Kurt Shintaku's Blog

From the "Did you guys even test it? file:
XBox Video Marketplace downloads WILL stream and allow you to play the video back once enough has been "buffered" or "cached" up.

Gizmodo incorrectly states that when you’ve purchased a TV episode or a Movie from the Video Marketplace that you "have to download the show in its entirety" and that’s not true at all. If they’d really tested the service they’d know this.

When you’ve selected a show, purchased it, and start a download, the content will start to get buffered onto your Xbox. Depending upon your Internet connection speed, your actual download rate from the datacenter where the video resides, how long the show actually is, and its quality (SD vs HD), you will get a notification pop up on the screen that reads "TITLEGOESHERE is Ready To Play" at the bottom of the screen whenever enough of the movie or episode has been "buffered".

Again, it does NOT have to be completely downloaded to start watching it. Everything is encoded in Windows Media… so of course it streams!

EXAMPLE: For a 10 minute standard definition clip of adultSWIM’s "Robot Chicken" to be downloaded over a 3MBit DSL connection in Los Angeles (120MB), your Xbox wll display a "Robot Chicken is Ready to Play!" notification in the middle of your game of Gears of War or whatever you happen to be doing once the download is about 12%-15% complete… or about 15-20 seconds after initiating the purchase.

The faster your download the sooner you’ll be able to start playing your video purchase or rental!

Get Ready for Exchange 2007 Road Show!
Watch it online on IT’s Showtime! by TechNet

Exchange 2007 Architecture and Deployment, Jim McBee
This session introduces new architectural and deployment features in Exchange 2007, including improvements in the installation process, the existence of new server roles specific to E12, and upgrade and migration paths from Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003. It also describes architectural changes to message routing and administrative group design.

Exchange Server 2007 Management, Jim McBee
This session describes new management and monitoring features in Exchange 2007; it presents the new ESM interface, explains and demonstrates the Exchange Management Shell, and highlights some of the new management, reporting, and monitoring capabilities delivered in E12.

Delivering Anywhere Access: Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging, Lasse Pettersson
Exchange 2007’s Unified Messaging server role allows you to unify voice, fax, and message data into a single inbox that users can access via the web, through Outlook 2007, or on Windows Mobile or Macintosh clients. This session describes the Unified Messaging server role, introduces the new Outlook Voice Access component, and explains how to integrate it into your existing telephony infrastructure.

Enhancing Messaging with Real-Time Communications, Lasse Pettersson
Messaging and calendaring are important, but sometimes what you need is instantaneous, real-time communications. This session describes how to extend your communications environment with Live Communications Server 2005 and Office Communicator to take advantage of enhanced presence, call control, and Voice over IP capabilities alongside your messaging system.

For more recorded Microsoft IT Pro conferences, visit www.microsoft.com/itsshowtime/

Any Windows Vista Technical Beta tester that submitted AT LEAST ONE BUG will be receiving a mail providing them with a free license for Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition.  This is the "premier" and "most complete" version of the Windows Vista operating system available, exceeding the capabilities of Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, and Enterprise Editions… and a $399 retail value.

This is basically a big thank you for taking the time to:

1. Sign up for the Windows Vista beta program, download the software, and install it on a machine.
2. Learn the procedure to submit a bug, and access the forums to ask about it.
3. Actually formally submit a bug – no matter how small.

The key here is that you had to actually exercise the bug submission tools, enter information about the conditions of the bug, and what the expected operation should have been… and not just forward on crashes or error incidents through Windows Error Reporting which is nothing more than a button click I might add.  This should be some sweet justice for individuals that truly are "beta testing" and are actually participating in what the beta program exists for, and providing valuable feedback on the software.

So congratulations to all the people that actually did some work during the beta test.  You all deserve it every copy.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006
10:00 a.m. Pacific

Don’t have time to get away from the office? Want to know about Microsoft search solutions for the Enterprise? Join us for a live Webcast where you’ll learn more from Microsoft experts and Microsoft Gold Partner Allin Consulting about how the improvements in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows Desktop Search can provide your organization business-ready search capabilities.

To register for this webcast:
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032314671&EventCategory=2&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Details:
Providing the people in your organization the ability to quickly find, use and share the right information is critical to helping them make better business decisions, be more productive, and achieve greater business success. Information workers need to access information from across their desktops, the company network, application databases and people and experts. According to IDC estimates, information workers spend 15% to 30% of their work time just looking for information.

With great appreciation for the business challenges associated with finding, using and sharing information across the Enterprise, Microsoft would like to invite you to this briefing on Microsoft search solutions for the Enterprise. You will learn how Microsoft search solutions for the Enterprise can help reduce the time your people spend looking for information by providing business-ready search capabilities that quickly, securely and seamlessly find, use and share the most relevant business information, people and expertise via familiar, easy-to-use, integrated interfaces.

