Kurt Shintaku's Blog

The Microsoft Developer & Platform is pleased to announce a Metro Instructor Led Training event focused on Developers covering the Windows Azure Platform, for Microsoft Partners and customers. Delivered through workshop style presentations and hands-on lab exercises, the workshop will focus on three key services of the Windows Azure Platform – Windows Azure, SQL Azure and .NET Services.

This event is targeted at partners and customers who have projects that they are potentially looking to deploy to the Windows Azure Platform.

Attendee Prerequisites
This workshop is aimed at developers, architects and systems designers with at least 6 months practical experience using Visual Studio 2008 and C#.

Agenda Topics

• An introduction to Windows Azure
• Working with Windows Azure storage
• An introduction to SQL Azure
• Building applications with SQL Azure
• An introduction to .NET Services
• Building solutions using the .NET Service Bus

This event is free of charge. However, delegates are responsible for booking and paying for their own travel and accommodation. Both breakfast and lunch will be provided for session days.

Accommodations
Please reference the venue link above for details on class location, area hotels and directions.
Note: Participation in the Windows Azure platform Metro event requires an NDA.  The products and technologies cannot be discussed outside of this NDA

Please register now!

Date:  Dec. 15-Dec. 17

Time:  9:00am-5:00PM

Location: Microsoft – Orange County, Irvine, California       

Level: 300-400

Language: English

Audience: Programmer, Developer

Registration Info
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032428626&IO=He5wNESuIe2vbmj2%2bI%2bSiw%3d%3d
(Space is limited to two attendees per company.)

Questions: Please email metroevt@microsoft.com

From the OMG file for those of you that work with servers, datacenters, and management technologies.

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Hi, Everyone,

Great news for enterprise, government and service provider customers who use System Center. I’m excited to announce that Microsoft has acquired Opalis Software, a Toronto-based private company that is a leader in IT process automation software. Opalis will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft.

I believe this acquisition is a pivotal piece to deliver on our dynamic datacenter initiative, which I’ve spoken about before on this blog. This deal brings together the deep datacenter automation expertise of Opalis with the integrated physical and virtualized datacenter management capabilities of Microsoft System Center. I believe Opalis’ software together with the System Center suite will improve the efficiency of IT staff and operations, and customers will gain greater process consistency. Opalis’ software captures the IT processes, in a documented and repeatable way, which can be run over and over again. These capabilities will be added to Microsoft System Center to help customers automate complex IT processes, increase cost savings and shorten timeframes for IT service delivery across physical, virtual and cloud computing environments.

So why is IT process automation so important to us? We know that as customers and service providers use Microsoft server infrastructure, tools and applications in more – and larger – datacenters, these customers require a greater level of automation in their operations. This is especially important as our customers build out highly automated and scalable virtual environments. Advanced workflow processes will be vital for optimization and to avoid potential virtual server sprawl. I read that Gartner believes that, by year-end 2010, at least 50% of the automation and workflow management tasks in support of virtual server infrastructures will be supported by evolving RBA-based tools. Reliable automation of processes across their complex, heterogeneous datacenter not only reduces costs but also ensures the services that drive their business are always available.

And why Opalis? First, Opalis customers have told us that the Opalis employees are a strong set of individuals. Second, customer feedback is that the Opalis software is easy to use, easy to deploy and delivers value in a short period of time. This part is important. Out of the box, Opalis products integrate with System Center, and will allow System Center to integrate with other infrastructure software from CA, BMC, HP and others to integrate across an IT organization.

So if you don’t know Opalis products, you should get to know them. Their products include:

• Prepackaged workflows and automation expertise for the common tasks in managing a datacenter. Examples include Run Book Automation, virtual machine lifecycle management, and incident ticket management.
• An automation platform that lets customers create and execute workflows across datacenter management tools.
• Deep integration capabilities to orchestrate tasks across server infrastructure and systems management products, including those from BMC, CA, IBM, HP, Microsoft, and Symantec.

