Kurt Shintaku's Blog

SQL Server Data Services (SSDS) are highly scalable, on-demand data storage and query processing utility services. Built on robust SQL Server database and Windows Server technologies, these services provide high availability, security and support standards-based web interfaces for easy programming and quick provisioning.

On-demand Scalability
SQL Server Data Services (SSDS) are highly scalable, on-demand data storage and query processing web services. Businesses use storage resources as needed transforming large upfront capital and operations expenditures into much smaller on-demand costs.

• On-demand storage and access
• Scales easily as your data grows
• Easy to manage

Business-ready SLA
SQL Server Data Services are built using robust Microsoft SQL Server database technologies and will provide strong service level agreement (SLA) covering high availability, performance, and protection against data loss.

• Built using enterprise-class SQL Server Database technology as a storage node
• High availability, security, and performance

Application Agility
SQL Server Data Services supports simple web-programming interfaces like SOAP and REST for quick provisioning of web applications. Developers can focus on innovating with data while reducing their infrastructure and operational costs.

• Web 2.0 friendly Interface API
• Flexible Data Model for quick application development
• Simple Query Model

LINK: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/dataservices/default.mspx

Our new web site, http://UltimatePC.com went live at 5pm this evening.  

The site is a showcase for the amazing things that people can do with their PCs and provides guidance from experts on how to get started and where to find the best resources.

Additionally, UltimatePC.com gives us a way to deliver new, exclusive offers to Windows Vista Ultimate customers.  Ultimate Exclusives are offers only available to Windows Vista Ultimate customers.  These offers include unparalleled discounts on software, hardware and services, free downloads of software and content, and access to industry events and software betas. 

Ultimate Exclusives are NOT a replacement for Ultimate Extras.  There is a committed plan to deliver an exciting collection of Ultimate Extras for Windows Vista Ultimate customers.  Ultimate Exclusives are meant to augment the value proposition of Windows Vista Ultimate.

Better Together: Get More Work Done Today with Microsoft Office Project 2007 and SharePoint 2007

Projects come in all shapes and sizes and are everywhere across the organization. Businesses rely on the successful completion of these projects to improve market share and revenue. Since most Project Management tools are not easy to use and require a higher level of maturity and readiness, almost all organizations struggle today to find the right tools to successfully Plan, Communicate, Track and Analyze on projects.

A Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 and Microsoft Office Project 2007 based solution offers the best of both worlds; Simplicity and Power.  Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 provides an enterprise level collaborative environment for individuals, teams, workgroups and organizations to easily share, collaborate and track all critical project and work items. By combining Microsoft Office Project 2007 with Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007, project managers and anyone else responsible for managing a team can effectively schedule work, assign tasks and communicate team responsibilities. 

Whether you are in Sales and Marketing, Finance, HR, IT, Engineering or R&D and are responsible for managing projects, leading teams, or monitoring project investments you’ll want to attend this free seminar to learn how you and your teams can get more work done today in less time by taking advantage of two familiar and widely used Microsoft Office applications, Microsoft Office Project 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007.

Who Should Attend?
Anyone who manages projects and collaborates with other team members.

Date: March 25, 2008

Location:
333 South Grand Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90071

Time:
8:30am – 10:30

Registration:
Event code:  125784
https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=125784

Agenda:
08:30 – Registration/Breakfast
09:00 – Business Value Briefing
09:15 – EPM Live Workgroup Demo
10:00 – Solution Showcase/Q&A
10:30 – Meeting Adjourned

Internet Explorer 8.0’s first beta released today.  IE8.0 was announced at MIX08, our Web Developer & Design Conference in Las Vegas, NV this week.

DOWNLOADS:

• Windows Vista 32-bit
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c3c6e8c1-bd91-490b-86f5-f3652dd691de&DisplayLang=en 
• Windows Vista 64-bit (and Windows Server 2008 64-bit)
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D399733E-D4A9-44FD-821B-1C52D3C677E3&displaylang=en
• Windows XP
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1A2E3DDD-B38B-439D-BBA7-F179A5D3ECAF&displaylang=en
• Windows Server 2003 SP2
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F2E76E1F-7592-4D74-A558-3CCA1D7B5592&displaylang=en
• Windows Server 2003 SP2 64-bit Edition
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CE438CE4-BB4D-4033-AAB5-0EEFDA4FE194&displaylang=en

MIX08 VIDEOS ON INTERNET EXPLORER 8.0 BETA:

