Posted by: kurtsh | February 7, 2006

INFO: I’m in Japan for the next 10 days…

…so this site won’t be updated for a week or so.  I’m taking a tour of sake breweries throughout the greater part of Japan with a group of about 20 people led by Benihana of Tokyo founder, Rocky Aoki and his wife Keiko.
 
So I’ll see y’all then.  If I get access to a terminal somewhere and I find something interesting in the world of Microsoft, I’ll post it.

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Posted in Info

Posted by: kurtsh | February 7, 2006

TRAINING: BizTalk Server 2004 Developer 5 Day Hands-on Workshop

BizTalk Server 2004 Developer
5 Day Hands-on Workshop
Los Angeles, CA
February 27 – March 3, 2006

BizTalk Server is a powerful server platform which requires developers to possess a solid level of understanding prior to building successful solutions.  Join Microsoft’s technical experts as we conduct a free, interactive, 5-day hands-on workshop designed to address the needs of the application developer. This workshop will demonstrate how Microsoft’s application platform enables organizations to gain better business insight and deliver faster results by easily connecting people, processes and information. This exercise provides developers with the opportunity to:

• See what BizTalk Server is and how it works
• Build XSD schemas with BizTalk
• Construct complex XSLT mapping
• Work with the BizTalk messaging engine
• Build long-running, transactional business process orchestrations
• Consume and integrate with web services
• Work with the Microsoft Business Rules Engine
• Test, deploy and track solutions
• Learn best practices, tips and tricks from actual field resources
This 5-day lab is a prerequisite for anyone looking to attend the more intense BizTalk "Deep Dive" course we are offering in May 2006.
 
Prerequsites:
Familiarity with Visual Studio.NET, the .NET framework, working knowledge of XML and web services.  Previous experience with BizTalk Server not required.

Audience:
This invitation is not transferable and is intended for Application Developers.

Date: February 27 – March 3, 2006

Time: 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM

Location:
Microsoft Corporation
333 South Grand Avenue
Suite 3300
Los Angeles, Ca. 90071
(Lunch and parking included)

Registration:
Please RSVP for this “invitation only” event, Click Here to RSVP. Call 1.877.MSEVENT (877.673.8366) or visit http://msevents.microsoft.com/ and search on Event Code 1032287983.

 

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Posted in Training

Posted by: kurtsh | February 7, 2006

TRAINING: Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 Hands-On Workshop

Microsoft SMS Hands-On Workshop
How to Maintain a Secure and Well Managed Infrastructure
 
You are invited to attend a FREE 2-day seminar designed to deliver practical, hands-on information about Microsoft’s Systems Management Server (SMS). Attendees will learn how to manage the ongoing operations of an SMS infrastructure.
 
This workshop will be led by Microsoft’s Management Technical Specialist and Microsoft’s SMS Alliance Partners covering the following topics:
·          Overview: Secure and Well Managed Infrastructure
·          Managing Mac and UNIX clients
·          Lifecycle management (Asset Management)
·          Microsoft System Center: Vision and Roadmap
·          Technologies and techniques for improved systems management
 
We will also share best practices, methodologies and tools that will assist in the planning and implementation of a Microsoft SMS 2003 solution.  
 
This course is intended for SMS Administrators and Systems Integrators who are responsible for configuring and managing one or more SMS sites and all supporting systems. Seating is limited – register today! 
 
Please let us show you how Microsoft’s management offerings can help your company move to a more efficient and dynamic IT infrastructure. 
 
Please register today and enter invitation code 1032289180
 
———————
Tuesday, March 07, 2006 9:00 AM – Wednesday, March 08, 2006 4:30 PM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada)
Welcome Time: 8:30 AM
Microsoft Southern California – Los Angeles
Wells Fargo Tower
333 South Grand Avenue
Suite 3300 Los Angeles California 90071


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Posted in Uncategorized

Posted by: kurtsh | February 7, 2006

NEWS: Windows XP SP1 losing support

Windows XP SP1 – Transitioning Out of Support – September 17, 2006
On September 17, 2006, Windows XP Service Pack 1 will transition out of its supported lifecycle.  After this date, customers will no longer receive support for XP SP1.  To continue to receive support and no-charge security updates, customers must migrate to Service Pack 2.  At this time, a Custom Support Agreement for Windows XP SP1 is not offered.
 
