Kurt Shintaku's Blog

For customers researching or currently operating SharePoint Server 2007, we have collated these links to highlight some of the online content available which you might find useful. If there is anything in particular you’d like to hear about, please let me know.

MOSS 2007 White papers on Microsoft.com

• Deploying and Supporting Enterprise Search with SharePoint Server 2007
  This white paper covers the topics of how Microsoft IT implemented enterprise search within the company’s intranet using SharePoint Server 2007.
• Good, better, best: Office and SharePoint Products and Technologies
  This white paper describes how different versions of Microsoft Office programs work together with the 2003 and 2007 versions of SharePoint Products and Technologies. The focus of this paper is on the integration features of the Office 2003 Editions versions the 2007 Office Suites with the 2007 SharePoint Products and Technologies.
• Information architecture in Office SharePoint Server
  This paper is intended to represent the process that a medium to large organization might undergo when deploying Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 in a practical scenario. Included are typical approach, implementation, and governance techniques that might occur when planning, customizing, and deploying an Office SharePoint Server 2007 installation

Technical guidance from TechNet

• Planning and architecture for Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Design and build sites for Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Operations for Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Technical reference for Office SharePoint Server 2007

TechNet Webcasts

• Configuring performance options for Sharepoint Server Farms
• Capacity Planning for Sharepoint Server Farms
• Backing up, restoring, high availability, and disaster recovery for Office SharePoint Server server farms

TechNet Virtual Labs

• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Installation and Configuration (for IT Pros)
• Enterprise Search Overview (for IT Pros)
• Forefront Security for SharePoint Server (for IT Pros)

Customer Case Studies

• Hawaiian Airlines (Portals, ECM, Processes and Forms)
• MTV Networks International (Collaboration, Portals)
• TV Guide (Enterprise Search)

Website Portals

• SharePoint Server Home at Microsoft.com
• SharePoint Server at TechNet (IT Pro resources)
• SharePoint Server at MSDN (Developer Resources)

SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available at the following URL :

DOWNLOAD:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=66ab3dbb-bf3e-4f46-9559-ccc6a4f9dc19

You can use these packages to upgrade any SQL Server 2008 edition.

SQL Server 2008 SP1 is primarily a roll-up of previous cumulative updates, quick fix engineering updates and minor fixes made in response to requests reported through the SQL Server community. While there are no new features in this service pack, customers running SQL Server 2008 should download and install SP1 to take advantage of the fixes which increase supportability and stability of SQL Server 2008.

With this service pack, Microsoft has made investments to ease deployment and make management of service packs more efficient. Key improvements in SP1 include Slipstream, Service Pack Uninstall and Report Builder 2.0 click-once deployment.

• Slipstream allows administrators to install SQL Server 2008 and Service Pack 1 in a single instance. This decreases the total time for an installation, including a fewer number of reboots thereby increasing productivity and deployment availability.
• Service Pack Uninstall allows administrators to uninstall the service pack separately from the database release.  This feature also improves DBA productivity, reduces the cost of deployment and improves overall supportability
• Report Builder 2.0 Click Once improves the existing SQL Server end-user report authoring application by easing deployment to business users

For more information about SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1, please review the Release Notes : http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=147331

BLOG REVIEW:
http://blogs.technet.com/dataplatforminsider/archive/2009/04/07/service-pack-1-for-sql-server-2008-available-today.aspx

What is Expression Media 2?

Expression Media 2 is software that allows you to catalog, then organize, annotate, share, present, publish and protect your work.  It handles over a hundred file types that include not only still image files but also video, music, graphics, fonts, Excel sheets and more!  This can help you keep control of all the pieces of a project or job. 

The great thing about Expression Media for me is that it allows me to go back into my library of digital photos and find photos of a time or place very quickly.  I can find a date range or I can type in a place name that I know I added to my files.  It takes out the pain of sorting through images from various trips to the same location when you know you want the image from the time you were there in 2005. 

