Blogs

I saw this and thought I would post here. Microsoft Windows PowerShell 1.0 review Is Microsoft’s new tool a power shell or an egg shell? By David Cartwright, techworld List price:Free Pros: Brings Windows scripting into the .NET era, allowing you to do far more than you could with VBScript. Cons: The syntax will take you some getting used to – an IntelliSense equivalent would be a nice touch. Buying advice: Getting PowerShell is a no-brainer. It’s a no-cost scripting tool that you’ll find a use for before long, so it makes sense to get a copy now and get to grips with it a bit before you have to start using it in anger. "If you’re used to DOS batch files, VBScript scripts or Unix shell scripts, you’ll find this experience next to useless when trying to get to grips with PowerShell. The syntax is like nothing I’ve ever come across (and I’ve used all three of the above extensively)" "This said, it’s not the hardest thing in the world to get used to. It’s just a case of learning the keywords and, most...

I should not poke fun at Tim - sorry mate. The Exchange 2007 beta 2 has released. It can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/beta2 and a nice news article about it can be found at http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3622081 . To find out more about the product, you need to go look at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/E2k7Help/e2715491-5b98-4d85-acc7-e038cf3f46ca.mspx?mfr=true The list of new features includes, however the unified messaging piece is key for me.: • Exchange Management Console The Exchange Management Console, one of two new administrative interfaces for Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007, is based on MMC 3.0, and is required to install and manage Exchange 2007. The Exchange Management Console combines all of your management tasks into one user interface. By using the Exchange Management Console, you can manage all Exchange servers, recipients and organizational components within your Exchange Server 2007 organization. • Exchange Management Shell...

OK, so I saw that the Vista Security Guide ( http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsvistasecurity/archive/2007/01/05/windows-vista-security-guide-1-2-released.aspx ) had been updated - it is worth knowing more about the security model in Vista, how we protect against some threats and how it might impact your applications (eg if a non-admin application wants to send UI information to an admin one), Group Policy, Settings etc. Now, while security is important, so are the basics, like turning on the auto-updates, firewalls and anti-malware software. Well, MS now supplies a great anti-spyware product built into Windows in the form of Defender and the firewall can now be configured on outbound comms as well as inbound if you want, but no AV in the product. So, you need a 3rd party AV product (or Windows OneCare)... well, Jill Allchin, who delivered the Vista project for all of us does not use one for his son's machine.... http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2006/12/19/windows-vista-and-protection-from-malware...

This is an extract from the TRM blog which can be found here http://blogs.technet.com/trm/ . I have removed the KB article list and some items which I don't think are relevant to small business / ISV partners, however the full info can be found on the blog page too Unified Communications Partners Rally Around Microsoft Unified Communications Software Q&A: Microsoft partners discuss how and why they are taking advantage of the company’s unified communications platform to meet the needs of customers and tap into a US$45 billion market opportunity. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/oct07/10-16uclaunch.mspx Exchange Team Blog http://msexchangeteam.com/default.aspx Outlook Team Blog http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/default.aspx Unified Communications Team Blog http://blogs.technet.com/uc/default.aspx This content is for informational purposes only. Microsoft makes no warranties express or implied, as to the information in this document. If you are a customer of Microsoft, please refer to the terms...

I am someone who likes the best browser for me. While I have often tried other browsers, I have always come back to IE based ones. I say IE based ones as I was a Avant and Maxthon user for a good 2 years until IE7 came on the scene. I loved tabbed browsing and those browsers gave me that. The discussion can be found at the CRN web site and does an amazing job of describing the browser wars and talking about who won each round. What might surprise many is that MS has not won many, but does have a large base now and the verdict is open for the next round. For the record, I now use IE7, I still get tabbed browsing and quick tabs and I have not yet had a site I could not browse, so that is great. I LOVE the new security features - protected mode and anti-phishing technology. I save trees with the "about time" feature of shrink to fit for printing and when I start the browser, it opens up the 8 pages I want it to in tabs, so no longer choosing which page will be my homepage, I have 8. (as it happens, they are Valdville...