Definition of, "…no longer receive support…":
To no longer receive security patches for… 
To no longer receive direct PSS support for…
To no longer be able to go to http://update.microsoft.com to get patched
 
Folks – To be clear, a Service Pack is NOT a product.  We have no multi-year guarantee of support for a specific service pack level, like we do with products.  Products make have "7-10 years of support" however Service Packs do not.  When we move to a new service pack, it means the old service pack’s days are nearly numbered, and with service pack 3 declared for Windows XP, service pack 1 has just about had it.
 
In other words… get tested and get on Windows XP SP2 ASAP.

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Posted in News and politics

Posted by: kurtsh | February 7, 2006

TRAINING: Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Hands-On Workshop

Microsoft MOM Hands-On Workshop
How to Maintain a Secure and Well Managed Infrastructure
You are invited to attend a FREE 2-day technical workshop designed to deliver practical, hands-on information about managing your infrastructure with Microsoft’s Operations Manager (MOM) 2005.
 
This workshop will be led by a Microsoft Management Technical Specialist covering the following topics:  
  • Overview: Secure and Well Managed Infrastructure
  • Planning, installation and configuration of MOM
  • Creating custom rules and reports
  • Setting up new management packs
  • Understanding resource kit tools
  • Monitoring heterogeneous environments with MOM 

(Lunch and parking will be provided)

This course is intended for IT Professionals in managed Microsoft enterprise customers, currently using or evaluating MOM.  Seating is limited – register today! 

Register here:  http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032289112&Culture=en-US

(or go to http://msevents.microsoft.com and enter invitation code:  1032289239)
 
Event Details:
Date: 03/14/2006 – 03/15/2006
Time: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Location:  Microsoft Corporation, 333 South Grand Avenue Suite 3300, Los Angeles, Ca. 90071
 

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Posted in Training

Posted by: kurtsh | February 6, 2006

RELEASE: “Gas Prices” Microsoft Gadget

This qualifies as cool:  It’s a Microsoft Gadget that shows you local gas prices & where to go to get the lowest based on your area code.
 
 
No, it’s not perfect being that not every gas station reports their pricing to the site but it’s definitely a start.  So add it to your http://www.live.com starter page!

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Posted in Release

Posted by: kurtsh | February 6, 2006

NEWS: More on KROQ 106.7FM’s live Windows Media Stream

This is the link that someone slipped me last week for the stream to the KROQ 106.7FM live Internet feed:
…remember that KROQ 106.7FM is the #1 "Rock" format radio station in the United States according to Arbitron ratings.  And it’s in the top 5 of all listened to radio stations in Los Angeles.
 
 
ABOUT THE FEED
Realize that the link above is to the raw audio stream feed – it’s a .WSX redirector to live audio stream with no interpretation of any scripting within the media stream.  (Windows Media streaming makes it possible to encode SAFE script commands within the stream to allow things to happen within a web page during the stream.) 
 
The feed is 100kbps which is of course complete overkill for audio, but I suppose exactly what I’d expect from CBS Radio’s Engineering manager, who has a powerful ear for quality.  Realize folks, that most companies stream both audio & video over the same 100kbps bandwidth.  The obvious benefit is that the stream is EXTREMELY high in quality… high enough to frankly actually record off of to capture a good quality song into a .WMV file for personal use.  (For those wondering, a 96kbps Windows Media stream has the quality & fidelity of a 160kbps MP3 file due to the technology’s far superior encoding codec)
 
One interesting thing is that they have the ability to change the content in the stream from what is being  played on the airwaves on 106.7FM.  My assumption is that Internet advertising requires an additional fee from advertisers and if that fee isn’t paid, they simply play repeats of their morning radio show, "Kevin & Bean", during commerical breaks instead.  This of course is nothing difficult being that Windows Media provides the ability to switch content sources on the fly during a media stream however, it’s eerie when you listen to the FM radio and the Internet stream at the same time how the content suddenly changes.
 
 
ABOUT THE CONSUMER/HTML PLAYER
So this is the link that my friend Blake Handler sent me to:
 
It would appear that the HTML web page above at http://kroq.com/streaming/player-final.html simply takes the raw feed I had found one extra step and creates an HTML wrapper around our Windows Media Player, hides the standard interface, and provides live information about the song being played through the embedded scripting in the stream feed, which is quite cool.  This makes it valuable to actually use the HTML page that they wrote.  (Otherwise, why bother?  It would normally be better to simply stream directly to the player and minimize the app to your Windows Task Bar.)
 
 
TEARING APART THE CONSUMER/HTML PLAYER
I went through the JScript code that that KROQ’s provider wrote and it’s a bit messy.  It would appear to me that whoever wrote it, took the source code from one of our partner’s sample custom player applications on http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia and rewrote it for KROQ’s specific usage but never bothered cleaning up the script. 

