data\Office Server\Applications. It can be changed acc to requirement.

Indexing/crawling concept can be check at my blog: How crawl works in SharePoint-how indexing work-basic concept
d) If search server get the result of the query in the index file.
e) It will pick the result of documents ,images etc. from the SQL , NAS etc.
f) Stream of result are provided in XML format to the Web service(web server).
g) Web service will convert the xml to html and return the result back to the client.

How To Make Money With A Blog

Blogging basics

I am going to try to boil this down to the essentials. There are whole books written on this subject, so I am not going to try to cover everything here. If you are looking for a good book about blogging for beginners, I suggest reading Darren Rowse’s “31 Days To A Better Blog”. But for a quick, bottom-line version keep reading…

What is a blog?

A blog is short for “weblog”. Basically, it is just a website that has entries listed in reverse chronological order. The original idea behind it was to be a online journal or diary that was updated daily (or as frequently as the writer chose). Over the last decade many software programs and blogging platforms have been created to make the process VERY EASY. As the blog writer, depending on which platform you use, you can just type your entry, press submit and it shows up on your blog for the world to see. Most bloggers don’t know any programming languages and are not “techies.” Starting a blog is one of the easiest ways out there to start a website. If you haven’t started one yet, why not try it? It can be very quick to set up and can be completely free.

Is it easy to start a blog?

It is very easy. Even if there are steps along the way that are confusing, there are plenty of resources to get the help you need. There are over 20 million blogs in existence, so it can’t be that difficult.

How much does it cost to blog?

There are many services that allow you to start a blog for free (see below). I suggest using one of the free services to get a basic feel for blogging and “get your feet wet.” Once you decide you want to stick with it and that you want to make money with your blog, I suggest moving up to a self-hosted blog (see below). Anyone who is really trying to make money with a blog will probably be more successful with a self-hosted blog. Getting a self-hosted blog may not be free, but still can be VERY inexpensive. You will need to pay for nothing more than a domain name ($10) and web-hosting (as cheap as a few bucks a month).

Getting a blogging platform

All 4 of the options listed are free. The first 3 options are the easiest, but the are also limited on features. If you are just trying to make an extra few hundred dollars from your blog, these options could work. But if you are really serious about trying to make good money from your blog, I recommend self-hosting your blog (which we talk about in the next section…).
Tumblr.com – This is probably the simplest blogging platform to use, but it also is the probably the least customizeable. So, it might be something good to start with, but it would be more difficult to build an income-generating website with it.
Blogger.com – Blogger is also very good, easy to set up, owned by Google, you can customize the theme, and the domain name includes “.blogspot.com” (in some people’s opinion a little less professional). Blogger continues to become more customizeable and currently has a lot more options than they did a few years ago.
WordPress.com – I like wordpress.com they are completely free, easy to set up, you can customize the theme, but other customizations are limited, domain name includes “.wordpress.com”.
WordPress.org – Wait, what is the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org? To put it simply WordPress.com is where you will go to set up a basic, easy blog with limited features. WordPress.org is where you will go to get a self-hosted wordpress blog. If you get to the point where you are serious about blogging and really want to make some money with it, you need to self-host your blog. Now I should mention that you don’t actually ever have to visit wordpress.org, if you use Hostgator as your host, they will be able to help you install wordpress on your selfhosted blog. Just follow the steps here.

How to setup a self-hosted blog

If you are going to be using one of the first three options above, you can skip this section.
If you are serious about blogging and are looking for the best way to customize your blog’s look and other features, then getting a self-hosted blog from WordPress.org is probably the best way to go. It is currently the top choice for most bloggers. It does require more work up front and does have small costs associated with it: buying a domain name ($10/year) and hosting your blog ($10/month).
One of the big advantages is that you can use your own domain name (i.e. yourblog.com). While this might not seem like a big deal, it is a lot easier for people to remember yourblog.com rather than yourblog.blogspot.com which is what you will be given if you use Blogger.
I will warn you, being a non-techie myself, this took me some time figuring out how to get my self-hosted site set up. WordPress.org has a great step-by-step guide for getting you set up. While it is more work on the front end, I am really glad I got good advice and did this at the beginning, than having to do it now.

