Blogs

Building Secure ASP.NET Applications: Data Access Security http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7243611 This MSDN article presents recommendations and guidance that will help you develop a secure data access strategy. Topics covered include using Windows authentication from ASP.NET to the database, securing connection strings, storing credentials securely in a database, protecting against SQL injection attacks, and using database roles. just a short one :-) David

Developing IIS7 web server features with the .NET framework This article, the first in the IIS7 .NET Developer series, focuses on getting started with developing IIS7 web server features based on the .NET Framework. Learn about the options you have for your development environment, how to set up your Visual S ... http://blogs.iis.net/mvolo/archive/2007/08/16/developing-iis7-web-server-features-with-the-net-framework.aspx IISSCHEMA.EXE - A tool to register IIS7 configuration sections IIS7 configuration extensibility allows you to create custom configuration sections that can be used side by side the IIS configuration sections. However, setting this up requires a few steps that may be difficult to accomplish, especially in a ... http://blogs.iis.net/mvolo/archive/2007/08/04/iisschema-exe-a-tool-to-register-iis7-configuration-sections.aspx ttfn David Technorati Tags: IIS7 , Webcasts , Windows Server 2008 , Longhorn

I saw this and thought I would pass it on since I was talking to one of my customers about this yesterday. To get to the two calculators go to Windows Server Virtualization Calculators Windows Server Virtualization Calculators The Windows Server Virtualization Calculators provide two ways to estimate the number and cost of Windows Server Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition and Datacenter Edition licenses needed for your virtualization scenarios to help you determine the most cost-effective edition of Windows Server. Calculator 1 is designed to estimate the licenses and cost of Windows Server by editions and numerous Microsoft server products on a single, physical server. Calculator 2 is designed to estimate the licenses and cost of only Windows Server by edition for one or multiple physical servers. The calculators are pre-populated with the US dollar Open agreement Estimated Retail Prices that you can update with your organization's prices for more accurate estimates. Calculator 1 lets you interactively...

Documentation Windows Vista Step-by-Step Guides for IT Professionals These step-by-step guides provide instructions for deploying or migrating to Windows Vista, and various management tasks, including configuring security, monitoring performance, and managing printers. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=21&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3d311f4be8-9983-4ab0-9685-f1bfec1e7d62%26DisplayLang%3den App Compat Prep and Implementation http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=24&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3d02e01c4d-49a2-43e6-a9c5-8b174d1f089a%26DisplayLang%3den ACT 5 Step by Step Guides http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=25&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3dbc931bfd-d279-4060-b370-08fa52f97a8d%26DisplayLang%3den BitLocker Design and Deployment...

Unless you have been living under a stone it is probable that you know that Windows Home Server is coming to a shop near you very soon. Home Server is priced very keenly and offers a number of great facilities, but also has some restrictions on it. So, what does Home Server do: Centralised Unlimited Storage Sharing via folders, a web site that can be accesses from any internet connection, with PCs, game consoles and more Protection against failure of your connect PCs, your precious data (photos etc) any disk including the system disk in the home server and against unpatched PCs A platform for add-ins That is it - it is a great file and media home server that has amazing remote access and backup capability. It is still a Windows Server, built by the same team that deliver SBS, but it has some restrictions: It is not designed to be a Domain Controller It is often sold by OEMs as a headless (no monitor or keyboard to set it up) device with no requirement to ever use a keyboard or mouse Some server software might...

SQL Server 2008 Solutions – Your Data, Any Place, Any Time SQL Server 2008, the next release of Microsoft SQL Server, will provide a comprehensive data platform that is more secure, reliable, manageable and scalable for your mission critical applications, while enabling developers to create new applications that can store and consume any type of data on any device, and enabling all your users to make informed decisions with relevant insights. http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/futureversion/default.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/futureversion/bi/default.mspx SQL Server 2008 Books Online – Overview (SQL Server 2008) Microsoft SQL Server is a database platform for large-scale online transaction processing (OLTP), data warehousing, and e-commerce applications; it is also a business intelligence platform for data integration, analysis, and reporting solutions. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms166352(SQL.100).aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510421(SQL.100).aspx Online Transaction...