So what does this acquisition mean for Opalis and Microsoft customers? Opalis will continue to fulfill its existing commitments to customers and continue to deliver support as we transition Opalis to the Microsoft systems and processes. What’s interesting is that a large majority of Opalis customers use System Center today. We intend to make RBA capabilities a core part of System Center going forward. You can get more details of the transition at Microsoft Pathways. This site will provide the most current information on the transition and provide answers to frequently asked questions. Also, be sure to read today’s blog post from Todd DeLaughter, CEO of Opalis: http://www.opalis.com/Blog.asp

For Microsoft customers this acquisition provides access to a new set of capabilities to help you automate your processes and tasks in your datacenter environment. Our virtualization stack just became more complete with the capabilities of Opalis. I sat down for a video interview recently to share more of my thoughts, see it here.

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[taken from the System Center Blog]

Microsoft^® Windows 7 Deployment & Application Compatibility

One-Day Briefing

Learn more about the optimized desktop, Application Management, and the Microsoft Tools and Technologies to help understand Windows Application Compatibility.

Join Pontis Research for a one day session to learn more about the optimized desktop, application management and the Microsoft tools and technologies to help with Windows 7 application compatibility.

The Windows Deployment and Application Capability one-day workshop is geared to provide IT professionals with the knowledge necessary to:

• Plan for the next Windows client migration
• Learn about Windows Vista and Windows 7 changes that affect your applications
• Understand how to make your applications work on Windows 7
• Learn how to use key Microsoft technologies to make your migration easy

This session will discuss the application compatibility challenges using the methodology of assessment, remediation and application management.

• Application Challenges
  Discuss the challenges facing application compatibility and how Windows Vista and Windows 7 changed the game and why these challenges are a one-time correction to how secure software is created.
• Application Compatibility Assessment
  Learn how to use tools such as ACT and MAPS to acquire an inventory of applications and how to assess the results to create a rationalized list of applications to remediate.
• Application Compatibility Remediation
  Understand the various remediation strategies and see each method in action. Learn the different approaches, understanding the challenges and pitfalls with the ultimate outcome of turning non-compatible applications into working applications.
• Application Compatibility Management
  Introduce the Application Management Lifecycle (ALM) and Application Platform Optimization (APO). Learn how formalizing application compatibility can prevent unexpected compatibility issues in the future.

Agenda

Date & Location:
February 10, 2009
Microsoft Irvine

Registration:
Please contact me IF YOU ARE A CUSTOMER OF MINE for details on time & online registration details.  You must be registered to attend this event.

A special seminar for my customers…

Desktop and Application Virtualization Technical Briefing
Factors such as globalization, compliance, cost management, workforce mobility, and security threats create unprecedented demands on IT departments to provide the desktop infrastructure appropriate for multiple types of users. Successful companies meet these demands by turning their desktop infrastructure from a cost center to a strategic asset while, at the same time, reducing TCO, improving security and availability and organizational agility.

Please join Microsoft, Flexera Software and Pontis Research for lunch and a briefing on desktop virtualization technologies that will reduce the costs of managing your desktop environment and provide your end users with a more productive computing experience. 

You can read more in the App-V Cost Reduction Study – savings of $156/PC/Yr in direct costs (11.6% of PC TCO) plus $125/PC/YR in user productivity gains.  The sources of direct savings generated by App-V are across automated deployment, patching/updates, non-standard applications, image management, PC provisioning and replacement, and installation risk, as well as user productivity gains.

Join us to learn more about:

• How organization can centrally manage applications to save time and money every time they deploy new applications,  application upgrades and patches
• How to dynamically deliver applications to physical workstations, VDI and Remote Desktop Services clients at low TCO
• Where can application virtualization cut deployment cost and help with compatibility challenges?
• What is new in MDOP 2009 R2 and what tools are available to assist you in migrating to Win7

Topics Covered

• Reduce spend on application lifecycle management with App-V 4.6
• Ready for Win7? Accelerate your OS migration with desktop virtualization
• Application Virtualization and SCCM 2007 R2
• IE 6 virtualization
• Automate application virtualization with AdminStudio

Who Should Attend:
This lab is for IT decision makers and IT professionals involved in enterprise desktop configuration.