Pick a Domain Name

1. You should start by purchasing a domain name. Domain Samurai is a great tool that will help you enter in a keyword and then find a bunch of related domains that are still available. I would suggest going to for a .com rather than a .info or .us or anything else for that matter. It is just too easy for people to get confused. A .com is always going to hold more value than any other extension. For a simpler tool, just go to psychicwhois.com and find an open one.
2. Once you get it picked out, you need to find somewhere to purchase it. I bought my first few domains at GoDaddy.com and have bought the remaining ones from my hosting companies. While GoDaddy is about one of the biggest names out there, I can’t say that I recommend them because of some of their advertising campaigns that they run. I now recommend just buying the domain and hosting from Hostgator as it will make the whole process simpler. But if you already have a host, then Namecheap is a good and cheap way to buy a domain.

Pick a host for your blog

The webhost is the company that you pay to store all of your files for your blog. There are also a million web hosting companies out there. I don’t suggest just looking for the cheapest one, because a lot of these companies are not very reliable and your site might be down quite a bit. I like to go with the bigger companies who have a longer track record and are more established.
They may cost a dollar or two more a month when you are starting out and it is well worth it. I have hosted my websites with Dreamhost from the beginning, mostly because I knew a lot of people using them and I got a hosting package for about $7.00 a month.
I still host most of my websites at Dreamhost, but have moved this site to MediaTemple. The main reason was that since my livelihood now depended on the website I wanted a higher level of service from my hosting company. MediaTemple has been great in that regard, but as always it comes with a price. I am currently paying $150 a month for hosting with them.

(Added 01-05-10 – I am currently in the process of buying a website that is hosted on BlueHost, and after digging around the backend quite a bit, I am starting to think they are a better choice than Dreamhost. Their prices are slightly lower than Dreamhost, but they seem to have things a little better organized and create an easier experience for new users. I haven’t dealt with their customer service yet, so I can’t comment on that yet, but my overall experience so far leads me to like them a bit more than Dreamhost. For what it’s worth.)
(Added 05-04-10 – After using Bluehost a bit more and calling their customer service reps, I can safely say that I definitely like them more than Dreamhost. Just the fact that they have phone support gives them a leg up – but the rep I spoke with was very helpful. So Bluehost gets my recommendation for beginner hosting.)
(Added 04-04-11 – After more and more frustrating experiences with MediaTemple’s customer service I started looking for another host that I could scale up with. I still really like Bluehost – especially for the price, but the fact that they only offer shared hosting makes me hesitant about hosting my sites that pay my mortgage each month. After looking at Hostgator‘s site it became very clear that they are a host that you can start with for as cheap as $4/m and they also offer much more thorough hosting packages as your site grows. I had heard great things about them from others, so I figured I would check them out. I called them up and asked a bunch of questions and I was surprised to find out that even though they cost a fraction of what MediaTemple costs, they have some features that MediaTemple didn’t.I opened an account with HostGator and used the chat feature to get help 2 different times and I was very pleased with their knowledge and helpfulness each time. Honestly, I was so impressed that I am getting started on moving many of my sites over to Hostgator. I will let you know how things progress…)

How long does it take to make money from a blog

The second question that people normally ask after, “how do I make money with a blog?” is, “how long is it going to take?”. Well, let me just say this, if you are looking for a fast way to make money, blogging isn’t it. It takes time and hard work. As you can see from the chart below it took me a long time before the trend started moving upward.
But, for more than a year I was working at it about 10 hours a week. And don’t forget I didn’t know anything about blogging, advertising, getting traffic, etc when I started. So, if you know that ChristianPF is a blog, then you have a head start on me. Also, you have the wonderful privilege of reading this article where I am going explain most of the things that I did to help create that upward trend seen below – that I didn’t know the first year.

Blog earnings visualized

From other people I know who make a decent amount from their blogs, this curve seems to be typical. While the first year didn’t yield much income, it was crucial for the second year to be able to. While I wish I could tell you that you could jump right ahead to where the income starts increasing quicker, but I just don’t think it is likely. There are some tips in this article that I wish I would have known at the beginning and I think they will make things go a lot quicker, but there is no getting around the fact that it is going to take time to get there. But just like anything, the more you put in, the more you get out. The two keys are consistency and a willingness to learn. Without them, I would say that it will be very difficult to make money with your blog.

How to get traffic to your blog

So now are getting to the point of this article where I start sharing everything I have learned over the last couple years about blogging. So, if you are like most, you want to create a blog so that others can read what you have to say. Sadly, people will not find your blog (in the beginning anyway) unless you do a little legwork. These are some of the things I did to get traffic and some that I still do. The first thing I suggest doing is writing a few great articles about your topic and feature them in your sidebar. Then I would start working on generating traffic, because you not only want traffic, but you want returning traffic as well.

