Kurt Shintaku's Blog

“I have found Windows 7 a pleasure to use…”
– Walter S. Mossberg, Wall Street Journal

LINK:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258632983004629.html

Although he focuses on how much it improves over Vista, Mossberg gives a solid review of Windows 7, amongst which he states “It’s … a serious competitor, in features and ease of use, to Apple’s current Leopard operating system.” The features receiving the greatest focus include:

• Multitouch Screen Navigation: “[This] may eventually redefine how people user computers…. It is smart enough to distinguish between various gestures and combinations of fingers.”
• More customizable and useful taskbar: “[Icons which]… can be “pinned” anywhere… [and] “jump lists”….”
• Compatibility: “[A] wide variety of hardware… all worked fine.” “I.. successfully installed and used popular programs from … rivals…. All worked properly.”
• Cutting nag dialogs: “[Notifications] are consolidated in a single icon [on] the taskbar.”

Among the downsides he points out includes the “unbundling” of what now exists as Live Services from the OS install. He felt having to download Windows Live services serves to remove out-of-the-box functionality from Windows.

I am pleased to announce that we have released Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) in 25 languages for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server. 

I encourage you to install it and use it on your non-Windows 7* machines at home and at work.

There is no question that IE 8 is the best browser.    More than 80% faster than IE7 in common micro-benchmarks and designed for the way people really use the web, IE8 is:

• Faster for accomplishing tasks, from mapping a location to checking the status of an auction.  In side-by-side measures of speed, IE8 was as fast or faster than Firefox in opening top websites more than 50% of the time.  The rest of the time you need an ultra-slow motion video camera to catch the difference between IE8, Firefox and Google Chrome.
  
• Easier to find information, to navigate, to search, to work with tabs.  Accelerators and Web Slices blur the lines between the online services that make each person’s browsing unique and the browser itself, making the IE8 experience richer.
  
• Safer and more reliable with advanced privacy protection that no other browser can match.

Now is the time for you to start running IE8 at home and at work.  Get IE8 RC1 at http://www.microsoft.com/ie8.

Here’s a quick summary of the technology I saw as I wandered the show floor on Day 3 – last day,

• Altec Lansing/Plantronics
  • DISCOVERY 925 – New headset
    • Multipairing
    • New fashionable design with as little plastic as possible
    • Comes with carrying case for recharging
    • 4 different colors
• AstoundStereo
  • 3D SOUND SIMULATION
    • Software-based 3D environment generations – provides depth to music
    • Windows Media only… will be virtual driver based later this year
    • 20% off – show special.  astoundstereo.com.  Use code ASE-E3N7-CES until 2/5/09
• ThermalTake
  • TAI-CHI S – Fanless cooling for silence
• Novint
  • FALCON – gun simulator
    • Simulates gun motions
    • Provide force feedback for shots
    • USB connected
    • Works with Left4Dead
    • To work with WoW soon
    • $199
• Nero
  • LIQUID TV – “TiVo” for your PC
    • Actually uses the TiVO brand, TiVO menuing, and the TiVo encoding format – licensed
    • $200 – comes with a TiVo controller
    • USB to coax connectivity, HD antenna, 1 year subscription to TiVo service
    • Allows burning to disk!
    • Can pull content from other TiVos in the house!
  • SHOW special… 30% off Nero 9, Nero MoveIT, Nero LiquidTV. Nero.com. Use coupon code: AT-CES-PMGV. Ends Jan 31.
• Shuttle
  • X50
    • has dual core Atom. Only one on market. $300
  • H7 5800
    • Only shipping Core i7 PC. Up to 16GB ram expandable. Chassis is $540.
• Nvidia
  • GEFORCE 3D VISION
    • Glasses. $199.
    • TV needs to be DLP 3D ready TV.
    • PC only.
    • Released at show. Best of CES 2009 finalist.
• Garmin, Blackberry/RIM, Real, Lexar, Daneelec, IBM
  • NOTHING
• Zoombak
  • 3 MODELS
    • Pets, People, Cars
    • Pet model has 3-5 day charge
    • Car model will also use triangulation with T-Mobile cell towers
    • $199 with $50 rebate off of Zoombak.com until Jan 31st