Another nice thing is it is available to use on both PC and Mac and the experience is the same. 

More about Expression Media 2 here:
http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto/expressionmedia2/default.aspx

What’s new in Service Pack 2?

A full list of fixes is available in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article here.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962902

A couple things that were fixed which are worth highlighting are:

• Importing a number of large images is very slow
• Original file paths are used instead of new file paths when copying items to a new catalog.
• Moving hierarchical keywords may incorrectly apply flat keywords to images
• HTML gallery links show question marks when viewed in Mozilla Firefox browsers

Service Pack 2 for Expression Media is available for download here:

• For Windows
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=52f05135-13b0-4f40-a9ff-77229822b0e3
• For  Mac
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bb6aa4e5-1101-4116-9513-030679a14b77

If you are using Expression Media make sure to have SP1 installed first before installing SP2.  Enjoy!

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 helps you achieve new levels of reliability and performance by delivering features that help to simplify your administration, protect your communications, and delight your users by meeting their demands for greater business mobility.

MORE INFO: 
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/2010/default.aspx

DOWNLOAD:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=1898ed2c-2f88-48ac-824e-d3d20fad77d7#Overview

—————-

What’s New in Exchange Server 2010 Beta?

New Rights-Protected E-Mail Functionality with Active Directory RMS

• Transport rules to apply AD RMS protection to messages based on conditions
• Persistent protection of attachments in rights-protected messages
• Support for AD RMS templates
• An Internet confidential AD RMS template for protection over the Internet
• AD RMS protection for Unified Messaging voice mail messages

New Transport and Routing Functionality

• Cross-premises mail routing  – An organization can choose to outsource some of their mailboxes to a hosted solution while maintaining their on-premises deployment. Exchange 2010 allows routing of messages between the on-premises and hosted mailboxes.
• Enhanced disclaimers – Exchange 2010 lets you add disclaimers that can include hyperlinks, images, and HTML-formatted text. You can also insert Active Directory attributes that are substituted for the sender’s attributes when a disclaimer rule is triggered.
• Transport rules integration with AD RMS – Exchange 2010 gives you the ability to create rules that require AD RMS protection based on keywords or patterns.
• Moderated Transport – Exchange 2010 provides an approval workflow for sending messages to recipients. When you configure a recipient for moderation, all messages sent to that recipient must go through an approval process.
• Shadow redundancy – Messages that are submitted to an Exchange 2010 Hub Transport server are stored in the transport database until the next hop reports successful delivery of the message. If the next hop doesn’t report successful delivery and it fails, the message is resubmitted for delivery.
• Transport dumpster truncation based on log copy status – When messages that are in the dumpster are replicated to all mailbox databases, they’re removed from the dumpster.
• Latency SLA management – Exchange 2010 Transport lets you measure service levels delivered relative to your service level agreement (SLA) goals. Exchange 2010 gives you the ability to measure latencies for each hop, as well as end-to-end latency.
• Transport database improvements – Performance improvements in the Transport database result in reduced database I/O per second (IOPS) per message, which increases message throughput.

New Permissions Functionality

In Exchange 2010, Role Based Access Control (RBAC) has replaced the permissions model that was used in Exchange 2007. RBAC lets you define extremely broad or extremely precise roles and assignments based on the roles of your administrators and users, and the tasks they perform. Access to the cmdlets and parameters required to perform a task is granted by assigning the related RBAC management role to a user or universal security group. If you want to grant an administrator or user the ability to perform tasks in Exchange 2010, you must either add the administrator or user to a universal security group that already has been assigned a specific RBAC role, or you must assign the role directly to the administrator or user.

New High Availability Functionality

Exchange 2010 combines the key availability and resilience features of cluster continuous replication (CCR) and standby continuous replication (SCR) into a single high availability solution that handles both on-site data replication and off-site data replication. Mailbox servers can be defined as part of a Database Availability Group to provide automatic recovery at the individual mailbox database level instead of at the server level. Each mailbox database can have up to 16 copies.

