Posted by: kurtsh | January 30, 2006

OFFER: Partner services for Volume License purchases

Check this out:  Look at the consulting funds that your organization can get just for purchasing the very software you may have already intended on buying through Volume Licensing!
 
PROJECT 2003/PROJECT SERVER 2003:
Up to $40,000 in consulting services for any volume licensed Project implementations. 
 
LIVE COMMUNICATIONS SERVER 2003:
100% off the Live Comm Server CAL, with the purchase of Software Assurance on that CAL.
(LCS Software Assurance enables the usage of any current and future versions of LCS – this purchase breaks out to being roughly 50% off on the overall cost)
 
RIGHTS MANAGEMENT SERVICES v1.1:
100% off the RMS CAL, with the purchase of Software Assurance on that CAL.
(RMS Client Access Licenses are generally $35-$40 per user;  RMS Software Assurance enables the usage of any current and future versions of RMS – this is a per year cost and is generally around $10-$15 per user)
 

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Posted in Offer

Posted by: kurtsh | January 28, 2006

TOOLS: Video sharing online

I’ve often posted multimedia content on the Internet… some of it because I liked it and some of it because it was in another format that I dislike and on sheer principle alone, I’ve converted it to Windows Media.
 
There are two services that I really like:

MPEG NATION (http://www.mpegnation.com)
MPEG Nation is a video/audio publishing site that charges $8.95 as a one time fee.  Huh?  Charge for storing content online?  Yep.  But just for $8.95 look at what you get.

  • INPUT FILE FORMAT:  Any input file is accepted (even snail mailed tapes or DVDs!) and automatically converted.
  • OUTPUT STREAM FORMAT:  Content is outputted as a stream in Windows Media for free in 4 different bandwidths.  (150k, 300k, 750k, 1.5mbps)
  • 1.0 GB UPLOADS:  Any file uploaded can be up to 1 GB in size.
  • 6 MONTHS OF LIFE:  Any file published is posted for at least 6 months.
  • OPTIONAL PURCHASES:
    – 5 YEARS OF LIFE:  For an additional fee of $26 per file, content is saved online for 5 years.
    – CODEC AVAILABILITY: For a fee, content can also be streamed in Real, Quicktime, and even downloadable.
    – AD FREE EXPERIENCE:  Remove all advertising for a more professional presentation window
    – PASSWORD PROTECTION:  Secure the video from everyone except those with the password
    – VIEWERSHIP REPORTING:  Find out who it is that’s viewing you video
    – YAHOO VIDEO SEARCH:  Inclusion into Yahoo Video Search

STREAMLOAD (http://www.streamload.com)

Streamload is a site that provides 25GB of free publishing space without a fee.  It has a limit on the bandwidth that you can consume over a period of time however which is 500MB/month.    It allows files up to 25MB in size.  This might not seem very good however this is basically the same constraints that other video sharing sites have on their sites.

Additionally, for $120/year, you get 250GB of storage space online, 25GB of bandwidth/month and the ability to send any size file.  There is also a Terabyte storage option available for $360/year with most limitations removed.

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Posted by: kurtsh | January 28, 2006

INFO: Removing those “$NtUninstallKB….” directories in Windows

We’ve all seen them:   Those "$NtUninstallKB…." directories within Windows that take up a TON of space.  The question is… can I delete them?
 
The answer’s YES – if you never want to uninstall a given patch.  That’s all these things are:  Backup files in case you ever want to uninstall a patch from your system.  They are directly corollated to the entries in Add/Remove Programs for each patch that’s installed.  If you delete the directory for a "$NtUninstallKB….", there will still be a Registry entry that will have Add/Remove Programs displaying that patch and enabling people to attempt to uninstall it… even though no uninstall files exist.
 
So basically, you have to do both:  Delete the directory, the delete the reg entry.  Seems easy enough… until you realize that this can be laborious for 100 patches.  Enter Doug Knox’s tool.
 
Doug Knox sells a shareware app that does both tasks.  It will completely remove all Hotfix backups in it’s unregistered mode, and it will remove selective Hotfix backups in it’s registered mode.  Registration for the utility is only $5.  www.dougknox.com
 
There’s more of a discussion on this topic here:

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Posted by: kurtsh | January 27, 2006

RELEASE: MSN Spaces 10.5 is here!

For the record, MSN Spaces is running a little slow right now.  Why?  Because they just upgrade to version 10.5 and everyone’s POUNDING the servers as they make changes.  Also the Spaces Search isn’t going live for another few days so until then, it might not be so good.
 