Date and Location
January 19, 2010
*Lunch Provided
Microsoft Irvine Office

Registration:
Please contact me IF YOU ARE A CUSTOMER OF MINE for time & registration details.  Registration is required for attendance.

There’s been a lot of FUD by a forensics company (naming them only gives them visibility, which was part of this PR stunt in the first place) around ‘cracking Bitlocker’. We have an official post on the Windows Security blog that explains what this actually entails and how it’s not a real risk in our customer environments:

Here’s one small part of the post:

“I’ve seen numerous claims the past few weeks about weaknesses in BitLocker and even claims of commercial software that "breaks" BitLocker. One claim is from a product that "allows bypassing BitLocker encryption for seized computers."

This claim is for a forensics product and has legitimate uses; however, to say it "breaks" BitLocker is a bit of a misnomer. The tool "recovers encryption keys for hard drives" which relies on the assumption that a physical image of memory is accessible, which is not the case if you follow BitLocker’s best practices guidance.

The product, like others used legitimately for data recovery and digital forensics analysis, requires "a physical memory image file of the target computer" to extract the encryption keys for a BitLocker disk.  Our discussions of Windows BitLocker have always been to communicate that it is intended to help protect data at rest (e.g. when the machine is powered off).

If a forensics analyst or thief/adversary has physical access to a running system, it may be possible to make a copy of the computer’s memory contents by using an administrative account on the system, or potentially through hardware-based methods such as direct memory access (DMA).”

…read more HERE…

 

Posted by: Paul Cooke

• NEWS: Windows BitLocker Claims
  http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowssecurity/archive/2009/12/07/windows-bitlocker-claims.aspx

I’m posting this because a) it’s my hobby to encode things for streaming and playback and b) this is a whopper of an update that’s very important for anyone that’s using Expression Encoder 3.

[taken from the Encoder blog]

A QFE has been released for Expression Encoder v3. The download can be found here:

• http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=3fa77346-6838-4963-9561-ad6ea7b62fbb

The QFE contains a significant number of fixes and enhancements including:

• The Audio panel now appears when the user selects two or more media files in the Media Content panel.
• You can now read or write to MP4 files of 4 GB or greater size.
• Audio recordings created using certain USB microphones no longer contain distortion.
• You can successfully encode to MP4 CBR when the bitrate is set to 4.
• Substantial drops in playback bit rates no longer occur during CPU spikes while playing smooth streaming content.
• Smooth Streaming content no longer stutters after 10 or more minutes of full-screen playback in some scenarios.
• Playback of Smooth Streaming content encoded with the VC1 Smooth Streaming 720P VBR preset has been improved.
• You no longer receive an error when repeatedly editing a Silverlight template in Expression Blend 3 using the Edit the template in Expression Blend command.
• You no longer receive an error when playing back Smooth Streaming content from a server that is different from the one where the Silverlight template resides.
• Performance has been improved in the Black Glass template.
• In Live Encoding mode, you can now publish to a publishing point that requires authentication.
• Expression Encoder now includes support for AVC1 files.
• You can now compile the PowerShell code sample from the Expression Encoder SDK when working in Windows 7.
• Running Expression Encoder as a SYSTEM level service no longer causes an exception.
• The Silverlight player no longer crashes when you load a file containing unsupported East Asian characters. You will receive an error message, however, if the player does not support the characters.
• You will now be able to select Adaptive GOP and Closed GOP in the VC-1 Settings options when you have chosen VC-1 Main as your video codec.
• Expression Encoder will now use its native MP4 codec to decode MP4 files, instead of using QuickTime.
• Fixes have been made to better support importing and editing Smooth Streaming files.
• The Expression Encoder Timeline will now display the proper length of imported AVCHD files.
• Playlists and chapters now correctly display when performing offline playback.
• Imported WTV files now play back correctly.
• Seeking has been improved during playback of Smooth Streaming files.
• If you choose the VC-1 Simple profile for encoding, the bitrate in the Video category will now correctly switch to one is valid for the Simple profile.

The IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit helps Web developers, hosting providers, and Web server administrators to improve their Web site’s relevance in search results by recommending how to make the site content more search engine-friendly. The IIS SEO Toolkit includes the Site Analysis module, the Robots Exclusion module, and the Sitemaps and Site Indexes module, which let you perform detailed analysis and offer recommendations and editing tools for managing your Robots and Sitemaps files.

Improve the volume and quality of traffic to your Web site from search engines

The Site Analysis module allows users to analyze local and external Web sites with the purpose of optimizing the site’s content, structure, and URLs for search engine crawlers. In addition, the Site Analysis module can be used to discover common problems in the site content that negatively affects the site visitor experience. The Site Analysis tool includes a large set of pre-built reports to analyze the sites compliance with SEO recommendations and to discover problems on the site, such as broken links, duplicate resources, or performance issues. The Site Analysis module also supports building custom queries against the data gathered during crawling.

Control how search engines access and display Web content

The Robots Exclusion module enables Web site owners to manage the robots.txt file from within the IIS Manager interface. This file is used to control the indexing of specified URLs, by disallowing search engine crawlers from accessing them. Users have the choice to view their sites using a physical or a logical hierarchal view; and from within that view, they can choose to disallow specific files or folders of the Web application. In addition, users can manually enter a path or modify a selected path, including wildcards. By using a graphical interface, users benefit from having a clear understanding of what sections of the Web site are disallowed and from avoiding any typing mistakes.

Inform search engines about locations that are available for indexing

The Sitemaps and Site Indexes module enables Web site owners to manage the sitemap files and sitemap indexes on the site, application, and folder level to help keep search engines up to date. The Sitemaps and Site Indexes module allows the most important URLs to be listed and ranked in the sitemap.xml file. In addition, the Sitemaps and Site Indexes module helps to ensure the Sitemap.xml file does not contain any broken links.

Site Analysis Features

• Fully featured crawler engine
  • Configurable number of concurrent requests to allow users to crawl their Web site without incurring additional processing. This can be configured from 1 to 16 concurrent requests.
  • Support for Robots.txt, allowing you to customize the locations where the crawler should analyze and which locations should be ignored.
  • Support for Sitemap files allowing you to specify additional locations to be analyzed.
  • Support for overriding ‘noindex’ and ‘nofollow’ metatags to allow you to analyze pages to help improve customer experience even when search engines will not process them.
  • Configurable limits for analysis, maximum number of URLs to download, and maximum number of kilobytes to download per URL.
  • Configurable options for including content from only your directories or the entire site and sub domains.
• View detailed summary of Web site analysis results through a rich dashboard
• Feature rich Query Builder interface that allows you to build custom reports
• Quick access to common tasks
• Display of detailed information for each URL
• View detailed route analysis showing unique routes to better understand the way search engines reach your content

Robots Exclusion Features

• Display of robots content in a friendly user interface
• Support for filtering, grouping, and sorting
• Ability to add ‘disallow’ and ‘allow’ paths using a logical view of your Web site from the result of site analysis processing
• Ability to add sitemap locations

Sitemap and Sitemap Index Features

• Display of sitemaps and sitemap index files in a simple user interface
• Support for grouping and sorting
• Ability to add/edit/remove sitemap and sitemap index files
• Ability to add new URL’s to sitemap and sitemap index files using a physical or logical view of your Web site
• Ability to register a sitemap or sitemap index into the robots exclusion file

DOWNLOAD/DOCUMENTAION:  http://www.iis.net/expand/SEOToolkit

HOW-TO-INSTALL: http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/webmaster/archive/2009/08/17/setting-up-iis-7-before-installing-iis-seo-toolkit.aspx

DEBUGGING: http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/webmaster/archive/2009/08/03/get-detailed-site-analysis-to-solve-problems-sem-101.aspx

Registration for MMS 2010 is now open!
Microsoft Management Summit 2010,
April 19 – 23, Las Vegas, Nevada
http://www.mms-2010.com/public/registrationoverview.aspx

It’s time to start planning for the Microsoft Management Summit 2010 (MMS 2010) – the place to learn about the latest IT Management products, technologies and solutions from Microsoft and partners.

Registration is now open, and can be accessed from the event web site at www.mms-2010.com.  This site also provides an overview of the event, the overall schedule and information about available hotel accommodation.

Event Overview
This year’s event will be packed with information and news about new releases, product updates and added solutions for deploying and managing Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and a range of other platforms such as Unix, Linux and mobile devices.  In addition to exciting new versions of several existing System Center products the event will cover a variety of new solutions including those offering management of and from private and public Clouds.

As in past years, the event will also offer sessions on best practices – tips and tricks for managing existing and new environments – presented by attendees, IT Management Consultants and Microsoft field staff.  These topics provide an opportunity to learn from others in the community, enabling you to plan future deployments of Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, applications and services with minimum cost and downtime.

With sessions by technical experts, opportunities to try out new products in the Labs as well as networking opportunities with leading Industry experts and peers, MMS 2010 remains the premiere technical event of the year for IT Management professionals.

Management Product Content
During MMS 2010, in addition to sessions covering existing products and solutions, there will be significant coverage of recent and upcoming management product releases including:

• System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2, R2 and R3
• System Center Configuration Manager v.Next
• System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2
• System Center Service Manager 2010
• System Center Data Protection Manager 2010
• System Center Essentials 2010
• System Center Online Desktop Manager
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2
• Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) 4.5 SP1
• Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (Med-V) 1.0 SP1

MMS 2010 is the ideal opportunity to come listen to the product teams describe these new releases, to try out these new solutions in the lab and to discuss real-world deployment experiences with leading industry experts and fellow attendees with real-life experiences to share.

Event Theme
The theme of this year’s Microsoft Management Summit is Manage the Future, reflecting the upcoming changes we see in the world of IT as Virtualization and Cloud Computing fundamentally alter our concept of “IT Management”.  As these new initiatives alter the IT Landscape, IT Management will play an increasingly key role in reducing the apparent complexity while maximizing flexibility, availability and performance.

Sessions from Microsoft speakers and industry experts during MMS 2010 will cover how the current and near term wave of management solutions from Microsoft support:

• Management of virtualized servers, services, desktops and applications
• Management of desktops and datacenters from the Cloud
• Management of the hosting services behind both public and private clouds
• Integration between management products and technologies
• Integration across platforms and vendor boundaries

Session Tracks

• Client Management Technologies
• Cloud Management
• Community Topics
• Microsoft IT
• Operations Management
• Security Management
• Server Management Technologies
• Solution Accelerators
• Systems Management
• Virtualization

Event Agenda
MMS 2010 will offer more deep technical Breakout Sessions than ever before, covering a range of IT Management topics and technologies. Daily “Speaker Q&A” sessions allow attendees to meet the presenters at the end of each day to discuss specific session content informally in a casual format. In addition, the event will provide over 8,000 Instructor-led Hands-On Lab places during the week and a “walk-in” Self-paced Lab area.  All of Microsoft’s Management solutions, together with those provided by Partners, will be on show at the MMS 2010 Expo where you’ll have the opportunity to review the solutions on offer and discuss your specific requirements with experts.

Visit the conference web site at www.mms-2010.com for more details of the overall agenda and registration information.

Content Survey
If you’d like to help in the content selection process for MMS 2010, we invite you to complete the MMS 2010 Content Survey. By taking a few minutes to tell us about your IT experience and expectations for the event, you’ll help ensure the topics and labs offered during MMS 2010 are relevant to you and your organization. The survey should take no more than 10 minutes to complete and when it closes on Dec 22^nd two entries will be drawn from amongst the responses to win a Portable Media Player.

