Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Check this site out:  https://epp.microsoft.com/

If you don’t know what this is, it might be interesting to do some digging.  It’s the Microsoft employee  purchase program web site where you, as an employee of a corporate customer of Microsoft’s that has an Enterprise Agreement, can get drastically discounted productivity software for your own personal use.  It’s one of those cool perks of being a major customer of ours.

So you’re reading through the site and you look at one field:  "PROGRAM CODE".  And you say, "What’s a Program Code?"  That’s the unique ID that’s tied to your company.  It’s a special code that gives you the opportunity to enroll in the EPP program under your company’s contract.

This of course means that someone either has to enroll you using the code, or they have to GIVE you the code.  Personally, I’ve seen customers do either however I think the best way it for some central person within your company enroll you and everyone else just to make sure there’s some control over who takes advantage of this benefit… because ABUSE of the site (buying software at a discount an reselling it on eBay for example) makes your company liable for your actions.  The simplest penalty is to have the benefit negated completely for the life of the contract.

You can probably imagine how ticked off a lot of people would be if this happened.

So anyway, if your’re a customer of mine, your organization HAS THIS BENEFIT.  It’s just a matter of them making it available to you.  I suggest you ask around because with Windows Vista and Office 2007 coming around the corner, wouldn’t it be cool to be able to pick up a copy for home for half price?

LIVE.COM suddenly went into warp drive.  The thing is probably 5x as fast as it used to be which is great because it was nearly unbearably slow before.

It’s a really good page now for doing RSS aggregation and searching.  It finally makes a great home page for me that customized with the news items from the sites I want to read about.

I did a little digging.  Here’s why it got faster:
http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/archive/2006/08/28/729463.aspx

With the upcoming release of the 2007 Microsoft® Office system, your Southern California team, along with our Southern California enterprise partners would like to invite you to a series of webcasts, designed specifically for our enterprise customers.

This upcoming series, presented by Microsoft partners, will cover Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, and will include technical and solution overviews.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for Public Facing Websites
9/27/06, Wednesday, 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m., LiveMeeting
Need to build a scalable, manageable internet website? Microsoft Office SharePoint Server provides a robust framework and feature set which now supports internet facing clients. Topics at this session will include skinning, adapting third party web controls for navigation, configuring forms authentication against SQL Server, enabling SSL, and managing anonymous visitors.
Presented by: SpeakTech
Audience: IT Managers and Professionals responsible for web sites and collaboration
Prerequisites: Previous experience with Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and web site management
Registration URL: <http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032306420&Culture=en-US >
Event ID: 1032306420

Migrating from Content Management Server to Office SharePoint Server 2007
10/11/06, Wednesday, 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m., LiveMeeting
This webcast is designed specifically for customers planning migrations from Content Management Server (CMS) to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. At this session, migration procedures and best practices will be presented. The session will also include an overview of the new features offered by SharePoint Server, and will show how existing features in CMS map to the new framework. Experienced developers will share best practices for preparing your environments for this transition.
Presented by: SpeakTech
Audience: IT Managers and Professionals responsible for site management and collaboration
Prerequisites: Previous experience with Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and managing intranet sites
Registration URL: <http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032306422&Culture=en-US >
Event ID: 1032306422

Implementing IT Service Request Processes using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
10/27/06, Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m., LiveMeeting
At this presentation and demonstration, K2 will showcase an application built on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and K2.net for the purpose of submitting and completing an IT Service Request. This demo will showcase the workflow features built into this application, and will also highlight features such as email notification, escalation through reminder email, inter-process communication, the capability to redirect a work item, and integration to SharePoint document libraries and lists.
Presented by: K2
Audience: IT Managers and Professionals responsible for site management and collaboration
Prerequisites: Previous experience with Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and managing intranet sites
Registration URL: <http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032306837&Culture=en-US >
Event ID: 1032306837

Collaborative Authoring and Publishing using SharePoint Server 2007
11/1/06, Wednesday, 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m., LiveMeeting
Collaborative Authoring and Publishing Process for Quality Management Manual
This presentation and demonstration will show an application built on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and K2.net for the purpose of Collaborative Document Authoring and Publishing. This example will cover the creation of Quality Management documents, which organizations typically create and maintain as part of their ISO procedures. This “document management application” allows a user in an organization to create new quality documents, make changes, and subsequently submit them to a “document approval” process before they are “published” for public consumption.
Presented by: K2
Audience: IT Managers and Professionals responsible for site management and collaboration
Prerequisites: Previous experience with Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and managing intranet sites
Registration URL: <http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032306840&Culture=en-US >
Event ID: 1032306840

