Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 is the most advanced Windows Server operating system yet, designed to power the next-generation of networks, applications, and Web services.

With Windows Server 2008 you can develop, deliver, and manage rich user experiences and applications, provide a secure network infrastructure, and increase technological efficiency and value within your organization. New Web tools, virtualization technologies, security enhancements, and management utilities help save time, reduce costs, and provide a solid foundation for your information technology (IT) infrastructure.

Here you will find a selection of the best rated sessions on a variety of topics around Windows Server 2008 from the most important Microsoft events.

Visit TechNet Spotlight: www.microsoft.com/technetspotlight 
(Video on Demand, Video Downloads, PowerPoint Presentations, Audio and more)

Links to Session Videos:

• Windows Server 2008 Deployment Overview – Michael Niehaus, Tim Mintner
• The 10 Most Important Things About Failover Clustering – Jim Teague
• Power Management: Windows Server – Stephen Berard
• Dynamic Partition: Windows Server – Davis Walker
• Windows Server Longhorn – Iain McDonald
• Windows Server virtualisation – solution scenarios – David Hitchen
• Windows Server 2008 Kernel Advances – Mark Russinovich
• Active Directory Domain Services in Microsoft Windows Server 2008 – Stephanie Cheung
• Virtualization in Windows Server – Mike Neil
• Managing Windows Server 2008 with Server Manager – Dan Harman
• Using Group Policy with Windows and Windows Server 2008 – Mazhar Mohammed, Derek Melber
• Microsoft.com: Employing Windows Server 2008 and Internet Information Services 7 – Paul Wright, Brad LeRoss
• Living the Longhorn Life: What’s Up With Windows Server 2008 – Mark Minasi

Imagine taking the very best photography of the universe and stitching it altogether in one viewable fabric through a single application.  That’s the Worldwide Telescope.

LINK TO MICROSOFT RESEARCH’S WORLDWIDE TELESCOPE: 
http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/

The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a rich visualization environment that functions as a virtual telescope,  bringing together imagery from the best ground and space telescopes in the world for a seamless, guided exploration of the universe.

WorldWide Telescope, created with Microsoft’s high-performance Visual Experience Engine™, enables seamless panning and zooming across the night sky blending terabytes of images, data, and stories from multiple sources over the Internet into a media-rich, immersive experience.

Worldwide Telescope will be a free downloadable application from our web site.

http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/loader.swf

TED TALK VIDEO ON MICROSOFT RESEARCH’S WORLDWIDE TELESCOPE: 
Science educator Roy Gould and Microsoft’s Curtis Wong give an astonishing sneak preview of Microsoft’s new WorldWide Telescope — a technology that combines feeds from satellites and telescopes all over the world and the heavens, and weaves them together holistically to build a comprehensive view of our universe. (Yes, it’s the technology that made Robert Scoble cry.)
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/224

The Windows Server 2008 Security Guide is designed to further enhance the security of the servers in your organization by taking full advantage of the new and improved security technologies and features in Windows Server 2008. Use the guidance to create, test, and deploy your security baseline quickly and reliably, harden your server workloads, and evaluate security setting recommendations to meet the requirements of your environment.

The Solution Accelerator for the Windows Server 2008 Security Guide includes the following components:

• Executive Overview. A summary for business and technical managers that briefly explains how you can use the guidance and the tool for this Solution Accelerator.
• Security Guide. Recommended guidelines and best practices in a series of chapters that offer detailed guidance on how to harden servers running Windows Server 2008 that handle different workloads, including those for Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), DHCP, DNS, Web, File, Print, Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS), Network Policy and Access Services, and Terminal Services.
• Security Settings Recommendation Appendix. A comprehensive technical reference that explains every prescribed security setting in the security guide.
• Security Settings Workbook. A resource that lists all prescribed settings for each of the preconfigured security baselines provided by the guide.
• Attack Surface Reference Workbook. A resource that lists the changes that installed server roles introduce in Windows Server 2008.
• GPOAccelerator. A tool that you can use to automatically create Group Policy objects (GPOs) recommended by the guide, which is available as a separate download. To learn more about the GPOAccelerator and download the tool, click here.

Get it @:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=fb8b981f-227c-4af6-a44b-b115696a80ac&displaylang=en

Interested in deploying Forefront Client Security?

We just posted a ton of guidance, including a video guide.