For example:
– The comments make reference to Internet Explorer 4.72  (Huh?  What’s version 4.72… we never created a 4.72.  Now, there was of course a Netscape 4.72… and it would seem someone just changed the comments to reflect support for IE instead of Netscape)

– It says that it leverages the Real Player ActiveX Control in the comments.  (It doesn’t – it’s exclusively Windows Media Player based)
– It says it was written by Marco Bianco, CTO OverDrive Media which I’m pretty sure is just the original author of the script and not the actual provider considering they’re using LimeLight Networks as the distribution point for the feed.  (LimeLightNetworks.com – aka LLNWD.NET)
– There appears to be functions that are written into the script but never actually called. 
 
 
SUMMARY
For what it’s worth, it’s still a very nice, high quality implementation of our technology and LimeLight (http://www.limelightnetworks.com/) is a really great partner of ours.  So good that we hired them to do the streaming for all of our XBox360 content.
 

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Posted in News and politics

Posted by: kurtsh | February 6, 2006

INFO: Making money on your MSN Spaces blog

Want to know, in a nutshell, how to make some cash on your MSN Spaces Blog?  It’s weird.  No one’s written about this topic much and it’s such a huge part of the new MSN Spaces 10.5.
 
Making Money through MSN Spaces’ "Sponsored Advertising" module and Kanoodle.com
If you are a Kanoodle Bright Ads registrant, than you can deliver contextual advertising directly within you blog without doing anything other than adding the "Sponsored Advertising" module to your MSN Space and pointing it to your Kanoodle account.  If you are NOT registered with Kanoodle, simply adding the "Sponsored Advertising" module to your MSN Space will get you started.  The module itself will enable you to register with Kanoodle and get you on your way.
  1. Make sure that you’ve signed into your MSN Space and are in Edit mode. 
  2. Click the Customize tab.
  3. Click "Modules"
  4. Add the "Sponsored Advertisements" module.  It may require you to scroll through the different modules drop down box.
  5. Follow the instructions in the module box that appears on your MSN Space layout.
 
Making Money through MSN Spaces’ "Book Lists" module and Amazon.com’s Affiliate Program: 
If you are an Amazon Associate, you can link your MSN Spaces book list to your Amazon Associate ID and earn money for purchases that come from your list.  If you are NOT an Amazon Associate, you may sign up and receive your Amazon Associate ID by going here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/002-9271857-5617646?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=3435371 
  1. Make sure that you have signed into your space and are in edit mode (One of the two views available to the author of a space in MSN Spaces. Edit mode allows you to customize your space and post new content to it.) .
  2. Make sure you have created a book list.
  3. Click the Settings tab.
  4. On the Space Settings tab, scroll down to Amazon Associates.
  5. In the Amazon Associates box, type your Amazon Associate ID.
    Note:  If you don’t have a book list on your space, you will not be able to enter your Amazon Associate ID on the Space Settings page.
  6. Click Save.
 

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Posted in Info

Posted by: kurtsh | February 6, 2006

NEWS: KROQ 106.7FM & CBS Radio stream using Windows Media

Today, CBS Radio is streaming it’s biggest radio properties – including the Nation’s #1 Rock format radio station, KROQ 106.7FM – over the Internet using Microsoft Windows Media audio.
This nearly brought a tear to my eye on Friday but I couldn’t write about it until today.  I have a personal connection to this move of CBS radio to stream its radio stations over the Internet using our technology.  Many of you may not know that Windows Media is one of my personal ‘favorite’/’pet’ products from Microsoft.  There’s simply no better technology out there for getting multimedia communicated over TCP/IP data connections.
 

Here’s my story about how CBS Radio was introduced to Windows Media.  I’ve gone through this story and removed all the names which were originally in the text because I decided that some folks might not want to have their names put on the Internet:

 
———–
 
MICROSOFT & CBS RADIO MEET
About 6 years ago, I met with then KROQ Engineering Manager, (now CBS Radio’s VP of West Coast Engineering) through my friend Blake Handler to talk about streaming technology and how it could benefit KROQ to get its audio feed and its advertising to more people… and why Microsoft Windows Media was the way to do it.  While there we also met with the Programming Manager and the General Manager of the station. 
 
