Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Elevate virtual environment security with the Hyper-V Security Guide!

The Hyper-V Security Guide is designed to provide your customers with guidance, instructions, and recommendations to help them further elevate the security of virtualized Windows Server® environments and address their business-critical needs.

Here’s your chance to help your customers efficiently manage the security of their virtualized environments. Get all the details about the guide by visiting the Hyper-V Security Guide page on TechNet.

The Hyper-V Security Guide provides the following information to address security concerns about server virtualization:

• Hardening the Hyper-V role. Prescriptive guidance for hardening the Hyper-V role, including several best practices for installing and configuring Hyper-V with a focus on security. These best practices include measures for reducing the attack surface of Hyper-V as well as recommendations for properly configuring secure virtual networks and storage devices.
• Delegating virtual machine management. Prescriptive guidance to help IT professionals safely and securely delegate administrative access to virtual machine resources using tools such as System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
• Protecting virtual machines. Prescriptive guidance for securing virtual machine resources, including best practices and detailed steps for protecting virtual machines by using a combination of file system permissions, encryption, and auditing.

This Solution Accelerator provides the following important benefits:

• Secure deployment. The recommendations in this guide will help securely deploy applications on the Microsoft virtualization platform with confidence.
• Comprehensive. This guide was written to address key security concerns around server virtualization.
• Thoroughly tested. All security recommendations have been fully tested in Microsoft labs.
• Free. The Hyper-V Security Guide is free on the Microsoft Download Center.

DOWNLOAD:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=140067

Windows Live for Windows Mobile v10.6.0046.0800 is now ‘live’ at http://wl.windowsmobile.com.  This version includes Messenger.  This update to our public release is solid and much improved over what is being used today.

DOWNLOAD:
http://wl.windowsmobile.com

Release Notes:
http://mobile.microsoft.com/live/En-US/mobile/release.mspx?wt.dl=1&sid=bb541ca1629268867560bcc1b2162c859f3d7561

FAQ:
http://mobile.microsoft.com/live/En-US/mobile/faq.mspx?wt.dl=1&sid=bb541ca1629268867560bcc1b2162c859f3d7561

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer is now a freely downloadable product.  Today, the Sharepoint Team Blog made the announcement on their blog.

DOWNLOAD: 
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA103607611033.aspx (143MB-296MB)

SHAREPOINT PRODUCT TEAM BLOG:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/04/02/sharepoint-designer-available-as-a-free-download.aspx

This has a number of ramifications:

1. Customers can now make relatively advanced design changes to Sharepoint sites regardless of whether they are Sharepoint Server based on Windows Sharepoint Services based.
2. Relatively complex workflows can be created without any cost to businesses providing human workflow to reduce error and quicken business process.
3. End users can make customizations to pages which could potentially result in support calls if they have the “Designer” right, which Site Owners do by default.

This blog entry from the SharePoint Designer team does a good job of laying out the options available for locking down the use of SharePoint Designer on an environment if that is something to be concerned about in your organization.

Locking Down Sharepoint Designer
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepointdesigner/archive/2008/11/25/locking-down-sharepoint-designer.aspx

To view the rights a group has on a site:

1. Browse the site
2. Site Actions menu | Site Settings
3. Under Users and Permissions, click People and Groups
4. In the Left Navigation, Click Site Permissions
5. You will get a list of groups and any users that have explicit permissions.  Clicking the name will get you the specific permissions the group has.

Cloud computing has huge implications for both developers and business people. This is your chance to get in on the ground floor and be part of the community that helps pioneer this exciting new area. Find out more and register today.

REGISTER:
https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=137135

DATE/TIME:
Tuesday, April 21, 2009, 5:05 PM – 7:00 PM
Welcome Time:5:00:00 PM Pacific Time

LOCATION:
Neudesic Offices
3420 Ocean Park Blvd Suite 3055
Santa Monica, CA 90405

Join Microsoft’s Client Technology Specialist and Pontis Research for a First Look Session and answer questions on compatibility and deployment. We will discuss how Windows 7 will help make users productive anywhere, enhance security and control, and streamline PC management.

Windows 7 for the Enterprise
Windows 7 is next version of the Windows client operating system and is on track to be available approximately 3 years after the release of Windows Vista. Windows 7 builds on the modern foundation of Windows Vista, and companies that deploy Windows Vista first will find that Windows 7 is highly compatible with their hardware, software, and tools.

