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October 2007 - David Overton's Blog
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  • Ballmer Talks Cloud, Advertising, SAAS and what is Microsoft doing about it

    Software as a Service, Software plus Services etc, etc is a hot topic, but the reality for most of us is that for today we need to deliver traditional software while planning for the future. Steve Ballmer discusses this and more at the Gartner ITxpo 2007 event. I have snipped a few words that I thought were interesting, but please read the rest of the article for more info. For a video of Steve on Microsoft in the online world, have a look at Steve's blog at Steve Ballmer video - The Online Opportunity Ballmer addressed what appeared to be recurring questions among attendees: What is Microsoft's strategy around SAAS (software as a service), and what is Microsoft's answer to Google? Ballmer made it clear during the session that seeing any similarities between Microsoft and Google would be a mistake. "We don't look alike at all," he said. There is a "world of search and advertising, where Google is the leader; we're number three, working to be number two and then working to be...

  • BT launches free business tools | CNET News.com

    If you like the look of Microsoft Office Live for Small Business and Office Live Workspaces, then you might also like this from BT. It looks even more like understanding how to build a business on the back of Windows SharePoint Services is going to be vital in the small business space! BT launches free business tools U.K. telecom company offers BT Business Builder, which bundles free management applications for small businesses. By David Meyer Special to CNET News.com Published: September 11, 2007, 8:34 AM PDT U.K. telecom company BT Group has added a set of business-management tools to its portfolio of free hosted applications for small businesses. BT Business Builder incorporates bookkeeping, invoicing, sales, planning, payroll, human resources, and health and safety tools, together with a news-alert service covering new business legislation. <snipped - go to site to see more >BT, which is gradually shifting its image from telecommunications incumbent to global IT services giant , has already launched...

  • Small Business Building Blocks: Learn How To Create Magnificent Marketing Materials

    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
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  • MSDN events around the UK - North, South, Scotland and London! Covers SharePoint, Silverlight, SQL 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and .Net 3.5

    I saw this and thought I would pass it on. If you are interested in SharePoint, Silverlight, SQL 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and .Net 3.5 then you should look at these: MSDN Southern Events Developing on the Windows Live Platform Date: 6 November 2007 Location: Reading An Introduction to the Microsoft Web Platform (and how to do it for zip, nyada, zero cost to you) Date: 27 November 2007 Location: Reading What's New in Smart Client Development Date: 29 November 2007 Location: Bristol SQL Server 2008 Date: 4 December 2007 Location: Reading Find out about all MSDN events MSDN London Events Building Dynamic Web Applications with Microsoft Silverlight Date: 8 November 2007 Location: London What's New in Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Fx 3.5 for the Web Developer Date: 6 December 2007 Location: London Find out about all MSDN events MSDN Northern Events Building Dynamic Web Applications with Microsoft Silverlight Date: 15 November 2007 Location: Manchester SQL Server 2008 Date: 22 November 2007 Location: Bradford...

  • Fix for Excel 2007 and Excel Services calculation errors

    I know that a few people had the pleasure of throwing a few pies at Microsoft when this was discovered, but a fix is now available. Description of the Excel 2007 hotfix package: October 9, 2007 This hotfix package fixes the following issue that was not previously documented in a Microsoft Knowledge Base article: When you perform a calculation in Excel 2007, the following behavior occurs: The result of the calculation is a number from 65534.99999999995 to 65535. The calculation is performed correctly. However, the result is incorrectly shown as 100000. The result of the calculation is a number from 65535.99999999995 to 65536. The calculation is performed correctly. However, the result is incorrectly shown as 100001. To resolve this problem, apply this hotfix. After you apply the hotfix, recalculate the spreadsheets that are in manual calculation mode. When you do this, the values in the spreadsheet will be updated to the correct values. Excel 2007 Download the Excel 2007 hotfix package now. ( http://download.microsoft...
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  • Office Live Workspace: New Web Functionality for Microsoft Office

    I thought I should offer some clearer info on what is coming in Office Live Workspace Available at no charge, Office Live Workspace facilitates the following : Access documents anywhere. Organise documents and projects for work, school and home online, and work on them from almost any computer - even one not connected to the company or school network. Save more than 1,000 Microsoft Office documents to one place online and access them via the Web. Share with others. Work collaboratively on a project with others in a password-protected, invitation-only online workspace, helping to eliminate version-control challenges when e-mailing drafts to multiple people. Collaborators who don't have a desktop version of Microsoft Office software can still view and comment on the document in a browser. Extend Microsoft Office. Easily connect to Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint ® , Excel ® and Outlook ® on their PC via the Web. Pre-register for the beta of Office Live Workspace today at www.officelive.co.uk Some people are...

