Kurt Shintaku's Blog

See the Office 2013 clean, new look. The features that you know and use are still there—together with some new ones that are big time savers. To get started with Office 2013, see the following resources:

• Self paced Office training
• Office 2013 Quick Start Guides
• Training on Office.com
• What’s new in Office 2013
• Office Touch Guide

DOWNLOAD: End user training resources for Office 2013
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj871004.aspx

Need more information about Office 365 ProPlus?  What makes it different?  How you deploy it?  See below:

Office 365 ProPlus uses several technologies, from application streaming to services, to deliver new user and administrative experiences to support Office as a Service. Office 365 ProPlus allows users to quickly begin to use Office applications on computers that are running at least Windows 7, before the complete product is downloaded. The users’ files and personalized settings follow them from one computer to another.

Office 365 combines the Office 365 ProPlus client suite, Project Pro for Office 365, and Visio Pro for Office 365 together with cloud versions of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online. The delivery technology for Office 365 ProPlus is known as Click-to-Run. This is a Microsoft streaming and virtualization technology which reduces the time that is required to install Office and allows users to run another version of Office on the same computer.

Traditional Windows Installer-based enterprise deployments of Office may take a year to deploy in production environments. By using Office 365 ProPlus, you can help minimize downtime while you conduct testing. Click-to-Run supports side-by-side installations of Office which means that you won’t have to uninstall earlier versions of Office to test Office 2013. This enables users to test the new Office version without having to uninstall their current version. We recommend that you use side-by-side installations only as part of your Office testing and pilots before you deploy it, and not as a long-term solution for your production environment. When you start deployment to production, you should uninstall, or have users uninstall, the earlier versions of Office that are installed on their computers.

The following table summarizes the content that is available to help you plan and deploy Click-to-Run Office client products.

…

Read more at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj839718.aspx

The SQL Analysis & PowerPivot folks have been busy.

Over recent months, we had a lot of fun creating a Microsoft BI poster for SQL Pass and SharePoint Conference.  The poster shows the most important technologies in the Microsoft BI stack at a glance, arranged in various layers from the data sources all the way up to the client applications and developer tools.  This poster was very popular at the conferences, and the great news is that you can now also download a PDF version of this poster from the Microsoft Download Center.

DOWNLOAD: Microsoft “Business Intelligence at a Glance” Poster
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=271656

The first Update for Visual Studio 2012 and Team Foundation Server is now out. This includes new features in four main areas:

• Windows Development
• SharePoint Development
• Agile Teams
• Continuous Quality

Soma’s put a great summary together so take a look at that for the details and it’s available now for download.

• DOWNLOAD: Visual Studio 2012 Update 1
  http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/downloads#d-visual-studio-2012-update

The Born to Learn folks have done it again, this time with a certification infographic that provides a roadmap for folks looking to move ahead on Windows Server.

Windows Server 2012: Your Path to Success

Our debut infographic steps through your journey to Windows Server 2012 certification. Get started with free resources to help you learn the basics about Windows Server 2012. Then, select the certification path for your experience. As you move along the path, choose the type of training that fits your learning style and schedule and prepare for your first—or next—exam to reach your certification and career goal. 

Windows Server Certification and Career Paths

• DOWNLOAD: Infographic on Windows Server Certification and Career Paths
  http://borntolearn.mslearn.net/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-components-userfiles/00-00-02-91-93-Attached%20Files/2476.msl_5F00_certificationpaths_5F00_final_5F00_5.png

This poster introduces Windows Azure for developers and IT pros. It summarizes benefits such as global coverage and extensive language support and provides a description of current services by category: app services, data services, compute, networking, and store. The poster also depicts common uses including Cloud Services, Virtual Machines, Web Sites, Mobile Services, and Media Services.

The poster is intended to be printed and measures 26" x 39”.

• DOWNLOAD: Windows Azure Poster for IT Pros & Devs
  http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=35473&utm_source=Website&utm_medium=MSDNUKBlog

(taken from the MSDN UK blog)

UPDATE 12/15/12:
I’ve updated the list for my own benefit to allow more fine-grained analysis of battery life across device choices. (v1.10)  And for the record, the ‘Stylus’ column means “Active Digitizer”.  I don’t consider capacitive touch stylii to be useful in that users requiring pens also need the precision & pressure sensitivity that only an Active Digitizer can provide.
——————-
ORIGINAL POST 12/10/12:
This is a list of all the Windows 8/RT Tablet devices that I am aware of as of December 10, 2012.  (Updated with manufacturer quoted battery longevity, power supply wattage, and expansion battery availability)

I created this because I wanted an easy way to quickly filter on certain technical requirements and see what models were available.  To be clear, this is obviously unofficial & just of my own creation (I’ve documented where I got most of the data for each row in the “Manufacturer’s Link” column) but it’s been useful for me and I thought I’d share.

Among other features, I’ve included next to each model:

• 3G/4G Wireless WAN option
• Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip inclusion
• Stylus/Active Digitizer availability
• Windows 8 Pro or Windows RT
• Smartcard availability
• SD Card expansion
• IvyBridge/Clovertrail/Qualcomm/Nvidia
• Memory/Storage
• Battery life
• Camera resolution & I/O Ports
• Networking, Bluetooth, & NFC
• Weight, Dimensions
• Price
• …etc.

Like I said, you can filter the list based on your technical priorities at the top.  You’ll notice there’s a couple cells that are highlighted in yellow.  This is because I was unable to find any information about that capability for that particular device.