Guest Posting!!

I think this is one of the best ways to start getting some quick traffic. Almost every blog I know allows guest posts (even this one) – and almost every one of those does not discriminate. What I mean is that most bloggers (that I know anyway) will accept or reject a guest post based on it’s quality, not on whether they know the person or not. This provides a great opportunity for a newbie to write an article that could be seen by 20,000 readers. I don’t know of any other method that could bring traffic as quick. I must admit, I could still do more guest posting myself. I have been pleased with the results in the past. The key is to write a great article – don’t hold back your best stuff. I have seen people grow their blogs very quickly by giving some of their best articles away as guest posts. Also, only submit unpublished content as a guest post. If it has already been published, then the blog that is allowing you to guest post won’t get any search engine traffic for that article. But there are places to republish your articles you have already published – we will get to that in a minute…

Join Directories

If I were starting a blog today, one of the first things I would do is Google “whatever topic I want to blog about” + “directory” This should return a list of web directories about your topic. Getting added to these directories will only help. You may not get a lot of traffic from them, but ultimately they will help you get more traffic from the search engines. A few of the more valuable ones to get you started…

• Yahoo Directory
• BOTW.org
• DMOZ.org
• Blogged.com
• JoeAnt.com
• Greenstalk.com
• Familyfriendlysites.com

Blog Commenting

One of the absolute best ways for new blogs to get traffic is just to comment on other blogs. Commenting with a thoughtful and provocative response will often send a few visitors your way. The blogging community is generally a very social community and those who are active in the community often reap the rewards of it.

Forum Commenting

Becoming involved in forums related to your topic and having a link to your blog in the signature line can send a few visitors. Google “your topic” and “forums” and you are sure to find a few. Just don’t be annoying and go in just to promote yourself. People can see that from a mile away. The new age of the internet (aka Web 2.0) is very much a “give and you shall receive” environment. If you seek to give and be a benefit before seeking your own rewards, you will be much better off. Why not get started at the Christian PF Forums?

Linking to other blogs

I don’t know what it is, but everyone wants to know when someone is talking about them. So it is with blogs. When people link to my site, I get a notification and often go check out who linked to me and what the context was. I have had some good relationships form just from this.

Create Hubpages

InfoBarrel.com, Hubpages.com,  and a handful of others are sites that allow you to build a simple page about a topic. You can do it very quick and the pages often rank well in the search engines. If you build a page that gets a little bit of traffic and have links coming back to your site, you will catch some of those visitors. If that weren’t good enough, many of them allow you to earn money from your articles as well.

Article submissions

Submit articles to article submission sites. These sites collect articles and most allow a bio-section that can include a link back to your blog. Here are a few that are worth looking into…

• ezinearticles.com
• goarticles.com
• articledashboard.com
• articlecity.com

SEO tips for blogs

It will take a while to get a decent amount of traffic from the search engines. The search engines do not like NEW websites. They like more established sites that have a lot of people linking to them, hence proving that they are reputable. This is why getting links from other bloggers, directories, other web sites that have a good reputation in the search engines’ eyes is very important. As your blog begins to grow by having more pages and more links the search engines will begin to send you more and more traffic. This is a good thing!! But, as I mentioned earlier, they are very wary of new websites – so time will be your ally when it comes to the search engines.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an science/art (depending on who you ask) that focuses on getting your website or blog to the top of the search engine listings. Being at the top of Google’s results for any decent keywords can be a great source of traffic and the greatest part about it is that it is FREE TRAFFIC!!!
I am not going to get deep into SEO much here, there are far more thorough books about it  but as your blog grows you should try to learn more about it, as it will only help you by knowing more. Just like most of the things you will learn while blogging, you don’t need to be an expert at it – just having a working knowledge will provide great results.
The thing to remember about the search engines (especially Google) is that they are trying to create a perfect system where any searcher can find exactly what they want. Google wants to display the most relevant websites to their searchers. They will never have a perfect system, but they probably won’t stop trying. If you can keep this in mind, it will be very helpful when you are trying to optimize your blog. Don’t waste your time trying to trick them, they will figure it out and will punish you for it. Just focus on making it very clear to them what your site is all about and writing great content for your reader and the rest will take care of itself.
So, let’s get to some SEO. These are some of the most important (in my opinion) pieces of SEO that every beginner should know. If you do these right, you will be much better off than most people who don’t know anything about SEO.

