Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Meet the Windows Phone Nokia Lumia 1020. 41 megapixels. Reinvented zoom. Nothing else comes close.

For what it’s worth, you really need to see how much better the camera is on this phone relative to other platforms.

• It can zoom any place on the photo down to a 5MP shot that’s crystal clear.
• It has hardware-based optical stabilization for photos & video.
• It auto-adjusts for low-light situations & has a TRUE Xenon flash for great night shots.
• The microphone auto-levels to record clear & audible sound.
• …

What’s a great phone.

The System Center Team blog wrote a great post that goes over some of the most significant improvements made to Windows Server 2012 R2.

There are quite a few products that make up the Microsoft Cloud OS vision. Windows Server 2012 R2 is in preview right now and ready for your evaluation.  We also have a strong management platform that make up the System Center family of products. They are designed to have tight integration with the core being Windows Server.

If you are looking for information on Windows Server 2012 R2, we have been rolling out detailed information though Brad Anderson’s What’s New in 2012 R2 blog series.  That will continue but we thought you would like a short consolidated list for consideration.  Here are some of the new innovations in Windows Server 2012 R2.

…

• Storage transformation – Delivers breakthrough performance at a fraction of the cost
• Software defined networking – Provides new levels of agility and flexibility
• Virtualization and live migration – Provides an integrated and high-performance virtualization platform
• Access & Information Protection – Empowering your users to be productive while maintaining control and security of corporate information with Windows Server 2012 R2
• Java application monitoring – Enables deep application insight into Java applications.

Read more at:

• SYSTEM CENTER BLOG: Better Together – The New Windows Server 2012 R2 Innovations – Download Now
  http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/archive/2013/08/20/better-together-the-new-windows-server-2012-r2-innovations-download-now.aspx

We’re pleased to share an updated set of articles to guide you through getting started with Project Online. 

These articles are step-by-step guides, including videos and screenshots, to help you get up and running with Project Online.

• Get started with Project Online
• Step 1: Sign up for Project Online
• Step 2: Add people to Project Online
• Step 3: Create projects in Project Online

This was too good not to repost.  Have you ever wished you could take some of TechNet’s library offline with you?  Here’s instructions on how to do this with any topic online using the “Export Topics” function.

Microsoft has released a beta version of a feature that lets you build your own book of technical content. It is unhelpfully titled the Print/Export Multiple Topics tool. I think of it as the "Build a Book" tool, but perhaps there were unhappy memories of the acronym BOB? Anyway, this is a special view of the TechNet Library that allows you to select articles that you care about, from different parts of the library, group them in a collection that persists across web sessions (requires sign in), and then print them or export them to a file. This tool requires at least Internet Explorer 8, or the latest versions of other major browsers.

NOTE: there is a limit on the beta of 100 topics, so you are not able to package up and download all 2550 topics in the Exchange node, for example. At least, not all at once.

…

Read more at:

• How to Build Your Own Custom TechNet Documentation
  http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/4655.how-to-build-your-own-custom-technet-documentation.aspx

There was a ton of updates made to the ConfigMan doc library for System Center Configuration Manager 2012 R2.  Here’s an excerpt from the notification on the SCCM blog:

The Documentation Library for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager and the Configuration Manager 2007 Documentation Library have been updated on the web and the latest content has Updated: August 1, 2013 at the top of the topic.

This month sees additional prerelease information for System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager, as well as updates to release versions.  One update of particular interest, is the new section, Planning to Upgrade to System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager in the Planning to Upgrade System Center 2012 Configuration Manager topic.  Although upgrading to System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager is not supported until the product is released, you can use this information to help you plan your upgrade strategy and identify upgrade tasks.

In addition, although these didn’t come from the writing team (we have Wally and others to thank here), we’re excited to also let you know that there are now 20 hands-on labs for Configuration Manager 2012 SP1, hosted on TechNet. These are the same labs that you might have tried at MMS or TechEd. Go to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtuallabs and clear the "Hot Labs" section, and then search for "Configuration Manager 2012 SP1". Please do fill in the evaluation at the end of the lab, because this feedback is used to determine how useful people find these labs. We know how popular they are and why, but we’re not the people to tell!

