Kurt Shintaku's Blog

We are excited to announce that Microsoft is recognized as a Leader for the fourth year in a row in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud AI Developer Services and are especially proud to be placed furthest for our Completeness of Vision.

NOTE: The above Gartner Magic Quadrant for March 2023 did not consider or evaluate any Azure OpenAI Services including ChatGPT, GPT-4, and DALL-E.  The report’s evaluation cut off was January 1, 2023 which happened a few weeks before Azure OpenAI’s general availability.

To download the licensed report, visit:

• Microsoft is a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud AI Developer Services | Azure Blog | Microsoft Azure
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-is-a-leader-in-the-2023-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-cloud-ai-developer-services/

Q: I want to be able to type 12/31/30 and have the date be resolved as 12/31/2030 instead of 12/31/1930?
(In the same way that 12/31/29 is resolved to 12/31/2029?)

A: Changing this behavior on a Windows 10/11 workstation by hand is documented in the article below:

Windows 10

1. In the search box on the taskbar, type control panel, and then select Control Panel.

2. Under Clock, Language and Region, click Change date, time, or number formats

3. Click Regional and Language Options.

4. In the Region dialog box, click Additional settings.

5. Click the Date tab.

6. In the When a two-digit year is entered, interpret it as a year between box, change the upper limit for the century.

As you change the upper-limit year, the lower-limit year automatically changes.

7. Click OK.

For broader organizational deployment via a Group Policy Object:

• Creating a Group Policy Object to distribute this change organization wide
  Applying this across your workstations would require the creation of a Group Policy Object (or modifying an existing one) that makes this change on every workstation.
  A general tutorial on how to do this from the “Group Policy Management” console is written about here.
  https://theezitguy.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/group-policy-use-regional-settings-to-change-date-format/comment-page-1/

A customer of mine has been working with a “FastTrack for Azure” engineer to help them:

• Manage & Monitor Azure services & VMs
• Secure & Govern Azure services & VMs

This has been such an phenomenal engagement, I decided to simply drop all the resources here that have been cited over the past 2 months for others to reference.

NOTE: “FastTrack for Azure” is a Microsoft-funded service for customers deploying $5K/mo in new Azure services that would like expert guidance. For any of my customers that are interested in engaging FastTrack for Azure engineers for direct remote guidance in deploying Azure Monitor & Azure Policy, please ping me directly.

Azure Monitor

• GitHub – Azure/AzureMonitorStarterPacks: A project to create a framework for workloads and services monitoring in Azure
• Set up the Azure Monitor agent on Windows client devices – Azure Monitor | Microsoft Learn
• Resource naming and tagging decision guide – Cloud Adoption Framework | Microsoft Learn

Security & Azure Policy

• Overview of the Microsoft cloud security benchmark | Microsoft Learn
• Reference – Azure Policy guest configuration baseline for Windows – Azure Policy | Microsoft Learn
• Reference – Azure Policy guest configuration baseline for Linux – Azure Policy | Microsoft Learn
• ALZ Policy Assignments v2.xlsx (live.com)
• Azure Policy glossary – Azure Policy | Microsoft Learn
• ALZ Policies · Azure/Enterprise-Scale Wiki · GitHub- Policies included in Azure landing zones reference implementations
• GitHub – dolevshor/azure-orphan-resources: Centralize orphan resources in Azure environments

SQL in Azure – SQL Server VMs & Azure SQL Database

• How to enable Microsoft Defender for SQL servers on machines – Microsoft Defender for Cloud | Microsoft Learn
• Enable SQL Insights (preview) – Azure SQL Database | Microsoft Learn

Create a Zero Trust adoption plan that accommodates your organization’s unique risks and capabilities. With this flexible playbook, get foundational action items that help you strengthen security across six key risk areas.

Download The Comprehensive Playbook for a Zero Trust Security Strategy to:

• Identify small changes that can make big improvements to your security.
• Understand how deeper integration of key security pillars can simplify policy enforcement.
• Learn how Zero Trust can increase efficiency and productivity in security posture management.

Get the eBook from the link below:

• DOWNLOAD: Get Started with Zero Trust | Microsoft Security (.PDF, 38pgs)
  https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-comprehensive-playbook-zero-trust.html?lcid=en-us

Identify how to accelerate your company’s success with AI. Read Building a Foundation for AI Success: A Leader’s Guide to discover insights informed by Microsoft, Microsoft customers and partners, industry analysts, and AI leaders—to help your organization thrive on your path to AI transformation.

You’ll learn how to get started and continue with the pillars of AI success, including:

1. Business strategies, such as objectives, use cases, and measurement of AI.
2. Technology readiness for successful AI deployments.
3. AI expertise that embeds AI into the fabric of your business.
4. An organization and culture that supports AI.
5. Governance to help ensure AI systems are developed responsibly.

Download the eBook here:

• DOWNLOAD: eBook, “Five Pillars of AI Success | Microsoft AI” (.PDF, 21pgs)
  https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-building-a-foundation-for-ai-success.html?culture=en-us&country=us

Make AI real for your organization today. Read AI Use Cases for Business Leaders: Realize Value with AI to discover the common scenarios and processes where AI is poised to have the biggest impact—and see how to bring AI to your organization to boost productivity, optimize efficiency, and create new value.