Presenters:
David Swanson – Solution Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Karl Kuhnhausen – Director of Collaboration, Allin Consulting

Agenda:
– Why is Search important?
– What is the Microsoft Search story
– Solution overview, feature walkthrough
– Searching structured and unstructured data sources
– Searching people and expertise
– Integrated user experience
– Management and administration tools
– Licensing matrix and pricing (if this information is public at the time of the Webcast)
– Q&A

Event Date: December 5
Exhibit hall opens at 8:00 am PST
Seminars start at 8:30 am PST

Web site:  http://events.unisfair.com/index.jsp?eid=164&code=win1

SharePoint Pro Online–LIVE!, a free one-day event, is a premier virtual conference for developers and administrators of SharePoint products and technologies. Brought to you by MSD2D and the Windows IT Media Community, this conference brings industry experts to your desktop, offering free education on various SharePoint topics.

Join your peers, experts Bob Mixon and Dan Holme, other SharePoint gurus, MSD2D, leading SharePoint technology vendors, and Windows IT Media for this free, interactive series of seminars on the hotest SharePoint topics. The conference also will demonstrate, showcase and exhibit the premier companies in the SharePoint market. Register today for this educational and free online event!

Event Presentations:

Web Content Management (WCM) – Publishing Content
Time:  8:30 AM PST
Abstract:  In years past, publishing content has always involved IT staff and was costly. With the enhanced Content Publishing features of SharePoint 2007, this is no longer an issue; Business Domain Owners and Subject Matter Experts have the tools to do it themselves. In this session,. I will show how to create custom Publishing Content Types. I will then go through the process of creating a custom layout page for the Content Type using SharePoint Designer (SPD). The end result will be to see how you have control of the content fields, user interface and look-and-feel but allow end users to perform the actual content publishing. Register now. (http://events.unisfair.com/#)
Speaker: Bob Mixon is co-owner of ShareSquared, a Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server MVP, and the MSD2D.com SharePoint Community Manager

 

Windows SharePoint Services v3: Zero to 60 in 60 minutes
Time: 11:00 AM PST
Abstract:  Learn how to install, configure, and build sites with Windows SharePoint Services version 3.0. In this practical, “how to” session you will uncover the ins and outs, the tricks and the traps for creating an intranet home page, departmental and project sites, and collaborative workspaces. You will also leverage the new capabilities of WSSv3, such as item-level security, wikis, blogs, and RSS. With this accelerated immersion into WSS, you’ll be ready to begin planning and implementing SharePoint in your enterprise. Register now. (http://events.unisfair.com/#)
Speaker:   Dan Holme is Director of Training at Intelliem, a regular speaker at Windows Connections, and a writer for Windows IT Media.

Someone I know asked me this question recently:

"What do I do with an application that won’t run for users that don’t have admin rights?" 

A good place to start is this webcast:
How to use Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 4.0 to manage application compatibility on Microsoft Windows:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/895129

I had a lot of this archived from back when we released SP2.   The bottom line is that there’s numerous solutions to this.

• 3RD PARTY SOFTWARE
  The easiest "shortcut" is to use MASTsoft’s "RunAs Professional" which allows end users to run specific applications under admin privileges using an encrypted password using an encrypted "execution profile"  http://www.mast-computer.com/c_9-l_en.html.  The key is that the profile is locked to just that applications.  ($300 for 50 users, 1 user for $10)  I actually don’t know anyone that’s done this because it’s not something we recommend generally.
• DOCUMENTATION
  There’s a long article about this in Technet Magazine.  We have a long article about resolving Least Privilege User Accounts called "Problems of Privilege:  Finding & Fixing LUA Bugs" which involves using the ACT4.0 and generally "loosening privileges for specific reg keys & files" that you can propagate using.  A discussion of .INI file mapping key we have for compatibility is in here as well.  http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2006/08/LUABugs/
• COMMUNITY
  Then there’s the community.  There’s an entire online site for this exact problem out there called "NonAdmin" with a lot of fixes and resolution pointers that’s partially manned by several friends of mine at Microsoft.  http://nonadmin.editme.com/
• VIRTUALIZATION
  You can also virtualize it.  There’s always running the application within Virtual PC. 
• ENTERPRISE COMPATIBILITY SOLUTIONS
  PolicyMaker Application Security provides an enterprise management solution for this as well.  It’s possible to tweak privileges for specific applications during runtime while the user is in LUA using Privilege Manager (formerly Policy Maker Application Security from DesktopStandard).  The tool does not work with Active Directory Group Policy unless you license it however it works for local accounts from what I understand.  Privilege Manager is now available from BeyondTrust and is not part of the Microsoft acquisition of DesktopStandard. http://desktopstandard.com/PolicyMakerApplicationSecurity.aspx

Here’s a few additional articles on the topic.

• Running Windows Under Non-Admin Accounts
  http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Running-Windows-Under-Non-Admin-Accounts.html

• Mark’s Blog:  Running as Limited User – the Easy Way
  http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2006/03/02/running-as-limited-user-the-easy-way.aspx

• David Coursey:  Least Privilege can be the best
  http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1772361,00.asp

I guess this went public so it shouldn’t be a big deal to post this.   We’ve been using this tool internally for a while now since it was announced at our company meeting a year ago – one of the geeky fringe benefits of working at the company, I guess.