Office SharePoint Server 2007: Key New Feature Overview
11/8/06, Wednesday, 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m., LiveMeeting
At this session, we’ll provide an overview of the key new features and capabilities available in Office SharePoint Server 2007. Topics to be covered include:

• People, Profiles and Personalization
• Web Content Management and Branding
• Enterprise Search
• Business Application Integration
• Business Intelligence

  Presented by: Neudesic
  Audience: IT Managers and Professionals responsible for site management and collaboration
  Prerequisites: Previous experience with Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and managing intranet sites
  Registration URL: <http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032306842&Culture=en-US >
  Event ID: 1032306842

  Office SharePoint Server 2007: Key New Development Technologies and Capabilities
  12/6/06, Wednesday, 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m., LiveMeeting
  At this session, we’ll provide an overview of the key new features and capabilities in Office SharePoint Server 2007, specifically targeting developers. Topics included are:

  • Programming in Windows SharePoint Services
  • Solutions, Web Parts and Web Part Packages
  • Sites and Pages
  • Features, Actions and Templates
  • Development using WSS Web Services
  • Customizing Search
  • Enterprise Content Management
  • Developing Workflows

  Presented by: Neudesic
  Audience: IT Managers and Professionals responsible for site management and collaboration
  Prerequisites: Previous experience with Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server and managing intranet sites
  Registration URL <http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032306844&Culture=en-US >
  Event ID: 1032306844

I have to admit this is really cool.  For those interested, we will be collaborating with Citrix to build a Citrix-branded appliance that should be useful for branch offices for WAN usage optimization.

Microsoft & Citrix Expand Partnership to Improve Application Access & Address Branch Office Complexity:
Companies to collaborate on developing and marketing a new Citrix WANScaler™ branch office appliance based on Microsoft Windows Server and Microsoft ISA Server.

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), today announced they plan to expand their existing partnership in access and end-to-end application delivery to make computing faster, more secure and more cost-effective for employees in branch office locations. The two companies will collaborate on developing and marketing a new multifunction Citrix branch office appliance based on the Microsoft® Windows Server® operating system and Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server and utilizing the recently announced Citrix® WANScaler™ solution.

The planned joint solution represents a new type of branch office appliance that combines advanced wide area network (WAN) optimization technologies with consolidated branch office services in a single, multifunction appliance that is easy to administer remotely. This combination helps solve a major problem for customers that cannot be solved today with traditional networking solutions or individual point products and that Microsoft and Citrix are uniquely able to address with their technologies, channel partners and customer reach.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/aug06/08-23MSCitrixPR.mspx

This is pretty funny.  Check this out:  http://www.360Voice.com

Basically, there’s an Xbox360 Live web service that’s been created out there that allows you to register and generate an automatic blog "written by your Xbox360" based upon the things you’ve done with it.

For example. Mike Musgrove of the Washington Post writes:

While I was off on a vacation recently, the slick game console spent the week talking about me behind my back and posting snarky comments on the Web.

"I was ignored . . . all . . . freaking . . . day," it complained. 

"What . . . are you off reading a book or something?" it remarked another day. "Come play games!"

Finally, things got a little spooky. "I have a bit of a temper if I am neglected," it warned.

Frickin’ awesome.  I can’t wait to see what it is that my XBox360 has to say about my recent nightly addiction to Texas Hold’em.  Better yet, if it has access to the chip count list of my friends relative to me and my fluctuating gameplay & resulting gameranking, the blog should be very interesting.  It’ll probably go something like this:

"Boy, does my owner suck.  When I went ‘All In’ for $8,000 in chips, you’d think he’d pick up that I had an Ace high flush to his King high flush.  Guess not, jackass.  Hope you like dirt because your ranking just hit the floor."

"Jeezus.  He owns virtually every game out there made for me, and yet he’s never played even a quarter of them for more than a single night.  The only games he’s gotten any good playtime off of were Quake 4, Kameo, Far Cry: Instincts, and Call of Duty 2."

"But at least he doesn’t have a 0 dollars in his Texas Hold’em coffers like YoAzz does."