Get the e-book to:

• Discover how AI is being applied across industries, including manufacturing, retail, finance, and healthcare.
• Learn about the principles and practices for responsible and secure AI that Microsoft offers to help you build trustworthy AI systems.
• Explore how Microsoft is infusing next-gen AI across every Microsoft Cloud product and service to empower every organization to take advantage of AI.

Download it here:

• DOWNLOAD: eBook, “AI Use Cases for Business Leaders | Microsoft AI” (.PDF, 12pgs)
  https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-ai-use-cases-for-business-leaders.html?culture=en-us&country=us

Have you purchased a new Surface device recently?

Remember that you have only 45 days after your purchase to obtain a “Microsoft Complete” extended warranty on it.  White your new Surface comes with a “1 year limited warranty”, the Microsoft Complete Protection Plan is the Premium warranty that ensures your device is protected from the following incidents that are NOT COVERED by the standard limited warranty:

• Cracked screen
• Physical damage
• Damage from liquids

As they say, “With Microsoft Complete, if something goes wrong, you’re covered—simple as that.”

KEY DETAILS
A few things purchasers should know about Microsoft Complete:

• You’re limited to 2 incidents on your device for the duration of your warranty – I think unless you purchase a 4 year Protection Plan, in which case you may be entitled to 3 incidents. (I only know because that’s what I purchased on my new Surface Laptop Studio 2)
• Each incident you file may incur a $49 deductible charge. In my experience, this is either to replace a major component (display) or a wholesale replacement of the entire device.
• Details about the Microsoft Complete Protection Plan terms & conditions are available here.

HOW MUCH IS “MICROSOFT COMPLETE”?
The cost depends on the device type & the length of the Protection Plan you select. 

As of 10/15/23, these are the rates for various different Surface devices:

• Surface Book/Surface Laptop Studio:
• 2 years: $249
• 3 years: $319
• 4 years: $399
• Surface Go
• 2 years: $99
• 3 years: $139
• 4 years: $189
• Surface Studio
• 2 years: $399
• 3 years: $499
• 4 years: $599
• Surface Pro
• 2 years: $149
• 3 years: $219
• 4 years: $299
• Surface Laptop
• 2 years: $149
• 3 years: $219
• 4 years; $299
• Surface Type Cover
• 2 years: $19

HOW DO I GET A MICROSOFT COMPLETE PROTECTION PLAN?
Again, for those in the back row: You MUST get Microsoft Complete with 45-days of your purchase.  The folks at the Microsoft Store will not allow you to get a warranty after that.

The web page says that you have to “schedule an appointment” – this isn’t necessary.  Simply follow the instructions below to get this taken care of in 5-10min.

1. LOG IN TO MICROSOFT ACCOUNT
   Sign into https://account.microsoft.com.
2. GO TO “DEVICES” PAGE
   Click on the “Devices” pane & click “View All Devices” or
   go to https://account.microsoft.com/devices
1. If you have setup & logged into your device already with your Microsoft Account, your device should already be displayed in the list of devices associated with your account.
2. Otherwise, you’ll need to register it manually.
1. Click the “Register Device” button.
   
2. Enter the serial number of your device.  Remember to do this only when you’re ready to hook up your device & want to start your Microsoft Complete. (Note: Once submitted, this may take as much as 5 minutes to register
   
1. CALL MICROSOFT STORE SALES
   In the US, call (877)696-7786 and state that you’d like to purchase “Microsoft Complete for your Surface”.  They will ask for your:
   1. Microsoft account identity (name@outlook.com, for example)
   2. The Serial Number of the newly registered Surface
2. VERIFY REGISTRATION OF YOUR NEW “MICROSOFT COMPLETE FOR SURFACE” WARRANTY
   You should receive a 12-digit “Complete Service Request Number” from the sales agent.
   Go back to the Registered Devices page for your Microsoft Account and you should see an “In warranty” date that is roughly 2-4 years from your date of registration depending on the length of the plan purchased.

Microsoft 365 Defender is the only XDR platform that protects against ransomware attacks at the organizational and device levels – as well as Man-in-the-Middle & Email Compromise attacks.

Utilizing "automated attack disruption" to respond to adversary hands-on-keyboard activity at scale gives defenders a significant advantage in cost of attack vs defense. However this degree of automation can only be successfully utilized where sufficiently high confidence detections are available. Thanks to our advancements in #AI, we can bring those high confidence detections to bear automating defense for more scenarios and greater scope than ever before.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint shifts the paradigm with Automatic Attack Disruption – from Detect-&-Alert to Detect-&-Disrupt. This AI-powered capability uses signal across the Microsoft 365 Defender workloads to disrupt advanced attacks with high confidence.

• BLOG: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint now stops human-operated attacks on its own
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2023/10/11/microsoft-defender-for-endpoint-now-stops-human-operated-attacks-on-its-own/

As reported by Geekwire:
(I’m explicitly pointing to Geekwire’s article because they hyperlink to various sources of their reporting to expand folks understanding of the acquisition.)

Microsoft completed its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard on Friday morning, nearly 21 months after the deal was announced, finalizing its biggest acquisition ever and the largest in the history of video games.

The deal adds blockbuster franchises including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush Saga to Microsoft’s portfolio. Activision Blizzard, headquartered in Santa Monica, Calif., employed 13,000 people as of the end of 2022.

…

Read the complete article here:

• Microsoft completes landmark Activision Blizzard acquisition after 21-month regulatory saga – GeekWire
  https://www.geekwire.com/2023/uk-regulators-approve-microsofts-acquisition-of-activision-blizzard/