1. Title Tags

This may be the single most important part of on-page SEO. The title tag of your website is what shows up in the top of your browser window. It is also one of the most important determining factors that the search engines use to determine what your site is about.


In the above picture you can see that the title tag is “Christian Personal Finance – Financial help, debt help…” You WILL want to make sure that your title tags contain the keywords that you want to rank for in the search engines. If your site is about rock climbing, you will not want to have “welcome to Bill’s blog” in the title tags. Something better would be “Rock climbing 101 | the best rock climbing techniques”

2. Anchor Text

Anchor text – the text that people use when linking. For instance, if I created a link for a great search engine you can see that the link will go to Google. “great search engine” is the anchor text. The anchor text is a big deal, because it tells the search engines what other sites say your site is about. Google really places a lot of importance on what words are in the anchor text. Obviously, you will not be able to control how other people link to your site all of the time. But, for those times that you can, you should use your keywords when possible. Linking to other pages and posts on your website, directory submissions, blog carnivals, and your signature line in forums all may be good places to make sure you get your keywords in your anchor text.

3. Keyword Research

If you are trying to get traffic from search engines, it is always a good idea to know what people are searching for before you start writing. I often use Aaron Wall’s keyword tool and run some keyword ideas through it to get estimates of how many people are searching for them.

4. Get links

We already lightly discussed the importance of links coming into your blog. Other that the great benefit they play in improving your search rankings, they also send visitors to your site. It is an obvious benefit, but often overlooked by people focusing on SEO. If you get a link from a blog that gets a lot of visitors, you could see a huge traffic spike from it. If you get links from lots of blogs, you could and will see visitors coming from most of them. Maybe not a bunch, but as you get more and more links, you will see more visitors coming. The bottom line about link-building is that you have to create something great that people want to link to. If you can consistently do that, many other things will fall into place.

Need more?

This is really just scratching the surface of SEO, and honestly if you really want to do well with it I would suggest hiring someone to help you with it.

How I increased Adsense earnings $1500 in less than 3 months

This section is going to be a little bit beyond the basics and I will provide details of how I dramatically improved earnings from Adsense. Just to clarify, at the time of this increase I was already making some money with Adsense, but I had no idea how much difference a few tweaks could make. In my case I increased earnings over $1500 in a short amount of time. The thing you have to understand about Adsense is that no two sites are alike. Every blog has a different audience and different articles and most likely a different layout, all these things affect Adsense earnings. Knowing that, testing and trying new things is critical to find the winners!

1. Added a Privacy Policy

This is such a simple thing to do. I never realized that is a “requirement” for Adsense publishers, but when I added a link in my footer to my Privacy Policy there was a noticeable increase in earnings. I assume that Google rewards those who have a privacy policy and punishes those that don’t by trimming their earnings. In a perfect world you would want your lawyer to draft your privacy policy, but here is a sample template of a privacy policy to make your life a bit easier.

2. Put ads where people’s eyeballs went…

For me there is an eternal struggle between usability and profitability with ads. While I want need to make money to pay my bills, I still want to make this site as user friendly as possible. So, I have made some sacrifices with this site in order to maintain certain levels of usability, but one of the main keys to making money with Adsense is ad placement.
Like I mentioned before, this needs to be experimented with. But for the first year or more of this site I just kinda threw the ads where ever I had extra room. Once I changed the location of my ads, my earnings tripled overnight. It really freaked me out. I had no idea that just moving an ad a couple inches would have such a dramatic effect. The diagram to the right (from Google) provides some good starting point for what locations work and don’t.

3. Section Targeting

This was another tweak I made that made a noticeable difference in earnings. Basically “section targeting” is telling Google what text on your site to look at when deciding what ads to show. Google is pretty good at figuring this out if you don’t do this, but if you have a lot of stuff going on in your sidebars and footer sections, it is probably worth experimenting with. It is very easy to implement. You only need to use this tag…

to tell Google to start, and this tag…

…to tell them to stop. I just added a text widget at the top of my post for the start tag and after the content for the end tag.

