Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Learn how to tap into the vast pools of compute, storage, and networking resources now available in the cloud by migrating your on-premises legacy systems to Azure infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

In this hands-on guide published by Apress, you’ll find a focused and practical approach to IaaS migration. You’ll explore what Azure IaaS has to offer, discover the different migration options available, and get detailed information to help you:

• Map key Azure components to familiar concepts in infrastructure, including virtualization, storage provisioning, switching and firewalls.
• Implement Azure IaaS deployment architectures.
• Design IaaS environments in line with Microsoft-recommended best practices for scalability, resiliency, availability, performance, and security.
• Manage the operational aspects of hosted environments, use automation, and optimize performance. 

Get the eBook here:

• DOWNLOAD: Free eBook, “Practical Microsoft Azure IaaS”
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/practical-microsoft-azure-iaas/

PASS Summit 2019 is coming up Nov 5 – 8 in Seattle WA – the best conference available on data skills and innovation.

The conference is three full days of learning with two days of pre-conference deep dive sessions beforehand – training workshops, best practices, hands-on labs and networking with world-class data experts from around the world.

They bring together over 4000 global data professionals and will offer more than 150 sessions. The conference also offers a chance to meet and share knowledge with the best and brightest from the data professional community and Microsoft.

Benefits of PASS Summit 2019:

• Stay up-to-date with the latest technology advances
• Get practical training from 150+ expert speakers and technical sessions
• Network and share learnings with peers from around the world
• Meet the product experts and Customer Advisory Team from Microsoft

Register today!

• DATE:
  November 5-8, 2019
• LOCATION:
  Seattle, WA
• REGISTER:
  https://www.pass.org/summit/2019/RegisterNow.aspx?

This October 2nd we’re showing the world what’s next for Surface & Microsoft… and we’re doing it live. Tune in at http://surface.com/microsoftevent at 10am EDT.

Also available live here:
https://t.co/xeMrHHRNwz?amp=1

The demands of today’s business environment are transforming the way decisions are made and increasing the need for process automation.

Discover how to put the Power Platform tools to work for you at the Power Platform World Tour – making a stop in Anaheim-Orange County, California on December 4-5, 2019.

Powered by your local Power Platform User Groups this event will provide unparalleled access to premium Power Platform content and industry leaders. Learn New Ways to Analyze, Act and Automate processes.

What to Expect

Two days of exceptional content designed for the Citizen Developer, Technical, Business and New Users in 32+ breakout sessions. Engage with local users from similar and varying industries to solve daily challenges and increase efficiencies.

Solution Packed Sessions
Whether you are just getting started or consider yourself an expert, the Power Platform World Tour has sessions geared toward all levels. Possible topics include:

• Getting Started with Power BI    
• Data Visualization
• Dataflows
• Power BI Governance

• Dive into Power Query
• Introduction to PowerApps & Flow
• Process Automation with Flow
• Data Modeling

• Automate Approvals
• Build PowerApps for Your Business
• Getting Started with Formulas
• AI and the Power Platform

LOCATION:
Doubletree by Hilton Anaheim – Orange County
100 The City Dr S
Orange, CA 92868
Bing Map

COST:
$499

REGISTRATION:
CONFERENCE: Power Platform World Tour – Anaheim, CA – Dec 4-5, 2019
https://www.powerplatformworldtour.com/ppworldtour/locations/anaheim

Bill Gates is trying to solve some of the world’s most persistent problems and Netflix’s new documentary — “Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates” — offers a peek inside the mind of the celebrated tech visionary, business leader, and philanthropist.

This three-part documentary tells Bill Gates’ life story, in-depth and unfiltered, as he pursues unique solutions to some of the world’s most complex problems. From Academy Award-winning director Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, He Named Me Malala).

Watch Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates, Only On Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80184771

While migrating to the cloud offers your business greater scalability, cost-efficiency, and improved performance, it can require careful IT planning and strategy. Fortunately, there are resources and tools that can make your cloud migration less daunting and help simplify your path to the cloud—while minimizing risk and impact to your business.

Download this Azure migration e-book for guidance throughout the entire process, from initial considerations to the tools required. You’ll learn how to:

• Approach your cloud migration.
• Discover and assess your servers, virtual machines, and applications.
• Confidently execute your migration.
• Optimize and adjust your cloud services and resources.

Grab the free eBook here:

• DOWNLOAD: “Cloud Migration Essentials: A guide to migrating servers and virtual machines”
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/cloud-migration-essentials-e-book/en-us/

“When your technology changes the world, you bear a responsibility to help address the world you have helped create.”

An excerpt from the publisher’s description of Microsoft President Brad Smith & CELA Director Carol Ann Browne’s new book, “Tools & Weapons: The Promise & Peril f the Digital Age”

"A colorful and insightful insiders’ view of how technology is both empowering us and threatening us. From privacy to cyberattacks, this timely book is a useful guide for how to navigate the digital future." (Walter Isaacson)

From Microsoft’s president and one of the tech industry’s broadest thinkers, a frank and thoughtful reckoning with how to balance enormous promise and existential risk as the digitization of everything accelerates.

