Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Microsoft has partnered with 20th Century Fox to tap into the release of the film adaptation of “The Martian” as an opportunity for fans of all ages to learn more about Mars and space. It’s also a way to empower those around the world to embrace and imagine what life on Mars could look like.

Everything from the map of Mars that main character Mark Watney treads to a Skype discussion with Mars & exploration experts… read more about it here:

• Microsoft brings ‘The Martian’ to Earth with Hacking Mars design challenge, Bing Watney Home map experience and more
  http://news.microsoft.com/features/microsoft-brings-the-martian-to-earth-with-hacking-mars-design-challenge-bing-watney-home-map-experience-and-more/  

Additionally, for those of you would like to see “The Martian Ares 3 Mission Guide” from the movie, you can download it from here:

The Ares space program represents the best of our aspirations, and its success will forever stand as an unforgettable reminder about what we can achieve with effort, imagination and teamwork.

Perhaps it’s the innate human desire to explore that propels us to venture so far from home, but I’ve always suspected that it has more to do with our innate desire to know who we are and where we come from that drives our actions.

Ultimately, that curiosity about where we’ve been is more about knowing where we’re headed.  

With that same sense of destination in mind, NASA will once again send a team of brave, dedicated explorers to Mars to further explore the past in the hopes of ascertaining our future.

By examining the Martian terrain and its geological history, we hope to learn more about why it wound up a desiccated, inhospitable world lest we find one day find our own planet on the same path.

• DOWNLOAD: The Martian Ares 3 Mission Guide (PDF)
  https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=DA410C7F7E038D!240177&authkey=!AEaBW0IePf3r2FI&ithint=file%2cpdf

Wanna learn about improving end user productivity through:

• Greater teamwork & collaboration
• Improved cross organizational interaction
• Encouraging team creativity
• Maximizing the use of Microsoft Office 2016 & Office 365

Join us live for Better Together – Today’s Dynamic Teams where master storyteller and presentation design expert Nancy Duarte and co-founders of “Working Not Working” explore actionable ways to dynamically inspire team creativity and productivity to help your business thrive.

Also be among the first to the see a live demo of the new Office, led by Jared Spataro, general manager of Microsoft Apps & Services Marketing.

Register and watch the live broadcast to:

• Participate in live chat with Microsoft product specialists.
• Get exclusive access to whitepapers, e-books, and more!

For more information, visit us at www.modernworkplace.com

• DATE/TIME:
  September 22nd, 8:00 am PDT / 3:00 pm GMT
• REGISTRATION:
  https://resources.office.com/modern-workplace-webinar-registration.html

Please join us for “Windows 10,  10 things that every admin should know”  at the Microsoft Office in Irvine at 6:00PM on Monday, September 21^st.

This session will provide Sysadmins with tips, tricks and real world experiences on how best to approach Windows 10 for their organization.  Bring your questions and your own experiences and we will do our part in making sure you leave with the information and tools to best deploy Windows 10. 

Speaker: Yong Rhee
Yong is a Windows Premier Field Engineer, who helps educate, deploy, maintain best practices and troubleshoot Windows Clients and Servers out of Irvine, CA.

Schedule:

• 6:00 PM – 6:15 PM Eat and Greet
• 6:15 PM – 6:30 PM Welcome
• 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM Speaker – Yong Rhee in Irvine, CA
• 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM Round table Q&A (bring your Windows 10 questions)
• 8:30 PM – 8:45 PM Closing Announcements

Date/Time:
September 21st, 6:00PM-8:45PM

Location:
Microsoft Irvine
3 Park Plaza Suite 1600
Irvine, CA

Registration:
http://www.meetup.com/socalpfedays/events/224458032/

This is an amazing FAQ around Windows 10 Enterprise for individuals deploying the new edition.

Here’s some of the questions this FAQ answers:

• Where can I download Windows 10 Enterprise?
• What are the system requirements?
• What are the hardware requirements for Windows 10?
• Are ISOs available for Windows 10?
• Can I use the Windows 10 Enterprise Insider Preview as a member of the Windows Insider Program after July 29, 2015?
• What languages is Windows 10 available in?

• Where can I find drivers for my devices for Windows 10 Enterprise?

• Are there any deployment tools available to support Windows 10?
• Can I upgrade computers from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 without deploying a new image?
• Can I upgrade from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 Enterprise for free?
• Where can I find out if an application or device is compatible with Windows 10?
• Where can I find information about new features and changes in Windows 10 Enterprise?
• How will my users have to adjust to using Windows 10 Enterprise after upgrading from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1?
• How does Windows 10 help people work with applications and data across a variety of devices?
• Where can I ask a question about Windows 10?

