Blogs

Many times Microsoft has been barracked for its "anti-open source" stance, which quite frankly has never existed. However, since we have always made software available under various licenses, it was decided that it was time to get these officially recognise by the people behind the dreaded GPL (that is my humour btw). Not everyone is happy about it as can be read at http://robertogaloppini.net/2007/10/18/open-source-at-microsoft-microsofts-licenses-get-approved-by-osi/ . Microsoft's desire to protect what it considers to be its intellectual property is seen as a threat by some in the open source world. However if you look at MSDN, it has, I suspect, millions of lines of code for people to borrow, use and then sell. I would call that open source of one type as well as codezone for another. In fact, as I have always understood it, Microsoft does not care how you develop or release you code, providing you do it legally! I think Microsoft gets official open-source blessing from OSI for two of its licenses...

It is that time of year again, so I will be on holiday again in the English Lake District. While Live Writer, my blogging tool, has the ability to show maps (click the map for more information) http://maps.live.com has also improved amazingly. To show you what I mean, click the link below: http://maps.live.com/?v=2&sp=Point.t1yfjsgqqygt_Holiday___&encType=1 and you will see a screen like this: Switch to Hybrid view to see the satellite and road maps: Zoom to this location by clicking on the pushpin: Switch to 3D mode by pressing the 3D button (it might have to load a control to your browser) and then hold the Ctrl button and drag the mouse down to see a 3D profile: Search for pubs in the area and see them on the 3D map: Now go to London (search for London in the location) and zoom down to start to see the 3D views: As you zoom in more you can turn on the birds eye photography of London - note on the above picture the glowing square - this is one of the birdseye photos - zoom in more to see the actual photos...

I always say that every contact you have with your customers is marketing and that marketing is not "hard", but does require some thought. Well I thought you might like this teleseminar. Learn How To Create Magnificent Marketing Materials John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing will be conducting a 3 part teleseminar that will teach you how to create marketing materials that educate and connect with your prospects. In this series, you will learn how to create a marketing kit, learn how to use stories in your marketing to connect on an emotional level, and learn how to develop and use case studies and testimonials in your marketing. Small Business Building Blocks: Learn How To Create Magnificent Marketing Materials ttfn David Technorati Tags: Marketing , Small Business

I saw this little posting by Darren and it reminded me of several stories. One was the "mobile expert" around Denver this year and the other is the types of mails I sometimes get. I have had mails that say things like: My computer is not working, can you fix it for me I am having problems with Outlook Apple won't support iTunes on Vista, but I want to use it, so can you fix it for me? and my favourite I am having a problem where by people can't e-mail me back...... what e-mail address did they give.... What is really so funny about many of these is that they leave no contact details . Just their name. Now, even if I was able to fix their problems (and sometimes I can), without contact details it makes my life much harder to truly resolve the problems. Am I responsible for Windows Mobile Software? Today Gareth and I were walking along 16th Mall Street after having had some breakfast and I was wearing my Windows Mobile cap, as you do in Downtown Denver. I guy randomly stopped me and asked me if...

Just recently I have been reading about the improvements in the Live services and then I saw Steve's entry on Live Books ( Live Search Books...wow ) and thought I had better go see what was going on. I went to the live search and searched for my favourite author and sure enough, up came his books, but what was nice is that most people don't know that Robert Heinlein also had an interest in the US economy. Books referring to his works here also appeared. I was then able to see how much of a reference to him was made and even choose to view those pages if the publisher of the book allowed it. Oh, try http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=&mkt=en-US&scope=books&FORM=BBBB to get to the books search I also notices a load of other services you might want to try out: Web, images, videos, news, maps (I'll cover this later), MSN are all standard. Under the more tab though you get: Academic - I've used this to do research into academic papers that interest me Feeds - speaks for itself Health...

I have heard many times how Windows is the big target for virus and phishing nasty people in general, but more and more people are showing that Windows is just too hard to hack when applications and other platforms offer so much more opportunity. From the article at eBay: Phishers getting better organized, attacking Linux Dave Cullinane, eBay's chief information and security officer said that in his previous job protecting a bank from phishers "The vast majority of the threats we saw were rootkitted Linux boxes, which was rather startling. We expected Microsoft boxes. Rootkit software covers the tracks of the attackers and can be extremely difficult to detect. According to Cullinane, none of the Linux operators whose machines had been compromised were even aware they'd been infected. Although Linux has long been considered more secure than Windows, many of the programs that run on top of Linux have known security vulnerabilities, and if an attacker were to exploit an unpatched bug on a misconfigured...