  • The Official SBS Blog : New Best Practices for SP2 KB - From June, but worth getting out there

    I should have mentioned this before, but I appear to have been a bit bad at reading others blog and forwarding on :-) Anyway, since the release notes for SP2 can't be updated, here are the latest best practice KB articles. This is just a quick note about the availability of a new KB published today to help consolidate some of the information that we've posted on this blog. Best practices and known issues when you install Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 on a Windows Small Business Server 2003-based computer http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=939421 The Official SBS Blog : New Best Practices for SP2 KB ttfn David Technorati Tags: Windows Server 2003 SP2 , Best Practices

  • Transition Pack Pointers for SBS 2003 peeps

    Just to recap on these links since I still get questions about the Transition Pack. These are some good starting points for understanding Transition Pack (pay special attention to the registry key portion if they have Backup Exec installed): http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2006/01/12/417350.aspx and http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2006/02/24/420521.aspx ttfn David Technorati Tags: SBS 2003 , Translation Pack

  • Business Contact Manage 2007 (BCM) with LinkedIn and/or Windows Mobile

    I was reading the Small Business Building Blocks blog and noticed this handy time for BCM and LinkedIn. As many of you know BCM is a favourite product of mine and one that providing the machine has the grunt is an excellent productivity tool. I've been playing around with the LinkedIn toolbar for Outlook . One of the issues that I constantly run into with tools like this is that they are made to work with Outlook contacts but don't always work with Business Contact Manager (BCM). I've had better luck with this add-in than others, so I thought I would post a little about what I have found. If anyone has figured out a better way to address these issues, I'd love to hear from you. The LinkedIn toolbar has a couple of ways to create contacts. One is from the LinkedIn dashboard, when it recognizes a contact in LinkedIn or your e-mail folders that is not set up as a contact. A second way is to use the "grab" button to create a contact from text or an e-mail signature. When LinkedIn creates...

  • Videos on Vista usage - Checking for updates, Backup options, Offline file options, How to use security in Internet Explorer, Sharing files

    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

  • Microsoft switching SharePoint to claims-based authentication - The Password is changing

    You've heard it before, well this seems to suggest that the password or AD based auth is just too wrong! So SharePoint is going as open as possible!! Microsoft switching SharePoint to claims-based authentication By John Fontana , Network World, 10/16/07 Microsoft is replacing the authentication system for SharePoint Server and plans to make the collaboration platform one of the first of the company’s marquee applications to rely on a new claims-based identity model . The goal is to have SharePoint incorporate an authentication model that works with any corporate identity system, including Active Directory, LDAPv3-based directories, application-specific databases and new user-centric identity models, such as LiveID, OpenID and InfoCard systems, including Microsoft’s CardSpace and Novell ’s Digital Me. Microsoft switching SharePoint to claims-based authentication - Network World ttfn David Technorati Tags: SharePoint , Claims-Based Authentication , Security

  • Iris World information

    We did promise at IrisWorld that all the information from the event would be available on the website. It is almost all ready. See below for information that is available now and subscribe to this entry to be notified when the video is available for download too. If you click the link here you should see a section like this and if you put in your e-mail address you will get a mail when this is updated. The e-mail address will not be used to contact you in any other way or passed on to anyone else. Excel Demos and Links: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/CR100479681033.aspx - Training http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/CH100740791033.aspx - Demos Office Live Choices for Office Live range from free to less than £23 per month for 50 users Setting up websites is very simple and can be free - click the picture at the top of the page to sign up Sharing information with your customers can be simple - click the picture at the top of the page to sign up for the "Workspaces Beta" http://www.officelive...

  • IE 7 Update Drops WGA Validation Requirement

    I thought it was worth sharing this - IE 7 will be available to everyone, even those people who "have not paid" for their Windows XP OS. Many people seem to think this is purely an anti-firefox move ( http://www.websearchguide.ca/netblog/archives/006622.html ) IE 7 Update Drops WGA Validation Requirement Microsoft is making its Internet Explorer 7 browser available to all Windows XP users—even those using pirated software—and installation will no longer require that the operating system first be validated as genuine. The company said the move is about security and ecosystem safety, because if even one user in a network is not using the security enhancements provided in IE 7, that user places the entire network at risk. "Microsoft takes its commitment to help protect the entire Windows ecosystem seriously, and we're taking a step to help make consumers safer online. We feel the security enhancements to Internet Explorer 7 are significant enough that it should be available as broadly as possible...