4. Who Sees Ads Plugin

This is a great plugin that allows you (as the name suggests) choose which visitors see which ads. There are lots of criteria that you can select, so you can specify that Search Engine users see a particular Adsense unit when regular readers see something else. I have found that search engine visitors click Adsense ads a lot more than regular readers. I still show some Adsense to regular readers, but I focus my energy on the visitors from search engines – this plugin makes this very easy.

5. Changed the colors

When Adsense first came out, people said to make the colors as loud and ugly as possible to draw attention to them. Next I heard that the best thing to do was to blend them into the site. Of the two methods I think that blending works a little better, and definitely looks a lot better! But, I have a slight variation of that has worked even better for me. Currently I have have most of my links set to a lighter blue color. I used to have many of my Adsense ads match that, but I saw a nice increase when I changed the Ad titles to the old standard Link Blue. I feel that visually it is a complement rather than a match. It stands out a little bit more, but doesn’t look bad either – IMO…

6. Wrote articles people are searching for

This might seem unrelated, but it is very important. If you are like most bloggers, you have a regular readership and you have readers from the search engines. For some reason, a lot of bloggers just don’t give much respect to search engine readers and don’t really try to reach out to them other than trying to “convert” them to a regular reader. I approach things a little bit differently, rather than getting frustrated at the fact that so many search engine visitors don’t come back, I started to embrace it. I realized that my main goal of this site was to help people, so why should I care if they only visit once or on a daily basis if they are getting helped?
So while I very much appreciate and value my regular readers, I also understand that I can help those who find the site via a search engine. I started doing keyword research to see what people were looking for in the search engines. If there are people searching to find the highest paying jobs without a degree, I want to help them find out! What happened for me as I started to become more conscious of what people were searching for was that I started getting more search engine traffic – which of course leads to higher earnings from Adsense.

7. Added a Google search bar

This is a no-brainer. Google is the master of search, so you can bet that their search capability on your site is going to be better than the default WordPress search tool. By installing this, you will help your visitors find the information that they are looking for on your site and make some extra cash in the process. When the search results (from the websites you choose) are displayed they have the standard Google ads present, just like normal Google search results.

8. Hooked Google Analytics up with Adsense

A few months ago, Analytics started allowing the option to integrate your Adsense data. This has been so helpful for me. It provides webmasters with a wealth of information about earnings. It is simple to see which articles are making the most money, which keywords are yielding the most, what sites send the most valuable traffic, and a whole lot more. If you use Adsense, don’t pass this one up.

9. Tested, re-tested, and tested again…

When running Adsense tests, I typically let them run for a month in order to make sure they are very thorough. I have a calendar that I use to mark down when I make changes and what changes I make. Then when the test is complete I compare CPM and eCPM rates to see what performed better. A/B split testing is a better method when possible, but for certain tests is just isn’t possible or practical. But either way, if you want to make more money with Adsense, experimenting and testing is a must!

7 tools that have helped make it all possible…

Not all of these tools directly contribute to the bottom line, but each one of them have been very helpful over the last couple years.

• Google Analytics – which is a wonderful (and free) statistics tool that will help you keep track of your visitors and analyze a lot of data about them. As I mentioned before it now integrates with Adsense to give even more valuable data.
• Google webmaster tools – This will help you see how Google views your blog. They will also let you know if there are any problems with it that you may not be aware of. For me I had some issues that were really hurting my search rankings, but I found out about them and fixed them and voila! All better.
• Aweber Email Marketing Service – I haven’t been using this too long, but if you read anything about internet marketing, you will certainly hear about the incredible value in having an email list. I have been happy with Aweber thus far.
• SEObook Keyword Tool – I use this to get a ballpark estimate of how many people are searching for particular key phrases.
• Hittail.com – This one provides ideas for articles based on what you have previously written about and could probably rank for. I just noticed that the free version is gone. If you have a blog that is established it might be worth paying $10 a month for it – I suggest doing the free-trial and see how much it helps you.
• Stock.xchng – The best free stock photography site I have found.
• BigStock – The best cheap stock photography site I have found. They have lots of images that you can get for just about a buck.

A few more tools that may be worth checking out…

• Scribe SEO Tool for WordPress – I wrote a more thorough review of this tool that the blogging tips subscribers received (you can sign up for free below if interested). But basically, I tried it out and decided not to continue to use it because I thought it was priced a little to high for what I got from it. It can make the SEO process a bit easier, but I just wasn’t sure about spending $27 on it. If they lower the price, I might recommend it a bit more.
• Yaro Starak’s (and Leslie’s) Become a Blogger Training Course – I haven’t tried this, but have heard good things about it. Yaro is an extremely successful internet marketer and I have learned a whole lot from him. If I were starting out today and could afford the program, I would do it.

