There’s a lot of great IT administrator information available every month in Microsoft Technet Magazine. It’s always practical, real world information written by real corporate server & desktop administrators that have the same challenges as you do.
For example, the April 2007 edition talks about such topics as Advanced Client Inventory Collection with SMS2003, Capacity Planning for any Deployment or Implementation using System Center Capacity Planner, or the Value of x64-based Windows OSs. And it’s filled with REAL STUFF: Actual code, pointers to the Technet web site where you can download said code, screen shots of tools in use, and a lot of just plain practical information.
The best part of the magazine in my opinion is the fact that it’s not preachy. Yes, it’s funded by advertising dollars, but it’s subsidzed by Microsoft which ultimately means the magazine is written from the perspective of making the Microsoft IT guy’s life easier. How to overcome those IT problems everyone encounters in day to day work… what tools are most useful… where to get help online… and most importantly, it comes from reputable source: Folks like Don Jones, Mark Russinovich, Raymond Chen, and the Scripting Guys.
The skeptical might say that the magazine is also written with less than an impartial slant. To that comment, I’ll say this: All the writers are reputable folks, most of them non-Microsoft employees – and if they are Microsofties, they’re usually consultants: The guys that have to deploy and maintain our stuff, just like you do. Consequently, I find myself combing through this rag like I did in the old days when NT 3.1 was a new thing, and TCP/IP was still sorta new to the mainstream computer user.
(To be blunt, that was my issue with the old Microsoft-labeled IT magazine, "MCP Magazine", which appears to be Technet Magazine’s predecessor. At one time, back in the early 90’s it was really useful but after 2000, it seemed to get more and more desperate for advertising dollars. They began publishing more opinions, polls, and surveys than technical information and ultimately, it started to get really political writing about issues like, "Are you getting paid what you’re worth?" and "Is Microsoft Software Assurance worth it for you?" I remember asking myself, "What does this have to do with administering technology?" I’d kept every issue of MCP magazine for years and I finally stopped reading altogether. And while that last topic might be useful for CIOs, but not engineering techs like you and me. In case you’re wondering, Technet Magazine is now published by CMP Media, the same folks that do the highly-acclaimed & highly-useful MSDN Magazine, Dr. Dobb’s Journal, and SysAdmin Magazine.)
So the question is: How do I get it?
Easy: It’s free.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/subscribe.aspx
Turns out that you can get a free subscription to it, so go sign up!
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