Posted by: kurtsh | June 30, 2006

BETA: Rights Management Services (RMS) 1.0 Service Pack 2 (SP2) BETA

Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) 1.0 Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Microsoft Windows Server 2003, a security service for Windows Server 2003, is information protection that works with RMS-enabled applications to help safeguard digital information from unauthorized use – both online and offline, inside and outside of the firewall. For more information about RMS, please go to www.microsoft.com/rms.
 
Since this server component is provided as a premium service for Windows Server 2003, a Windows RMS Client Access License (CAL) is required for each user publishing and/or consuming Rights Management Services (RMS)-protected content. However, up to two users may simultaneously access or use RMS solely for administration of the software without a CAL. For more details on licensing requirements, please review the End User License Agreement when downloading this premium service.
 
Although RMS is designed for and tested with database servers running SQL Server 2000/2005 and MSDE, and Microsoft does not support the usage of RMS together with a database provider other than either SQL Server 2000/2005 or MSDE, RMS can be run on other database servers that use the ADO.NET interfaces that are provided by the Microsoft .NET Framework. Therefore, other database vendors may have developed compatible database providers for RMS. You may use any database provider together with RMS on the condition that the corresponding database server complies with the following criteria:
  • The database server must be Transact-SQL compliant because RMS initialization scripts and RMS stored procedures use Transact-SQL.
  • The database server must support any Microsoft SQL Server-specific extensions.
  • The database provider must be able to:
    Respond to method calls of the System.Data.SqlClient namespace of the .NET Framework.
    Provide the corresponding functionality of the System.Data.SqlClient namespace.
    Use Windows Integrated Authentication instead of SQL authentication.
If you use RMS in any other configuration, contact the relevant database vendor or solution provider whose database provider you are using in your customized deployment.
 

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Posted by: kurtsh | June 30, 2006

ARTICLE: Infoworld’s article on “Longhorn” client & server

Infoworld wrote a helluvan article about Windows Vista & Longhorn Server.  It’s available as a downloadable article.

———————

Longhorn: More than just hype
For Windows IT managers, Longhorn is a must-have upgrade

 
"True, pieces of Longhorn may have slipped. A vivisected WinFS may lie gurgling in a back room somewhere, Vista’s PC Sync may have suddenly keeled over dead, and Vista itself may slip again due to its ultraslick, I’m-as-cool-as-OS X display technology. But you’ve got to give it to Redmond: Longhorn is a slam dunk, a must-have upgrade for practically every Windows systems administrator. "
 

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Posted in Document

Posted by: kurtsh | June 30, 2006

OFFER: Plantronics Halo 2 Headset for XBox – $14.95

Remember the sweet green GameCom Halo® 2 edition headset?

Well, the good people at Plantronics have got a great deal on these babies. You ready for this?  They’re usually $50, but for a limited time they will only set you back $14.95 U.S.

Not only that, a buck of that price goes to Plantronics GameCom United Way Katrina Recovery Fund.  These headsets are great—they work with your original Xbox® and Xbox 360™—heck, they’ll even work with your cell phone.

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Posted in Offer

Posted by: kurtsh | June 30, 2006

BETA: Digital Locker from Windows Marketplace Labs

Assume that bandwidth will grow toward 10Mb d/l per home connection over the next 3 years.
Assume that people’s Internet connections will be as reliable as their phone’s dial tone.
Assume that workstation hard drives are not the appropriate place to store the "source" media for software package purchases.
Assume that every Windows user wants a consistent, reliable method of retrieving backups of the software they’ve purchased, anytime, anywhere.
Assume that people want to have the most a current version of the software that they purchased.
 
Today, individual companies selling software online in this way are doing so with their own servers, their own Internet connections, and their own transaction systems.  They are tracking individual users on their own databases and they are using their own resources to do so.
 
PROBLEM:
This is an inconsistent purchasing & downloading experience for end users.  Think of your Mom & Dad.
This inconsistent experience means that each application can not rely on a consistent Internet location for things like application self healing over the Internet.
This purchasing & downloading experience requires every manufacturer to provide identification systems and downloading bandwidth on their own.
 
Digital Locker provides that consistent location for software purchases and storage online.
 
The digital locker was designed to give customers a single page for controlling their personal information and purchase history, allowing them to instantly see what software licenses they own. Microsoft is offering programs from the libraries of Digital River, eSellerate, Handango and Kagi, but will not support independent ISVs. Credit card charges will be handled by Microsoft’s delivery partners.
 

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Posted by: kurtsh | June 30, 2006

NEWS: Office 2007 delayed by a few months

Microsoft Office 2007 was slated for release early Q4 2006, but we’re having to delay the "release to manufacturing" (RTM) date to early Q1 2007 – meaning somewhere between January and March of next year.  It looked like we weren’t going to hit the quality metrics we wanted by RTM so they pushed out the completion/release date out by a little for another test pass.
 