We value customer feedback and try to incorporate it when possible.  Although we can’t promise to make the docs perfect for everybody, we are committed to continual improvement.  So, keep that feedback coming, and feel free to contact us about anything related to the documentation by using our usual address of SMSDocs@Microsoft.com. 

…

Read more at:

• SYSTEM CENTER CONFIGURATION MANAGER BLOG: Announcement: Configuration Manager Documentation Library Update for August 2013
  http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/archive/2013/08/29/announcement-configuration-manager-documentation-library-update-for-august-2013.aspx

Free eBook!  Wanna get the scoop on Windows Server 2012 R2?

We’re very excited to announce another free ebook offering from Microsoft Press. Introducing Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview Release (ISBN 9780735682931), by Mitch Tulloch with the Windows Server Team, introduces new features and capabilities, with scenario-based advice on how the platform can meet the needs of your business. Get the high-level overview you need to begin preparing your deployment now. This book is based on the Preview release and will be updated to cover Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM.

Read more at:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2013/08/01/free-ebook-introducing-windows-server-2012-r2-preview-release.aspx

If you’re interested in Intellectual Property Protection, you ought to read this very carefully because I believe this offer is very disruptive & hugely beneficial to people looking to protect their IP investments.

And if you click through to the original post below, read it to the end where we talk about BYOK:  “Bring-your-own-key”.  Those of you concerned about the NSA & spooky confiscations of your data will really appreciate this part.

RMS enables organizations to share sensitive documents within their organization or to other organizations with unprecedented ease. These documents can be of any type, and you can consume them on any device. Given the protection scheme is very robust, the file can even be openly shared… even on consumer services like SkyDrive™/DropBox™/GDrive™.

Today we’re announcing the preview of SDKs, Apps, and Services, and we’re giving details on how you can explore each of them. If you’d like some background on Microsoft Rights Management, check out this TechEd Talk. I’ll also strongly recommend you read the new RMS whitepaper for added details.

Promises of the new Microsoft Rights Management services

Users:

• I can protect any file type
• I can consume protected files on devices important to me
• I can share with anyone
  • Initially, I can share with any business user; they can sign up for free RMS
  • I can eventually share with any individual (e.g. MS Account, Google IDs in CY14)
  • I can sign up for a free RMS capability if my company has yet to deploy RMS

ITPro:

• I can keep my data on-premise if I don’t yet want to move to the cloud
• I am aware of how my protected data is used (near realtime logging)
• I can control my RMS ‘tenant key’ from on-premise
• I can rely on Microsoft in collaboration with its partners for complete solutions

These promises combine to create two very powerful scenarios:

1. Users can protect any file type. Then share the file with someone in their organization, in another organization, or with external users. They can feel confident that the recipient will be able to use it.
2. ITPros have the flexibility in their choice of storage locale for their data and Security Officers have the flexibility of maintaining policies across these various storage classes. It can be kept on premise, placed in an business cloud data store such as SharePoint, or it can placed pretty much anywhere and remain safe (e.g. thumb drive, personal consumer-grade cloud drives).

The RMS whitepaper offers plenty of added detail.

Read more about this new service here:

• BLOG: The NEW Microsoft RMS is live, in preview!
  http://blogs.technet.com/b/rms/archive/2013/08/29/the-new-microsoft-rms-is-live-in-preview.aspx

Got SharePoint Online/Office 365?  Well, guess what? 

25GB PER USER – UP FROM 7GB
We just gave you a full 25GB of online storage per user.  That’s right – by virtue of SkyDrive Pro & SharePoint Online’s storage, we now provide users with 25GB of free storage – up from 7GB.

And there’s more news.

SHIFT USER QUOTA – UP TO 100GB
Administrators of SharePoint Online/Office 365 can shift storage allocations to users that need more than 25GB.  Allocations of 50GB or 100GB may be granted by administrators – and the storage quota comes from the tenant’s overall pool of storage.  And you can bulk allocate these shifts to up to 25 users at a time.  So if say, 18 people need 100GB of storage, you can shift them to a 100GB in just a few keystrokes.