You have seen the Exchange, SQL, Security and Windows best practice scanners, well now we have all that SBS expertise wrapped up into an SBS scanner - enjoy!! SBS now has a Best Practices Analyzer! The Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices Analyzer examines a server that is running Windows Small Business Server 2003 (Windows SBS) and presents a list of information and errors that administrators should review. The Windows SBS Best Practices Analyzer examines the server and collects configuration information from many sources including: Active Directory Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Registry Metabase After collecting information about server configuration, the Windows SBS Best Practices Analyzer verifies that the information is correct and then presents administrators with a list of issues sorted by severity. The list describes each issue and provides a recommendation or possible solution. System Requirements Supported Operating Systems: Windows Small Business Server 2003 (Any version...

I thought I had documented this, but it appears I did not, so here we are - there are a number of pieces to the Live Services camp now, many have released versions, but the betas are always more interesting. It is also worth noting that these products are all in the Software plus Services camp - Desktop solutions that work with hosted services. It's easy to get these and other Windows Live services all at once. See how . Windows Live Writer Beta Publish rich content to your Windows Live Space and other blogs. It's easy to add photos, maps, tags, and more to your posts. And you can see exactly what your post will look like before you publish it. Windows Live Mail Beta A faster, easier, and safer way to manage your e-mail accounts. Windows Live Messenger Beta Connect, share, and make every conversation count Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta Easily manage and share your photos and videos. Windows Live Family Safety Beta Safer browsing, with rules you personalize. Windows Live SkyDrive Beta Password-protected...

I have been asked several times how someone can have an e-mail alias, such as "[email protected]" which not only receives into a public folder, but also has the ability to send e-mails. Obviously the setting up of the public folder, e-mail etc is well documented, but since I have been asked this again I thought I would share my source of knowledge - How to Give a User the Ability to Send Mail on Behalf of a Public Folder How to Give a User the Ability to Send Mail on Behalf of a Public Folder To give a user the ability to send mail on behalf of a public folder, perform the following procedure. In Exchange System Manager, under Folders , right-click the public folder for which you want to give a user the ability to send mail, and then click Properties . Click Exchange General , and then click Delivery Options . Click Add to specify a user. You may have to make additional modifications if the following conditions are true: The user's mailbox resides in a domain that is different from the public...

I have documented some of these before, but now all of them are here. - How to backup information in Vista using Restore Previous Versions, writing to DVDs and the built in backup tools - How to use Windows Updates to get patches for the system - How Internet Explorer 7 and Vista protect you - just remember to say no!! - How to take files offline in Vista and Outlook (for SharePoint files) - Sharing files using Windows Messenger ttfn David Technorati Tags: Vista

Following on from people who wanted a quicker blog, I have moved to another theme by Nick at http://www.nbdev.co.uk . If you are seeing the blog "messed up", then you need to set your site options to Athena by clicking Edit Profile in the top right corner: and then selecting the site options and choosing your theme: thanks David

[updated to remove some inaccuracies about Susanne's microspeak - sorry Susanne] There are always special offers of some form or another from most companies and Microsoft is no exception (well, except in August when we are still in post financial year clean up :-)). Anyway, the UK SMB Girl aka Susanne Dansey at Westcoast has listed a couple of these.: N-3 Open Value Subscription Offer Promotion ends: 31 December 2007 Programme: OV Subscription Up-to-Date Discount (UTD) is a 50 per cent discount in OV Subscription for the first year invoice for any licence for the current (N) or previous (N-1) version of the selected Small Business or Professional Desktop platform products. For the OVS N-3 promo eligibility for receiving the 50 per cent discount is granted to N-3 versions of Office licences (back to Office 2000). Promtional SKUs are identified on the price list by the word ‘Promo’. Future proofing Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 Here’s a heads up to all Microsoft Partners thinking about licensing...

I saw this on good old X (part of the GUI stuff for Unix and Linux systems) and it reminded me that although these codebases have had millions of hours of review (I worked on X systems from 1992-1995 inside a security project) they still have holes in them. Anyone who thinks security is something that is fixed by more eyes, just using A/V or not using Microsoft can find many more of these sorts of examples. It is also nice to see that the Microsoft Secure by Default / Secure by Design project was well received at Sun :-) X Font Server (xfs) Security Hole in Solaris As noted in the ZDNet posting X Font Server flaw hits Sun Solaris hard , the recently announced X font server vulnerabilities not only affect Solaris, but are exposed to the network by default in some Solaris installs. What the article fails to mention is that it's only older installs that are vulnerable by default - Solaris versions up through Solaris 10 6/06 run xfs by default from inetd listening to the network. Solaris 10 11/06 and later Solaris...