I won’t bore you with the details but the result was that they weren’t convinced that this was a good thing for the station.  The GM was only concerned about ‘things that would draw in more listeners’ to the FM feed to affect the station’s Arbitron ratings.  The Programming Manager said something about having to renegotiate all their talent’s contracts (the radio jockeys) since the contracts didn’t cover "Internet streaming" as a usage policy.  I was also told that Mel Karmazin (CEO of Viacom, the parent compnay of CBS Radio) had a problem with the prospect that New York could hear Los Angeles’ radio feed over the Internet and that their own properties might potentially compete against each other.  There was also some concern over whether or not KROQ would have to pay a fee for their broadcasting of music/songs over the Internet, which would be a complete dealbreaker being that KROQ runs on a shoestring budget.
 
There were "conspiracy" ideas flying around the room from the non-Microsoft parties about how we or someone else could/would help KROQ ‘force things’ so that only LA listeners could hear LA-based KROQ, and San Francisco listeners could hear only SF-based Live105FM.  Management didn’t want advertising to cross geographical boundaries because "their contracts with advertisers didn’t account for nationwide advertising which was billed differently"… or something like that.
 
The meeting ended rather sadly.  While KROQ’s Engineering Manager was thinking about how to get the ‘best’ stream on the Internet, KROQ’s management basically didn’t recognize the value of streaming and put a ki-bosh on any initiative around the topic.
 
GLIMMER OF HOPE
As I was about to leave that meeting, the concept of potentially streaming ‘one-off’ events was left on the table.  It seems that the loophole in all of this was that they might be able to stream KROQ’s annual concert events – "Acoustic Christmas" and "Weenie Roast", however the implication was that it would have to be something that Microsoft ‘cowboy-ed up’ for.
 
I contacted the Windows Media group to see what we could do, and had one of our ‘money guys’ (folks with budgetary authority) talk to KROQ because I still believed that this was a worthwhile investment.  We committed to spending a fairly sizable amount of money to provide a stream for KROQ’s upcoming "Weenie Roast" event.  Sadly, KROQ’s Internet service provider was… well… incompetent at the time (they’ve since changed ISPs) and when the stream went live during the event, the link to connect to the stream didn’t appear until most of the event was over.  Since no one was ever actually able to really use our technology, it wasn’t the best money we’d ever spent.
 
KROQ’s management fortunately recognized that this was extremely uncool for us as sponsors.   They offered to give us first right of refusal to sponsor the next event they had – an event called Acoustic Christmas.  Which we did and the relationship continued.
 
To this day, even after 5 years I’ve been very pleased with the fact that KROQ streams their concert events as well as their music samples exclusively in Windows Media format even without our sponsorship, meaning that you must use our free Windows Media Player to listen to the content KROQ broadcasts.
 
ENTER… THE LIVE FEED
So here we are 5 years later and KROQ is finally getting ready to stream their FM station feed… and thankfully it’s still in Windows Media format.  Since then, the Engineering Manager for KROQ was promoted and became responsible for Engineering across the West Coast.  I don’t know who the management is at KROQ these days, but I suspect that it’s someone who is thinking a little more out-of-the-box with regard to media streaming than folks were 5 years ago.  Either that or the previous management has gotten a little more pragmatic about the value of streaming since then.  In either case, good for them.  And great for us as listeners.
 
I suspect that over the years, CBS Radio learned that:
a) Listeners listen to streams that they KNOW… streams that are local to them.
b) When contracts are renegotiated, it’s not hard to include Internet broadcasting in them.
c) Competitors are already streaming radio content and that this is something that is possible to do.
 
In any case, thank you CBS Radio and KROQ 106.7 for continuing to use Windows Media format for your broadcasts.  It means a lot to us… and to me especially.

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Posted in News and politics

Posted by: kurtsh | February 6, 2006

RELEASE: Microsoft Research’s “Group Bar”

GroupBar is lightweight desktop tool created by the Microsoft VIBE group that offers enhanced window management capabilities in a Windows taskbar-like setting. The basic concept is that through simple drag-and-drop operations on window tiles within the bar, users can create lightweight, transient grouping relationships that allow them to perform certain higher-level window layout functions on multiple windows at once. In addition, windows and groups in the GroupBar can be persisted in a "Snapshot" which attempts to remember the position and contents of each window in a way that allows the Snapshot to be recreated at a later time, even if the windows have been rearranged or closed.
 
GroupBar requires no installation – just download the executable (GroupBar.exe) and run it. (Put in in your start-up group to run it automatically on start-up.)   Note: creating Snapshots with the GroupBar produces .gss files in the same folder as GroupBar.exe, so save it in its own folder if you would like to avoid cluttering up other folders.   GroupBar requires no uninstallation either – simply delete GroupBar.exe and any Snapshot (.gss) files it has created, and it is gone.
 
 
 

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