Go here to read the FAQ:

• ARTICLE: Windows 10 Enterprise: FAQ for IT professionals
  https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dn798755.aspx

Cireson, a Microsoft System Center partner, is running an all-day event specifically for folks interested in System Center & Automation.  They highlight the following:

• Service, Asset & Identity Management
  Discover the corners of Service, Asset & Identity Management. Learn business aligned best-practices around Service Catalogs and Life Cycle Management through participation in Microsoft System Center, Azure and Cireson focused workshops which will teach you how to take advantage of core features, customizations, practical use cases and the overall user experience.

• System Center, Azure & Automation
  Uncover how other organizations are maximizing their investment in Microsoft System Center and Cireson by harnessing the private cloud (Microsoft Hyper-V and Azure Stack) and public cloud (Azure), taking process integration beyond IT, and automating processes to drive measurable ROI.

• Connecting Business & Operations
  Learn how companies that incorporate DevOps practices with their business and operational goals & get more done. Understand how you can deploy software and services up to 30 times more frequently and benefit through faster delivery, improved customer satisfaction, and fewer failed deployments.

The event is $99 to attend.  Speakers, sessions & other highlights are available at the registration site:

• REGISTRATION: Cireson Innovate 15
  http://innovate.cireson.com/

As some of you may know, CES 2016 is now $100 no matter what.  They enacted a rule that no longer provides free registration for the expo that has pretty much thrown a surcharge over your CES budget.

Well, now it looks like CES is backing off this new “$100 charge” policy just slightly for alumni for 3 days.  If you went to CES in the past and want to go again as “alumni”, you can use the code below to get in for free – instead of coughing up the $100.  You have until Sept 17^th to do so.

Since you are a valued alumni of CES, we are giving you a 3 day window to register for CES 2016 at no cost.

From Sept. 15-17, you can register for CES by clicking here and using the registration code ALUMNI when prompted. You will enter this code at the end of the registration process. After you apply the code, the $100 registration fee currently in effect will change to $0.

You can use this link to start your registration: https://ces.itnint.com/CES16/RegOnline/RegLogin.aspx

Something from our Application Development Manager, Kamran Bhurgri:

ASP.NET5 Beta 7 is now available which includes native .NET execution environment for Mac and Linux. With this release, Microsoft has completely refactored ASP.NET into a cross-platform, open-source web framework… any app, any platform, any deployment.

Announcing Availability of ASP.NET 5 Beta7

ASP.NET 5 beta7 is now available both on NuGet and as a tooling update to Visual Studio 2015! This release also includes the first public preview of the .NET Execution Environment (DNX) for Mac and Linux based on .NET Core – no Mono required.

Source code is publically available at https://github.com/aspnet/Home

Read more at:

• BLOG: Announcing the availability of ASP .NET 5 Beta7
  http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdev/archive/2015/09/02/announcing-availability-of-asp-net-5-beta7.aspx

For folks interested in comparisons between Microsoft’s Surface & Apple’s recently announced iPad Pro:

• "Creative industry employees will continue to favor Surface from Microsoft [vs iPad Pro]." – Alcaraz Equity Research http://seekingalpha.com/article/3506976-professionals-will-find-the-499-microsoft-surface-3-more-useful-than-the-ipad-pro
   
• “The biggest difference has to be right at the top: The operating system. One runs a mobile OS, one a full desktop OS.”
  http://www.windowscentral.com/quick-comparison-surface-pro-3-versus-ipad-pro
   
• “Without proper mouse support, users would have to reach out and touch the display, even while in laptop mode, or poke at the display with their pens. This makes it less ergonomic and more imprecise than having a mouse cursor.”
  http://www.techradar.com/us/news/mobile-computing/tablets/5-reasons-surface-pro-is-a-better-tablet-for-businesses-than-ipad-pro-1303955

Just tweeted by Panos Panay, the father & Corp VP of Surface at Microsoft:

We have some exciting news to share about Windows 10 devices.

Watch live Tuesday, October 6, 10:00AM EDT or on your Xbox.

For those of you on the west coast, the event is 7:00AM-9:30AM PDT. 

See you online!

• EVENT: Microsoft Windows 10 Devices Announcement
  http://www.microsoft.com/october2015event
  [Add to Outlook Calendar]

[I originally wrote a following post for Lync 2013, and it still applies to Skype for Business]

Take a look at the snapshot to the right:  This is the new Skype for Business client.  (Formerly Lync Client)  Notice there’s no “gear-like” configuration icon?  There’s the “…” at the bottom of the screen but that doesn’t provide client UI configuration.

The point is, there’s no way to reveal a MENU BAR (File, Edit, Tools, etc.) like you used to with previous versions of Lync or even Office Communicator.

Q: So how do you manually save a conversation?

It turns out that the answer is “CTRL-S”.  This is the only way to do so without waiting for the client to ‘auto-save’ the conversation (if you have this set up.  There’s no FILE-SAVE CONVERSATION drop down any more.

For folks that haven’t used Skype for Business or Lync before, the saved conversation will be found in a folder in Outlook called “Conversations History” off the root of your mailbox.

Why this isn’t documented in Skype for Business’ help, I don’t know.  And that’s why I’m typing it up here.