Warnings for those starting out…

Don’t quit your day-job

Even if you know a lot about making money with a blog (which just be reading this article, you have a tremendous advantage over me when I started) it is going to take a while. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme, it is more of a work-for-free-for-a-long-time-and-then-reap-your-reward type plan. The beautiful thing is that I can now say that it does work if you are diligent and open to learning from your mistakes. But either way, convention wisdom says, build your blog part-time and when you start making more from it than your day-job consider making it a full-time deal. My situation is a unique one and I don’t recommend doing what I did unless it really is God calling you to do so. In my case I am now thankful that I got laid off – if I hadn’t I would probably still be doing a job I didn’t like!

Learn everything you can

One of the advantages I have is that I love to learn and don’t stop when I make a mistake. I work really hard to learn from my mistakes and figure out what the better course of action would be for the next time. You are going to do things wrong, but you just have to keep going and keep learning. Learning how to use Google search is very important. If you do, you will be able to find an answer to just about every problem you encounter on the web.

Avoid time-wasters

Checking your stats every hour, reading 500 blogs in your RSS, playing on Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, or Youtube all day will kill your productivity. Focus on what yields results and stay disciplined to stick with that. Social media is an important part of building traffic, but you have to keep it in check.

Hack4Asia: Creating hacks to empower customers in Asia with innovative technology

China has the world’s largest smartphone market. India has one of the world’s fastest growing mobile markets. Asia has more than half of the world’s population.
The continent is a critical market for technological innovation, a driving factor for a new initiative called Hack4Asia at the 2015 Hackathon, a company-sponsored, three-day event organized by The Garage. The initiative encourages all employees to develop products that empower Asian customers with new technologies.

“The Hack4Asia initiative is an invitation to everyone in the company to think about Asia. Hack4Asia seeks to foster ideation on how Microsoft can delight Asian customers and drive innovation for Asian markets,” says Elaine Chang, chairperson of the Microsoft Asian Employee Resource Group, which is driving Hack4Asia in partnership with Microsoft China, India and Israel.

This year, more than a thousand teams from mainland China, India, Israel, Hong Kong and Taiwan are part of Hackathon, highlighting Microsoft’s innovative strength in Asia. For many teams, insight into local cultural values and consumers shapes their hacks, but a desire to help all people lead productive, fulfilling lives is what drives them.
Here’s a look at a few of their projects.

TalkEasy 
Sponsored by Harry Shum, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Technology and Research Group, TalkEasy transcribes speech into real-time text to help people with hearing loss communicate. Based in Redmond and Microsoft Research Asia in China, the TalkEasy Hackathon team is using Project Oxford’s speech APIs, which provide state-of-the-art algorithms to process spoken language.
TalkEasy grew out of Shum’s inspiration to help his father, who is hard of hearing and doesn’t like to wear a hearing aid.
“I thought it will be very helpful to build a simple tool that he can use with his mobile device to see nearly simultaneous speech transcripts as he talks to others,” Shum says.
The easy-to-use application will have enlargeable text and adjustable scroll speed for older users. It will transcribe conversations with multiple speakers and in various languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian and German.
Like other Hack4Asia projects, TalkEasy was inspired by the values of its team, which include a respect for elders. But it encompasses a global goal of helping people connect with loved ones across generations.
“Not feeling like you can connect with people and really communicate is difficult, so empowering people to do that is very important,” says Allison Light, a program manager in Microsoft’s Technology and Research Group and a member of the TalkEasy team. Other members of the team include Arthur Jiang, Jiaping Wang and Yu-Ting Kuo.

