Kurt Shintaku's Blog

There is a new Directory Services Core Infrastructure presentation coming soon. You will need to register for this and it will be delivered August 21, 2008. It specifically goes into the new DS features offered in Win2008 and how they should make life better in your environment.

This is technical, so bring your thinking caps. And no need for your checkbook, this is free.

MCS Talks Infrastructure Architecture
REGISTER:  http://blogs.technet.com/askds/archive/2008/08/11/mcs-talks-infrastructure-architecture.aspx

Remember Virtual Desktop Manager for Windows XP?  The Powertoy for providing multiple (4) views on a desktop?  It’s back and it works for Windows Vista but it’s a completely different incarnation from Sysinternals.

It would appear that each of these windows is it’s own EXPLORER.EXE where one program running on one screen has no API accessible conduit between another program running on another screen.  So if you need Office Communicator to work with Outlook, you have to keep both on the same Desktops window.

“Desktops allows you to organize your applications on up to four virtual desktops.

Read email on one, browse the web on the second, and do work in your productivity software on the third, without the clutter of the windows you’re not using.

After you configure hotkeys for switching desktops, you can create and switch desktops either by clicking on the tray icon to open a desktop preview and switching window, or by using the hotkeys.”

DOWNLOAD:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881.aspx

The widespread availability of next generation camera phones can provide real-time streaming of video across platforms. With onboard mega-pixel cameras and wireless Internet connectivity, the platform to enable a webcast can now fit into your pocket.

• Think of the convenience.
  No more hauling around large laptop cases and bulky video cameras. Simply pull out your lightweight, pocket-sized camera phone and start webcasting right away. And don’t worry about how to share video clips left on your phone, your video is automatically stored on a server ready for later viewing.
  
• Imagine the applications.
  To family and friends, your webcast is the hottest ticket in town. It means that no matter how far you travel, they can join in the fun as if they were there. If they miss it live, it’s available immediately on demand.

Relying on big media for breaking news is a thing of the past. Whether it’s local or world events, your webcast can make a difference.

You may be working “out in the field”, but now your live coverage of important situations lets you give decision makers back at the office a full view of the action.

Livecast’s beta service is now available for Windows Mobile 5/6.  PCs and Macs are supported through a subscribed beta program, and will soon be available in full release.

You can easily try out Livecast yourself. Simply sign up, install software on your phone and start a webcast, streaming video to the internet. We’ll always offer a free trial account, and for power users a premium features package will be available for a monthly fee.

LINK:  http://www.comvu.com/

This is too cool not to mention.

Ever had a problem with using an optical or laser mouse over a shiny surface like a granite table?

Mark DePue is research and development manager at the Microsoft desktop experiences group and he spoke at the Bloomberg Bootcamp on something coming down the pipe from MS Hardware:

"This year we’re introducing two new mice with our breakthrough tracking technology called Blue Track. The key to it is that it uses a big blue beam. And this is unlike any tracking technology that’s been introduced to date. What it does is it gives you the ability to work on more surfaces than you’ve ever been able to do before. You’ll see people taking their notebooks to more areas of the house. You’ll also see business travelers who are in a different hotel room every other day want the ability to navigate on difference surfaces. Maybe it’s a granite desk in one hotel and maybe it’s a wood grain in another hotel. And this technology gives you the power and the flexibility to be able to track wherever and whenever you want."

[Taken from Matt Hester’s blog]

Lately, I have been doing a lot fun work with the IE 8 team.  Look for a TechNet radio interview shortly I did with Jane Maliouta who is a IE Deployment Program Manager.  In talking with Jane she told that she had written a post on how to slipstream IE 8 into an Windows Vista image.  After checking out the post I decided to make a screencast to show how easy this is to do.

VIEW:  http://blogs.technet.com/matthewms/archive/2008/07/03/screencast-slipstream-internet-explorer-ie-8-into-windows-vista.aspx

An important new Microsoft Volume License brief, “Application Server License Mobility”, has been posted as of August 19, 2008 at http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/
resources/volbrief.mspx.

The new Volume License brief “Application Server License Mobility” is a key reference document that can help customers, partners, and the licensing community understand the details governing new rights available for certain Microsoft server products acquired through Volume Licensing.

To help customers take advantage of virtualization technologies, Microsoft is updating its software licensing policies for server applications. In 2005, Microsoft introduced licensing changes that permitted greater mobility of software.  This latest set of changes complement those 2005 enhancements, by allowing greater mobility of licenses across servers within data centers and server farms. With the changes, both licenses and software can move more freely across servers in a server farm, potentially reducing the number of licenses needed to support workloads. Effectively, the changes mean instead of counting instances or processors and licensing by server, customers are able to count instances or processors and license by server farm. 

This is accomplished by allowing customers to reassign licenses freely across servers within a server farm. The changes apply to software licenses for certain server applications and all external connector (EC) licenses. In these cases, the limitation on short-term (90 days or less) license reassignment is waived. This change does not apply to software licenses for the Windows Server® operating system, Client Access Licenses (CALs), or Management Licenses (MLs). This change applies only to licenses acquired under a Volume Licensing program. It does not apply to licenses acquired through other retail sources.

