Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Just got word:  The Microsoft Store is continuing the following anniversary discounts until January 3rd, 2012:

The Microsoft Stores are having an anniversary sale until October 31st.

• Buy $100 at the store, get 15% off.
• Buy $500 at the store, get 20% off.
• Buy $1000 at the store, get 25% off.

One thing did show up however:  The offer has quantity limits for PC purchases of 2 per customer.   Here’s the original post about these discounts:
https://kurtsh.com/2011/10/23/news-microsoft-store-15-off-all-purchases-100-or-more-until-oct-31st-and-it-gets-better-the-more-you-buy/

So get down to your local Microsoft Store. If you live in Los Angeles:

• LOCATION: Microsoft Store – Westfield Century City Shopping Mall
  10250 Santa Monica Blvd., Century City
  310-228-3550
  http://www.westfield.com/centurycity/directory/detail/store?retailer=44263

UPDATE 11/10/11:
OOPS.  I was just informed that this deal is no longer available.  Sorry.

——————–
ORIGINAL POST:
With our Recycle for Rewards program, you can trade in an eligible Windows XP/Vista or Apple laptop at your local Microsoft Store and get a minimum $150 credit towards a new PC now through December 31st. 

Have an old gaming console, phone or media player? You can recycle those at your Microsoft Store, too.

If you’re ever wondering what exact integration & productive value users get when they combine Office 2010 with SharePoint Server 2010, here’s an 8-page summary of that benefit, highlighting the specific capabilities that end users get as a result of having both, as opposed to having older versions of Office (like 2003) against SharePoint 2010 or conversely, Office 2010 against older versions of SharePoint like 2007.

[taken from the introduction]

As information work evolves in response to external trends and technological innovations, the tools for information work must evolve as well. Microsoft Office, as the primary vehicle by which people experience Business Productivity Infrastructure (BPI) capabilities, continues to expand to support the changing requirements of businesses and information workers around collaboration, mobility and secure access to business data, while providing value, simplicity and integration throughout the BPI stack.

Over the years, Microsoft Office has provided increasingly richer capabilities through integration with back-end server components such as Microsoft SharePoint. Office 2010 continues this evolution. Though good results can be achieved using Office 2007 applications with SharePoint 2007, the highest level of value and capabilities can be realized through the integration of Microsoft Office 2010 with SharePoint 2010.

WHITEPAPER: The Value of Office 2010 with SharePoint 2010
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=209803

Simplify Life and Amplify Impact: Optimized Datacenter Automation with Opalis

Join our MTC Direct session on November 4^th and learn how using Opalis will simplify your day to day by improving the reliability of IT. During the webcast we will cover topics like:

• Applying IT process automation
• Reducing operational costs and streamlining with Opalis
• Case Study – Before Opalis vs After Opalis
• Live demos
• Interactive Q&A with subject matter experts

What are the key benefits of Opalis?

• Consistent and repeatable IT activity
• Lower support and operational costs
• Higher quality, consistent service delivery
• Process-driven management and reporting

Join us to hear more!

EVENT DETAILS:
Date: November 4, 2011
Time: 10:00am – 11:30am (PST)

REGISTRATION:
If you are a customer of mine, please contact me for details on how to register.

[repost from Oct 2010]

This has been well-known for a while but for those of you who haven’t tried it, NFL Sunday Night Football is available in high definition 1080p streams using Microsoft Silverlight on your computer.

Watch HD 1080p stream LIVE (dynamically adjusts resolution based on your bandwidth in real-time), switch between 5 different camera views instantly, watch two views PiP, view real-time stats of teams/players, fwd/rew/slomo/freeze the broadcast, and more!