This session will showcase some of the key investments in Windows 7 to help enterprise customers address the evolving needs of their end users and IT professionals:

• Make users productive anywhere
  Windows 7 enables users to complete their job no matter where they are-at home, in a branch office, or on the road-without reducing productivity.
• Enhance security and control
  Windows 7 builds on the security foundation of Windows Vista, and delivers increased flexibility in helping secure computers and data.
• Streamline PC management
  Whether IT professionals manage and deploy desktops, laptops, or virtual environments, Windows 7 makes the job easier while enabling them to leverage the same tools and skills they use with Windows Vista.

Location:
Microsoft – Irvine
3 Park Place
Suite 1600 Irvine California 92614

Register:
This is a corporate event only.  If you are an Enterprise customer of mine, please contact me for details on how to register.

For those of you who were available to see Lynn Langit’s presentation on SQL Server 2008 for Developers, here is a link to the Powerpoint presentation.http://cid-00da410c7f7e038d.skydrive.live.com/embedrowdetail.aspx/ProductMaterial/SQLServer2008/GOOD|_tech|_days09|_sweden|_SQLDEV.pptx

I am trying to get the recording for those that are interested.  Let me know if you want to have access to the LiveMeeting.

(Once again, I find myself making an exception to my general rule of not pointing to external blogs.)

A fellow named “Paul” runs a blog called “Slick IT” which has a post on there that is just spectacular.  Heck – I wish I wrote it.

• Internet Explorer: Why It Crashes And How To Fix It
  http://www.slickit.ca/2009/02/internet-explorer-why-it-crashes-and.html

He makes a ton of great points and points to a very important blog post on the IEBlog site.

Yeah… I’m just going to leave it at that.

Hands down… my favorite ad of ours.

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=0bb6a07c-c829-4562-8375-49e6693810c7

Building on years of experience and proven performance, Commerce Server 2009 is a comprehensive e-commerce foundation for business-to-consumer and business-to-business scenarios.

If you have been running earlier versions of Commerce Server, read on to learn more about the many new, exciting, out-of-the-box capabilities in Commerce Server 2009.

• Get your site up and running quickly with reduced time to market
  New Default Site and easy skinning features help get you into production fast, allowing you to focus on selling merchandise.

• Benefit from centralized, cross-channel management
  Whether your customers shop using a computer, a mobile phone, a gaming system, or other channels, Commerce Server 2009 introduces full, multi-channel support, allowing you to centrally manage your cross-channel strategy.

• Integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
  With more than 30 new Web parts and controls available, and integration with Windows Live Services, including Microsoft Virtual Earth, Commerce Server 2009 allows you to choose a range of new features and functions. The modular design allows you to quickly add or remove functionality without impacting the entire site.

• Take advantage of role-specific functionality
  Commerce Server 2009 integrates with Office SharePoint Server 2007 through Commerce Services—a benefit for merchandisers and marketers. It also provides improved design templates and commerce Web parts and tools for site designers, while offering a new Commerce Foundation for developers and IT professionals.

• Engage and interact with customers using enhanced Web 2.0 community features
  Use the contemporary, out-of-the-box Web site with built-in product reviews and ratings to interact with customers. Leverage the community functionality in Office SharePoint Server 2007 to further engage your customers through forums, blogs, and wikis.

• Personalize your e-commerce experience
  With easy, standards-based design, extensibility, and integration capabilities, Commerce Server 2009 provides the flexibility to create e-commerce solutions that best suit your business needs.

• Enhanced analytics
  Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, the reporting engine in Commerce Server, enables the creation, management, and delivery of both traditional, paper-oriented reports and interactive, Web-based reports displayed through Office SharePoint Server 2007. 

• High availability and performance
  Support for Windows Server 2008 and 64-bit gives access to higher performance servers and helps you support large, complex catalogs.

• Easy customization
  The new Commerce Foundation adds more out-of-the-box functionality and presents a new, unified working and extensibility model to allow for quicker customization and integration.

• End-to-end connectivity
  Microsoft BizTalk Server Adapters help solve the issues of communication with other line-of-business applications and trading partners, allowing for bidirectional synchronization and orchestration of order, catalog, inventory, and profile objects.

• Deeper ties with your legacy systems
  The new Commerce Foundation unifies the calling surface so you can easily add third-party, best-of-breed features, such as payment providers, fraud detection, address verification, tax services, and other services, into the unified calling model.

COMMERCE BLOG:
http://blogs.msdn.com/commerce/archive/2009/03/18/general-availability-announcement-of-microsoft-commerce-server-2009-at-mix09.aspx

LINK:  http://www.microsoft.com/commerceserver/en/us/overview.aspx