Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Microsoft is pleased to announce the 5th annual Microsoft Project Conference being held September 14-17, 2009 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, AZ. Join us to celebrate the successes of Microsoft Project and to see what’s coming, as we exclusively unveil the powerful capabilities included in the next release. At this year’s conference, you will learn how Project is helping customers today to save money, enhance efficiency and drive growth, as well as obtain unique insights into how the next release will continue to support your business tomorrow.

Project Conference 2009 is the global event to attend. It’s sure to be one of the most exciting and valuable Project Conferences yet with high-impact keynotes, 75+ in-depth breakout sessions, hands on labs, demonstrations and many opportunities to connect and collaborate with your peers, industry practitioners, certified partners and the Microsoft Project team. In the current economic climate, it’s vital to keep both your individual skills and organizational capabilities moving forward – don’t miss the opportunity!

• Monday, September 14
  6:00pm – 9:00pm: Opening Welcome Reception
• Tuesday, September 15
  9:00am – 5:00pm: Keynote Sessions and Breakout Sessions
  6:00pm – 9:00pm: Evening Rodeo Dinner at Corona Ranch
• Wednesday, September 16
  9:00am – 5:00pm: Keynote Sessions and Breakout Sessions
• Thursday, September 17
  9:00am – 2:00pm: Keynote Sessions and Breakout Sessions

LINK: 
http://msprojectconference.com/

For those of you with Samsung i760s on Verizon Wireless:
(This technically will work with many different phones but may require a different Service Code depending on the model)

———————

HOW TO CHANGE THE CODEC USED TO TRANSMIT & RECEIVE YOUR VOICE:

By default the codec used is Enhanced Variable Rate CODEC (EVRC). I believe the bandwidth on EVRC is 8kbs. By switching to the 13kbs Vocoder, call quality is theoretically better.
As taken from “Wirelessadvisor”:

The 13kbps Vocoder catches more of the nuances of a person’s speech and generally sounds a good bit better, but when there are errors in the bit stream it makes people sound robotic. The 8kbps EVRC codec is more efficient, but loses a lot of the nuances of speech. It is better at handling bit errors so it doesn’t make people sound so robotic or create the drastic shifts in tone that the 13kbps one does, but it does introduce the digital hiss that you hear in the background (it sounds like running water digitized at a very low bit rate) and when things get bad it drops frames (rather than creating such a dramatic shift in the speakers tone).

That being said, it appears that EVRC handles/keeps calls better in low-signal areas.

In case you wanted to change to the 13k Vocoder:

1. Dial **772
2. Enter the Service Code 000000 (six 0’s) and tap OK
3. Push the directional pad down until you see a screen that says:

SVC Mode NAM1
End of BASIC NAM
EXIT

4. Push the directional pad right so that "Exit" becomes "More"
5. Press the action button (middle of directional pad) to enter the additional settings menu.
6. Press down 1 time to get to the screen that says:

SVC Mode NAM1
Orig. SVC OPT
EVRC

7. The default is set to EVRC. To change to 13k Vocoder press right on the d-pad once.
8. Then press the action button once to save the change.
9. Finally, press the left soft key "Exit" to exit the service menu.

Securing Sensitive Data in an Insecure Economy
Thursday, March 12, 2009 11:00AM–2:00PM, Manhattan Beach, CA

If you are charged with safeguarding sensitive information, please join RSA and Microsoft to discuss technologies and best practices that enable companies to discover, protect and securely share sensitive information.

Learn how RSA® Data Loss Prevention Suite (DLP) and Microsoft’s Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) can help you protect sensitive data while minimizing the resources required to implement, manage, and maintain the system. Accelerate your business with the knowledge that your information remains an asset and never becomes a liability.

Seminar topics for discussion will include:

• Microsoft’s DLP Partnership with RSA
• DLP 101—Challenges, Strategies, and Solutions
• Building Your DLP Implementation Plan Around Best Practices
• Securing Data in SharePoint

Date/Time:
March 12, 2009
11 AM – 2 PM
(Lunch will be served)

Location:
Manhattan Beach, CA

Registration:
Please contact me, if you are a customer of mine, for registration information to this seminar.

Discover the best Optimized Desktop Delivery Solutions!
Attend a half-day seminar hosted by Microsoft, Citrix and HP.