  • EU Pundits Want Windows-less PCs - I just want options

    I saw this and just thought it was very silly. I do need to point out that this is a personal opinion and not one that represents Microsoft or that of its employees. However I do think that this idea ranks right up there with "everyone should write their own software" which an certain Open Source advocate once said to me. So let me get this right, the reasons why people like pre-loaded software are: Machines can be turned on and used OEM supplied software is supported by the same people who supplied the hardware, so one stop show OEM software is great value and often less than retail software Drivers and add-on software are all provided in the box so no searching around to set the system up More tools in the box from 3rd party vendors No technical knowledge required to set up machine The reasons why OEMs like pre-loaded software are: Machine will be usable as soon as turned on making happy customers Easier to support a known installation configuration Financial incentive from some 3rd party software...

  • WSUS on SBS and helping clients that think they are up to date, but WSUS does not

    I saw this posted internally and thought I would share. If you have clients that think they are up to date, but WSUS does not, have a look at this KB and also try these commands: 940357 An update is available to enable automatic approval of definition updates and to fix two problems in the Update Services component of Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;940357 and Wuauclt /detectnow /resetauthorization or wuauclt /reportnow from a cmd prompt on the client box (elevated if running on Vista) ttfn David Technorati Tags: SBS 2003 R2 , WSUS , Security

  • Videos on Office usage - Document Inspector, Excel Templates and formatting, Outlook on the go and enhancing word documents

    I have documented some of these videos before, but I thought I would document them all now - How to use the document inspector - How to find a template for Excel and then customise it for UK dates and currency, change the formatting and more - How to use conditional formatting in Excel - How to use Outlook Web Access and Outlook Anywhere (RPC over HTTP) - How to enhance a document using various things - cover pages, table of contents, pictures, smart art, formatting ttfn David Technorati Tags: Office 2007

  • And another great thing about Windows Home Server - Vista gives instant searches on all files on the home server shares

    Someone asked today why Windows Home Server has the Windows Desktop Search tool on the box and the reply that came back I thought was worth of a blog entry. When you connect to a share on Windows Home Server (eg \\homeserver\music ) and do a search in the top right corner, then your Vista PC will search the WDS index and not the actual files, meaning that I can search by 400 albums for anything related to Disney in about 1/4 of a second :-) Nice! ttfn David Technorati Tags: Windows Home Server , Vista , Windows Desktop Search

  • Sometimes we need to remember that Windows is pretty good as far as security vulnerabilities go

    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...
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  • Hackers eye open source coding tools - are your development tools safe to use?

    Now this sounds familiar - compromise the dev tools and they compromise all products produced with them. Enterprises using open source software to engineer custom applications could be vulnerable to a newly discovered class of hack attack, a security firm claimed today. Fortify Software 's Security Research Group reported that so-called 'cross-build injection attacks' could allow a hacker to insert code into the target program while it is being constructed. The use of open source coding tools have opened the doors to "possible system-wide exploits", according to Fortify. If an attacker compromises either the server that hosts a component, or the DNS server that the build machine uses to locate that server, he could use these vulnerabilities to take full control of the build machine and possibly other machines on the remote network. Fortify discovered that, during the application build process, systems that automatically download external dependencies, including the popular Ant, Maven and...
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  • IIS Outserves Apache on Fortune 1000 Websites while ASP.NET Deployments Grow

    For those who think IIS is not good enough, safe enough, capable, used etc, then have a look at this article. It seems that now IIS accounts for more Fortune 1000 companies web sites than all the competition put together. If you are developing or recommending, it looks like more business opportunity exists in the IIS world than anywhere else. If you want to know a bit more about developing solutions, look at http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.education.web4lib/10138 and Microsoft to Release Windows Server 2008 RCO, and for some IIS7 webcasts .. IIS7 Web casts IIS Outserves Apache on Fortune 1000 Websites while ASP.NET Deployments Grow Since 2003, Port80 Software has periodically surveyed the public sites of Fortune 1000 companies to determine their use of web and application hosting technologies. In a survey released in mid-August, the Microsoft Internet Information Services 6.0 Web server (IIS 6) gained 9.5 percent since August 2006 and passed IIS 5 to lead the survey for the first time, outserving the open source...