Check out the new enhancements to MSN Spaces: 
(And there’s more coming in the next couple months!)
  • Spaces Search.  This is an incredibly cool feature that lets you find interesting spaces based on keyword, a user’s profile information, or by clicking on most popular interests across all of spaces.  You can also run a search from any space just by clicking "Search Spaces" in the header above.  One thing to mention about the search feature is that it will be ramping up for a few days – but you can help make it better!  Learn more about this on The Space Craft.
  • Mobile Search from Mobile Spaces!  Search for spaces from your mobile device.  Mike Smuga will be talking about this more over on his space soon.
  • Your own advertising on your space (as an option) to make money from clicks – powered by Kanoodle!  (This feature is only available in the United States and Canada at this time.)
  • Book lists with Amazon integration.  Automatically insert information from Amazon.com directly into your book list – and again, make money through Amazon Associates when people end up buying the book!  It’s very cool (by the way, our book is called Share Your Story if you want to add it to your book list 🙂
  • Better blog navigation.  This feature is one of those things we needed to do.  You can now "view more entries" at the bottom of the page, and navigate through Previous and Next pages while looking through blog entries.
  • Customized blog entry display.  Choose how you want your blog entries to appear, by date or entry title.  This is a great feature for people who write essays or incredibly insightful posts once a month.  Date isn’t really important in this case, whereas sorting by entry title may make more sense.
  • Integrated Help.  Confused?  Click the Learn link in the header above to figure out what to do next!
  • Enhanced Profile including General, Social, and Contact Info sections.  Each section will have it’s own permissions so any part you would like to limit access to (say your personal contact information), you can do it.  There’s also an updated profile module for the homepage with an actionable photo; anytime you see someone’s picture anywhere you can right-click (or click on the down arrow) to view their contact card, space, profile, and more.
  • Live Contacts Beta!  Brand new feature which you’ll see popping up throughout Windows Live in time.  What is it?  It’s the ability to subscribe to automatic contact updates.  When your friend changes his or her address or phone number (in their Profile mentioned above), your address book will be automatically updated if you are subscribed to updates.  This is crazy cool.  Learn more here.
    Which reminds me: Spaces now has contact cards like MSN/Windows Live Messenger!  Just right-click on someone’s profile photo (or click on the down arrow) and select "View contact card" to see a preview of their space.
  • Better commenting for blogs and now photos as well!  This feature also has an (optional) clickable profile photo that you can leave behind when leaving a comment.  And there’s a mini text editor so you can format your comments (something I’m really glad we did!) kinda like blog entries.  Note that if you would like to turn off photo comments, you can do this in Settings.
  • Photos are no longer limited to 30MB; you can now upload 500 photos per month without worrying about running out of storage space.
  • MetaWeblog API (OK, this one is from December – but it’s still cool).  Read more here.
  • Better URLs!  Sometimes the little things matter the most.  This is one of those things.  Say goodbye to /members/.  You can now be reached at http://spaces.msn.com/[username].  For example, http://spaces.msn.com/mike now works!  We also have cleaner paths to pages, so if you want to give someone a link to your blog or to your photos, you can send them to http://spaces.msn.com/[username]/blog or /photos.
  • Xbox Live integration.  Themes, recent games module, and gamer card integration!  This feature has been the single biggest reason my gamer score is now clocking in at 500 instead of 0.  If you’re into Xbox Live, these features rock!  Check out my theme and gamer card and you can see why.
  • New themes and categorized theme picker.  We now have well over 100 themes!
  • Do you like email or mobile publishing?  You can now publish from 3 email addresses instead of just one.
  • For those of you with private spaces (you know who you are!) people can now request access to spaces via anonymous email.  I like to think about this as "knocking on the door of someone’s house".
  • Privacy controls (communication preferences) for who can request access to your space and to your contact information and how.  Check it out in Settings.
  • We doubled the size limit on the HTML PowerToy.

Taken from:  http://spaces.msn.com/mike/blog/cns!FBABF8E542F5D5DB!5149.entry

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Posted by: kurtsh | January 27, 2006

NEWS: Gartner says, “Halt Blackberry Deployments”

Recently, I was approached by someone that recognized me as a Mobility Specialist for Microsoft.  The general jist of his feedback to me was along the lines of:  "Y’know, as corporate technology advisors, you folks at Microsoft really should have pushed us harder to understand the threat of only using RIM Blackberries in our corporate mobile strategy.  Nobody actually believed that RIM’s network operations center might actually get shutdown, effectively halting all RIM Blackberry messaging."
 
Even though I think that it’s more our responsibly to educate people about their alternatives, to some degree I agree with him.  People need to know how easy it is to actually stop a person’s Blackberry from functioning. 
 