My Xbox360’s blog, in case anyone cares, is at:  http://www.360voice.com/blog.asp?tag=BlueMax

Watch the best of Tech.Ed  US in high quality video, on-demand, on IT’s Showtime! by TechNet.

———————-

Windows Vista

Deploying Windows Vista: Everything You Need in One Hour  – Corey Hynes

Windows Vista System Integrity Technologies – Steve Riley

Microsoft IT: Deploying Windows Vista – Chad Lewis

Windows Vista: Securing Wireless Networks  – Taranjeet Athwal

Anti-Malware Technologies in Windows Vista  – Adam Overton

Building Reliability into Windows Vista – David Zipkin, Elsie Nallipogu

Account Control: Running Windows Vista with Least Privilege – Steve Hiskey

Windows Vista: Remote Deployments – Andy Zeigler

Image Engineering: Creating Your Perfect Windows Vista Desktop – Joe Morris

Windows Vista Security Guide – Mike Danseglio

New Backup and Offline Files Features in Windows Vista – Navjot Virk, Dan Stevenson

Group Policy: What’s New in Windows Vista – Mark Williams

———————-

Longhorn

Ten Reasons to Prepare for Windows Server Code Named "Longhorn" – Ward Ralston

Next Generation Networking features – Chris Mitchell, Ian Hameroff

Optimize Your Core Infrastructure: Manage Complexity, Achieve Agility, Protect Information and Control Access – Bob Kelly

———————-

Office

Introducing the 2007 Microsoft Office System: Amplify the Impact of Your People  – Chris Capossela

———————-

Management

Introducing System Center Operations Manager 2007 – Dhananjay Mahajan, Omar Kouatly

Scripting for IT Professionals Who Can’t Write Code – Corey Hynes

Windows PowerShell: Next Generation Command Line Scripting – Jeffrey Snover

Troubleshooting Group Policy – Derek Melber

Optimize Your Core Infrastructure: Manage Complexity, Achieve Agility, Protect Information and Control Access – Bob Kelly

———————-

SQL Server

Advance your Business with IT Solutions – Steven Guggenheimer

SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services: Deep Dive – T. K. Anand, Cristian Petculescu

———————-

Strategy

Optimize Your Core Infrastructure: Manage Complexity, Achieve Agility, Protect Information and Control Access – Bob Kelly

Advance your Business with IT Solutions – Steven Guggenheimer

Introducing the 2007 Microsoft Office System: Amplify the Impact of Your People  – Chris Capossela

Building Trust in Computing – Ben Fathi

Announcing the Windows Live Platform – Brian Arbogast

———————-

For more sessions from TechEd 2006, WinHec 2006 and other top rated Microsoft IT Pro conferences, visit  www.microsoft.com/itsshowtime/

IT’s Showtime! by TechNet is a video on demand service featuring highly rated presentations from top Microsoft IT Pro events.   If you would like to keep up to date about content in Its Showtime by TechNet, you may also use the RSS feeds available on the site.

We’ve opened the gates the let the general public download the .ISO image (the DVD image) of Windows Vista Release Candidate 1.

You’ll still need a Activation Key.  If you don’t already have one, they’ll be making keys openly available in a week or so from the "Get Ready" site.  The Activation Key (for those that haven’t been paying attention <ahem>) determines what "edition" of the Windows Vista software installs on your PC.  All the software necessary for any edition of Windows Vista is available in the .ISO image.

A few things:  (Many taken from this site)

• FIREWALL… ON!
  The Firewall will automatically turn on, even if you upgrade from Beta 2 and had it turned off.  The firewall will always turn on automatically after installing and rebooting.
• WINDOWS MEDIA DRM MAY NOT WORK
  Any protected content played back on Windows Media Player after the machine is upgraded may require the patch indicated here:  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=47290 
• EXPIRATION DATE ON BETA
  The Release Candidate expires June 1, 2007.  Upgrades from RC1 are not supported.
• ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE
  Antivirus software for Windows Vista is available at theWindows Vista AV site.  Right now Trend Micro’s free trial is the only posted however eTrust 7.1 by CA works – both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions.  (I should know – we use both of them)
• OFFICE 2007 TECH REFRESH ONLY!
  Office 2007 Beta 2 by itself will not work on Windows Vista RC1.  You need to download the latest Office 2007 bits if you wish to run them on Windows Vista RC1 – download them from here.
• BURN DVDS AT MINIMUM SPEED
  The world has discovered that burning DVD images at high speeds for booting up OS installations doesn’t always result in an accurate, readable disc.  It’s encouraged that people burn their Windows Vista RC1 DVDs at 1x or 2x speeds instead of 8x or 16x speed.
• 1GHZ CPU, 1.0GB SystemRAM, 128MB VideoRAM, 15GB STORAGE
  These are basically the requirements for a Windows Vista machine to be run at a recommended or "premium" level.  It isn’t going to work well with anything below this.  Folks that try loading Windows Vista with the minimum requirements (800mhz, 512MB SystemRAM, 32MB VideoRAM) are going to be in a world of hurt so don’t bother.