  • A comprehensive list of Microsoft Blogs and Web Resources about Security

    Ed Gibson pointed this out today - a "to be continually updated" list of Microsoft security blogs that relate to various products from Microsoft - Security Blog di Feliciano Intini : Microsoft Blogs and Web Resources about Security 1.0 Network Security 1.1 ISA Server ISA Server Product Team Blog 1.1.1 ISA 2000 1.1.2 ISA 2004 1.1.3 ISA 2006 1.2 Remote Access & Quarantine Services Routing and Remote Access Blog 1.2.1 ISA 2006 QS 1.2.2 Win2003 QS 1.2.3 Win2003 RAS/IAS 1.3 NAP Solution Network Access Protection Blog 1.4 VPN Solutions ISA Server Product Team Blog Routing and Remote Access Blog 1.4.1 Win2003 RRAS VPN 1.4.2 ISA 2006 VPN 1.4.3 Internet Application Gateway 2007 1.5 Wireless Security Windows Core Networking Blog 1.6 IPSEC Windows Core Networking Blog 1.6.1 Win2003 IPSEC 1.6.2 Server & Domain Isolation Solution 2.0 Host Security 2.1 Client OS Security 2.1.1 Windows 2000 client security 2.1.2 Windows XP security 2.1.3 Windows Vista security Windows Vista Security Blog Windows Genuine Advantage...

  • Releasing the Source Code for the .NET Framework - not going Open Source

    Another step in the direction of openness of the .Net code, this is how Visual Studio 2008 will enable developers to step into the code for .Net while debugging their products. Scott is a fantastic man to follow if you want to develop for the MS platform. Some people are mis-quoting this access to information as .Net going open, which is not true at all. If you read Microsoft did not open source .NET. They just released the source code to public from Krish you will see the correction of this perception. However, openness and transparency is a good thing, so I don't see this as bad. Releasing the Source Code for the .NET Framework Libraries One of the things my team has been working to enable has been the ability for .NET developers to download and browse the source code of the .NET Framework libraries, and to easily enable debugging support in them. Today I'm excited to announce that we'll be providing this with the .NET 3.5 and VS 2008 release later this year. We'll begin by offering the source...

  • Microsoft is making more of it source code available for others to look at (Microsoft opening up .Net Framework libraries)

    Back in the days when I was a developer, Borland allowed me to see all the tips and tricks inside their Windows libraries. It gave me insight and examples on how to "do" things that I could see them doing, but was unable to replicate. Well this is now happening with the .Net framework. Microsoft opening up .Net Framework libraries By releasing the libraries under its Reference License and Shared Source Initiative, Microsoft has made the .Net source code viewable but unmodifiable By Paul Krill Opening up to developers, Microsoft is releasing its .Net Framework libraries under the Microsoft Reference License, which allows viewing of source code but not modification or redistribution, the company said on Wednesday. The release gives developers the opportunity to better understand the inner workings of the framework's source code, Microsoft said. Microsoft's efforts fall under the company's Shared Source initiative, which allows for sharing of source code; Shared Source has been viewed as Microsoft's...

  • Windows Live SkyDrive Updates - 1GB of storage, RSS feeds when someone makes an update and easier sharing of files

    I saw this on the SkyDrive blog and thought I should share it. Updates to Windows Live SkyDrive! These past couple of months since our last release, we asked ourselves, “What can we do to make SkyDrive even better?” The most obvious answer is something that our users have asked us to do: give out more storage. We’re excited to announce that we’re doubling everyone’s storage to 1 GB! Many users told us, “Hey, we want to be notified when someone adds a file to a specific folder,” so we added RSS feeds to public folders. To subscribe to an RSS feed, go to the public folder that you’re interested in, and click on the orange RSS Feed icon at the top right of the page. Then, anytime that folder is updated, you’ll be notified. We love this feature because we get notified as soon as our friends upload new files to their folders. Another thing users told us is that it’s difficult to share a folder with people that aren’t in your address book. People said, “We have to go to Hotmail or Messenger in order to add someone to...

  • Live Search of Books is amazing and respects peoples property and that is just the tip of the iceberg!

    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...
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(c)David Overton 2006-23