Interesting. Too bad I’ve left uni for too long to test whether it works.

Great deal, but no UNSW, etc? Missing quite a few ‘big’ Unis, and has quite a few I haven’t even heard of. Probably going for the tech-centric ones. Bit of a shame though!

You actually get free MS serials as a CSE student at UNSW.

No Deakin either :|

Think you have to be an IT student… UQ non-IT login got this error:

Identity Provider failure at (/shibboleth-idp/SSO)
org.opensaml.SAMLException: Invalid assertion consumer service URL.

You don’t have to be a IT student. I am able to get in as Melb Uni non-IT.

Easy.

Both ACM and IEEE student membership provides access to MSDN.

Nice, I’m from QUT works great!

Any Student can actually access the FREE SOFTWARE. If your University is not listed on the Dreamspark website, all you need to do is get an ISIC Card (Internationals Student Card for $18). This is the alternative method Microsoft is offering for students who’s university is not listed on the Dreamspark website. Also, Microsoft has announced that all Australian Universities are making the tranisiton over to the Dreamspark database. Should hopefully be ready by early next year.

You can order an ISIC card online- http://www.isiccard.com.au/cpa/htm/htm_home.asp ISIC Cards also have heaps of other benefits including discounts on Computer Hardware, Travel, etc…

I think its worth the $18 for the thousands of dollars worth of free software..

A.I

i’m with griffith, and i got this error message

Shibboleth Identity Provider Failure
The Shibboleth authentication system experienced a technical failure.

Please email ins-mdlogs@griffith.edu.au and include the following error message:

Identity Provider failure at (/shibboleth-idp/SSO)

org.opensaml.SAMLException: Invalid assertion consumer service URL.

has anyone experienced the same problems?

cheers

yup i get the same error.. =[

Hey all… I work for Microsoft and am the guy in Oz in charge of this particular offer. I’ve been a long time browser of ozbargain, but didn’t want to post this up in case it breached some kind of rule.

Just wanted to clarify - DreamSpark is available to ALL university and TAFE students (and will soon be available to high school students as well) in Australia. It is completely free, there are no strings attached at all.

The “issue”: currently the authentication partner we use in Australia only has 12 or so universities on board. However, anyone studying at any other university that’s not listed can get access via ISIC student cards as mentioned by iverson above, plus there are a few other options. The best way would be to let the IT guys in your university know so your whole institution can be added to the authentication list.

If you head over to my blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/andrewparsons) you can find a brief podcast about it too.

If you guys having problems registering at Griffith shoot me your email addresses, I can try to sort you out.

MrAndyPuppy

FYI - no problem with manufacturer/supplier/distributor etc posting ‘deals’ just that its nicer if they identify themselves as such. eg “i am a rep for the company” - a bargain is a bargain - and this is a place to share. As you may have observed - good bargains get a good response. They tell it like it is here.

hi i’m a student from UQ and can’t log in as well… got the error message

@AndyPuppy
Could u Pls tell me how I can register for DreamSpark?…..
Btw, I am at MQ uni.

If you are a IT student at Macquarie Uni, you are already entitled to get free software from Microsoft E-Academy.

The MQ storefront is at:
http://msdn70.e-academy.com/au_37774

You can even get Windows XP Pro and Vista Business.

However, it’s down at the moment….my guess is that they’ve probably started transitioning the old system into the new Dreamspark servers.

@roberta - Macquarie Uni is on the list of available universities on the DreamSpark website, so head to www.dreamspark.com as aznsniper has described and sign up.

@scrimshaw - the MSDN-AA and ELMS servers which MQ use to serve up that software went offline on the weekend and are being worked on - that should be back soon. MSDN-AA and DreamSpark overlap in terms of the software offered, but DS is the way to go for students as you can install it on your home PC, while MSDN-AA is supposed to be for the university machines and student PCs that connect into the university network.

@AndyPuppy, How do I sign up on the DreamSpark website?….. Sorry but I can’t find where to sign up….

@roberta - I’m feeding this back to the product team in the US because it’s not as obvious as it probably could be.

Go to www.dreamspark.com.
Sign in with a Live ID (this will be bound to your university credentials during the verification step so that Microsoft doesn’t have to collect any of your uni/personal information).

(now this is where the awkward bit appears to be)
Click on the “My Download History” tab.
It will now prompt you to register to DreamSpark by selecting Australia, then Macquarie Uni from the list. Click Select and Continue and it will take you to the Macquarie University login page.

(next bit is unclear for me because I don’t actually attend MacUni)
Login with your uni credentials.
It should then redirect you back to DreamSpark as an authenticated user and you should be able to download the software.

@AndyPuppy, Thank u Very Much for ur Greatly Appreciated assistance…..

Shibboleth Identity Provider Failure

The Shibboleth authentication system experienced a technical failure.

Please email root@localhost and include the following error message:

Identity Provider failure at (/shibboleth-idp/SSO)

org.opensaml.SAMLException: Invalid assertion consumer service URL.

@jamroro sorry mate - will check with UQ to see what’s what.

thanks, looking forward to downloads

hi any news yet?

Hey jamroro, no unfortunately, but I’ll post here as soon as I get some more info. However, in the meantime, shoot me your email address and I’ll sort you out while we figure out a proper solution.

I get the same error too, has never worked for me so far… :-(

@Anubis - shoot me a message with your university email address and I’ll sort you out.

@MrAndyPuppy
Thanks, UQ is working now (wasn’t before).

@rugae, yeah, I just got an email from the UQ administrator saying that they updated the metadata and it all started working again. Hopefully the other uni’s experiencing problems will be as quick to get updated.

Thanks Andy, its all good now.