Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Interested in future IIS management?  Check out the Channel 9 video in the link from the IIS Blog.
Great introduction to the manageability improvements with IIS7 and Powershell.

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Managing IIS7 with Powershell, Big Hit at ITForum!

On its own, IIS7 already has a great management story.  The new Web server ships with a totally rewritten IIS Manager GUI tool, a new consolidated APPCmd.exe command line utility, and a new more consistent WMI Provider.   Admins can granularly delegate management rights for the new Web server and they can manage with the GUI tool remotely over HTTP.  However, some things are just better together, as in the case of IIS7 and Windows Powershell, as ITForum attendees saw yesterday in Barcelona. 

Powershell is the new shell scripting interface that is set to replace Command Prompt in upcoming releases of Windows Vista and Windows Server.  During Bob Muglia’s keynote address kicking off ITForum, Jeffery Snover, chief architect of Powershell, demonstrated how much easier Web farm management can be using Powershell to configure several IIS7 severs at once.  The demo was a big hit with the audience and press (see David Fearon‘s article at www.ITPro.co.uk) partly because a PHP application was used in the demonstration.  Fearon writes, “The underlying message is clear: IIS 7 on Longhorn can run your applications faster than Apache on Linux.”

A video of this demo can be found here on Channel 9.  IIS.net has also just released this great article that provides a brief tour of using Powershell to manage IIS7, as well as an in-depth article on how to write PowerShell cmd-lets for IIS7.  Finally, check out this blog post to hear what IIS Product Unit Manager, Bill Staples, has to say about Powershell for IIS7 users.

Microsoft Voice Command,  the award-winning voice recognition software developed with technology created by Microsoft Research, has released version 1.6 of their product.

Voice Command, if you’ve ever used it has AMAZINGLY accurate yet light-weight (Read:  Low memory/CPU requirements) voice recognition for the purposes of the Windows Mobile operating system. 

Voice Command 1.6 retail for Windows Mobile 5.0+ will be available for download via Handango.com soon.  Voice Command 1.6 may also ship as part of next-generation Windows Mobile devices in ROM.

Key changes in this release:

1. Bluetooth hands free support. Users can initiate Voice Command interactions and receive system notifications using a Bluetooth headset or select Bluetooth hands free car kit.  New acoustic models designed for 8kHz audio and Bluetooth audio improve recognition quality on many devices and for Bluetooth headset.
2. Retail availability for Smartphone devices for the first time
3. Spoken incoming email announcements
4. Support for A2DP/HFP combo headsets and improved Media experience

We are very proud to release the public beta of the new desktop security product called Forefront Client Security. Forefront Client Security uses cutting edge technology for protect your desktops from viruses, malware, and spyware.  You may have seen the Forefront Client Security product on the main Microsoft.com web page.

Microsoft Forefront Client Security delivers:

• Antivirus, Antispyware, Firewall, Malware Removal
  A single software product to protect a workstation’s threat vectors.  This eliminates the need for all but ONE SINGLE AGENT to be deployed to workstations minimizing memory footprint, management, and the number of vendor contacts/agreement needed to support security at the desktop.
• Consolidated Administration
  A single console for IT to manage workstation security in all aspects across all workstations.  Manage firewall port closure, selectively allow specific desktop applications to access the network, distribute antivirus/antispyware updates, execute malware removal – all through a single interface.
• Dashboards & Reports
  Produces insightful, prioritized security reports and a summary dashboard view, so you have visibility and control over malware threats.

Additional information can be found at the following link:

BETA:  http://www.microsoft.com/forefront/clientsecurity/default.mspx

FYI:  The English-language Vista VL software is officially available for download TODAY!

DVD builds (32 and 64-bit full and 32-bit upgrade) are available now for both the Business and Enterprise Editions (for SA customers), with CD builds posting throughout the remainder of the day and the remaining Wave0 languages (including Enterprise language packs) by end of this week.

https://licensing.microsoft.com

One of the lesser known capabilities within IE7.0 is it’s ability to import and export RSS feed lists.

I, for one, have a list of 58 RSS feeds that I subscribe to.  It’s located on a Foldershare folder replica (see below for "What is Foldershare?") that I use and I direct any new RSS Reader installation to simply grab the list and import it into its configuration.  The list is rather important to me (more important in many respects than my Favorites list) because it contains not just sites that I like to read news and posts from, it contains RSS feeds that actually contain the FULL CONTENT (see below for "What is FULL CONTENT?") of the articles in the RSS feed.

EXPORTING RSS FEEDS INTO .OPML FILES
RSS feed lists can be archived into an XML file for backup purposes called OPML or Outline Processor Markup Language.  It’s a way of making portable, among other things, all of the RSS feeds that you’ve setup in Internet Explorer 7.0.  To save and move your RSS feed list, you need to EXPORT your list to an .OPML file.  To do this in Internet Explorer 7.0:

• Select the Tools icon & enable the Menu Bar.
• Go to File->Import & Export on the Menu Bar.
• Select "Export Feeds"

This will allow you to export/archive all your RSS feeds.  This is useful if you ever have to rebuild your browser configuration or you want to share your RSS feed list with someone else – regardless if they use IE7.0, FeedBurner, NewsGator, or some other RSS News reader.  OPML is a standard that everyone recognizes. 