The following features in Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) no longer exist in Exchange 2010:

• Local continuous replication (LCR)
• Single copy clusters (SCC)

New Messaging Policy and Compliance Features

• Exchange 2010 compliance features make retention independent of users’ mailbox management and filing habits, and these features ensure retention policies are applied continuously
• interface for applying retention policies
• Auto tagging for retention policies
• Mailbox search features for cross-mailbox search with Advanced Query Syntax (AQS) support
• New transport rules predicates and actions

New Outlook Web Access Features

• Favorites in the Navigation Pane
• Search folders
• Message filtering
• The ability to set categories in the message list
• Options in the Web management interface for Outlook Web Access
• A side-by-side view for calendars
• Multi-client language support
• The ability to attach messages to messages
• Expanded right-click capabilities
• Integration with Office Communicator, including presence, chat, and a contact list
• Conversation view
• The ability to send and receive text (SMS) messages from Outlook Web Access
• Outlook Web Access mailbox policies

New Unified Messaging Features

• Personal auto attendants (call answering rules)
• Additional language support including in Outlook Voice Access and Voice Mail Preview
• Enhancements to name lookup from caller ID
• Voice Mail Preview
• Messaging Waiting Indicator
• Missed call and voice mail notifications using text messaging (SMS)
• Protected Voice Mail
• Built-in Unified Messaging administrative roles

Web Management Interface

• Text messaging (SMS) integration
• Voice messaging integration
• Mailbox Search
• Distribution list creation and management
• Moderation and approval for distribution list submission

New Exchange Core Store Functionality

• Storage groups are deprecated
• Mailbox databases are no longer connected to the server object
• Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) has many improvements for high availability, performance, and database mobility
• The Store schema has been flattened

New Administration Functionality in the Exchange Management Console

The core EMC refers to new functionality that affects how you use the Exchange Management Console that includes:

• Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP)
• Organizational Health
• Community and Resources
• Command logging
• Property dialog command exposure

New Administration Functionality in the Exchange Management Shell

• Remote administration – With the new Shell, you can connect to remote Exchange 2010 servers across the network with only Windows PowerShell V2 CTP3 and Windows Remote Management 2.0 CTP installed.
• Administrator audit logging – Actions that result in the modification of Exchange organization configuration and other object properties in the Exchange Management Console, the Web management interface, and the Shell can now be logged for later review.

FAQ

• What is the release schedule for Exchange 2010? 
  That information will be published very soon – stay tuned!
• How long does the beta last?
  This time-limited, free beta version of Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 will end 360 days after installation.
• Can I upgrade from Exchange 2003 directly to Exchange Server 2010?
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998604(EXCHG.140).aspx
• Where can I find more about Exchange Server 2010?
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124558(EXCHG.140).aspx
• Is there a forum where I can ask questions?
  Yes – http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchange2010/threads

Event Overview
Miss MIX or want a refresher? Join us for MSDN Events Unleashed: The Best of MIX!

What’s New in Silverlight 3?
Are you interested in building business-focused Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)?  Would you like to take advantage of 3D in the browser, but assume it is too hard?  Have you wanted to take a Silverlight application offline?  Then this session is for you.  We will explore and illustrate the new features of Silverlight 3, including the following:

• Support for perspective 3D
• Offline Support
• .NET RIA Services which simplifies the traditional n-tier application pattern by bringing together the ASP.NET and Silverlight platforms

Building Web Applications with Windows Azure
This session will begin with a brief overview of Azure and discuss some of the announcements made at MIX.  We will then illustrate through demo how to build a Windows Azure application from the ground up.  We will illustrate how to consume Azure Table Storage, how to host services, web pages and Silverlight components, as well as how to deploy your solution to the cloud.

MVC 1.0 vs ASP.Net Webforms
Have you heard about the new ASP.NET MVC  framework from Microsoft and wondered what it was all about? Are you curious whether this replaces ASP.Net WebForms?  Well in this session you will learn how to use the model-view-controller (MVC) pattern to take advantage of your favorite .NET Framework language for writing business logic in a way that is de-coupled from the views of the data.  In addition, we will talk about the pros and cons of both MVC and Web Forms, how to determine the best choice for a specific project, various techniques and patterns used to build MVC applications vs. Web Forms applications, and the implications for using each approach.

Logistics:

Los Angeles:

• Date:
  May 20, 2009 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM
• Location:
  Microsoft – Los Angeles
  333 S. Grand Ave.
  Suite #3300 (33rd Floor) Los Angeles California 90071

Irvine:

• Date:
  May 28, 2009 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM
• Location:
  Microsoft – Orange County 
  3 Park Plaza, Suite 1800
  Irvine California 92614

San Diego:

• Date:
  June 02, 2009 2:00 PM-5:00 PM
• Location:
  Microsoft San Diego Office – MPR
  9255 Towne Center Drive, 4th Floor
  San Diego California 92121

Registration:
Please contact me for details on how to register if you’re a customer of mine.

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Big Event
Thursday, April 30, 2009 8:30 AM – Thursday, April 30, 2009 5:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)
Welcome Time: 8:00 AM

Location:
Microsoft Corporation
3 Park Plaza
Suite 1600 Irvine California 92614
United States

Event Overview
How do you take an idea from conception to completion? How can you truly do more with less?
Please join us for this unique, invitation-only event to discover how both product and processes help your organization succeed in today’s environment. We will explore how Team System assists teams across the board to be successful in today’s tough times. This “break through” event will not only provide you with best practices around development and testing, but will demonstrate key capabilities of both Visual Studio Team System 2008 and the upcoming 2010 release. It’s a day that promises to have something for everyone!

SESSIONS

• Test Driven Development: Improving .NET Application Performance & Scalability
  This session will demonstrate how to leverage Test Driven Development in Team System. We’ll highlight both writing unit tests up front as well as creating test stubs for existing code.
• "It Works on My Machine!" Closing the Loop Between Development & Testing
  In this session, we will examine the traditional barriers between the developer and tester; and how Team System can help remove those walls.
• Treating Databases as First-Class Citizens in Development
  Team System Database Edition elevates database development to the same level as code development. See how Database Edition enables database change management, automation, comparison, and deployment.
• Architecture without Big Design Up Front
  Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2010 Architecture Edition, introduces new UML designers, use cases, activity diagrams, sequence diagrams that can visualize existing code, layering to enforce dependency rules, and physical designers to visualize, analyze, and refactor your software. See how VSTS extends UML logical views into physical views of your code. Learn how to create relationships from these views to work items and project metrics, how to extend these designers, and how to programmatically transform models into patterns for other domains and disciplines.
• Development Best Practices & How Microsoft Helps
  Sometimes development teams get too bogged down with the details. Take a deep breath, step back, and re-acquaint yourself with a review of current development best practice trends, including continuous integration, automation, and requirements analysis; and see how Microsoft tools map to those practices.
• "Bang for Your Buck" Getting the Most out of Team Foundation Server
  Today’s IT budgets are forcing teams to do as much as they can with as little as possible. Why not leverage Team Foundation Server to its full potential? In this session we’ll highlight some capabilities of TFS that you may or may not already know about to help you maximize productivity.

Register:
Please contact me for information on how to register if you’re a customer of mine.

Microsoft Exchange 2007 Deployment Workshop – Hands-on Lab

In most organizations today, email plays a key role in the day to day operations of the business. However, security and compliance, along with efficiency and access, are top concerns for IT professionals as they implement and deploy solutions.
Join us for this one-day hands-on lab to learn how to deploy and manage Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. This complimentary training will show how the benefits and new technology can help support and address real problems through these three pillars:

• Built-in Protection: Exchange Server 2007 offers built-in protective technologies to keep your business moving, reduce spam and viruses, enable confidential communications, and help your company to be compliant.
• Anywhere Access: With Exchange Server 2007, employees get anywhere access to their e-mail, voice mail, calendars, and contacts from a variety of clients and devices.
• Operational Efficiency: Exchange Server 2007 enables new levels of operational efficiency through capabilities that optimize hardware and networking investments and features that help make administrators more productive.