And yes, there’s even more news.

2GB FILES NOW AVAILABLE – UP FROM 50MB
…And we’re also increasing the overall file upload limit in SharePoint Online to 2 GB/file – up from 50MB. 
…And recycle bin file retention is now 90 days – up from 30 days.
…And we now automatically version files by saving the last 10 versions of a file that stored in SkyDrive Pro.

Yeah, these a big changes & all Office 365 users with SharePoint Online will benefit from these increases in capability we’ve provided.  Read more about these changes here:

• BLOG: SkyDrive Pro increases storage and ease of sharing
  http://blogs.office.com/b/office365tech/archive/2013/08/27/skydrive-pro-increases-storage-and-ease-of-sharing.aspx

This is sort of well documented on the Internet however in a slightly different context so I thought it might be helpful to describe my situation for others searching for a similar issue:

PROBLEM:
Adobe Flash was INCORRECTLY RENDERING graphics & and displaying a BLACK SCREEN for Flash video on my machine.

BACKGROUND:
I’m running Windows 8 Enterprise Edition with Internet Explorer 10.  One day, I booted up my Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch and discovered that, despite the “Flash is installed correctly” web page working on Adobe.com, following Flash scenarios didn’t work:

• Web pages with YouTube videos embedded within them failed to display the video, while the audio worked correctly.
• Web pages with complex Flash objects rendered incorrectly and showed graphics in the wrong places, with buttons failing to work, basically making them unreadable and unusable.

Note:  This is in contrast with other folks on the Internet where Flash doesn’t even appear to be installed AND pages request that “Adobe Flash must be installed to view this content”.

SOLUTION:
There’s two solutions.  A quick fix & a longer term one:

1. DISABLE HARDWARE ACCELERATION WITHIN INTERNET EXPLORER
   This solution is referenced on online forums when web pages state that Flash doesn’t appear to be “installed”.  This solution however ALSO works/applies when Flash does appear to be present for use by web pages however doesn’t render graphics & video correctly for the user.  Strange as it may seem, hardware acceleration is a parameter within Internet Explorer that affects the performance of Flash as a plug in. 

   If you check “Use software rendering…”, you effectively disable the GPU’s usage in IE & should find that Flash suddenly works for everything:  Playback works fine within embedded YouTube videos & rendering should work fine with complex vector graphics based Flash apps on the web.

2. UPGRADE LENOVO THINKPAD X1 CARBON DISPLAY DRIVERS
   The strange behavior exhibited by Flash when hardware acceleration is in use is a symptom of poorly written display drivers in use for the Intel integrated GPU. 

   Once the drivers are updated to version 9.17.10.2875 (Apr 19, 2013), the issues within Flash disappear and you can re-enable hardware GPU acceleration within Internet Explorer 10.
   http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/research/hints-or-tips/detail.page?&DocID=HT074689

Heads up: CES 2014 Early (FREE) Registration ends Aug 31. If you’re planning on coming, y’better get on it!

• https://t.co/vUqn83cqX6

Note re: badge process this year.

2014 Badge Process:
Please note we have implemented a new and efficient badge pickup process and will no longer be mailing badges in advance of the event. All attendees can pick up badges on-site at over 25 locations. More information on how to get your badge on-site will be provided in your confirmation email and on CESweb.

2014 Pricing and Cancellation Policy:

• Registration Fee Structure:
  • Free through August 31
  • $100 from September 1, 2013 through January 1, 2014
  • $200 from January 2, 2014 through January 10, 2014
• Cancellation Policy:
  • Cancellations for paid registrations received in writing on/before December 27, 2013, are refundable, minus a $50 processing fee. After December 27, 2013, cancellations are subject to the entire fee. If you do not cancel by December 27, 2013, and do not attend International CES, you are still responsible for payment. You may substitute the name of one registrant for another at any time.