Every Blackberry requires the operation of RIM’s Network Operations Center (NOC).  Every Blackberry user’s mobile message essentially passes through the NOC and this is what enables such high speed "push" messaging.  It’s also what IT folks call a "single point of failure".  Most would argue that RIM’s NOC is "fully redundant" and "not prone to an actual single point of failure… that is unless the legal system gets involved.
 
And that’s just the point:  The legal system IS involved. 
 
Companies really should be considering dual platform strategies for mobile messaging and applications.  Putting all of one’s eggs in RIM’s basket is a dangerous proposition because there’s so many questions surrounding RIM’s viability.
 
 
——————–
Gartner’s advice: Halt BlackBerry deployments
By Munir Kotadia
Special to CNET News.com
Published: December 7, 2005, 5:03 AM PST
Analyst firm Gartner has advised its clients to halt deployments of Research In Motion’s BlackBerry e-mail devices because of a legal battle that could see a judge effectively shut down the company’s U.S. operations.
Holding firm NTP contends that it owns patents for the technology that powers the popular PDAs. At stake is RIM’s right to operate in the United States. According to Gartner, NTP has already won an injunction that would force RIM to "shut down its U.S. operations."
The research note advises enterprises to "stop or delay all mission-critical BlackBerry deployments and investments in the platform until RIM’s legal position is clarified," because "U.S. BlackBerry users would lose messaging services…and international users would lose message service while traveling in the U.S."
However, Gartner expects the two companies to reach a settlement within three weeks because an agreement would be "in both companies’ interests."
There is a possibility that RIM could bypass the patent dispute by deploying a workaround, but Gartner said this path could be "highly problematic."
"RIM claims its workaround is legally sound, but its history in the courts does not inspire confidence. Moreover, end-user validation and implementation would take time, resulting in a temporary loss of service," the research note said.
Gartner advises enterprises "not to sign any agreements that could involve them in the RIM-NTP dispute" and "demand that RIM discloses its workaround plans."
If RIM deployments are not mission-critical, Gartner said, enterprises could take no action for the moment but rather "assess the potential impact of operation outages of unknown duration."
 

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Posted in News and politics

Posted by: kurtsh | January 26, 2006

NEWS: Microsoft announces 2nd quarter earnings

<this was our employee announcement about Microsoft’s earnings>
Today, the company announced our second quarter earnings.  For the quarter, we announced revenue of $11.84 billion, a 9% increase over the same period of the prior year, marking the highest quarterly revenue in the company’s history.  Net income for the quarter was $3.65 billion. Diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $0.34.
The quarter officially kicked off the broadest multi-year product cycle in the company’s history, with the significant, on-time, and successful launches of SQL Server 2005, Xbox 360 and Dynamics CRM 3.0. 
Our core businesses grew a combined $785 million in absolute revenue growth over the comparable period last year.  Server & Tools posted its 14th consecutive quarter of double digit revenue growth with SQL Server leading the way with over 20% growth.  The phenomenal success of Xbox 360 ushered in the high definition era and drove Home & Entertainment revenue growth of 13%.
And each of our Microsoft Business Solutions and Mobile and Embedded business groups generated operating profit for their first time! 
During the quarter, we executed $7.7 billion of share buyback, our largest ever in any quarter.
For the full fiscal year, we continue to expect double digit revenue growth.  And we expect to grow operating income in line with revenue while making significant investments for the future in our businesses.
The full earnings release is included below and all of the related financials are available on the Investor Relations website at http://www.microsoft.com/msft/. The quarterly earnings conference call with financial analysts will take place from 2:30 – 3:30 p.m. Pacific Time. The call will be Web cast live on the CorpNet and Internet. Employees can listen in at our Investor Relations website: http://www.microsoft.com/msft/.  An on-demand webcast will be available for a full year.
 