What is a hands-on-lab?
This isn’t your typical IT class. This hands-on lab is for experienced IT Pros who want to "try it out." You’ll spend most of the day getting hands-on practice and experience with the new product features and scenarios in your own lab environment with very little instructor presentation.

Dates:

• April 21, 2009 Irvine, CA (Microsoft Office)
  (8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.)
• April 30, 2009 Los Angeles, CA (Microsoft Office)
  (8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.)

Who Should Attend:
This course is for system administrators and engineers who work with the installation, configuration, and maintenance of a variety of server types and have two to three years of experience managing enterprise-level Microsoft Exchange Server environments.

Prerequisites:
To get the most from this course, you need to have two to three years experience with the technologies included in Microsoft Exchange environments.

Registration:
Please contact me for details on how to register if you are a customer of mine.

Workshop Agenda

The latest Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) was released on April 8, 2009. Volume 6 of the SIR provides an in-depth report on:

• Software vulnerabilities (both in Microsoft software and in third-party software).
• Software exploits.
• Security and privacy breaches.
• Malicious and potentially unwanted software trends.
• E-mail, spam, and phishing trends.

Volume 6 focuses on July – December of 2008. Here are some of the findings in the latest SIR, with guidance on how help combat threats and stay secure.

For more details and a video summary of the Security Intelligence Report (v6), visit:

– http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/sir.aspx
– Vinny and Tim show – SIR Volume 6

DOWNLOAD:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=aa6e0660-dc24-4930-affd-e33572ccb91f&displaylang=en

Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2008 is now available for download here and is primarily a roll-up of previous cumulative updates, quick fix engineering updates and minor fixes made in response to requests reported through the SQL Server community.

While there are no new features in this service pack, customers running SQL Server 2008 should download and install SP1 to take advantage of the fixes which increase supportability and stability of SQL Server 2008. With this service pack, Microsoft has made investments to ease deployment and make management of service packs more efficient. Key improvements in SP1 include Slipstream, Service Pack Uninstall and Report Builder 2.0 click-once deployment.

1. Slipstream allows administrators to install SQL Server 2008 and Service Pack 1 in a single instance. This decreases the total time for an installation, including a fewer number of reboots thereby increasing productivity and deployment availability.
2. Service Pack Uninstall allows administrators to uninstall the service pack separately from the database release.  This feature also improves DBA productivity, reduces the cost of deployment and improves overall supportability
3. Report Builder 2.0 Click Once improves the existing SQL Server end-user report authoring application by easing deployment to business users

DOWNLOAD:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=66ab3dbb-bf3e-4f46-9559-ccc6a4f9dc19

Wow.  A friend pointed me to this site earlier today:

CBS College Sports:  UCLA Athletics
http://all-access.cbssports.com/player.html?code=ucla&media=112623

Okay.  So what’s the big deal?  Well, the site is a little more than it seems.

First of all, the site provides daily access to video content – primarily interviews and news bits regarding college sports from football, to basketball, to volleyball, to golf, etc.  There are a lot of free videos available that people can view.  They can also access LIVE events such as radio broadcasts of games in real time.

FEATURING MICROSOFT SILVERLIGHT
But the really interesting thing is the site is not HTML driven.  Instead, it’s driven by Microsoft Silverlight, which is the reason the site is so visually appealing and smooth. 

More importantly, the video stream is a Windows Media video/audio clip (.ASF in this case) that appears to be delivered over HTTP from an IIS Media Server or a Windows Media Server.

In any case, check it out.  It’s a really good experience with great video quality and an elegant UI.

http://all-access.cbssports.com/player.html?code=ucla

(And for those of you rooting for the “other team”, you might want to check this out)