I'm obviously in a little bit of a carefree mood as I am going to offer my personal opinion on one of the Internet greats. Google has built an amazing advertising business through search, but their company slogan of "Do no evil" seems to be more "deny any evil doing". Lets be honest, Google is a business, like any other who's primary aim is to live longer, grow bigger and feed shareholders. I have seen a few things that Google do that I don't like. I don't like them reading my e-mails, the meta data of the documents I have, my every browser move. These have been discussed by others many times before, but this week I have seen two storied that smacked of "sorry we got it wrong... its not our fault". I remember the reaction when I said sorry on the blog and it seems that a little bit of that humble pie is needed elsewhere (and more at Microsoft obviously). The two areas I am thinking about are their Checkout tool and their mapping tools. The Register, who I have had...

This is such a screaming laugh - " Silberbauer Says " have a published a picture of the Zune. Enjoy, but don't come whining to me that it is not like this when it is delivered!! ttfn David

Yes this is a US report, but I believe a similar move is happening in the UK Nearly half of businesses polled in a recent survey are in some phase of updating to Vista, and of those companies, 53 percent are small businesses By Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service January 14, 2008 Nearly half of businesses are in some phase of preparing to update desktops to Windows Vista with small businesses moving the fastest to implement the OS, according to a new report released Monday. The number of organizations evaluating and testing Vista increased from 29 percent in February 2007 to 48 percent by early November 2007, found the report, commissioned by reseller CDW and based on information collected by Walker Information from 772 IT decision makers. Moreover, about 35 percent of companies are currently implementing or have implemented Vista already, compared to 12 percent last February, the report said. The report is the third of a wave of reports on Vista adoption that CDW has done since the OS was in its final testing...

I am in the process of upgrading the site - expect some spotty service while this happens. thanks David

It is always nice to see good news and SharePoint and Exchange are providing lots of it at the moment. I thought I would share this story and also some tools. Microsoft: ISVs Cashing In On Lotus Exodus Microsoft earlier this week released an updated version of its Transporter Suite for Lotus Domino, a set of tools that helps organizations migrate from IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to Microsoft products. As interest builds around unified communications, Microsoft in the last six months of 2007 saw more than 300 enterprise customers -- representing some 2.8 million users -- begin making the movie to Exchange Server, Office SharePoint Server and the Office suite, according to Clint Patterson, a director with the unified communications group at Microsoft. This groundswell of interest has spawned a whole ecosystem of Microsoft ISVs offering products that ease the migration process. For example, companies that have large amounts of information stored in a Notes database have found it difficult to capture that data and...

I have had a few people say they don't have the resources to load and explore Vista, but wanted to see more. Well now you can explore all the following subjects without leaving your desk or loading a DVD. The Vista lab covers the following areas: Microsoft Virtual Lab Express: Exploring New Functionality in Internet Explorer 7 Using System Image Manager to Automate Windows Vista Installations Windows Vista: Image Engineering Configuring Windows Firewall with Advanced Security Exploring New Group Policy Settings in Windows Vista Exploring User Account Control in Windows Vista Migrating User State from Windows XP to Windows Vista Managing Windows Vista and Windows Server Longhorn Network Bandwidth with Policy-based Quality of Service Managing Windows Vista Using New Management Technologies Source: Microsoft Virtual Lab: Windows Vista Enjoy them! ttfn David

IE8 is cooking along nicely. IE is one of those products that is highly impacted by standards and given the announcements Microsoft made about standards and interoperability last week, the IE team have made some announcements ( IEBlog : Microsoft's Interoperability Principles and IE8 ) Microsoft's Interoperability Principles and IE8 We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can. This decision is a change from what we’ve posted previously. Why Change? Microsoft recently published a set of Interoperability Principles . Thinking about IE8’s behavior with these principles in mind, interpreting web content in the most standards compliant way possible is a better thing to do. We think that acting in accordance with principles is important, and IE8’s default is a demonstration of the interoperability principles in action. While we do not believe any current legal requirements would dictate which rendering mode a browser must use, this step clearly removes...

Microsoft often pokes fun at itself, but due to one of our competitors taking it a little too seriously some years back, these rarely come out to play in public. Well, have a look at this one . It was posted by Jules in the UKSBSG forum and I also got private messages from a few people saying that we should use this in the UK. ttfn David