In today’s economy, IT budgets are leaner, and adopting a green VDI solution is a great way to choose the client computing scenarios that best meet the unique needs of your business, while making a positive impact on the environment. That’s why Citrix^® and Microsoft^® have joined forces to offer one of the best Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions for companies looking to take desktop management to the next level.

Are you interested in significantly increasing security, simplifying management, lowering cost of ownership – and reaping the green benefits of lower power and cooling, flexible work scenarios, and extended desktop life cycles?

Join us to hear more about the joint solution that virtualizes Windows^® desktops and applications in the datacenter and delivers them as a service, while consolidating servers and reducing energy requirements. This solution runs Citrix XenDesktop™ with Windows Server^® 2008
Hyper-V™, Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, and Microsoft Systems Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) on HP’s Thin Clients, Blade PCs and Servers.

Can you afford not to attend?

• Increase data security and address regulatory compliance requirements
• Energy-saving & flexible desktop configurations
• Best possible desktop & application performance in a VDI scenario
• Easily manage physical & virtual environments through world-class infrastructure management solutions
• Dynamic provisioning delivers desktops & applications on demand

Register Now!   Seating is limited.

Agenda

• 08:30 a.m – 09:00 a.m    Registration
• 09:00 a.m – 09:40 a.m    Virtualization 360 – From the Desktop to the Datacenter (Microsoft)
• 09:40 a.m – 10:20 a.m    Introduction to Microsoft Optimized Desktop and Virtualized Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (Microsoft)
• 10:20 a.m – 10:35 a.m    Break
• 10:35 a.m – 11:30 a.m    Citrix Dynamic Desktop Delivery, Much More than VDI (XenDesktop) (Citrix)
• 11:30 a.m – 12:10 p.m    Complete the Client Virtualization Solution with HP’s Innovative Hardware & Services (Thin Clients Blade PCs & Servers, and Services)(HP)
• 12:10 p.m – 12:30 p.m    Q&A, Evaluations & Drawing

Attendees Receive

• Entry to win a Powermonkey eXplorer solar-powered mobile charger
• Cool organic cotton Lean & Green t-shirt & tote bag
• 90-day XenDesktop evaluation license

Dates:

• Los Angeles – Wednesday, March 18^th
• Phoenix – Tuesday, March 24^th

Registration:
Please contact me for registration information if you are a customer of mine.

In Windows Server 2008 R2 (“R2”) we are introducing PowerShell as the new scripting language for clustering technologies. 

PowerShell with Network Load Balancing (NLB) will replace NLB.exe and WLBS.exe.  The Windows Server 2008 R2 release is the last release for NLB.exe and WLBS.exe.  This means it will still be available for use so it doesn’t break legacy scripts, but no improvements have been made so NLB.exe and WLBS.exe will be completely removed in the next release of Windows Server.  Do not worry – you will love PowerShell with its numerous benefits over standard command line interfaces, including easily customizable scripts and the dynamic use of variables. 

In Windows Server 2008 R2, PowerShell can also be run on Server Core machines.  Using PowerShell on a Core NLB cluster, you can directly create and manage your NLB cluster, without needing to manage the Core node through a UI-based remote machine.

How do I get R2 Beta?
The Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta build will be available shortly for deployment and testing.  There are numerous ways to get the Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta build which includes Network Load Balancing.  If you work for an organization which partners with Microsoft, try contacting your Technology Account Manager (TAM) to see if they can provide you with access.  If your organization is enrolled in the Technology Adoption Program (TAP) you may also have access through this channel.  Others may enroll in the Microsoft Connect program (http://connect.microsoft.com/) to receive access to major builds.

——
For more information:
http://blogs.msdn.com/clustering/archive/2008/12/26/9253786.aspx

Yeah.  You read that right.   Nine of out 10 critical bugs reported by Microsoft last year could have been made moot, or at least made less dangerous, if people ran Windows without administrative rights.

And yet, people insist that “we can’t lock down your desktops because your end users would never stand for it.”

<taken from the article below>

The vast majority of critical Microsoft vulnerabilities — 92% of them — could have been mitigated by stripping users of administrative rights, said John Moyer, the CEO of BeyondTrust. "This speaks to what enterprises should be doing," Moyer said. "Clearly, eliminating administrative rights can close the window of opportunity of attack."

Of the 154 bugs published and patched by Microsoft in 2008, critical or not, 69% would have been blocked or their impact reduced by configuring users to run without administrative rights, said the company.