DOWNLOAD:  http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/d/4/3d42bdc2-6725-4b29-b75a-a5b04179958b/Application_Server_License_Mobility_VL_Brief.doc

The July Community Technical Preview (CTP) of Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 is now available for download. This is the 2nd CTP and like the first this one has a lot of new features and improvements. In addition to the list below you can see some of the features in the Welcome Letter and a complete list in the Whats New? document.

1. New samples and tutorials: This CTP has many new samples and tutorials including:

1. DSS Node Discovery using UPnP: A new UPnP sample illustrates how to use UPnP for discovering DSS nodes across a UPnP network.

2. Transport Extensibility: PipeTransport and PipeTransportHost are two new tutorials on how to write your own transport and load it in your custom host. In addition you will also find the UdpTransport and UdpTransport as additional transport samples.

3. LINQ: Service Tutorial 12 shows how to subscribe to the Directory Service using a LINQ Filter and how to receive filtered notifications.

4. Silverlight: The XBox Controller Viewer sample shows support for use of interactive Silverlight-based UI

5. Embedded Simulation Environment: The sample EmbeddedSim sample shows how to embed the Visual Simulation Environment in a custom Windows Forms user interface.

6. Simulated Pursuit Camera: The PursuitCamera sample shows how to implement a camera entity that follows behind a target and avoids obstacles.

7. Simulated 4×4-drive: The SimulatedFourByFourDrive sample shows how to implement an entity that behaves like a 4×4 off-road car.

2. Global Assembly Cache: Core CCR and DSS assemblies are put into the Global Assembly Cache. means that they are a shared resource for all installations on a single machine.

3. Simulation on 64-bit machines: Simulation now runs on 64-bit systems using the Microsoft Windows-32-on-Windows-64 (WOW64) subsystem. To use simulation on 64-bit machines, make sure you use dsshost32.exe which forces the WOW64 mode.

4. Visual Studio Project Wizards: The Visual Studio Project Wizards have been rewritten to make it much simpler to create new service projects directly from Visual Studio 2005 and 2008. Project wizards are provided for VB.Net and C# targeting .NET Framework.

5. Much Faster DSS Proxy Generation: The DssProxy tool has been completely rewritten to simplify the generation of service proxy assemblies and to make it much faster to compile services. In addition, the tool chain for writing services for .NET Compact Framework has been simplified to no longer need a companion service project targeting the desktop version of .NET Framework. This makes development for .NET Compact Framework much easier.

6. DSS Log Analyzer: The DSS Log Analyzer is a preview of a powerful new debugging and monitoring tool that can visualize and analyze message exchanges between services sent within a DSS node or across nodes. In addition to showing the actual messages that have been sent it also provides message correlations, time lines, and illustrates how multiple message interactions are causally linked over time.

7. Embedded Visual Simulation Environment: In addition to having a stand-alone UI, the Visual Simulation Environment can now be embedded in other applications. This enables other applications to show the Visual Simulation Environment as part of their application.

Please help us making this release better by trying it out and send your comments, suggestions, and bug reports to our MSDN forums.

DOWNLOAD:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=57CE326B-2125-4163-A33F-ED2F69E03B56&displaylang=en

WHAT’S NEW:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/robotics/cc470040.aspx

WELCOME LETTER:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/robotics/cc470038.aspx

I completely stumbled upon this video from Sarcastic Gamer.  It’s a real video of the first game created for Microsoft Surface, as written by Carbonated Games, the makers of UNO for the Xbox 360.

pptPlex is a plug-in that explores an alternate method for presenting a PowerPoint slide deck. Using pptPlex, you can present your slides as a tour through a zoomable canvas instead of a series of linear slides.

• Requirements:
  Windows Vista/XP PowerPoint 2007
• Limitations:
  None
• Last updated:
  08/13/2008

FAQ – get answers to frequently asked questions
Blog – read the latest news from the team
Discussions – connect with other users

DOWNLOAD:
http://www.officelabs.com/projects/pptPlex/Pages/default.aspx

USING PPTPLEX IN REAL LIFE:
On a personal note:  This is a really innovative way to present information that traditionally follows a timeline or a roadmap.  Instead of delivering a linear slide deck, many people try to present decks that have hyperlinks within them that allow people to jump around the deck from slide to slide.

When using pptPlex, it’s possible to show the entire timeline to an audience then jump around the timeline visually and deliver slides that match each area of either the timeline, roadmap, or tree that you’re presenting.

Take the timeline you see to the right:  The timeline has little white blocks in them – each of which represent a different slide:

By clicking on an area of the time line you can see the different slides relevant to that area.  And by clicking on a given slide, you can see the full content, then back up for a very interactive and lively experience for the audience.  So if you want your audience to “stay awake”, this is a great way to keep their attention.

Be the first one on the block using Powerpoint 2007 with pptPlex and watch people in your audience ask you, “How did you do that?”

Email Prioritizer is a plug-in for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 (running on Exchange Server) that helps you manage email overload. This concept test provides a “do not disturb” button that temporarily pauses new email arrival, and prioritizes email with a 0-3 star rating system. We hope this prototype helps you focus on the emails that are most important to you.

• Requirements:
  This prototype requires Outlook 2007 running on Exchange Server
• Limitations:
  None
• Last updated:
  08/22/2008

FAQ – get answers to frequently asked questions
Blog – read the latest news from the team
Discussions – connect with other users

DOWNLOAD:
http://www.officelabs.com/projects/emailprioritizer/Pages/default.aspx