Kurt Shintaku's Blog

The Lync 2010 launch team created videos of a variety of use cases & usage scenarios that may be informative to folks new to Lync:

• Communicate from Microsoft Office
  Get the most out of your existing Office investment by enabling real-time collaboration with Microsoft Lync.
• Lync Provides Simple, Engaging Connections
  Microsoft Lync provides simple, high definition video conferencing, enabling virtual collaboration between dispersed workers.
• Anywhere Access
  Microsoft Lync supports an array of mobile platforms and allows users to seamlessly collaborate from any location.
• Connect with People in New Ways
  Microsoft Lync redefines connectivity by enabling users to find the right people and control how others connect with them.

Bill Gates talks about the new Lync 2010 and how his vision has come to life at the Lync launch. (5:21)

http://www.microsoft.com:80/presspass/silverlightApps/videoplayer3/standalone.aspx?contentID=lync_gatesClip&src=/presspass/presskits/office/servers/channel.xml

[taken from http://www.microsoft.com:80/presspass/presskits/office/servers/videogallery.aspx?contentID=lync_gatesClip&WT.z_convert=Share]

Watch the keynote with Chris Capossela, senior vice president, Information Worker Product Management Group, and Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president, Office Lync & Speech Group. (1:11:31)

http://www.microsoft.com:80/presspass/silverlightApps/videoplayer3/standalone.aspx?contentID=lync_keynote&src=/presspass/presskits/office/servers/channel.xml

[taken from http://www.microsoft.com:80/presspass/presskits/office/servers/videogallery.aspx?contentID=lync_keynote&WT.z_convert=Share]

The “Ask the Performance Team” blog posted a VERY good article that I think everyone in IT should take a look at because it involves an issue very near and dear to all of our hearts:  “Print Cluster Performance”

Here’s the first part (of FIVE sections) of the article:

In recent months we have seen an increasing volume of print cluster cases being opened due to poor performance. For example slow failover or spooler crashes. This article is provided as a guide for print server administrators to identify and resolve possible causes of these performance issues.

1. To increase print server stability, only the print drivers that are needed should be installed.   Print drivers should be installed on the cluster print resource.  Print drivers should not be installed on the local physical nodes of the cluster unless it is required by the printer vender.  HP Universal Print Driver and the Xerox Global Print Driver and other Universal print drivers are a few of the print drivers that must be installed on the physical local nodes and on the Cluster print resource. 

   HP universal print driver configuration in clustered environment best practices
   http://h20338.www2.hp.com/Hpsub/downloads/
   HP_Drivers_in_Cluster_Environments.pdf

   From the HP web page above:
   “When installing product specific drivers, it is recommended that the latest driver be used.  The latest version of the driver can be found at hp.com. Also, the driver should be
   installed onto every node in the cluster prior to being installed onto the Virtual Print Server”

   Xerox installation document:
   http://download.support.xerox.com/pub/docs/GLOBALPRINTDRIVER/userdocs

   You will need an account with Xerox to access the link above and obtain the documentation referenced below.

   “The X-GPD must be installed on the each node prior to being installed on the client”

Read the full post here:

• INFO:  Windows Print Cluster Best Practices for Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008 R2
  http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2010/11/12/windows-print-cluster-best-practices-for-windows-server-2003-to-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx

Get an infrastructure as a service private cloud with a pre-validated configuration from server partners in the Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track.

Offerings from the Fast Track program combine:

• Microsoft software
• consolidated guidance
• validated configurations from OEM partners for compute, network, and storage
• value-added software components

For more information visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/en/us/hyperv-cloud-fasttrack.aspx

The Microsoft System Center team is pleased to announce the launch of System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 (SSP).

The System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 (SSP) is a fully supported, partner extensible solution that enables customers to dynamically pool, allocate, and manage their compute, network and storage resources to deliver a private cloud platform in their datacenter. Learn more.

Using System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 (SSP), you can respond more effectively—and at a lower cost—to the rapidly changing needs of your organization. Build on top of Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V and System Center VMM, it enables you to offer infrastructure as a service.