• Deploying Forefront Client Security Using SCCM2007 – Video Guide
  http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/yanivf/archive/2008/02/21/deploying-forefront-client-security-using-sccm2007-video-guide.aspx
• Deploying Forefront Client Security Using SCCM 2007 – Step-By-Step
  http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/yanivf/archive/2008/02/20/deploying-forefront-client-security-using-sccm-2007-step-by-step.aspx
• Deploying Forefront Client Security Using SMS 2003 – Step-By-Step
  http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/yanivf/archive/2008/02/20/deploying-forefront-client-security-using-sms-2003-step-by-step.aspx
• Configure E-Mail notifications for Forefront Client Security – Step-By-Step Guide
  http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/yanivf/archive/2008/02/06/configure-e-mail-notifications-for-forefront-client-security-step-by-step-guide.aspx

Join this 2-day workshop to learn about new tools and technologies to deploy the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Windows Vista. This 2-day *free* course is designed to provide a deep dive into the deployment how-tos of migrating to Windows Vista and Office 2007. You will receive practical technical information and proven techniques to help simplify the deployment of Windows Vista and Office 2007 products in your environment.

This hands-on workshop is targeted for IT Professionals responsible for the deployment, maintenance, and troubleshooting of Vista and Office installations. Application-specific and/or help desk-type issues are not included in the scope of this offering.

Day 1: Vista Deployment

Modules:

• · Preparing to Apply Desktop Images
• · Supporting Computers with Desktop Images
• · Restoring and Validating User State

Day 2: Office Deployment

Modules:

• · Preparing to Deploy Microsoft Office 2007 (Condensed Lecture)
• · Understanding the Office 2007 Setup Architecture
• · Customizing the Office 2007 Installation
• · Selecting an Office 2007 Deployment Method

After completing this 2-day training, students should be able to:

• · Determine the best method to obtain and apply the desktop image
• · Restore and verify user state
• · Identify technologies and apply guidelines for planning, testing, and deploying the 2007 Microsoft Office system client
• · Customize an Office 2007 installation and select a deployment method

Date: March 31 – April 1, 2008

Time: 8:30am – 5:00pm

Location:
QuickStart Training
1515 West 190th Street
South Tower – Suite 450
Gardena, CA 90248
Phone: 310-327-1201

Registration:
This event is reserved for invited customers.  If you are a customer of mine, please contact me for registration details.

XNA Creator’s Club Online is a destination point for anyone who wants to learn about or create a game. Go to http://creators.xna.com And download your free copy of the XNA Game Studio 2.0 toolset and get stated on your very own game. Individuals of all skill levels can participate in the making of a game as many games are created by teams where different members of the creator’s club bring different skills and strengths such as game design, production , 2D or 3D art creation, sound effects and of course game programming. So sign up today and bring your mad skillz to he game creators’ community.

Perhaps you have noticed when you install Windows Server 2008 and check the version level, you get this:

The answer is:  because the code trees have been merged – Vista SP1 and WS08.    This provides a single worldwide servicing tree, which is a good thing.

For the detailed, blow by blow account, see – http://blogs.msdn.com/iainmcdonald/archive/2008/02/15/windows-server-2008-is-called-sp1-adventures-in-doing-things-right.aspx

The Microsoft Sharepoint Conference 2008 event is sold out.  (This apparently happened several weeks ago and I didn’t know)

What makes this really impressive is that is at the Washington Convention & Trade Center which is a VERY big place.  They still have Waitlist Registration which sucks but at least it’s available:
http://www.mssharepointconference.com/Pages/default.aspx

This is going to be a helluva conference.  It’s so comprehensive… just take a look at the tracks:

• Business Applications & Solutions
• Collaboration & Social Computing
• Deployment & Migration
• Enterprise Content Management & Search
• Administration & Governance
• Interoperability & Business Process

Now add to that that there’s hundreds of session to attend, and this easily becomes THE event for the Sharepoint Technology administrator, developer, or architect.

Ooh.  Back when I used to program, I would have loved a few of these new controls they’ve making available for free.

The new DataRepeater control included in this version of the Visual Basic Power Packs allows you use standard Windows Forms controls to display rows of your data in a scrollable container giving you more flexibility and customization than standard grid controls.

The Line and Shape controls are a set of three graphical controls that enable you to draw lines, ovals, and rectangles on forms and containers at design time making it much easier to enhance the look of your user interface. These shape controls also provide events such as click and double-click allowing developers to respond and interact with end users.

The Printer Compatibility Library allows projects that used the Printer and Printers Collection in Visual Basic 6.0 to be upgraded without having to re-write your printing logic. By simply adding a reference to the library, declaring a Printer and making a few minor syntax changes, your project will be able to print using the Printers collection and Printer object as it did in Visual Basic 6.0. This version adds a new Write method to the Printer object which allows you to print text without a forced carriage return similar to the semicolon syntax used by Print method in Visual Basic 6.0.

The PrintForm component is designed to bring back the ability to easily print a Windows Form. With this the new PrintForm component you can once again layout the Windows Form exactly as you want it and allow your users to print the form as a quick report.

DOWNLOAD: 
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=371368a8-7fdc-441f-8e7d-fe78d96d4063&displaylang=en&tm

As seen in the Wall Street Journal today. (I wish I had a Treo 750 on AT&T.  Sigh.)