OFFICE DELAYED, VISTA NOT
To be clear, this means that the day the "finalized" Office 2007 family software will be declared finished and available to our early adopters will be around the end of the year… probably mid December-ish, I were a bettin’ man.  This has no affect on the release date for Windows Vista family of software, which I would guess remains late October-ish, early-November-ish… again, if I were a bettin’ man.
 
OFFICE IS CERTIFIABLY COOL
And Office 2007 is a REALLY COOL release.  To those of you who’ve pooh-poohed Microsoft major releases as ‘unnecessary’ and ‘just fodder to fuel the great evil empire’, this will hopefully change your mind – because it has for many of my more ‘skeptical friends – a few of them being Mac users.  (who will undoubtedly benefit from Office’s new functionality in Office 2008 or whatever the heck their release is)   For example, the contextual spell-checking engine (the ability to highlight word misspellings for the context they are being used in, like the misuse of "their" vs "they’re" vs "there") is a realy leap forward in auto-proofreading. 
It’s not only really useful to me personally, there’s some really impressive business value elements to it that will make it very attractive to corporations looking at the new release as the target for their next Producitivity Suite upgrade. 
 
Bottom line:  It’s important we get this right.
 
It also means that the "launch events" (the big shindigs that we do for the launch of a product) will be delayed as well since we’re doing Windows Vista, Office 2007, Exchange Server 12, Sharepoint Server 2007, Forms Server 2007, Project Server 2007, etc. etc. etc.  It’ll be a little weird throwing a launch event for Windows Vista so long after it’s actual release in 2006… but oh well.

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Posted in News and politics

Posted by: kurtsh | June 30, 2006

OFFER: XBox 360 Premium System for $349.95!

Microsoft Xbox 360 Platinum System $349.95 shipped at Dell Home
Dell Home has the Microsoft Xbox 360 Platinum System at $359.95. Features: 20GB Hard Drive, Includes Xbox Live Headset, Component HD AV Cable, and Ethernet Cable. Enter code C99$273GQ1L4W8 at checkout for $10 off $100. Must use PayPal. Free shipping.

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Posted by: kurtsh | June 30, 2006

BETA: Internet Explorer 7.0 Beta 3 releases

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 for Windows XP (and more) Now Available
This morning we released IE7 Beta 3 for Windows XP. This version includes improvements in reliability, compatibility, security, and a few end user features. Give it a try at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx.

Based on your feedback, we’ve made some changes to IE7. Beta 3 returns the email button to the toolbar customize dialog (one of the most requested features), and enables reordering of tabs by dragging them to the left or right. In this version you can also scroll horizontally while zooming.  To improve the RSS experience, IE7 now allows you to update all your RSS feeds on-demand as well as mark them all “READ”.

Beta 3 also contains all the security fixes addressed in the June IE security bulletin, so we encourage all Beta 2 users to upgrade to Beta 3.

Please remember to uninstall any previous IE7 builds before installing this one. IE7 Beta 3 runs on Windows XP SP2, Windows XP x64, and Windows Server 2003 SP1. This beta does not install on Windows Vista Beta 2; a new version of IE7+ in Windows Vista will be available with the next public Windows Vista release soon. IE7 still replaces IE6; if you’re a developer and need to have both IE6 and IE7 on a single machine, I recommend Microsoft Virtual PC (here’s a link to their 45-day free trial version) or Chris Wilson’s post on the subject.

As with Beta 2, we’ll release German, Finnish, Arabic, and Japanese versions in the next few weeks.

I’m looking forward to reading the feedback – positive and negative – as it comes in. I also want to encourage developers, web developers, designers, and IT Pros to use Readiness Toolkit to help you deliver the best possible experience to your sites’ IE7 visitors.

Today’s release is the final beta for IE7. Our next steps are the Release Candidates followed by general availability in the second half of the year.

Thanks,
Dean Hachamovitch
General Manager

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Posted by: kurtsh | June 29, 2006

COMMENTARY: What happened to Martin Taylor?

There’s been enough conjecture around this topic that I thought maybe I’d riff a little about it.  Basically, the story goes that Martin Taylor, a much heralded individual responsible for Windows Live – Microsoft’s new Internet services technologies, departed from Microsoft under rather mysterious circumstances.  The PR statement from Redmond was, "We have made the difficult decision to part ways with Martin, but we don’t comment on personnel matters. We appreciate Martin’s contributions at Microsoft over the past 13 years."
 
I personally don’t know what happened, but I do perceive that there are around 4 actions that Redmond could have taken depending upon what was happening.
 
1) Martin was voluntarily taking a brief leave of absence because of a personal matter like a taking care of a loved one. 
In this instance, the departure would have been friendly and Redmond PR could have made a statement, thanking Martin for all his work, talking about all the great things that he did, go on and on about his future being bright and junk, and basically pouring honey all over him to make sure he came back after his brief respite.  It would be readily obvious to everyone that Martin was still welcome back at Microsoft whenever he wanted and that his reasons for leaving were completely his own.
 
