Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Holy cow.  This suite of tools will undoubtedly be invaluable to those not familiar with them.  Some of these tools have historically be available in one form or another since Softgrid 4.0 (since renamed to App-V) however they’re now supported and available for download freely off of Microsoft.com for v4.5.

• Cache resizing tool
• SFT parsing tool
• Client Log Parser Utility
• Application Listing Tool
• Dynamic Suite Composition Tool

For a more through overview of each of these tools, click on the above.  They will direct you to the Softgrid blog’s respective post on each tool.

LINK:  App-V Resource Kit Announcement
http://blogs.technet.com/softgrid/archive/2008/11/03/application-virtualization-4-5-resource-kit-tools-now-available.aspx

PerformancePoint 2007 Hands-on Lab
Tuesday December 2, 2008

Introduction:
Learn how PerformancePoint Server supports a complete performance management cycle including monitoring organizational data, analyzing and understanding corporate performance and planning and reporting future and current performance. 

Agenda:

• End-to-end dashboarding and Scorecarding with PerformancePoint
• Including Excel data as a source in dashboards and scorecards
• Using data in SharePoint Lists in PerformancePoint Dashboards
• PerformancePoint Server 2007: Monthly Reporting
• Designing a business model: Budget
• Designing a business model: Revenue Forecasting

Who Should Attend:
These hands-on labs provide a “try it out” opportunity for Database Administrators, Report authors, financial analysts and financial controllers who are familiar with Microsoft Office Excel, possess a basic understanding of dashboarding and scorecarding, financial reporting, planning, budgeting and are considering or planning to deploy a performance management solution.

Prerequisites:
To get the most from this course, you will need a basic understanding of reporting, dashboarding and Microsoft Office Excel.

Date/Time/Location:
Tuesday December 2, 2008
9:00am – 5:00pm

Los Angeles, CA
333 South Grand Ave, Suite 3300
Los Angeles, CA 90071
Phone: (213) 806-7300

RSVP:
Pre-registration is required for this exclusive Hands On Lab.  Space is limited.  Attendees not registered will not be permitted entrance.  If you are a customer of mine and are interested in participating, please contact me directly for registration information.

The 2009 Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference features three days dedicated to you and your needs by delivering a mix of content that will enable you to build solutions now that will impact your business, while concurrently laying a foundation for the future as your business needs change.

You will hear from people just like you who are achieving tangible ROI today by building a SOA & BPM solutions on Microsoft technologies and those of Microsoft’s partners.  Deep technical discussions will illuminate Microsoft’s and partners’ current offerings and the roadmap for the future so that you can be sure of your long-term investment. 

Content to Meet Your Needs!
The 2009 Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference is the event for customers to receive detailed guidance on Service Oriented Architecture and Business Process Management. SOA & BPM span the enterprise, from developers building new services; to architects recommending IT standards; to business analysts designing processes; to business owners using IT to compete effectively and move their business forward.  The conference is designed to cover the relevant areas of concern to you.  

Conference Highlights:

• Keynotes delivered by Microsoft Executives
• Breakout and Chalk Talk Sessions, Case-Studies & Roundtables from partners and SOA customers
• Networking Reception on Tuesday, January 27 with Partners and Customers
• Partner Expo

There will be two content tracks:

1. Track 1: SOA & BPM Best Practices
   The SOA & BPM Best Practices track will highlight case studies including technical architecture and business results attained through applying SOA to create business solutions.  Sessions will target lessons learned and best practices to deliver SOA projects.  We will examine key scenarios like Composite Applications and Service Connectivity and various technologies and patterns applied to achieve business results.  In addition, guidance will be provided on the practical realities regarding how to achieve a SOA today, and sponsorships within your organization.  Additional insights will be provided on the latest technical trends including cloud computing and its business and technical impact for your organization so that you can build a sound, long-term SOA strategy.
2. Track 2: Technologies
   Next-generation technologies are enabling companies to better connect with their customers, rapidly execute on business change and gain better control on compliance and business insights.  This track will focus on Microsoft and partner technologies for the development, deployment, integration, and management of service oriented business applications. We will dive deep into both existing versions and the future of technologies such as the .NET Framework, Windows Server, BizTalk Server, Visual Studio, Cloud Services, and Oslo.

