January 2008 - David Overton's Blog

Some people have asked why WHS is not available on MSDN. Well, it is largely Windows Server and eval media is easy to obtain, so for most people, this should be excellent for developing solutions. A MSDN link has also been created to get to the developer information easily - http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver Windows Home Server Windows Home Server enables families with multiple PCs to organize, share, and automatically protect documents, photos, music, and videos. Windows Home Server supports third-party applications and enables integration. Below you will find development guidance and additional resources. What is a Windows Home Server software add-in? Add-ins are supplemental programs that extend the functionality of Windows Home Server. These applications can be added to and managed by Windows Home Server via integration into the Windows Home Server Console, running as a web service on Internet Information Server, or operating in a client/server fashion. Step by Step: Developing an Add-in You develop...

if Heineken did Home Server Web sites then We Got Served would be their site. I love reading the information that Terry puts on there and what is really good too is the fact that it is a UK site. Not that I object to anyone being successful in any country, but it is nice to have one on home turf too. Anyway, the latest little ditty is the Disk Management add-in from Sam Wood which shows you the status of your disks (capacity used) and where they are in the box (you have to configure this) Add-In: Windows Home Server Disk Management A new add-in was released by developer Sam Wood today, called WHS Disk Management. The add-in is an extension of the standard WHS Server Storage interface, helping users visually identify the physical disks they’re working with. Here’s how it’s used: Select one of the disks, or expand the columns after the disk ID, to see infomation about the disk. It takes awhile to render, because it’s doing a WMI crawl to find the disk controller. You get SCSI bus/port/LUN, plus disk controller....

I was invited by Russell Singler of the The Animation Art Gallery to go look at TimesOnline for a quiz and competition to win some of his artwork . I found a discount code for the next ten days that gives 10% off of his work and this fun quiz ( www.timesonline.co.uk/kidstv ) Good grief! You really are Dangermouse Have you been known to loiter around a particular post box in Mayfair? Your character bears a striking resemblance to DM himself, the Chief, the greatest super hero in the world, that most debonair of rodents with the mysterious eye patch. You're obviously as brave as a lion, or even a white mouse. You're as cunning as a cat, (or a white mouse). And you can even do impressive yoga poses while balancing on one finger. Whilst you may be the best thing in the secret service since 001, you're not shy in letting people know all about your dazzling skills. What you really need is a timid assistant to boss about – oh shush Penfold… For the 10% discount at Russell's store, which includes some...

I'm not feeling my best, so no comments, but below was an article I found very interesing: Independent study advises IT planners to go OOXML Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:41 am Market researchers with the Burton Group have issued a 37-page study– not commissioned by Microsoft or any other tech vendor — that finds Microsoft’s OOXML document format to be more useful than the rival ODF format backed by Microsoft’s competitors. The new study, freely downloadable (in exchange for registration) from Burton’s Web site is entitled “What’s Up, .DOC? ODF, OOXML, and the Revolutionary Implications of XML in Productivity Applications.” Office Open XML (OOXML) is Microsoft’s XML file format that it made the default in its Office 2007 suite. Open Document Format(ODF) is the file format championed by Sun Microsystems, IBM, Google and other Microsoft competitors. Microsoft is seeking ISO standards approval for OOXML, largely to appease customers who prefer/require standards-compliant products, as well as to head off ODF momentum...

Why get Certifications? Customer satisfaction - Sixty-six percent of managers believe that certifications improve the level of service and support offered to customers. Revenue results - “Financially successful companies typically invest more in certifying their internal technical team.” Cushing Anderson, Vice President, IDC’s IT Education and Certification research. Project outcomes - High-level performance is achieved when 40% to 55% of a team are Microsoft Certified Professionals. Things that make getting a certification easier You can take advantage of partner-exclusive, training and certification offers available through Partner Skills Plus. These offers can benefit you by enabling you to become certified more quickly and do so at a savings. Here are some of the things I saw: Second Shot - pay for one exam at full price and get two chances to pass. Offer ends 30 th June 2008. IW Skills Accelerator – helping partners get skilled on the Office 2007 technologies. Offer ends 31 st July 2008. Start saving now...

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...

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...

People ask me what I think of Virtualisation and whether I would virtualise SBS or Cougar or 10 desktops or more. If we are talking about OS virtualisation, rather than application virtualisation then many people miss what virtualisation is - the running of more operating systems on one single piece of hardware. This means that before you had, for example, 3 OSs to manage and now you have 4 (the OS running the virtualisation technology / layer and the 3 OSs that you now virtualise). Now you do have to manage less hardware, but a single hardware failure now will stop 4 OSs rather than 1, so you need to plan around this. Obviously virtualisation gives you benefits in portability and resources management as well as potentially increased hardware specs without the same increase in costs, but you also need to be aware of the issues. I see two major issues outside of those people often think about (as above): Not enough resources. The process of virtualising an OS costs some tax in terms of performance of CPUs, disk...

I always find it sort of silly the way Microsoft is accused of being tight with information on how to develop with our products, yet there is loads and loads of information on MSDN and then the ability to license information as the Samba group did. IBM is often 1st up to hit Microsoft with a "your mean and successful and patent everything" yet here is another article, another year and IBM leads the patent list: This story appeared on Network World at http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/011408-patent-list.html IBM retains slim lead among patent-winners; Samsung, Microsoft gain ground U.S. patent backlog more than 1.1 million after drop in patents issued By Jon Brodkin , NetworkWorld.com, 01/14/08 IBM secured 3,148 patents in 2007, besting all other competitors for the 15th consecutive year, but Big Blue's lead is getting slimmer and Microsoft charged into the top 10 with 1,637 patents, according to an analysis that will be released Monday. Microsoft, which ranked No. 6 on the annual list after failing...