It includes a pre-built, role-based self-service portal for both the datacenter managers and business unit IT consumers – all in a dynamic running engine. The portal reduces time needed to provision infrastructures and their components by offering a business unit “on-boarding” infrastructure request and change management. It also includes detailed guidance on how to implement the portal inside your environment. SSP is freely available, and fully-supported by Microsoft.

Key Features:

• Automation and Guidance: To assess, plan and design your private cloud foundation infrastructure
• Customer/business unit on-boarding: Automated workflows to onboard business unit IT departments onto to your virtualized shared resource pool
• Dynamic provisioning engine: To rapidly provision virtualized infrastructure in conjunction with System Center and Hyper-V
• Self-Service portal: To empower consumers of IT to request and provision infrastructure for their apps/services
• Partner Extensibility: Enable partners to expose their unique hardware capabilities through familiar Microsoft scripting technologies while providing variety and flexibility to IT

DOWNLOAD: System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=205827

Microsoft IT just published a whitepaper about how they are configuring and leveraging SCCM 2007 R3 for Power Management.

[stolen from the System Center Blog]

We wanted to make you aware of a new whitepaper that has been published by MSIT Showcase, where we highlight best practices and success stories from within Microsoft IT department.  We are rally pleased to release this paper.  Some highlights.

Microsoft is committed to an ambitious goal of cutting its enterprise carbon emissions by 30% over a five-year period. To help contribute to this goal, Microsoft IT wanted to build on its System Center Configuration Manager 2007 desktop management infrastructure to implement a flexible and centralized power management solution. MSIT also wanted to fully leverage power management capabilities in products such as Windows 7. The solution needed to effectively manage, monitor, and report client power utilization across the enterprise.

Using System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3, Microsoft IT deployed a power management solution to 165,000 desktop and laptop computers. Through new tools that enable centralized management, powerful reporting, and a deep understanding of current power settings, MSIT realized significant energy and cost savings. The solution provides a high degree of flexibility, and different levels of enforcement. In addition to delivering on power usage and carbon reduction goals, the solution also delivers on the Microsoft IT-specific goal of driving product feedback to deliver a successful power management product.

Some highlights:

• 27 percent drop in the amount of power used by the managed desktop computers
• 12.33 kilowatt hours per desktop computer per month savings
• A projected savings of $12 – $14 USD per desktop computer per year, based on currently reported data
• Centralized power management and enhanced reporting capabilities
• Leveraging existing client management infrastructure minimizes cost and expense

Some resources for you:

• Manage, Monitor, and Report: Implementing a Power Management Strategy with System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3 download

• WHITEPAPER:  Manage, Monitor, and Report: Implementing a Power Management Strategy with System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3 (2.52MB)
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg398008.aspx

System Center Configuration Manager 2012 (formerly known as Configuration Manager v.Next) now has a Beta 2 TAP nomination that is now open. 

Per the System Center blog:

The ConfigMgr team will be accepting new nominations for Beta 2 through this process only.  If your organization applied for the Beta 1 TAP program, but did not get accepted, it would be recommended to complete the survey.  This will ensure your participation in the program is reviewed with your latest status, deployment levels etc.

• LINK:  Nomination Form – Beta 2 of Configuration Manager 2012
  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/vNext_Beta2_nomination

UPDATE 2/5/2011:
If you read the explanation I’ve written below, you can understand how Bing does not screen scrape search results from Google. 

We capture the URLs that users click on & the search terms they use to find that URL across searches made on Google, Ask, Bing or any engine… but only from people that authorize Microsoft to do so, i.e. there’s no privacy violations taking place here.

HOWEVER… apparently, Google is screen scraping Bing.  Yup.  You read that right:  They’re doing to Bing exactly what they falsely accused Microsoft of doing. 