• WEB: NFL Sunday Night Football
  http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/26393211/
  (or http://tinyurl.com/SLNFL)

Here’s a quick list of the fantastic interactive features available in the new Silverlight NFL player:

1. PiP CAMERA ANGLES ON-DEMAND: Be sure to check out the Picture-in-Picture functionality we built in there, giving you the ability to switch between 1 of 5 camera angles LIVE during the game in either the small picture window or the main video frame.
2. DYNAMICALLY ADJUSTING VIDEO QUALITY: Notice that the video quality automatically & seamlessly changes depending on your available bandwidth from 300kbps (480i) to 2.1Mb (1080p). Hover over the bandwidth icon in the lower right hand corner to see your current bandwidth.
3. STATS & COMMENTARY ON-DEMAND: During the game & commercial breaks, you hace access to game stats and play-by-play information from top NBC commentators. Click on the "Reveal" button in the bottom left corner to see social networking discussions and game stats live.
4. CLICKABLE ADS & FULL SCREEN EXPANSION: Expand the entire windows to the size of your display… and click on the screen during ads throughout the game to jump to the advertiser’s web site for "special deals".
5. REWIND/FAST FWD/15 SEC JUMP: View the broadcast llke you were using your DVR! Rewind 15 seconds to review the last play or rewind/ffwd through the live broadcast just as if it was being recorded live, all without lame "Buffering…10%" messages. (Courtesy of patented Microsoft Windows Media 9 streaming)
6. MULTIPLATFORM: The Silverlight broadcasting experience is portable, making it possible to broadcast the stream to Windows PCs, Macs, and Windows Phone 7 devices. That’s right: A rich interactive NFL experience scaled down to your phone. Awesome.
7. HIGHLIGHTS & EXTRAS: Missed the pregame or the first part of the game? View the ‘good parts’ with a simple click of the scenes listed in front of you. Replay the pregame commentary.
8. SHARE-A-PLAY: Wicked hit? Awesome pass? Disgusting north-south run? Hit the Share button and instantly share the play with others over Facebook, Twitter, email, and any number of 12 different social networking facilities.
9. PAUSE & SLO-MO: Totally forgot about this. Need to hit the head? Wanna see if the catch was REALLY inbounds? Was the pass made over the line of scrimmage? Rewind the play and slow it down in HIGH DEF and see it for yourself if the refs don’t review it.

But don’t just take my word for it. Take a look at what the edito fo Macworld said about the Silverlight experience of watching the NFL on NBC… on a Mac!

• NEWS: Macworld editor says Silverlight is much better than Flash for video
  http://www.timacheson.com/Blog/2009/sep/
  macworld_editor_says_silverlight_is_better_than_flash_for_video

——————–

SIDENOTE: Be sure to check out the first 30-40 min of every NFL "Sunday Night Football" broadcast – specifically the "star cam" & the "cable cam" views. It’s view-worthy for no other reason than since the game’s not yet started, there’s really nothing much for the cameras to focus on other than the fans-in-the-stands & the cheerleaders and frankly that makes for some great entertainment in it of itself.

There it is.  Office 365 “Exchange Online” users will now be able to access their email through Blackberry smartphones through the beta and NO ADDITIONAL COST.

[taken from the Office 365 blog]

As part of our vision to deliver the best productivity experience across the PC, browser and phone with Office 365, we’ve been working in partnership with Research in Motion (RIM) to deliver support for BlackBerry smartphones through a new RIM-hosted cloud service for our customers. Details around this new RIM service were first shared back in March 2011, and today we are pleased to let you know that RIM has launched an open beta of BlackBerry® Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365 – a new RIM-hosted cloud-based service for businesses to extend Microsoft Exchange Online to BlackBerry® smartphones and self-manage their BlackBerry deployments in the cloud. You can see RIM’s press release here.

BlackBerry® Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365 is available at no additional cost to current enterprise subscribers of the Office 365 suite or standalone Exchange Online. The service works with BlackBerry smartphones on business or consumer data plans. The service offers BlackBerry access to Microsoft Exchange Online email, calendar, and contacts. And IT administrators can provision, manage, and secure their organization’s BlackBerry phones from a convenient web-based console.

Microsoft Office 365 customers can sign up for the BlackBerry Business Cloud Services beta at www.blackberry.com/beta/businesscloud.

More information is available at www.blackberry.com/cloudservices.

BETA:  Announcing the Open Beta of RIM BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Office 365
http://community.office365.com/en-us/b/microsoft_office_365_blog/archive/2011/10/25/announcing-the-open-beta-of-rim-blackberry-business-cloud-services-for-office-365.aspx

Now this is interesting & something I DIDN’T know… props to Bink.nu for discovering this little ditty.