foo bar baz - now to be entered as HTML foo bar baz ttfn David

I saw these two web pages and just found them too compelling. I can tell you more than you might imagine about people who come to my site, but it pales into comparison when you see what Google can store and some of the conditions. Anyone who says "they won't use it" needs to rethink the demands of shareholders to maximise revenue and profit. I would suggest looking at: Google Docs and Spreadsheets clause gives pause For a company whose motto is "Do no evil," it's interesting how often Google's customers suspect them of it http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/09/14/Google-clause-gives-pause_1.html and then the "story" at Radar Fiction - "Scroogled" Google controls your e-mail, your videos, your calendar, your searches… What if it controlled your life? By Cory Doctorow http://www.radaronline.com/from-the-magazine/2007/09/google_fiction_evil_dangerous_surveillance_control_1.php I then clicked on the I-Spy link on the last page of the Radaronline fiction and was able...

SQL Server 2000: Performance Tuning and Optimization Datasheet This 4-day workshop provides information on SQL 2000 index and page structures, performance troubleshooting tools, memory architecture, programming efficiency, and optimization techniques. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0556317d-66c3-4a6d-a128-4d6f873a28b3&DisplayLang=en ttfn David Technorati Tags: SQL 2000 Performance Tuning

Group Policy Diagnostic Best Practice Analyzer for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition (KB940122) The Microsoft Group Policy Diagnostic Best Practice Analyzer (GPDBPA) for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 is designed to help you identify Group Policy configuration errors or other dependency failures that may prevent settings or features from functioning as expected. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=70e0edec-66f7-4499-83b7-4f2009df2314&DisplayLang=en Group Policy Diagnostic Best Practice Analyzer for Windows Server 2003 (KB940122) The Microsoft Group Policy Diagnostic Best Practice Analyzer (GPDBPA) for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 is designed to help you identify Group Policy configuration errors or other dependency failures that may prevent settings or features from functioning as expected. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=3&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3d47f11b02-8ee4-450b-bf13-880b91ba4566...

Nothing like a blog entry on licensing to stir the people into action. Vijay posted a "small" post - Who understands Microsoft Licensing? . I'm now going to respond to both the main blog post and also some of the comments. I highly recommend you read the entry, the comments (some are included below, also for comment) and the linked blogs, especially the entry by Adam at Sorting out the complexity of Microsoft Volume Licensing as well as the others My conclusion to this question is that hardly anyone understands Microsoft Licensing. I’ve been to quite a few Microsoft Partner events and when the above question above is asked there is usually a very low number of businesses who say they understand it. This feedback is given time and time again but nothing really changes. The solution isn’t explaining it over and over again or writing Licensing Reseller Handbooks. If you can't explain something to a customer in a very succint way, then it’s just a waste of time and if as an organisation you have...

I've seen a few people asking how to do things like add MP4 support, WM Connector V2 support or even just the media management features of Windows Media V11 to Home Server. Some 3rd party devices only support WM Connector V2 and some people want to do things like stream MP4 files to their Xbox 360. From two articles on the connect forum come the details: I've done some fiddling today and managed to get this working, albeit in a completely unsupported and at-your-own-risk way. Ready for some tinkering? After reading up on various workarounds online, here's what I did: To install Media Player 11: Download wmp11-windowsxp-x86-enu.exe Open this file in an extraction program such as WinZip or 7-Zip (I used 7-Zip ) Extract the wmfdist11.exe and wmp11.exe and place them in separate folders on the C: drive of your WHS (not on a share). (this step was adapted from instructions I was following elsewhere - I'm not certain of the separate folders requirement, but I did it anyway) From the WHS admin desktop...

I'm sorry to be so blunt. I get asked about this quite often, so thought I would write it down. The problem is that the Office 2007 applications will only run in a Terminal Server environment if volume licensing media and a volume license keys are used. Unfortunately the MAPS kit does not include volume licensing media, which means that the Office 2007 can not be used in a TS environment. There are some options on how to move this forward, which are: Acquire the Premium edition of MSDN via the Microsoft Open License Program. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/aa700832.aspx or For their own business use, Partners could purchase Office 2007 via the Microsoft Open License Program or one of the other volume licensing programs. Some people have commented that the same restrictions were not in place for the beta of Office 2007. It is worth noting that the beta code for Office 2007 software was created without regard to the channels that it will later be sold or distributed in. For this reason, Office...