When BeyondTrust looked at the vulnerabilities patched for Microsoft’s browser, Internet Explorer (IE), and its application suite, Office, it found that 89% of the former and 94% of the latter could have been stymied by denying users administrative privileges.

"We were surprised to see how large the number was," said Scott McCarley, the company’s director of marketing. "It really drives home how critical a role [rights] play."

Need help with certain applications that “have to have admin rights to execute”?  Look to BeyondTrust’s Privilege Manager which allows locking down the workstation while still providing the appropriate privileges to select applications. 

Begin planning to eliminate end user Administrative rights:  It’s not an impossibility, folks.

ARTICLE:  http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/
article/275445/removing_admin_rights_stymies_92_microsoft_bugs?fp=2&fpid=1

A long time ago, I wrote about the effects of email on the human intellect.  For those that never saw that post, in 2005, a study was commissioned by Hewlett Packard in Cambridge that concluded that email usage on a daily basis over a year’s span can retard one’s intellect as badly as frequent marijuana usage. 

The effect is staggering:  The average worker that attempts to handle incoming email, phone calls, text messages, and instant messages has his or her IQ drop by 10 points, greater than the 4 points that someone loses by smoking cannibis. (http://kurtsh.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!DA410C7F7E038D!753.entry)

Well, not much has changed since then.  People are still constantly checking mail and worse yet, the emergence of desktop instant messaging, SMS text messaging, and mobile phones with the power of computers has scattered people’s attention even worse than before.

MORE EVIDENCE OF THE KEYS TO PEAK PRODUCTIVITY
An interesting paper was written for the IEEE publication that goes deeper into this topic.  Productivity is under attack by the constant stream of interruptions that people have in today’s world.  While this paper is written with a focus on the computer programmer it’s recommendations can ultimately can be applied to any profession.

Several suggestions are made on how to reduce the number of interruptions that one has:

• Disseminate information. Generate your own FAQ document, and get others to use it. I created an HTML page titled "README_if_SBJ_is_ Away" and placed it on an internal Web server. Given my use of the other techniques I’ve described, people tend to go to that page even when I’m not away.
• Educate your coworkers. Be sure to let people know not only how harmful interruptions are, but also which times are the best and worst for you to be disturbed.
• Communicate using e-mail. Rather than using the telephone or talking face to face, encourage people to contact you via e-mail. This lets you choose the best time to read and respond. E-mail also tends to be more succinct and less prone to vague, rambling interactions. Further, the extra work required to write an e-mail will filter out many interruptions; people will opt to read the manual or search the Web instead.
• Isolate yourself physically. If your office has a door, close it. If you’re not allowed to close it, use a signal of some kind—a sign or a hat over the doorknob—to let people know that they’re not welcome. Door-deprived cubicle occupants still have options such as moving partitions around or changing their orientation relative to the cube opening, especially if doing so reduces the number of passers-by that decide to drop in.
• Isolate yourself electronically. Get Caller ID and voice mail and use them. Resist the urge to pick up the telephone merely because it’s ringing. Disable e-mail notifiers. Wear headphones—even if you don’t listen to music. Force people to work hard to interrupt you.
• Deviate from normal work hours. Modifying your hours will let you do the things most sensitive to interruptions when others are not around. I suspect this is one reason so many programmers prefer to work odd hours. While the stereotype is to come in late—at the crack of noon—and leave very late, I personally prefer to arrive at the office early: typically 6:00 a.m.
• Remonstrate against interruptions. Practice forming a nasty scowl and use it whenever anyone comes into your workspace. Cultivate a reputation as a curmudgeon. If being nasty isn’t in keeping with your character, try a pained, exasperated look accompanied by a heavy sigh. Or, try rolling your eyes toward the heavens while muttering to emphasize your exasperation. If you’re interrupted to deal with something that is in your FAQ, be sure to let the person know, in some unsubtle manner, that you have been bothered needlessly.

This list is taken from an abridged version of the original paper.  The abridged version is available here:
http://www.computer.org/portal/site/computer/menuitem.5d61c1d591162e4b0ef1bd108bcd45f3/index.jsp?&pName=computer_level1_article&TheCat=1015&path=computer/homepage/1106&file=profession.xml&xsl=article.xsl&

If you are interested in the complete article:

• DOWNLOAD:  “Concerning Interruptions”, IEEE 2006 Unabridged Article
  http://www.erudil.com/pdf/ieee2006-unabridged.pdf 

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/