• Bing search results showing up in Google
  http://jacquesmattheij.com/Bing+search+results+showing+up+in+Google

And what’s worse, they’re ignoring Bing’s explicit instructions to other search engines not to crawl it’s search results.  The ROBOTS.TXT file, as described by Jacques, clearly states that indexing Bing is disallowed by other web crawlers.  And Google just goes right about ignoring the DISALLOW entry.

Wow.

—————–
ORIGINAL POST:

Let’s get this out of the way:  Google’s accusation that Bing steals Google’s search results are false and demonstrates their lack of understanding of how Bing’s makes use of authorized user behavior data collection. 

Microsoft does not screen scrape Google’s search results.

1. If a user permits Microsoft to do so (via opt-in selection*), we capture user-entered search terms/key words entered into the search boxes in IE search field/Bing Toolbar
2. We then collect the URLs that people click on after they see the search results.  Plain and simple. 

And it makes sense, right?  There’s no need to actually examine the result set that comes back from WHATEVER search engine is in use because, after all, all you need is what’s important to the user (i.e. what they clicked in the end), not the rest of the results.  And humans likely know what the ‘best selections” are from any returned list of search results regardless of where that list comes from – Ask.com, Baidu.com, Amazon.com, even BING.COM… so why not simply record the links they select, if, again, this is permitted by the user?

Here’s a list of links that explain this in more detail but the end result is the same:  Google just doesn’t get it.

• BING.COM:  Microsoft CVP Yusuf Medhi on Google’s accusations:
  http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2011/02/02/setting-the-record-straight.aspx
• DIRECTMATCHMEDIA:  20 Google Engineers Prove Bing’s Privacy Policy
  http://directmatchmedia.com/google-proves-bing.php
• ZDNet:  Google vs. Microsoft over search results: Top takeaway is Bing matters
  http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/google-vs-microsoft-over-search-results-top-takeaway-is-bing-matters/44355
• QUORA:  Did Bing intentionally copy Google’s search results?
  http://www.quora.com/Did-Bing-intentionally-copy-Googles-search-results
• TECHDIRT:  Google’s Childish Response To Microsoft Using Google To Increase Bing Relevance
  http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110201/11022312911/googles-childish-response-to-microsoft-using-google-to-increase-bing-relevance.shtml
• THENEXTWEB:  The great Google v. Bing slap fight explained piece by piece
  http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2011/02/04/the-great-google-v-bing-slap-fight-explained-piece-by-piece/
• SEARCHENGINELAND:  “Bing: Why Google’s Wrong in its Accusations”
  http://searchengineland.com/bing-why-googles-wrong-in-its-accusations-63279 
• JACQUESMATTHEIJ:  “Bing search results showing up in Google”
  http://jacquesmattheij.com/Bing+search+results+showing+up+in+Google

* I believe the marketing name for the ‘opt-in’ option to share this data with Microsoft is known as the Customer Experience Improvement Program or the CEIP.  This is not on by default and is something the user manually enables to improve Microsoft products – including Bing.

We released something called the Windows Phone 7 Jumpstart, a set of recorded videos to help folks move to Internet Explorer 9.

Back in July we held a live training event called Windows Phone 7 Jump Start during which we had two lively presenters walk through building killer phone apps and games. We then released it as a series of videos and later followed it up with another live event in September that updated the content and covered even more advanced topics.

Now we’re happy to announce that all this great training content is available online. There are 19 sessions/videos total (most are less than an hour long), and we’ve also posted all the course materials you’ll need to follow along. Topics covered include Panorama & Pivots, Bing Maps, XNA, Planning & Optimizing for Performance, Design using Microsoft Blend, and many more. Plus, we recorded an "Ask the Experts" session, which was a live Q&A with lots of Windows Phone 7 Microsoft employees.

See below for a description of each session. As always, feedback is welcome. Feel free to leave comments if you have any questions.

Read more about this at:
More Free Training on Making Windows Phone 7 Apps & Games
http://borntolearn.mslearn.net/wp7/b/weblog/archive/2010/10/27/more-free-training-on-making-windows-phone-7-apps-amp-games.aspx