Have any of you ever used the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant?

• Intro:  http://winliveid.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!AEE1BB0D86E23AAC!222.entry
• Q&A:  http://winliveid.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!AEE1BB0D86E23AAC!324.entry

Man, this thing couldn’t be any cooler for me. I noticed its availability during the recent update of Windows Live Messenger. (which by the way is available online as build 8.0.0812) Apparently, Windows Live Messenger is the only way to get it so far which is a shame.

What is it? It’s a piece of software that resides on your desktop and acts as an agent for authentication. Basically what it does is it allows you to cache the credentials & passwords of your Windows Live Accounts securely on your machine. Whenever you need to login to a site or whenever you need to switch logins to another account, it presents you with a clean user interface with the list of accounts that you’ve cached on your machine along with the photo/picture associated with the account and you simply click on one of the accounts to login.

Not a big deal you say?   Account credential caching has been in Windows for ages?  (Some nasty Mac users might scream " KEYCHAIN HAS HAD THIS ON THE MAC SINCE BLAH BLAH BLAH") Well, what I think is cool about this isn’t the fact that it’s anything new or that it’s flexible. It’s all be done before. What’s cool is that it’s constrained and specific to Windows Live credentials only which are special being that they’re credentials that can be used for both application software like Windows Live Writer & web-based services. It doesn’t cache anything else… it doesn’t cache the username and password for any other service and it’s integrated into all the Windows Live services that I use.

And since I use multiple accounts for multiple email addresses and multiple Windows Live services, this is a total dream for me… being able to quickly switch between the different blogs I own, for instance, is really nice.

Uh.  Wow.  These are really sharply discounted Xbox360 games.

$45.99 Ninety Nine Nights – B000FLZEXM

$29.82 Project Gotham Racing 3 – B000B6ML28

$39.82 Burnout Revenge – B0009WPZMW

$29.99 Perfect Dark Zero – B000B6ML0U

$19.99 Ridge Racer 6 – B000AMF76A

$39.95 Test Drive Unlimited – B000EGEX9Y

$29.82 Kameo Elements of Power – B000B6ML0A

$39.99 Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 – B0009WPZNG

$37.99 Top Spin 2 – B000B7Q4CK

$39.99 Tomb Raider Legend – B000A0XSN6

$39.99 Condemned Criminal Origins – B0009SQFHA

$29.99 Final Fantasy XI – B000ENW5W4

$39.99 Far Cry Instincts Predator – B000CQNWH0

$39.82 Tony Hawk American Wasteland – B0009Z3HOW

$39.99 Gun – B0009Z3I0A

$37.99 Amped 3 – B000B7Q4CU

$37.99 The Outfit – B000BLNFPA

$19.99 NHL 2K6 – B000B7Q4CA

$29.99 NBA 2K6 – B000B7Q4BQ

$19.99 College Hoops 2K6 – B000B90GD6

A lot of hoopla has been made over a video that was produced recently and placed on the Internet that describes how to crack Windows passwords , or more specifically, how to use L0phtcrack.  (If you haven’t seen the thing, I’ve posted it here.)

WHAT IS ALL OF THIS?
L0phtcrack has its originations as an old NT password cracking tool created by a couple of hackers that discovered that by brute force attacking the Security Account Management database (aka SAM) from a Windows NT kernel-based machine, a person can crack virtually any password in the local user database with enough time and enough CPU.  Early versions of the tool required that the end user have either physical access to the machine to copy the SAM database file off of it, or have security access to the SAM database over the network so that one could again copy the file, then run L0phtcrack on it on their own time on their own machine.  Newer versions I believe allowed a person to monitor the network traffic going back and forth between the machine and other servers, to take advantage of weaknesses in the NTLM authentication protocol to essentially do the same thing.

