Kurt Shintaku's Blog

The new Beta of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center has been put up for people to visit and research.

It’s a web site focusing on malware that includes:

1. Published analyses of Active Threats (Trojabs, Worms, Viruses, Backdoors, etc.)
2. Access to the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report which gives perspective on software vulnerabilities and threats during the first & second half of the year
3. Downloads of the latest virus definitions and updates from Microsoft’s malware prevention products such as:
   1. Windows Defender (Anti-spyware)
   2. Windows Live OneCare
   3. Forefront Client Security
   4. Forefornt Server Security
   5. Microsoft DaRT
4. Online sample submissions of potential threats along with the ability to track a given submission through the eval process

LINK:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/beta/

BLOG:
http://blogs.technet.com/mmpc/

It has been officially announced that support for the VB6 runtime will be extended through the lifecycle of Windows 7. 

For more information you can check out the “Support Statement for Visual Basic 6.0 on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7” on MSDN at

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vbrun/ms788708.aspx.   

(NOTE:  This does not in any way change the fact that extended support for the VB6 development environment has been retired (http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=2971) and that support is now only available through a custom support agreement.)

A cumulative update for Outlook 2007 which covers performance and calendar improvements has been released. The Outlook February Cumulative Update contains a large set of the fixes that release as part of the 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 2 (SP2), a full description of the Outlook 2007 improvements in the cumulative updates is here:
LINK:  http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=968009

• DOWNLOAD:   Outlook 2007 hotfix package (Outlook.msp): February 24, 2009
  http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=961752.

After reviewing the article click the link at the top of the page, you will need to enter your email address, you will then receive an email with the download link and the password for extracting the update.

Please Note:  After you successfully install the update, the first time you run Outlook there will be a slight one-time delay as Outlook reprocesses your data files. After this initial process, performance will improve as described in this article.

More Information: There is an Outlook Team Blog and the link to the article for this fix is:
http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2009/02/25/announcing-the-february-cumulative-update-for-outlook-2007.aspx

Learn how MOSS 2007 with PerformancePoint Services supports a collaborative dashboarding environment while working in teams to utilize the Dashboard Designer to build out a scalable-interactive “Dashboard in a Day”.

By attending this FREE Hands-On Lab, you will:

• Use what you own:  Learn how your investment in Microsoft SharePoint now also gives you PerformancePoint Services for free.
• Learn how to build end-to-end dashboard and scorecards that are centrally defined and deployed for the organization to consume corporate data.
• Become familiar with how PerformancePoint Services can bring together the power of the Microsoft Business Intelligence stack to your corporate portal
• Leverage your experience and collaborate with your peers to build out an interactive corporate dashboard

Who Should Attend:
This is an hands-on lab provides both hands on learning lab and a team collaboration environment for business analysts, report authors, financial analysts, and financial controllers who are:

• possess a basic understanding of dashboarding and scorecarding
• are interested in creating scalable portals in a team environment
• are considering or planning to deploy KPI’s for scorecarding with contextual analytical reports for an interactive dashboard experience

Prerequisites:
To get the most from this course, you will need an understanding of reporting, dashboarding and scorecarding.

Date/Time:
Monday, March 16, 2009 9:00 AM – Monday, March 16, 2009 3:30 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)
Welcome Time: 8:30 AM

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

Registration: 
If you are interested in attending and are a customer of mine, please contact me for registration information – there is a password that is required.  Only registered individuals will be allowed into the lab:  NO WALK INS WILL BE ALLOWED.

The Windows Server® 2008 R2 operating system includes changes to Windows Server® 2008 features and technologies that help improve the security of computers running Windows Server 2008 R2, increase productivity, and reduce administrative overhead. The following topics describe some of these features and technologies.

• What’s New in Active Directory Certificate Services
• What’s New in Active Directory Domain Services
• What’s New in AppLocker
• What’s New in Biometrics
• What’s New in DNS
• What’s New in Failover Clusters
• What’s New in Group Policy
• What’s New in Hyper-V
• What’s New in Network Access Protection
• What’s New in Network Policy Server (NPS)
• What’s New in Networking
• What’s New in Server Manager
• What’s New in Service Accounts
• What’s New in Smart Cards
• What’s New in User Account Control
• What’s New in Windows PowerShell
• What’s New in Windows PowerShell Cmdlets for Roles and Features
• What’s New in Windows Search, Browse, and Organization

View the entire change list here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd391932.aspx

In August 2008, Microsoft Corporation commissioned Forrester Consulting to examine the total economic impact and potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises might realize by upgrading from SQL Server 2000 or 2005 to SQL Server 2008. SQL Server 2008 offers many features that improve the performance, administration, integration, security and availability of SQL Server databases. In addition, it increases the productivity of Database Administrators (DBA) and developers to better manage and exploit data stored in SQL databases. This study illustrates the financial impact of upgrading from a previous version of SQL Server to SQL Server 2008.

Conducting in-depth interviews with an existing SQL customer that upgraded to SQL Server 2008, Forrester found that the organization achieved benefits, some easily measured for this ROI study and others, equally as valuable, that could not be quantified. Specifically, the benefits fall into the following categories:

1. avoided adding SQL Server 2008 servers – license and hardware savings;
2. avoided adding storage;
3. eliminated third-party software;
4. avoided hiring additional IT employees;
5. increased user productivity – business and IT;
6. improved database performance and provided enhanced features;
7. improved data security; and
8. improved working experience

for the database administration team. Only the first five benefits were quantified as part of the ROI analysis. To fully understand the potential effect on their organizations, readers should consider all benefits, whether or not they could be quantified for this study.