Registration
http://www.mms-2010.com/public/registrationoverview.aspx
This year the summit will be returning to The Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Two different registration options are available for attendees – you may either purchase your MMS 2010 registration and hotel accommodation separately, or as a package.

If you choose to register using the “Package” option, your registration fee includes accommodation for the nights of April 19^th to 22^nd at the Venetian Hotel. Alternatively you may choose to purchase accommodation separately from your registration, during the registration process or at a later date.  The MMS 2010 Event Team has negotiated a special rate at the Venetian Hotel, available only through the registration web site. Details of the accommodation on offer are provided on the Hotel Accommodation page.

The Microsoft Office 2010 Resource Kit provides information about new features and changes in deployment strategies for Office 2010. The documentation is intended for IT professionals who plan, implement, and maintain Office installations in their organizations. New and updated content will be published on a regular basis.

In the Office 2010 Resource Kit:

• Product evaluation and getting started with Office 2010 Beta   
  Provides an overview of Office 2010, and includes information about the Setup architecture, 64-bit Office 2010, system requirements, getting started information, and product comparisons.
• Planning the deployment of Office 2010 Beta  
  Provides information about assessing your current environment, planning for desktop configurations, security, and applications including Microsoft Access 2010, Microsoft Excel 2010, Microsoft Outlook 2010, and Microsoft Project 2010. It also provides planning information for migration and upgrading from previous versions of Office, as well as planning for virtualization and Terminal Services.
• Configuration and deployment of Office 2010 Beta  
  Provides how-to information for specific deployment tasks, such as customizing the installation, and installing Office 2010 on users’ computers. It also provides information about the new licensing options for Office 2010, including instructions for configuring the infrastructure for volume licensing and activation.
• Maintaining and updating Office 2010 Beta  
  Provides information about changing users’ configurations after installing Office 2010.
• Security and protection for Office 2010 Beta  
  Provides information new security controls in Office 2010, which make it easier for IT professionals to build a robust defense against threats while maintaining information worker productivity.
• Troubleshooting for Office 2010 Beta  
  Provides suggested solutions to issues you might encounter during a deployment of Office 2010.
• Technical reference for Office 2010 Beta  
  Provides technical details related to Office 2010 Setup properties and command-line options, and describes the Office Customization Tool and Config.xml file.

LINK:  Office 2010 Resource Kit
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303401(office.14).aspx

Other Resources:

• BETA:  Office 2010 Beta download
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ee390818.aspx)
• BLOG:  Office Resource Kit Blog
  http://blogs.technet.com/office_resource_kit
• TWITTER:  Office Resource Kit Twitter feed
  @MSOfficeResKit

 
TechEd 2010 is going back to New Orleans, LA!

Microsoft TechEd 2010 is Microsoft’s largest, most expansive technology conference for IT Professionals & Developers for the year. With over 13,000 people attending annually, it offers the greatest opportunity learn in-depth about virtually every topic of interest and how Microsoft’s technologies work in that space. For companies that leverage Microsoft products and solutions, it’s a veritable must-attend.

Why attend Tech·Ed 2010?

Because you’ll return to your office with knowledge and expertise that only four days at Tech·Ed can offer. You can learn about today’s cutting edge trends, helping make life easier for you (and everyone else) at work. But the most important benefit just might be the networking: you can build personal connections with Microsoft experts and peers that will last far beyond Tech·Ed.

WEB SITE:  http://northamerica.msteched.com/?CR_CC=100280253&WT.srch=1&CR_SCC=100280253&WT.srch=1

—————–

Immerse Yourself

in hundreds of IT learning opportunities and ask your toughest questions to renowned technology experts, distinguished speakers, and community influencers.

Engage and Collaborate

with Microsoft innovators, third party experts, and thousands of your IT peers to find the technology resources necessary to help build state-of-the-art software solutions or to help plan, architect, deploy, manage and secure a connected IT infrastructure.

What’s New This Year

Send our convince your boss email. Then, download our convince your boss talking points, so you are prepared for any follow up conversations.