Cortana vision for Visually Impaired
This project, being developed in India and Redmond, integrates Cortana’s intelligence and voicing abilities with street navigation, emergency support and real-time bus data to help people with visual impairment get around. The mobile app will work in English, Hindi and a local Indian language that hasn’t yet been determined. It will also connect to a walking stick equipped with a sensor.
A group of software engineers in India plotted out the idea to build an app with Cortana for people with visual impairment, says Ravishankar Sanjeevaiah, a development and operations engineer in the Marketing and Partners group in India.
Shree Lakshmi Rao, a Bing Studio designer, also had a similar idea and pitched the team to take the project to the next level. Rao had studied how technology can help transit users with visual impairment while at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute.
“We’re specifically focusing on a user group that isn’t always the target of a lot of technology,” says Rao, who works in Redmond. “We’re trying to support and empower them to do more.”
The seven-person team is also exploring crowdsourced information to help people navigate in developing areas that may lack sidewalks or digital maps. They’re also studying how the app can help build a similar system for feature phones, because many people with visual impairment in India don’t have a smartphone.
“The idea is, the more input and usage Cortana gets, the smarter she gets,” says Rao. “Is there a way we can harness that?”
Band-It
The Band-It team in Israel puts an innovative twist on the Microsoft Band by taking the health and wellness device into a productivity setting. With the device’s built-in accelerometer, it detects hand gestures to control Office applications in different scenarios.
“The most obvious one would be while doing a presentation – using ‘band gesture’ to replace that annoying clicker in your sweaty hands,” says Keren Master, a senior program manager at Microsoft Technology and Research’s Advanced Technology Labs in Israel.


Another scenario: Using Band-It to navigate your inbox without touching your mouse or keyboard, and while leaning back in your chair as you make your way through a mountain of email.
Master specializes in new natural user interface (NUI) experiences, and her eight-person Hackathon team spans different groups, disciplines and skills. It includes women, men, engineers, researchers and program managers, from Office, Bing and Technology & Research teams.
“We are taking an existing product, the Microsoft Band, and exploring how we can expand its usage to new domains to empower its users to be able to do more,” says Master. The team and Microsoft Israel are partnering with Hack4Asia to increase their impact.

WeChat Office hacks in China and Redmond
Microsoft China’s Office Innovations Team has several hacks that give consumers powerful, integrated tools for productivity and socializing. The popular Chinese messaging app, WeChat, has almost 600 million global monthly active users who not only message with the app; they also play games, pay for dinner, shop online and book flights with WeChat.
“WeChat has been dominating the IM market in China. Almost every smartphone gets WeChat installed,” says Bo Gao, a senior program manager with Microsoft Office in China. “All the mobile apps in China do not want to miss this channel to promote their usage. Neither do we.”
Last year, the Chinese team announced an education project that uses WeChat as a socket to bring Office 365 into common school scenarios, including parent messaging and photo sharing.
This year, Gao is leading a Hackathon team to build a common layer between Office 365 and WeChat to help developers create customized solutions. Another hack, led by software engineer Raymond Xue, will add cool new features to a WeChat2OneNote tool. A third project will improve the experience of buying Office 365 from the WeChat platform, says software engineer Ginger Jiang.
Chang, chair of the Asian Employee Resource Group and a senior program manager in Redmond, is also leading a hack team on WeChat2Sway, to make collaborative storytelling easy and visually compelling for WeChat users.
Kisan 4 You
From childhood, many Microsoft employees in India have seen their farming parents face day-to-day problems due to a lack of advice, access to direct buyers, knowledge of commodity prices and information on government programs.
To help bridge that gap in communications and knowledge, a group of employees is working on the Kisan 4 You Hackathon project in India. Its aim is to take technology to the nation’s farmers, 87 percent of whom are expected to use smartphones in the near future. Network connectivity is an issue, so the team is building its app to work in disconnected mode. It’s all part of a goal to help India’s farmers tap into the information age and give the country a tool to further economic stability.

Skype for Business MoM Generator
Anyone who sits in long meetings will appreciate this Skype for Business add-on that generates minutes of a meeting (MoM). It comes from a team of IT software engineers in India, who have sat in their share of lengthy Skype meetings with collaborators in Redmond.
“A consistent pain point is that one person needs to talk and contribute to the meeting, as well as keep track of who is saying what, what are the main points and what are the final features we are working on. This puts a strain on that person,” says Ujjwal Sen, an engineer with the Enterprise Services Business Intelligence Team in India.
The application uses machine learning and speech recognition technology from Microsoft Audio Video Indexing Service (MAVIS), developed by Microsoft researchers. Available on the cloud as the Azure Media Services Indexer, the tool extracts key words from a recording to generate a transcript of main points. Among Sen’s challenges: Accommodating multiple speakers and accents.
“We want to help people be more productive in meetings,” says Sen. “Plus we are hoping we can showcase Microsoft’s eminence and technology power in the machine learning space – specifically in the speech recognition and speech intent analysis domain.”