BTW: One of the columns is labeled “MS Store”.  This is any indicator if the device is available to see & use at the Microsoft Store as of Nov 30th, 2012.

Enjoy.

• DOWNLOAD: Spreadsheet of Windows 8/RT Tablet Devices & Capabilities
  https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=DA410C7F7E038D!9136

——————————-
Please note: I’m providing this just as a curiosity for others.  I make no commitment to maintaining this document, nor do I guarantee its accuracy.  It’s just something I created for my own use and thought others might find it interesting as well.

As most know by now, there is a constantly refreshing whitelist of web sites that Internet Explorer 10 on Windows RT will display Adobe Flash on.  (This is known as the Compatibility View list)

This is a section of the MSDN article that discusses the Compatibility View list which enables Flash to be enabled within the IE 10 browser on Windows RT, including the process of submitting a website for consideration.

Submitting your site for consideration

Developers can submit their sites that they want to be included on the CV list to Microsoft via email.

To submit your site for consideration to the CV list, email iepo@microsoft.com and include the following details:

1. Your name, company, title, and contact information
2. The domain you want considered (http://contoso.com/) and the specific pages containing Flash content ( http://contoso.com/video, http://contoso.com/media)
3. The approximate unique users per month that visit the domain
4. The capabilities your Flash content requires. For more info see Guidelines for Flash Content in Internet Explorer 10 in this topic.
5. The name and version of the SWF your site is using, including version number for third party .SWF files if appropriate (for example, videoplayer.swf v1.2 from Contoso)
6. A list of any other plugs-ins (not Flash) your domain depends on and the specific pages containing those controls. Be aware that if your site depends on other plug-ins, users will be directed to open your site in Internet Explorer 10 for the desktop.
7. The results of your testing of the pages listed in step two (2) of these steps. For more info see Test Guidance and Test Cases in this topic.

• INFO: Developer guidance for websites with content for Adobe Flash Player in Windows 8 (Internet Explorer)
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/jj193557(v=vs.85).aspx

The Microsoft Online Backup Service is a cloud based backup solution for Windows Server 2012 which allows files and folders to be backed up and recovered from the cloud in order to provide off-site protection against data loss due to disasters. The service provides IT administrators with the option to back up and protect critical data in an easily recoverable way from any location with no upfront hardware cost or resources other than an Internet connection.

This service is built on the Windows Azure platform and uses Windows Azure blob storage for storing customer data. Windows Server 2012 uses the downloadable Microsoft Online Backup Agent to transfer file and folder data securely and efficiently to the Microsoft Online Backup Service. Once installed, the Microsoft Online Backup Agent exposes its functionality through the familiar Windows Server Backup interface.

• Peace of mind—your server backups in the cloud
  Help protect your important server data with easily accessible backups stored in the cloud.
• Simple to manage
  Manage cloud backups from the familiar backup tools in Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 Essentials, and the System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager component to provide a consistent experience configuring, monitoring, and recovering backups across local disk and cloud storage. After data is backed up to the cloud, authorized users can easily recover backups to any server.
• Efficient and flexible
  With incremental backups, only changes to files are transferred to the cloud. This helps ensure efficient use of storage, reduced bandwidth usage, and offers point-in-time recovery of multiple versions of data. Configurable data retention policies, data compression and data transfer throttling also offer you added flexibility and help boost efficiency.

Customers of Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 Essentials, and System Center 2012 can preview Online Backup as a no-charge, fixed storage quota subscription. (10GB)

• BETA: Windows Azure Online Backup Preview
  http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/features/online-backup/
• BLOG: Microsoft Online Backup Service (Step-by-step)
  http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/archive/2012/03/28/microsoft-online-backup-service.aspx

This is a collection of articles that you should read if you’ve downloaded the recently published Office Professional Plus 2013 from the Volume Licensing Service Center web site, http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/servicecenter.

• REFERENCE: Deploy volume activation of Office 2013
  Co-hosting with a Windows KMS host
  If you currently have a Windows KMS host running on an operating system that supports an Office KMS host, we recommend that you use the same computer that you use for your Office KMS host. You must still run the steps in the following sections to install and activate an Office 2013 KMS host key. For more information, see Plan volume activation of Office 2013.
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee624357.aspx
• DOWNLOAD: Microsoft Office 2013 Volume License Pack
  Volume license editions of Office 2013 client products require activation. This download enables IT administrators to set up a Key Management Service (KMS) or configure a domain for Active Directory-Based activation. Either of these volume activation methods can locally activate all Office 2013 clients connected to an organization’s network.
  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35584
• STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS: “How to setup Microsoft Office 2013 KMS Host on Windows Server 2012”
  The KMS activation process for Microsoft Office 2013 is the same as what it was for Microsoft Office 2010. However, the interface to setup the KMS host for Microsoft Office 2013 on a Windows Server 2012 has been updated to use the Volume Activation Tools.
  http://blogs.technet.com/b/odsupport/archive/2012/11/07/how-to-setup-kms-activation-host-for-microsoft-office-2013-on-windows-server-2012.aspx

UPDATE 12/10/12:
”How the heck do I get my Office Professional Plus 2013 KMS Host Volume Activation Key?”
If it hasn’t been posted to your account at the Volume Licensing Service Center, Office Professional Plus 2013 KMS Host Keys can be obtained from the US Product Activation Call Center at (716) 871 2781 or Toll Free (888) 352 7140.