2) Martin was forced to leave his job to deal with a personal matter that was going to consume too much of his time.
It’s possible that Martin had a matter to tend to that was going to take serious time to deal with, and so he’d either be restricted from travel or would have to go part time, neither of which were acceptable for the position he was in as lead champion for Windows Live.  He might have tried to negotiate something so that he could stay on in the same role while accommodating his personal matter but his role as the chief mouthpiece of Windows Live is so important in our online services battle that we couldn’t have someone at the helm doing it only "part time", so Microsoft was forced to let him go quietly and quickly with regret.
 
3) Martin was voluntarily leaving Microsoft for a competitor like Google.
After all, it’s not like this hasn’t happened recently.  4 rather press-hyped names have left Microsoft in the past year for Google:  Marc Lucovsky, Adam Bosworth, Kai-Fu Lee, and Vic Gundotra.  In this instance, Redmond PR wouldn’t have made a statement, but the competitor hiring him probably would have sent out press releases to every news outlet they could reach in order to get some free advertising like Google did with Marc Lucovsky & Kai-Fu Lee.  Martin himself would likely be asked to say something about why he was changing jobs.
 
4) Martin was asked to leave. 
This could be for any number of reasons.  Because of the Martin’s title and position within the company, this would be a very uncomfortable matter and one that would be difficult for both Martin as well as for the company’s PR department.  In this case, very little would be said however a statement would be made immediately to ensure that if the reason for his departure was one that could be damaging to all involved, an official statement was already submitted to the newswire and it couldn’t be said that a "party line" hadn’t been established.
 
At least that’s what I’m thinking.  Either #2 or #4 could fit the bill but I’ve been told that Martin was a very decent and principled guy so my thinking is #2:  That he couldn’t commit the necessary time to his job – a job that’s very important here at Microsoft.

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Posted by: kurtsh | June 26, 2006

TRAINING: Advanced MOM Hands-On Workshop, July 26-27

Microsoft Advanced MOM Hands-On Workshop
How to Maintain a Secure and Well Managed Infrastructure
July 26-27, 2006
Microsoft Los Angeles, CA
 
This two-day workshop specifically provides in-depth, technical training in a small classroom setting where participants learn through lecture and hands-on demonstrations.
 
This workshop will be led by a Microsoft Management Technical Specialist and Microsoft Management Partner: Quest Software. This course offers a significant amount of hands-on training that will assist your organization in becoming proficient in the skills that are needed to work with Microsoft Management Solutions.
 
Key topics include:
  • Microsoft System Management Server 2003
  • Microsoft Operations Manager 2005
  • Microsoft System Center Capacity Planner 2006
  • Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager
  • Microsoft Operation Framework
  • Partner solutions complementing Microsoft Operations Manager 2005
Audience:
The workshop is designed for your IT staff. This technical hands-on workshop is limited to 22 attendees. This invitation is non-transferable.
 
Date:
July 26-27, 2006
 
Time:
9:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Registration begins at 8:30 AM
 
Location
Microsoft Corporation
333 South Grand Avenue
Suite 3300
Los Angeles, Ca. 90071
(Breakfast, lunch and parking included)
 
Call 1.877.MSEVENT (877.673.8368) or visit http://msevents.microsoft.com/ and search on Event Code 1032302496.
 

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Posted in Training

Posted by: kurtsh | June 23, 2006

VIDEO: Billg on the Education Problem in the United States

BILLG ON BUSINESS WEEK
Business Week’s cover story this week is about Billg’s fight to improve high school education in America.  Read about it here:
BUSINESSWEEK:  Bill Gates Gets Schooled
Why he and other execs have struggled in their school reform efforts, and why they keep trying
 
BILLG ON OPRAH 
Oprah Winfrey did a 2 part special with Bill & Melinda Gates about the crisis our schools are facing.  If you’re interested in viewing it here’s some streams I made of the shows.
Episode 1:  Oprah – "What Bill & Melinda Gates wants you to know"
VIDEO:  http://www.evilkoala.org/media/BillGOnOprah1.wmv (82MB)
Episode 2:  Oprah –  "America Schools in Crisis"
VIDEO:  http://www.evilkoala.org/media/BillGOnOprah2.wmv (52MB)
 
BILLG IN THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Most people wouldn’t highlight a little article in the Dallas Morning News regarding Bill Gates.  After all, the closest Bill ever got to officially setting up business in Dallas, Texas was Albuquerque, New Mexico when he started Microsoft, (or to be correct for the time period, "Micro Soft")… other than that, all his history outside of Harvard has been in the Pacific Northwest. 
 
But one of their business columnists wrote a very nice article about what the Billg announcement did and what it implies moving forward, summarizing his contributions and how Microsoft handled business analysts.  It’s a very easy read and makes some good points.
Cheryl Hall:   "Gates is revolutionizing philanthropy"

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