• Jane Kim, Program Manager from Internet Explorer 8.0 Activities & Webslices
  http://visitmix.com/blogs/Joshua/IE8-Activities-With-Jane-Kim/
• More coming from…
  http://www.visitmix.com

Hands-On Workshop
Los Angeles

You are invited to attend a 1-day technical introduction designed to deliver practical, hands-on information about managing your infrastructure with Microsoft’s System Center Operations Manager 2007. This workshop will be led by a Microsoft Management Technical Specialist covering the following topics:

• Introduction to System Center Operations Manager 2007
• Common Monitoring Scenarios
• Monitoring more than Microsoft
• Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) Overview
• Hands on Labs

With this new release, Operations Manager will:

• Proactively manage business critical IT services, including distributed applications, the supporting infrastructure and hardware, and end-user service delivery.
• Reduce the complexities of managing your IT environment by providing a monitoring solution that is designed with ease of use in mind.
• Provide a highly reliable infrastructure by leveraging Windows Server and SQL 2005 clustering for high availability and through agents that automatically failover to a secondary management server if connectivity to the primary server is lost.
• Include management packs with prescriptive knowledge developed by the application and OS development teams at Microsoft and verified in production deployments to improve monitoring, troubleshooting, and problem resolution for more than 50 Microsoft applications and Windows Server components.

Audience:
This hands-on lab is for IT Professionals in job roles like infrastructure specialists, network administrators, directory administrators, management specialists, storage and data administrators and client support. This technical hands-on workshop is limited to 30 attendees.

Date/Location:
April 22, 2008
Microsoft Los Angeles
333 South Grand Ave.
Suite 3300
Los Angeles, CA 90071

Time:
9:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Registration begins at 8:30 AM
(Breakfast, lunch and parking included)

Registration:
This workshop is an “invitation only” event.   Because it’s a hands-on lab, there are very limited seats at walkins will not be accepted – registration is mandatory.  Please contact me for event code information and details on registration if you’re a customer of mine that’s interested.

Salsa’s out.  For the folks that want to apply to check it out at least.

Salsa’s the codename for the Silverlight-enabled MSN Toolbar.  It has dropdown previews, search facilities for searching specific categories of information (like News, Sports, etc.) and it will also receive "pushed information" so that if "breaking news" happens, you’ll get proactively notified.  Kinda cool.

MORE INFO:  http://beta.toolbar.msn.com/Default.aspx?loc=en-us

ATTENTION VERIZON MOTOROLA Q OWNERS:
For those of you who haven’t seen this, see below for a recent ROM release for the phone:

1. This is a major ROM stability fix for the Motorola Q. It writes a new version of Windows Mobile 5.0. (This is not 6.0)
2. The install will work from a Windows Vista 32-bit but requires that you have Windows Mobile Device Center 6.0 installed.
3. This will burn new software into the ROM of your phone and erase all personal data so be sure to back it all up if you want to keep it… stuff like photos, etc. Obviously stuff on Exchange/Outlook doesn’t matter since it’s all server side backed up anyway.
4. It will appear to fail during install, just let it be and it will complete eventually.
5. Once complete you will have to dial *228 to reprogram the device and then *228 a second time to update roaming.
6. Version is now Microsoft Windows Mobile Version 5.0 Radio Version Q2-BP_C_06.0B.13P after the latest Q update.

—————————-

<from Verizon Sales rep>

I have had several people calling with the same issue.  Their Motorola Q is rebooting several times in a day.  I was just notified that there is a software upgrade available that  should fix this problem.  Would you mind posting this information? Please note- this fix is for the Q not the Q9m.

Customers can access the new software via a computer by following these steps:

1. Go to http://www.verizonwireless.com/
2. Click on Support
3. Click on Phones & Devices
4. Select “Motorola” as device manufacture
5. Select “Motorola Q”
6. Scroll down the page to “Software Downloads and Updates”
7. Select “Motorola Q Upgrade Download”

I really adore the applications on this list.  These are the applications that immediately get loaded onto any new laptop refresh I get.  In no particular order:

My Top 10 (or so) Favorite Commercial Software Utilities & Apps

• Perfect Disk – A really good defragmenter that does execution ordering as well as offline defrag
• DUMeter – A fantastic Windows Vista gadget that tells you what kind of bandwidth you’re using
• Replay Media Catcher/Converter – The easiest way to capture/convert Flash Video to Windows Media
• SlingPlayer – Wanna watch your home TV signal on your laptop or your Windows Mobile device?
• Zune Player – A great (and only) means of organizing & downloading music/podcasts for your Zune
• Pinnacle Studio 11 – The most popular consumer Video Editing software for Windows
• Mappoint 2006 – Windows Live Maps are nice, but Office products are better for documenting maps
• WinZip 11 – Can’t live without AES-256 ZIP encryption.
• DVD to Pocket PC 5.0 – Wanna convert all those DVDs you bought into .WMV files for your Zune?
• MSN Client 9 – No email client I’ve used, including Outlook 2007, does a better job at filtering SPAM.
• AnyDVD – It’ll not only copy any DVD/Blu-ray, it’ll allow you to ff through the previews, ads, etc.

My Top 10 (or so) Favorite Free Tools & Apps

• Windows Live Writer – The only blog posting tool that I use, period.
• CCleaner – A great tool for clearing out temp files & other turds left on your system
• LogMeIn – How to remotely control computers behind NAT-routers from your Windows Mobile device
• FolderShare – Keeping file directories on multiple PCs in sync across firewalls
• Windows Live Messenger – Text, Audio, Video, VOIP phone calls, AOL/Yahoo/MSN interop
• ZoomIt – A great presentation tool for making sure people can see what you’re pointing at
• Process Explorer 11 – A great shell replacement for the Task Explorer/Manager.
• Quicktime Alternative, Real Alternative – Because no one should ever have to install Real or QT
• Teracopy – The best file copying tool for people doing large drive-to-drive copies
• Cropper – A free screen capture product that can create not just snapshots but also Animated GIFs
• SpaceMonger – The nicest way of understanding how you’re using up your hard drive
  (Technically, this last product is available in two flavors, an old free version and a new pay-for version.  I have the pay for one but the old free one still works well, albeit a lot slower.)

Wouldn’t it be cool to have some formal training & guidance on how to design in Silverlight for Sharepoint technologies considering the great number of Sharepoint installations out there in the corporate world?

That’s what this is:  The Silverlight Blueprint for Sharepoint

The Silverlight Blueprint for SharePoint is source code and guidance for developers describing how to use Microsoft Silverlight and Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies together in business applications and Internet Web sites. SharePoint applications that use Web Parts can now be built using Silverlight user interface elements. This capability enables a fresh look at data exposed through SharePoint Products and Technologies using the modern graphics capability in Silverlight.

(Note that this kit will be for Windows Sharepoint Services version 3.0 and Silverlight 2.)

READ:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/cc303301.aspx

DOWNLOAD: 
http://www.ssblueprints.net/sharepoint/

So if you bought an HD DVD player, you get the last laugh. 

No joke.  Did you ever wonder what’s gonna happen to all those quality High Definition DVD’s that no longer have a home or a manufacturer?  They’re perfectly good, and the only person that can use them is… well… you. 

So… ladies and gentlemen: 
I give you the DeepDiscount HD DVD firesale!
(And it includes FREE SHIPPING!)

Get HD DVD’s that used to be $30-$40 are now selling for 60%-70% off at $5-$15!   Meanwhile all the Blu-ray owners are gonna be paying FULL PRICE when they release.  How you like them apples?

• Transformers -$19.89
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – $18.86
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin – $12.20
• Batman Begins – $15.73
• Top Gun – $9.98
• Mission: Impossible – $9.98
• Old School – $9.98
• Apollo 13 – $12.20
• The Chronicles of Riddick – $15.98
• Casino – $15.98

Go to town and get those Visa cards ready: 
http://www.deepdiscount.com/HD-DVD_stcVVcatId462364VVviewcat.htm

It doesn’t stop there:  Amazon.com is doin’ the same thing with their 50% off HD DVD sale!

Why should you be impressed with the $19.95 pricing for some of these DVD’s?  Well, the $19.95 discs are combo discs meaning that they have both the standard definition and the high definition versions on a single flippable disc. 

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -$14.95
• Ray – $14.95
• Lost in Translation – $14.95
• Knocked Up – $19.95
• Children of Men – $19.95
• Seabiscuit – $14.95
• I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry  – $19.95

Go grab these while you can!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_6323982_1?ie=UTF8&docId=1000195491&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=04G38KX0P2D6STB810YV&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=363530801&pf_rd_i=193642011