MSDN Forum Assistant and TechNet Forum Assistant offer a convenient way for the forum users to read the forum recent threads and your own threads, it also make it easy to create new threads and search in the forum.

…and that’s it.  That’s all they say about the gadget.

Well, I’ve got it installed and this is what I have to say about it:

1. CONFIGURATION
   The tool allows you to select you favorite forums to ask questions in.  It also allows you to set the frequency of checking the forums for updates on threads.
2. ASK A QUESTION
   You can ask a question in any of the forums that you select as favorites.  This list is presented to you to easily allow you to jump to that forum’s “Ask A Question” page and enter your question in under your Windows Live Account.
3. PRODUCT FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
   The most frequently asked questions in the forums are listed in special pages.  There are links to all of these FAQ pages for each product that has them listed conveniently in the tool.
4. PRIORITY SUPPORT
   This is the BINGO.  All the Priority Support forums are listed directly from the gadget.  This allows anyone with a TechNet Subscription to ask questions in these private forums and receive a response within 2 business days.  An explanation of this TechNet benefit is located here: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9768321

For customers that have Software Assurance benefits, this tool could be huge due to it’s ease of use.  If an IT person doesn’t have direct access to the company’s Premier Support agreement, this is a great avenue to ask general questions about key products without incurring any charges against the company’s support contract.

DOWNLOAD:  MSDN Forum Assistant, TechNet Forum Assistant
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27747

It’s here – and it’s spectacular.  It’s the System Center Orchestrator Integration Pack for VMware vSphere. (Release Candidate)

Do you have VMware vSphere?  Wanna execute workflows against it using Orchestrator’s automation engine?  Now it’s a piece of cake using the Integration Pack for VMware vSphere.

The Integration Pack for VMware vSphere is an add-on for System Center 2012 Orchestrator that enables you to connect System Center Orchestrator to your VMware vSphere server to automate actions in VMware vSphere to enable full management of the virtualized computing infrastructure.

Feature Summary
The Integration Pack includes the following activities:

• Add Network Adapter
• Add VM Disk
• Clone Linux VM
• Clone Windows VM
• Create VM
• Customize VM
• Delete VM
• Get Cluster Properties
• Get Datastore Capacity
• Get Hosts
• Get Resource Pool Runtime Info
• Get Resource Pools
• Get VM List
• Get VM Properties
• Get VM Status
• Migrate VM
• Move VM
• Reconfigure VM
• Reset VM
• Revert VM Snapshot
• Set Guest Info Variables
• Set VM CD/DVD to ISO Image
• Set VM Networks
• Start VM
• Stop VM
• Suspend VM
• Take VM Snapshot
• Maintenance Mode
• Get Host Properties
• Get Host Datastores

This integration pack includes the following features:

• The Get Hosts activity now returns, in the published data, the state of the Host in the cluster, such as running or maintenance mode.
• The Clone VM activity now does not show the datastore or hosts in object’s subscription list which aren’t available. Previously all datastores / hosts were returned, now only the available ones are returned.
• New timeout field added to the options menu for all VMware vSphere activities. If no value is given, this will default to 100 seconds.
• Support added for ESX 4.1 and as a result adding support for Windows 7 Guest Operating Systems as well as other operating systems, as below:
  • The 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 7
  • The 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2
  • The 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows

• DOWNLOAD:  System Center 2012 Orchestrator Integration Pack for VMware vSphere Release Candidate
  http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27846
• LINK:  User Guide for System Center 2012 Orchestrator Integration Pack for VMware vSphere Release Candidate
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh228186.aspx

Big announcement. I’ve also noticed that no one else seems to have picked up on a couple things that has been dwelling in the back of my mind for some time now, and now… it’s been kinda revealed.

It stems from the quote on the System Center 2012 Configuration Manager & System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection Release Candidate download page:

Please note: System Center 2012 Configuration Manager and System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection are now provided as a single installation package.

There are two things that are interesting about this:

1. Microsoft’s Anti-Malware solution is now packaged with it’s Desktop Management System. 
   System Center Configuration Manager 2012 is the ship vehicle for “Endpoint Protection 2012”.  It’s essentially a feature that System Center Configuration Manager 2012 administrators can turn on for the clients & servers they are protecting.