When:
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
8:30AM-12:45PM

Where: Microsoft Irvine
3 Park Plaza, Suite 1600
Irvine, CA 92614

Content:  Microsoft Defense in Depth:  Today and Tomorrow
Come see how Microsoft can help you secure and manage your complex infrastructures. We will discuss the latest security threats that you are facing along with compliance and regulatory challenges and how to deal with them. This session will go through the different layers of protection from the client operating system to the network edge. We will also review the roadmap for the future and how Microsoft is improving upon the security landscape.

Agenda:

• 8:30 – 8:45 am Coffee and pastry welcome
• 8:45-9:00am Kickoff, lead by Jim Roemer & Dan Takahashi
• 9:00 – 10:30am Microsoft Security strategy overview session, lead by Sean Lewis
  • Threats, challenges, current landscape.
  • MSIT security strategy
  • Windows Vista/Server 2008 security
  • Network Access Protection
• 10:30 – 10:45 Break
• 10:45 – 12:15 Forefront today and tomorrow, ‘Stirling’ overview, and roadmap session
  • Forefront overview
  • Integrated edge (IAG/ISA)
  • Forefront Server Security
  • Forefront Client Security
  • Information Rights Management   
  • Identity and Access management
  • Defense in Depth the complete picture
• 12:15 – 12:45 Q&A and Interactive Discussion over Lunch

About Sean Lewis:
Sean is presently serving as Security Advisor for Microsoft’s Southwest District.  Sean has held a number of technical leadership positions in global organizations, including as Security Architect for Microsoft Consulting Services’ Security Center of Excellence and Lead Consultant for the Southwestern United States in Verisign’s Global Security Consulting practice.  Sean has more than 6 years of experience in the Information Security industry geographically oriented in Southern California, previously holding positions such as Information Security Manager for a large healthcare provider (Sharp Healthcare) and Principal Network Architect for a large B2B/B2G clearinghouse. 

Registration:
If you are interested in attending and are a customer of mine, please contact me for registration details.

Project 2007 Hands-On Training with UMT Consulting
on February 3rd, 2009 in Los Angeles

Join us for this one-day hands-on training which will highlight Microsoft Project best practices. This event will cover several useful tips for improving your productivity with Microsoft Project including:

• How to Reduce project schedule maintenance time by:
  • Defining calendars
  • Setting project options
  • Defining resources
  • Defining the project summary task
• Constraint Types – What are they and how to use them:
  • Properly setting constraint types
  • Deadlines vs Constraints
  • Improving CPM analysis by accurately identifying dependencies
• Best Practices
  • Views: selecting views and splits
  • Filtering and grouping
  • Auto indent/hiding the view bar
  • % Complete vs % Work complete (Actual Duration/Duration or Actual Work/Work)
  • Methods for analyzing over allocations
• And more!

Location:  Microsoft – Los Angeles
333 S Grand Ave
Suite 3300
Los Angeles CA 90071

Date:  February 3, 2009

Time:  9:00am – 12:30pm

Cost:  *Free!*

Course Highlights

• Hands-on training
• Tips on improving your project schedule
• Learn how to use constraints in Microsoft Project
• Hear about best practices from the instructor and your peers

Who Should Attend: This course is for Project Managers, Project Coordinators, or Project Task Owners who would benefit from learning how to better utilize Microsoft Project.

Prerequisites: To gain the most from this event, attendees should have a working knowledge of basic Project Management practices and terminology. Attendees should also have some experience working in Microsoft Project.

Registration: If you’re a customer of mine and you’re interested in registering, please contact me for details.  Note: This special, no charge training event will fill quickly and space is limited, so be sure to register as soon as possible to reserve your seat.

Sincerely,
UMT Consulting Group

 Learn Time Saving Tips and Tricks for Project 2007

The Microsoft Project instructor will share best practices and give you advice for getting the most out of using Microsoft Project 2007. The presenter will cover time saving techniques on topics such as:

• Taking advantage of the new features in Project 2007
• Creating an effective Work Breakdown Structure
• Improving communication with customized views
• Resource planning and tracking
• And more!

Learn How to Improve Collaboration with Project 2007 and SharePoint Integration

By combining Microsoft Office Project 2007 with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, project managers and anyone else responsible for managing a team, can effectively schedule work, assign tasks, and communicate team responsibilities. Microsoft partner, EPM Live, will show how you can take advantage of these two familiar and widely used Microsoft Office applications as a powerful Enterprise Project and Work Management solution to improve your organization’s project collaboration.

We look forward to welcoming you to Microsoft Irvine!

—————-

Earn 3.5 PDUs for Attending!  Attend and you can win cool prizes like:

• Project Professional 2007
• Gift certificate to a local restaurant

————–

Date/Time:  March 19, 2009

• 8:00am – 8:30 Check in/Breakfast
• 8:30 – 10:00am Project 2007 Tips and Tricks
• 10:00am – 10:15  Q&A
• 10:15 – 10:30am  Break
• 10:30 – 12:00pm  Improving Project Collaboration with Project 2007 and SharePoint Integration

Location:  Microsoft Irvine
3 Park Plaza
16^th Floor
Irvine, CA 92614

Registration:
If you are a customer of mine, contact me and I will get you registration details.  Registration is restricted to Enterprise Managed customers.

Free copy of automatic network mapping plug-in for Microsoft Visio 2007 for all Visio 2007 customers. Plug-in retails for $499, but is free until March 31, 2009.

LANsurveyor Express for Microsoft® Visio® is a powerful Visio 2007 plug-in that makes it easy to get comprehensive network maps in just minutes! Accessible via the Visio toolbar,

LANsurveyor Express automatically discovers your network and produces topology maps in Visio format. Plus, LANsurveyor Express uses Visio SmartShapes® to represent your network devices and populates each node’s custom properties with the node’s IP address, network name, and fully-qualified domain name

DOWNLOAD:  LANsurveyor Express (6.98MB)
http://www.solarwinds.com/register/registrationform.aspx?Program=583&c=70150000000E50d&CMP=LEC-PT-MS-LSE-VTB-Q408

(as taken from the Microsoft Incentives site)

Announcement:
Microsoft is announcing an update to its Microsoft Business Intelligence roadmap. Microsoft’s strategy is to deliver BI to everyone in the organization through the broadly adopted tools of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office Excel, and built on the scalable Microsoft SQL Server BI platform.

Based on customer feedback, we are moving the scorecard, dashboard, and analytic functionality from Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server into Office SharePoint Server Enterprise, making these capabilities available throughout the organization at a lower TCO.

In mid 2009, we will release PerformancePoint Server 2007 “service pack 3” which will include updates to the current product’s planning module. Thereafter, customers should not expect further investment in standalone versions of PerformancePoint Server. However, ongoing support of our planning customers is a high priority. These changes enable customers to deploy a complete BI solution with existing investments in SharePoint Server, SQL Server, and Excel, the most widely used analysis and planning tool in market today.

Q&A:

1. What will happen to PerformancePoint Server?
   PerformancePoint Server 2007 will no longer be a standalone item on the Microsoft price list as of April 1, 2009. For organizations interested in PerformancePoint Server, it can be obtained by purchasing SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise CAL with Software Assurance. In the future, the monitoring and analytics capabilities will be included in the next release of SharePoint Server and will be available to SharePoint Enterprise CAL customers. Customers with rights to PerformancePoint Server SP3 will be able to download it mid 2009 (please contact your account manager for details). Performance management is a critical component of business intelligence and Microsoft will continue marketing and R&D investment in this area in future product releases.
2. What about from now until SharePoint ‘v-next’?
   How will I obtain the current PerformancePoint monitoring and analytics functionality for broad BI deployment?
   From the date of this announcement, PerformancePoint Server will be a license entitlement for SharePoint Server 2007 E-CAL customers with Software Assurance only. The technical requirement to use PerformancePoint planning will continue to be SQL Server Enterprise Edition. Customers will be able to use BI throughout their entire organizations simply by deploying SQL Server, SharePoint Server, and Excel.
3. What about support for existing PerformancePoint Server planning customers?
   Customer care is our primary focus during this transition. We will keep our commitments to deliver improved planning capabilities in PerformancePoint Server 2007 SP3 in mid 2009 that addresses many of the features and functionality required by our customers to leverage in their planning projects. We will continue to support all PerformancePoint customers per our existing support policy. For further details on this policy visit: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=12922.
4. What about legacy products such as ProClarity and Business Scorecard Manager?
   ProClarity Analytics Server is part of PerformancePoint Server 2007. ProClarity Desktop Pro is a separate product and is not connected with PerformancePoint licenses, with or without SA. Business Scorecard Manager (BSM) is a downgrade right of PerformancePoint Server 2007. The core ProClarity capabilities that made that product successful will migrate to SharePoint and Excel over the coming releases. As for Business Scorecard Manager and ProClarity Desktop Pro, we don’t anticipate any further customer demand for this.
5. Will customers still be able to purchase PerformancePoint Server if they require more licenses for an existing deployment?
   No, not as a standalone product. If customers require additional PerformancePoint Server 2007 CALs, they should purchase SharePoint Server 2007 E-CALs with Software Assurance to be entitled to PerformancePoint Server 2007 CALs.
6. If I have additional questions, who do I contact?
   If you have additional questions, please first work with your Microsoft account team. If you have additional questions following that, you can contact PerformancePoint Server Roadmap Announce team pps_an@microsoft.com.

The compliance team would like to invite you to a Live Meeting where you can share your ideas on compliance. If this interests you please read on.

‘Reduce the cost and effort of configuring and validating Microsoft products to address customer IT GRC requirements.’ – Project Tribeca Team

Does your IT team struggle to cope with the ever-changing demands of domestic and international governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) requirements? Microsoft is working to provide product configuration guidance to help IT professionals achieve compliance with hundreds of GRC authority documents, including SOX, PCI, HIPAA, GLBA, and EUDPD.

Join the Microsoft Project Tribeca team in weekly discussions to help shape content, GRC authority document alignment, and technology configuration guidance that directly affects your organization.

Topics

• GRC Authority Document Scope: U.S., European Union (EU), International
• GRC Control Objectives, Activities, and Tests

Open Questions

• What GRC authority documents affect your organization?
• How does your IT department manage change/configuration for GRC requirements?
• How does your IT department associate required change and configuration management with GRC objectives?
• What types of GRC guidance and tools do you expect or desire from Microsoft?
• Has your organization used the IT Compliance Management Guide?

Meeting Dates

Attend any single or multiple Connect meetings.

In addition, three lucky qualified attendee will Win a copies of Windows Vista Business Edition!!!!

• 1/28/09 8 AM PT – What GRC Authority Documents impact your organization?
• 2/04/09 8 AM PT – How does your IT department manage change/configuration for GRC requirements.

Please join us by signing up for the IT governance and Compliance program in Microsoft Connect. Click here to join the program.

After you have joined the program, bookmark the following link to return to the program site and get the latest information about upcoming events:

• https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=657

(Taken from http://blogs.technet.com/regcomp/archive/2009/01/21/opportunity-to-participate-in-a-live-meeting.aspx)

The beta 3 release of Forefront Security for Office Communications Server (FSOCS) is now publicly available for download.  FSOCS provides fast and effective protection against malware and out-of-policy content in IM conversations and attachments for Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS) environments. This new release includes:

• Support for OCS 2007 R2
• Support for OCS 2007 Enterprise Edition server roles
• Integration with OCS 2007 Access Edge role to add protection from external public IM threats

Like other Forefront server security products, FSOCS uses multiple engine scanning to provide superior detection of latest threats over single engine solutions. The FSOCS Beta 3 is shipping with 5 antimalware engines from Microsoft & industry-leading security partners. The Beta 3 will include engines from Microsoft, CA, Kaspersky, Norman and VirusBuster.

DOWNLOAD:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/cc509001.aspx