<this is the public release about our earnings>
Microsoft Reports Record Revenue
Quarter marks the successful launches of Xbox 360 and SQL Server 2005 
REDMOND, Wash. — Jan. 26, 2006 — Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $11.84 billion for the quarter ended December 31, 2005, a 9% increase over the same period of the prior year, marking the highest quarterly revenue in the company’s history.  Net income for the quarter was $3.65 billion, which grew 5% from $3.46 billion for the same quarter of the previous year. Diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $0.34. Net results included $108 million, or $0.01 per share, in tax benefits.
Operating income for the quarter was $4.66 billion, a 2% decline from the same period in the prior year reflecting in part the impact of significant sales, marketing and product development expenses associated with major product launches.  
“The growth in our core businesses was healthy during the quarter driven by strength in Server and Tools and the success of our Windows® Client products in a robust PC market,” said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer of Microsoft. “The quarter also marked the beginning of an important product cycle for Microsoft with the launches of Xbox 360™, SQL Server™ 2005, Visual Studio® 2005 and Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 3.0, all of which were extremely successful and well received by our customers.”
Server and Tools revenue grew 14% over the prior year on strength across the product line. The growth of SQL Server was robust with over 20% year over year revenue growth.
“Demand for our desktop and server products from enterprise customers was particularly strong this quarter with significant sales and customer momentum from our recently launched server products,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. “We recently conducted our annual customer satisfaction survey and remain committed to driving satisfaction improvements.  Our customers are responding very favorably to the value, quality, and improved security of our new product releases.”
During the quarter, Microsoft returned over $8.5 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases.   
Business Outlook
Microsoft management offers the following guidance for the quarter ending March 31, 2006:
·         Revenue is expected to be in the range of $10.9 billion to $11.2 billion.
·         Operating income is expected to be in the range of $4.5 billion to $4.6 billion.
·         Diluted earnings per share are expected to be $0.32 or $0.33.
 
Management offers the following guidance for the full fiscal year ending June 30, 2006:
·         Revenue is expected to be in the range of $44.0 billion to $44.5 billion.
·         Operating income is expected to be in the range of $17.9 billion to $18.3 billion, including $361 million for the first-quarter settlement charge.
·         Diluted earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $1.28 to $1.31. Before the first-quarter legal settlement of $0.02 and the second quarter tax benefit of $0.01, diluted earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $1.29 to $1.32.
Webcast Details and 10-Q filing
Microsoft will hold an audio webcast at 2:30 p.m. PST (5:30 p.m. EST) today with Chris Liddell, chief financial officer, and Scott Di Valerio, corporate vice president and chief accounting officer, to discuss details regarding the company’s performance for the quarter and certain forward-looking information. The session may be accessed at http://www.microsoft.com/msft. The webcast will be available for replay through the close of business on Jan 26, 2007.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
 

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Posted in News and politics

Posted by: kurtsh | January 26, 2006

NEWS: Loopnet uses Virtual Earth/Windows Live Local

Windows Live local is now an integral part of the most widely used mapping and search application in the Commercial Real estate industry. LoopNet is a technology provider to every big name in the industry, powering applications for Re/Max, Grubb and Ellis, Coldwell banker… Their application suite now uses mapping from Windows Live Local including the amazing Bird’s Eye views, allowing agents to visually inspect a neighborhood or property from their desk. 

Interesting that Loopnet chose to go with Microsoft technology for their business-critical application. I’m sure things like Developer support, enterprise track record, and of course FEATURES like Birds eye that no one else has weighed into their decision a little.

 

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Posted by: kurtsh | January 26, 2006

WEB: Windows XP on a Macintosh

What comes around . . . goes around.
http://winxponmac.com/The%20Contest.html

Even though I have a Titanium Laptop, I think I’d actually go buy one of the Intel Macs just for this purpose.

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Posted by: kurtsh | January 26, 2006

BETA: Microsoft Video Cube

Interesting.  This is a tool that apparently creates Non-Photo Realistic video animation using actual video recordings as input. What’s funny is that there are dozens of sites on the Internet plugging this tool from MS Research but no one seems to know what the hell it is that Alex and the rest of the researchers are talking about. 
 
Basically, Non-Photo Realistic video is known as NPR and something of an artifact of the Cubist art movement from years ago.  The idea is that a person’s video can be translated into something akin to a cell-shaded cartoon similar to cubist art.  Take a look at the following photo and the cell-shaded image that’s been rendered on it:
 
Now imaging that image being animated like a cartoon.  THAT’S "Video Cubing".  MS Research could essentially take any video of your children for example, and turn it into a cartoon of sorts.  This is a little far off but they’re showing how this can be done using basic Windows software tools and algorithms.
 
RESEARCH PAPER:
 
DOWNLOAD:

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Posted by: kurtsh | January 26, 2006

WEB: Microsoft LiveMeeting 2005 Resources

I have this friend Blake who’s a computer consultant and has this penchant for scouring through our web site and creating Cliff Notes versions of web topic hierarchies.  (Or should I say, "Blake’s Notes"?)
 
In any case, he’s done one for LiveMeeting 2005 Resources which is really very good – those of you using LiveMeeting right now may want to check it out.  Christ – even I didn’t know about a few of the items he’s posted and I use LiveMeeting weekly.

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