Microsoft Research has been working with the University of Washington to create 3D models of areas like school campuses, vacation spots, and other places that you’d like to visit virtually however don’t want to look at lousy vector-driven recreations of the buildings and historical monuments. 

Microsoft Photosynth is essentially the culmination of this project.  It’s a web-based service that works in tandem with some locally installed Windows software (an ActiveX control) for user-side computation that takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.

With Photosynth you can:

• Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
• Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photo whether it’s megapixels or gigapixels in size.
• See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
• Find similar photos to the one you’re currently viewing.
• Send a collection – or a particular view of one – to a friend.

It’s free so give it a look-see!

This update adds support for Virtual Earth 3D (Beta) and addresses several issues in version 2.0.

You can download the Virtual Earth 3D add-in at any time from http://maps.live.com/?wip=51. With Virtual Earth 3D, Windows Live Local for Outlook meeting locations can be viewed in amazing 3D view.

DOWNLOAD:  http://outlook.local.live.com/minisites/local/outlook/default.aspx 
(Download Size: 3.49 MB)

Check out the new Windows Sysinternals TechCenter on Microsoft TechNet as well as a new utility called Process Monitor released by Mark and Bryce. The Sysinternals TechCenter provides you with advanced utilities and technical information for IT pros and developers for detailed troubleshooting and analysis of Windows software. You won’t find these Windows internals tools anywhere else.
LINK:  http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5778424

There are a set of DVDs that you can purchase for $399 that go over valuable advanced IT diagnostics skills that leverage the SysInternal tools.

They include:

• Tour of the Sysinternals Tools (See the whole thing here:  http://www.solsem.com/Video/TourofSysinternalsTools.wmv)
• Troubleshooting with Process Explorer
• Troubleshooting with Filemon & Regmon
• Troubleshooting Memory Problems
• Windows Crash Dump & Hang Analysis
• Troubleshooting Boot & Startup Problems

There are a bunch of online tutorial & video samples formatted in Windows Media format for you to peruse at http://www.solsem.com/videolibrary.html so that you can see what is available.

For example, here is one of the features:

Troubleshooting Boot & Startup Problems
After an inside look at the boot process, this video explains how to employ the key recovery mechanisms including Last Known Good, Recovery Console, Safe Mode, and System Restore, to repair system file and registry corruptions as well as analyze crashes and solve errors during logon.

Click here to view a sample.

This 129 minute (2 hour 9 minutes) video is divided into the following modules:

1. Introduction
2. The Boot Process
3. The Recovery Console
4. Last Known Good
5. Safe Mode
6. System Restore
7. MBR/Boot Sector Corruption
8. Boot.ini Corruption
9. Registry Corruption
10. System File Corruption
11. Crashes or Hangs
12. Problems During Logon

Microsoft Launch: Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals

Event ID: 1032310713

Thursday, December 07, 2006 8:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Microsoft Office – Los Angeles
333 South Grand Ave, Suite 3300
Los Angeles California 90071

Keynote:

Joining Forces: Assimilating Data Experts into the Development Team and Process

Database Professionals have always been an integral part of the software development team. Now, not only is Microsoft providing a tailor-made Visual Studio Team Edition role-based experience, but also access to the full benefits of Visual Studio Team Foundation Server.  Come learn how Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals improves collaboration across the full development team and increases application quality with better control over database changes and automated database testing.

Sessions:

Take Control of Database Change
-Take control of your database schema by creating a baseline version of the database with an off-line source controlled project.
-Streamline changes to your database with tools that allow you automatically cascade changes throughout the database schema in a controlled and consistent manner.
-Reduce the risk involved with changing database schema by comparing the source controlled version against test and production systems and automating the creation of change scripts.

Automate Database Testing to Improve Quality
-Create full unit tests for your database schema that can be run independently or in combination with Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite to provide a comprehensive set of tests for the application and database tiers.
-Author tests in either T-SQL or managed code with extensible unit test functionality and a new test editor.

Panel Discussion:
Open discussion to panel of MS + Partner representatives.

AGENDA
7:45 am – 8:30 am: Registration & Continental Breakfast
8:30 am – 9:30 am: Joining Forces: Assimilating Data Experts into the Development Team and Process – Keynote
9:30 am – 10:30 am: Taking Control of Database Change
10:45 am – 11:00 am: Break
11:00 am – 12:00 pm: Automate Database Testing to Improve Quality
12:15 pm – 1:00 pm: Lunch Panel Discussion

Parking Location and Instructions:
Parking will be hosted for this event and is available at Joe’s Auto Parks (Lots 220 & 240) located (220 So. Hope & 240 So. Hope, Los Angeles, CA 90071).  Please park in either lot and we will validate; you will need to pay a parking fee of $12.00 (check or cash only) for the full day. Joe’s Auto Parks will reimburse you at the end of the seminar upon receipt of the validation.

Registration Options – LOS ANGELES EVENT

• WEB:  http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032310713&Culture=en-US
• PHONE:  1-877-673-8368, Event ID: 1032310713