Microsoft President Brad Smith operates by a simple core belief: When your technology changes the world, you bear a responsibility to help address the world you have helped create. This might seem uncontroversial, but it flies in the face of a tech sector long obsessed with rapid growth and sometimes on disruption as an end in itself. While sweeping digital transformation holds great promise, we have reached an inflection point. The world has turned information technology into both a powerful tool and a formidable weapon, and new approaches are needed to manage an era defined by even more powerful inventions like artificial intelligence. Companies that create technology must accept greater responsibility for the future, and governments will need to regulate technology by moving faster and catching up with the pace of innovation.

In Tools and Weapons, Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne bring us a captivating narrative from the cockpit of one of the world’s largest and most powerful tech companies as it finds itself in the middle of some of the thorniest emerging issues of our time. These are challenges that come with no pre-existing playbook, including privacy, cybercrime and cyberwar, social media, the moral conundrums of artificial intelligence, big tech’s relationship to inequality, and the challenges for democracy, far and near. While in no way a self-glorifying "Microsoft memoir", the audiobook pulls back the curtain remarkably wide onto some of the company’s most crucial recent decision points as it strives to protect the hopes technology offers against the very real threats it also presents. There are huge ramifications for communities and countries, and Brad Smith provides a thoughtful and urgent contribution to that effort.

There’s an article published by the New York Times entitled, “How Top-Valued Microsoft Has Avoided the Big Tech Backlash” that talks about the book’s themes that’s worth a read.

• How Top-Valued Microsoft Has Avoided the Big Tech Backlash
  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/technology/microsoft-brad-smith.html
  (http://archive.is/1numb)

Pre-order “Tools & Weapons: The Promise & Peril of the Digital Age” now:

• Hardcover purchase ($30.00), eBook download ($15.99) & Audiobook ($22.50) download:
  https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/604709/tools-and-weapons-by-brad-smith-and-carol-ann-browne/9781984877710/
• Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Tools-and-Weapons-Audiobook/0593107527

<taken from Win7 End of Support whitepaper>

Starting June 1st, EA and EAS customers with active subscription licenses to Windows 10 Enterprise E5, Microsoft 365 E5, or Microsoft 365 E5 Security (as of December 31, 2019) will get Windows 7 Extended Security Updates for Year 1 as a benefit. With this limited-time promotion, customers have more options to continue receiving Windows 7 security updates after end of support.

…

The promo runs from June 1, 2019 through December 31, 2019.

It’s probably best to read the documentation on the offer as there’s a LOT of detail behind this promo, with answers to questions like:

• Why are we launching this promo now?
• What are the qualifying subscriptions?
• Is the promo available for all Windows E5 and Microsoft 365 E5 SKUs including Government (Microsoft 365 G5) and EDU (A5)?
• Are existing subscriptions grandfathered?
• How will the promo be ordered and fulfilled starting 6/1?
• Do customers have to maintain Windows E5/Microsoft 365 E5 throughout the ESU coverage period?
• Do customers taking advantage of the promotion have the option to purchase additional years of ESU coverage?
• …

Download the whitepaper on the promo here:

• WHITEPAPER: “Windows 7 and Office 2010 – End of Support Frequently Asked Questions”
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Windows-7-and-Office-2010-End-of-Support-FAQ-updated.docx

Most of the MDOP tools now have an end of life date of April 14, 2026.  They were previously supposed to be end-of-lifed in 2021 but the date has been pushed out.  Note: The one exception to this is MED-V, which will continue to have an EOL date of April 13, 2021.

Taken from the announcement:

To simplify planning for IT, we have standardized the support lifecycle for the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) and are announcing a single end of support date for all the tools in the MDOP portfolio*. The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack is a suite of products that help to improve compatibility, simplify device management, reduce support costs, improve asset management, and improve policy control. Available as a subscription for Software Assurance customers, Windows Enterprise E3/E5 customers, and Microsoft 365 Enterprise E3/E5 customers.

…

For more information and detail, please read the announcement here:

• BLOG: New extended support dates for MDOP tools https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-IT-Pro-Blog/New-extended-support-dates-for-MDOP-tools/ba-p/837312

<taken from announcement below>

PowerToys is a set of utilities for power users to tune and streamline their Windows experience for greater productivity. Inspired by the Windows 95 era PowerToys project, this reboot provides power users with utilities to squeeze more efficiency out of the Windows 10 shell and customize it for individual workflows. Check out this great overview of the Windows 95 PowerToys.

The first preview release of PowerToys contains two utilities with all the code for the project on GitHub. The repo also contains the information and tools you need to understand how the PowerToys’ utilities work together and how to create your own utilities.

…

The first 2 PowerToys are:

1. Windows key shortcut guide
2. FancyZones

For more details, read the complete announcement here:

• Announcing the first preview and code release of PowerToys
  http://aka.ms/powertoys