   No word on licensing yet but as you likely know, Enterprise customers that license the “Core CAL” for their desktops today through a Volume Licensing “Enterprise Agreement” are licensed for:

   – Windows Server CAL
   – Exchange Standard CAL
   – SharePoint Standard CAL
   – System Center Configuration Manager CML
   – Lync Standard CAL
   – Forefront Endpoint Protection

2. Microsoft’s Anti-Malware solution in 2012 is just called “System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection” now.
   Did you catch that?  Notice a change?  Interesting, ‘eh?

   BTW:  Don’t ask me what this means.  I can only speculate being that I have no conduit into the product group & no knowledge of what the plans are.  All I knew was that this was what the product was going to be named: “System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection”.

The new & improved VGA Dongle for Samsung Series 9 is now available!
How do I know?  I GOT ONE!  And it works!

BACKGROUND:
The Samsung Series 9 is a fantastic ultrabook-style laptop, weighing less than a MacBook Air and thinner than one too.  It has a hard aluminum plating (‘Duralumin’ – the stuff used to build airplanes) that surrounds the outside of the machine and protects the device by shielding it from damage while prevents bending or warping of it’s thin profile… something a certain “other” competing laptop doesn’t do so well.

ISSUE… VGA PROJECTION OVER LONG CABLING
One problem it has however is it’s VGA output:  It actually has a micro-HDMI port on it and depends on a micro-HDMI-to-VGA dongle to provide VGA output for things like presentation projectors.  While it works fine for short distances, this dongle has not worked for me for VGA cable lengths exceeding 10-12 feet.

This is a problem because as one would expect, many customer presentation projectors are built into conference room ceilings.  (At Microsoft, virtually all conference rooms have this)  The VGA cabling usually extends from the conference room table, into the floor, along the wall and to the ceiling where the projector is mounted.  Consequently, this cabling is ALWAYS longer than 10-12 feet.

The result, when projection is attempted, is that the signal doesn’t reach the projector… or the laptop won’t even attempt to send the duplicated display… usually leaving you in a lurch when you’re trying to present to a customer.  On rare occasions, I’ve found that the projection system I’m connecting to, hits a video receiver of sorts that’s within 10-15 feet and then outputs the signal to the project & in this case, I can get a ‘shaky’ signal to the projector which flickers and moves annoyingly but is still sort of visible.

ALTERNATIVES:
My original solution was to buy a Plugable USB VGA adapter (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004D0QC0A) – which works all the time for me.  For ~$40, it effectively provides ‘another’ VGA port through your USB ports.  The adapter allows for duplicating your laptop display through this second VGA port, and thus providing the desired effect of showing what’s on your laptop display on the projector… without cable length limitations, as the Plugable USB VGA adapter doesn’t suffer from the same limitations as the Samsung microHDMI-to-VGA dongle.  It does sometimes not fully get the right screen size but it ALWAYS projects a display and is very reliable.  I wrote about it in these posts:
https://kurtsh.com/2011/07/17/info-samsung-series-9-micro-hdmi-to-vga-dongle-or-how-to-use-a-vga-projectors-with-a-samsung-series-9/
https://kurtsh.com/2011/08/01/info-additional-accessories-for-the-samsung-series-9/

AND NOW?
Enter the REV:02 VGA dongle for the Samsung Series 9 laptop:

You’ll notice that I’ve purposely left on the plastic layer that covers the ‘heavier/larger’ VGA end of the dongle above.  This is because this plastic has a label on it and this is the only indicator that it is in fact the REV:02 version of the HDMI to VGA dongle.  This is the dongle that WORKS with longer VGA cabling, and thus the one I want to use for presentations.  See below:

Anyway, I thought some folks might want to actually see what this new dongle looks like so they can verify that they bought the right one.

(UPDATE 11/21/11:  Rumor has it that this might be a link for the Rev 02 dongle.  I really don’t know if this is true, but if anyone wants to try spending $95 (??) for the dongle, you’re on your own.  I make no guarantees since I’ve never ordered from this site.  http://www.samsungparts.com/Products/Parts_and_Accessories/PID-BA39-01122A.aspx?model= )