Register:
http://www.regonline.com/Checkin.asp?EventId=628664

December 1 – 2, 2008

Introduction:
The purpose of this 2-day accelerated instructor-led course is to teach Oracle DBAs how to leverage their skills and experience as an Oracle DBA to manage a SQL Server system. This course provides a quick start for the Oracle DBA to map, compare and contrast the realm of Oracle database management to SQL Server database management.

Agenda:

• Database and Instance
• Database Architecture
• Data Objects
• Basic Administration
• Managing Schema Objects
• Database Security
• Data Transport
• Monitoring
• Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA)

Who Should Attend:
This course is for experienced Oracle database administrators (DBAs) who work in an enterprise-level environment and requires the skills to begin supporting and maintaining a SQL Server database

Prerequisites:
To get the most from this course, you will need:

• Thorough experience as a DBA (2 years recommended)
• The relational engine
• Storage engine
• Analysis Services
• Reporting Services

Objectives:

• Extend your existing competencies as an Oracle DBA to SQL Server
• Manage SQL Server using the same perspective of an Oracle DBA
• Understand the underlying architecture of SQL Server
• Manage the SQL Server system, databases, and users
• Manage database files by backing up or migrating to other systems
• Define and implement monitoring and  tuning solutions to the SQL Server system
• Express High Availability options to SQL Server
• Explain the process and tool to migrate Oracle schemas to SQL Server databases

Location:
Quickstart Intelligence
16815 Von Karman Avenue, Suite 100
Irvine California 92606

Date/Time:
December 1 – 2, 2008
9:00am  – 5:00pm

Registration:
This class is for my customers only.  Please contact me if you are one of my customers and are interested in registering.  Class attendance will be first come first served.

Don’t let anyone tell you that the November 19th Xbox 360 update is something you should be concerned about.  Heck, if anything, you should be eagerly anticipating it.

I won’t link to them because they don’t deserve the traffic but there is a rumor blog out there with a post claiming to have information from a “Microsoft customer service rep” that indicates that:

1. The famous November 19th Xbox 360 update – the “Dashboard Release” – could cause the “3 red lights of death” problem all over again for Xbox 360 owners throughout the world, causing an influx of support calls.
2. Microsoft is doing this on November 19th intentionally because the date is just beyond the “extended warranty period for launch Xbox 360s.

Regardless of whether or not this customer service rep is real or not, if you couldn’t already figure out on your own how colossally retarded these statements are, please allow me to point out a few things:

1. DASHBOARD != HARDWARE
   The ‘Red Ring of Death’ indicates a “general hardware issue” and is caused specifically because of hardware-related problems – not firmware or software issues.  The mechanics of why the 3 red lights appear are well understood by even the public at large and speaking as a Microsoft employee who actually has the diagnostics documentation and internal support material on the Xbox 360, this is just plain incorrect information.

   Now it is conceivable that “other” on-monitor errors could appear.  These are well documented as well however there is usually a way around these issues – again, via software (think ‘reformatting your computer’) – but none of this has anything to do with hardware or the ‘red ring of death’.

2. COVERED BY WARRANTY
   The ‘3 year Extended Warranty’ applies to all Xbox 360’s purchased starting from the date of purchase.  This means that when the Xbox 360 was released on November 22, 2005, anyone with an ORIGINAL first generation Xbox 360 purchased on launch day that somehow finds their system ‘suddenly disabled’ by the November 19th update will still be covered by the warranty.

   In other words, everyone that owns an Xbox 360 is covered by their warranty from failures on November 19th, regardless of whether it’s caused by the Dashboard update or by cosmic rays from the planet Zorganoth.

In case anyone cares, I’m on vacation… sorta.  I’m at a friend’s wedding and thus out of office and away from the blog.  I’ll be returning on Wednesday, 11/13/08.

The Microsoft Office 2007 IT Value Calculator is a Microsoft Excel workbook that was designed and developed by Forrester Consulting to calculate the return on investment, costs, and benefits of an IT administrator can expect from deploying Microsoft Office 2007 within an corporate environment. 

The financial impact of Office 2007 on an organization is calculated using formulas and macros that model Forrester’s well-known Total Economic Impact (TEI) methodology, which systematically looks at the potential effects of technology investments across four dimensions:

1. costs
2. benefits
3. flexibility
4. risks

The Microsoft 2007 IT Value Calculator Guide offers a detailed description of the calculator, including specific benefits, costs, and financial metrics modeled to quantify the financial impact of Office 2007 on an organization.