This customer provided metrics to quantify components of the first five benefits listed above. For the interviewed customer, Forrester found that upgrading to Microsoft’s SQL Server 2008 delivered an anticipated ROI of between 162% and 181%.

The Forrester study is downloadable below.http://cid-00da410c7f7e038d.skydrive.live.com/embedrowdetail.aspx/ProductMaterial/SQLServer2008/Forrester-TotalEconomicImpactofdeployingSQLServer2008.pdf

Additionally, a quick summary of SQL Server 2008’s cost cutting capabilities are summarized in the .XPS document below.

http://cid-00da410c7f7e038d.skydrive.live.com/embedrowdetail.aspx/ProductMaterial/SQLServer2008/12WaystoCutCostswithSQLServer2008.xps

Please join us as we present some of the highlights of PDC! 

We will be reviewing some technologies first discussed at PDC — such as ASP.Net 4.0, jQuery integration, and C# 4.0.

But we will not only be talking about the future.  We will also discuss some recent releases that you can take advantage of now, including the current ASP.Net 4.0 codeplex releases.  

The sessions will be broken down as follows:

• Los Angeles
  Tuesday, March 24, 2009 2:00 PM – Tuesday, March 24, 2009 5:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)
  Microsoft – Los Angeles
  333 S. Grand Ave.
  Suite #3300 (33rd Floor) Los Angeles California 90071
  **Parking is available at Joe’s Auto Parks (Lots 220 and 240) located on the corner of Hope and Gen Thaddeus Kosciuszko Way (lot address: 220 S. Hope Los Angeles CA 90071); you will need to pay a parking fee of $12.00 (check or cash only) for the full day. Please note that Joe’s Auto Park is an unaffiliated, independent vendor and that Microsoft is in no way liable for any negligence or any damage that may be incurred by attendees who utilize this parking facility.
  
• Irvine
  Wednesday, March 25, 2009 2:00 PM – Wednesday, March 25, 2009 5:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)
  Microsoft – Orange County
  3 Park Plaza, Suite 1600
  Irvine California 92614
  **Parking is available in building garage. Cost is $1.50 per 15 minutes, with a daily maximum of $18.00.

Registration:
If you’re interested in attending and a customer of mine, please contact me for details on how to register.

Please join Microsoft & Quest Software for an informative event:  Managing System Updates in a Complex, Heterogeneous Environment. During this event, experts at Microsoft and Quest will show you innovative solutions for System Center that can help you easily manage your heterogeneous environment, increase efficiency, reduce costs, increase compliancy and mitigate risks.

Discover how Configuration Manager with QMX enables you to:

• Centralize visibility and control
• Track all of your IT assets
• Manage and report on your configurations
• Reduce redundant tools and scripts
• Meet compliance mandates

You will also have the opportunity to tour the Microsoft Technology Center and view the integrated Configuration Manager & QMX solution in the Envisioning Center lab.

• 8:30am-9:00am
  Registration & Breakfast
• 9:00am-9:30am
  Overview of Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007
• 9:30am-10:00am
  Overview of Quest’s System Center Solutions
• 10:00am-12:00pm
  Deep dive into QMX for Configuration Manager
• 12:00pm-12:45pm
  Lunch
• 12:45pm-3:00pm
  MTC tour and Envisioning Center Demo

Registration:

• Thursday, March 19, 2009 9am – 3pm Irvine Microsoft Technology Center
  http://www.quest.com/common/registration.aspx?requestdefid=22667
• Tuesday, March 10, 2009 9am – 3pm Dallas Microsoft Technology Center
  http://www.quest.com/common/registration.aspx?requestdefid=22665

The BizTalk Adapter Packs is a set of modules that provide message passing & various other levels of integration with SAP, Siebel, OracleDB, OracleEBS and SQL WCF Bindings.  These adapters can be used with BizTalk Server 2006 R2 and R3.

(taken from the Biztalk blog)

We are pleased to announce the release of the Adapter Pack 2.0 Beta.As this is a public beta, customers can also download a 120 day evaluation version here .The features we added are listed below in brief . In addition, we are shipping a free to use migration tool which will help users migrate their projects which used older adapters to the Adapter Pack adapters (details below)

Oracle EBS

• 64 bit support
• Synonyms
• Added performance counters
• Notification support

OracleDB

• 64 bit support
• Synonyms
• UDTs
• Notifications
• Polling stored procedures
• Performance counters

Adapter SDK

• Display complex binding properties 
• Display metadata wsdl in web control

SAP data provider

• Support for more operators in Sap Queries
• SAP SSRS support in VS2008

Samples

• New Samples for SQL and Oracle eBiz Adapters

The BizTalk Adapter Pack Migration Tool  is a utility that helps developers migrate BizTalk projects using the  BizTalk 2006 SQL or the BizTalk Adapter v2.0 for mySAP Business Suite to their corresponding WCF-based versions from BizTalk Adapter Pack v2!

With the help of this utility you will be able to compile and deploy your application within minutes. Some of the highlights for the Migration Tool are:

• Works on the source project files
• Generates equivalent schema definitions for the operations used in the existing project
• Generates new maps to convert messages from older formats to the new format
• Modifies any existing maps to work with the new schemas
• A new project is created upon completion, which uses the SQL and/or SAP adapters from the BizTalk Adapter Pack v2

The tool works for most common scenarios of maps and orchestrations, however it is only meant to be a starting step towards migration to BAP and we are open to receiving feedback to add scenarios.

DOWNLOAD:
http://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/Downloads.aspx?SiteID=218