IT’S NO BIG DEAL.
In a nutshell, if folks never actually get their hands on your laptop or don’t have physical access to your desktop, you don’t really have much to worry about because you’re pretty much protected.  In order to do all of this, a person needs to physically boot up another operating system on your machine to copy off the SAM database file and that’s not something that they can normally do if they don’t have physical access to your workstation.

If the people you’re worried about DO have physical access to your workstation, there’s an old adage in the security industry:  Don’t do that.  Giving physical access to your PC to people you don’t trust is like giving them the codes to deactivate the security alarm on your home – After they’ve disabled the alarms, it’s just a matter of picking the lock on the front door.  There’s really no commericially available operating systems out there that aren’t hackable through brute force techniques when people have physical access to the machine being hacked.  Not Macintosh.  Not Linux.  Not UNIX.

For the record, the vulnerability of data on mobile PCs like laptops has not gone unnoticed by Microsoft.  In the future, Windows Vista will be the first commerically available operating system to fully take advantage of next-generation security & encryption technology available on this coming generation of PCs & laptops.  The technology is called the Trusted Platform Module or TPM chip, which among other things enables people to securely encrypt all data on a laptop storage medium like the hard drive.  The bottom line is that even if the laptop is stolen, the data on the hard drive can’t be decrypted using simple brute force techniques.

TPM chips are only available on the latest workstations & laptops and the only Windows operating system that takes advantage of this technology is Windows Vista.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM PASSWORD HACKING
The net net however is that it’s relatively easy to "protect" oneself from these sort of attacks. 

1. DON’T LET PEOPLE GET PHYSICAL ACCESS TO YOUR MACHINE
   It sounds lame but any computer physically accessible by people without specific "commerically available protective security software" and special configuration "hardening" is usually vulnerable to password cracking.   Examples of this "security software" include some rather expensive packages from PointSec or for a much less expensive solution, try Windows Vista’s built-in Bitlocker Technology.  Examples of "hardening techniques" include removing all removable media drives & access points like USB ports, floppy drives, serial ports, CDROM drives, etc, enabling a power on-password and a BIOS password, etc.

   – The easiest solution is to simply use Windows Vista Business and leverage Bitlocker Drive Encryption Technology on your PC or laptop and encrypt everything securely based on your authentication.

   – If you use a desktop PC with Windows XP, keep the computer casing locked, the physical unit secured to a table (so that someone couldn’t walk off with it at night), set a power-on password and BIOS password to prevent people from "booting up from your CDROM, floppy drive, or USB port". (or simply remove the drives and ports from your machine if you don’t need them)  Additionally, use Windows XP Professional’s EFS file & directory encryption to encrypt the data in your My Documents folder to protect your personal information.

   – If you use a laptop PC with Windows XP, consider the same practices as a desktop user and consider implementing a 3rd party drive level encryption technology.  Be aware that these products often cost $500 or more and won’t really be as necessary when Windows Vista is released and available since Windows Vista will have the technology built into it.

   …and if you don’t have Windows XP Professional and have something else, you need for first upgrade before you do anything else because you’re version of Windows is either out of support or it’s going out of support, meaning no more security patches, no more stability fixes, and more more software being written for it.  i.e. you’ve got bigger problems.

2. USE DOMAIN ACCOUNTS & PASSWORDS
   This stuff only works against user accounts that are stored locally on the machine.  If you are on a corporate network with Active Directory, L0phtcrack does nothing to hack your account… because your user credential password hash doesn’t exist on the local computer, but rather it exists on a network server. 
3. USE SYSKEY 128-BIT SAM ENCRYPTION
   Syskey will encrypt the SAM database with 128-bit security making tools like L0phtcrack unusable.  Basically, just read this article for the how & the why:
   http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310105/en-us
4. USE A 14 CHARACTER PASSWORD
   The usage of a 14-character password is encouraged for the most secure way of protecting your user account & good name.  Without getting into the details, "14" turns out to be the precise number of characters that are necessary to ensure that you’re password is relatively hard to hack, assuming that you also… (see #4)
5. USE NON-ALPHANUMERIC CHARACTERS, UPPER CASE, LOWER CASE, and A NUMBER IN YOUR PASSWORD
   For example "MyPa$swordIs9ood", would be an excellent example of a password that is 14 or more characters long, contains a non-alphanumeric character($), contains both upper and lower case characters("M","w"), and contains a number(9).