DOWNLOAD:
http://cid-00da410c7f7e038d.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Product%20Material/Office/Microsoft%20Office%2007%20IT%20Value%20Calculator%20v1.00.xls

USER GUIDE/DOCUMENTATION:
http://cid-00da410c7f7e038d.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Product%20Material/Office/User%20guide%20for%20Microsoft%20Office%2007%20IT%20Value%20Calculator%20v1.00.pdf

Microsoft® Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V, formerly known as Kidaro) enhances deployment, management and user experience for Virtual PC images on a Windows® Desktop, independent of the local desktop configuration and operating system (OS). MED-V leverages Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 to provide an enterprise solution for desktop virtualization streamlining OS upgrades, and increasing IT control and user flexibility in enterprise environments.

MED-V solution for Application-to-OS incompatibility accelerates the upgrade path to Windows Vista®. Applications that cannot be installed on Windows Vista® or have not been fully tested on Windows Vista® may be installed by the administrator in a virtual machine that runs a previous version of the OS (e.g., Windows XP or Windows 2000) and operate in their native, supported environment.

Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization is an integral tool in the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, a dynamic solution available to Software Assurance customers that helps reduce application deployment costs, enable delivery of applications as services, and better manage and control enterprise desktop environments.

MED-V beta release will become available early 2009.  Please fill in the nomination survey to qualify for participation in the beta. 

• DATASHEET:
  http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/B/7/FB7822F4-9480-4AEF-9C18-EE4433F1366A/MDOP_Datasheet_MEDV_Enterprise_FINAL.pdf
• BETA REGISTRATION:
  https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=665

Note:  MED-V usage requires subscription licensing of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) For more details about how to license MDOP please refer to:

• http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/userights/PUR.aspx

We have a site called the Sharepoint Guidance – Pattern’s & Practices Web site which helps Sharepoint Architects & Administrators understand the considerations that may need to be taken in order to develop applications on it on the Sharepoint platform on a broad scale within a corporate Intranet.  (Visit the site at http://www.codeplex.com/spg for more information)  Much of this informational guidance is packaged up into a semi-frequent package to help architects get started. 

This guidance helps architects and developers build SharePoint intranet applications. A reference implementation (RI) demonstrates solutions to common architectural, development and lifecycle management challenges.

This guidance discusses the following:

• Architectural decisions about patterns, feature factoring and packaging.
• Design tradeoffs for common decisions many developers encounter.
• Implementation examples demonstrated in the RI and in the QuickStarts.
• How to design for testability, create unit tests, and run continuous integration.
• Set up of development, build, test, staging, and production environments.
• Managing the application life cycle including upgrade.
• Team-based intranet application development.

The following areas are not discussed in this version of the guidance:

• Content-oriented sites that use Web content management
• Internet and enterprise-scale SharePoint applications
• Multilingual SharePoint applications
• Scale or security testing of SharePoint applications

DOWNLOAD: 
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c3722dba-6ee7-4e0e-82b5-fdaf3c5ec927&DisplayLang=en

USAGE INSTRUCTIONS:
http://www.codeplex.com/spg/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Getting%20Started&referringTitle=Home

Our regional security specialist pointed out that the Microsoft Malware Protection Center published volume five of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report. If you have not taken a look at this report before, go download it from http://www.microsoft.com/sir. It provides a thorough view of the current threat landscape and is filled with a number of great data points.

In his first scanning of the document, the following items immediately jumped out at him:

• Microsoft vulnerabilities accounted for 42% of the total vulnerabilities on Windows XP for browser based attacks; however, on Windows Vista-based machines the proportion of vulnerabilities attacked in Microsoft software dropped to just 6% of the total. This highlights our not only our continued security investments in the browser but also that attackers are focusing more and more on the applications that run in the browser.
• The infection rate for Windows Vista is significantly lower than Windows XP, regardless of service pack levels. In addition, 64-bit versions of XP and Vista have lower infection rates than their 32-bit counterparts.
• The higher the level of service pack a machine runs, the lower the rate of infection. This is consistent across client and server platforms, across all versions. Clearly, keeping up to date with the latest service pack levels and security patches is beneficial from a security perspective. While we have always thought this to be true, having a data point to prove it is great.

For a video overview of the report, check out one of these two podcasts – particularly if security is your business:

• The Bret and Vinny Show – SIR Volume 5
  (Featuring old security hat Bret Arsenault – a guy I’ve known for over a decade)
• IT Manager Webcast – Microsoft Security Intelligence Report volume 5 Key Findings
• IT Professional Webcast – Microsoft Security Intelligence Report volume 5