IMPORTING RSS FEEDS FROM .OPML FILES
You can in turn also IMPORT a RSS feed list/.OPML file in IE7.0 that you’ve saved or received from someone else by doing exactly the same thing:

• Select the Tools icon & enable the Menu Bar.
• Go to File->Import & Export on the Menu Bar.
• Select "Import Feeds"

This is a great way to share RSS feeds between people or "see what it is that other people are monitoring and reading". 

IMPORTING INTO WINDOWS MOBILE
I personally use a Pocket PC Phone & a Smartphone and I have a newsreader called Ilium Software’s Newsbreak that pulls in RSS feeds wirelessly at regular intervals using the data connection on the phone.  This allows me to read posts & articles EXTREMELY QUICKLY whenever I have a spare moment, without having to wait for the mobile browser to pull down article content, because in the newsreader… the content’s already been pulled down beforehand.

All I did was import my .OPML file from Live.com (my IE start page) into both IE7.0 & my Pocket PC’s newsreader and walla!  I get the same news on my phone as I do in Internet Explorer 7.0… except it’s totally portable, always with me, and up-to-date.

By the way, there are other Newsreaders out there but none as friendly and simple as Newsbreak.  This is truly a great Newsreading tool for Windows Mobile – both Pocket PC & Smartphone.  Check it out!  NEWSBREAK 1.2:  http://pocketpc.iliumsoft.com/site/nw/newsbreak.htm

"What is Foldershare?"
Foldershare is an AMAZING free replication tool from Microsoft that you can freely install on all your computers – work, home, laptop – that, very simply, synchronizes file folders that you choose between systems.  It is a peer-to-peer replication technology that uses encrypted SSL-connections to sync allowing it pass through corporate firewalls and is incredibly useful for ensuring that your most important content is securely available on every computer you use.  It synchs up to 2GB of content in the background and supports "checkpoint restart" in the event you disconnect in the middle of a synch.  

Most importantly, it makes it very easy to sync:
– Favorites from Internet Explorer
– .PST Mail files from Outlook
– My Music, My Documents, My Pictures
…or any other folder you have.

"What is FULL CONTENT"
On the topic of FULL CONTENT:  I hate RSS feeds that only contain article Subjects & 3 lines of content.  This is worthless to me.  There are sites like Infoworld’s Main Page feed that contain the entire article along with a graphical advertisement in the middle of this.  Infoworld – God Bless you.  I don’t mind the advertising as long as I get all the article content in the feed.
</rant>

Michael Howard, one of our more senior Security Experts here at Microsoft typed up a blog about how Windows Vista prevents viruses from infecting workstations & servers.

It is said that 70% of all viruses are dependent on something called a "Buffer Overrun".   A Buffer Overrun is simply when a program allows data or code to be written outside of the confines of the program’s addressable memory space.  This is usually the result of the growth of an unchecked variable or array. 

In the case of viruses, data/code is specifically written in such a way that if it is executed by the system, it will self propagate using the elevated privileges of the system itself.  (Every OS has a system account to executes system level code like kernel instructions, etc.)

So the only problem, is getting the system to run the code once it’s been written outside of the invaded application.  This is usually simple if placed correctly into memory into areas of memory that the OS is known to execute.

Methods of how prevent these sort of attacks are detailed in Michael’s blog… particularly a new feature of Windows Vista called "Address Space Layout Randomization" which essentially makes it extremely difficult to predict when and where operating system code is in memory making intrusions using Buffer Overruns very difficult. 

BLOG:  http://blogs.msdn.com/michael_howard/archive/2006/05/26/608315.aspx

We’re launching Windows Vista & Office System 2007 at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, January 26th, 2007.  It should be a fun & educational gig.

Why should you come?
We’ll of course be going over all the key areas of technological improvement available in the new products such as Security, Deployment, Operational Efficiency, Mobility, Unified Communications, and other areas.

The event will be keynoted by one of Microsoft eldest & most senior executives reporting to Steve Ballmer – the man responsible for the creation of Microsoft Office, Jeff Raikes.  Jeff is the President of our Business Division which consists of the Office System as wel as our Business Applications like Microsoft CRM 3.0, Microsoft Axtapa, & the rest of the Microsoft Dynamics line.  He also happens to be the sponsor of my "entering class" of 30 employees coming into our company back in 1995.  When people join Microsoft, they go through a training course that introduces them to the company and an executive visits & "sponsors" the entering group of employees.  (If you want to see a video of him, here’s a speech he did for our July 2006 Shareholder’s meeting)

We’ll also be passing out "goodie" bags with interesting things in there like a copy of Windows & .NET Magazine, evaluation products, t-shirts, etc.

And of course you’ll have the opportunity visit with all our Windows Vista & Office System partners who will have booths at the event, allowing you to see how, say, Symantec’s software will work with Windows Vista.

Registration:
To attend, you MUST register below.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032314640&Culture=en-US

Location: