Latest News from .NET Developer's Journal

Microsoft to Charge $15 for Windows 8 Upgrade Deal

Tue, 15 May 2012 15:16:00 EDT

Microsoft will charge users who buy a new Windows 7 PC $14.99 for an upgrade to Windows 8, according to a report. The cost of the upgrade was revealed yesterday by Paul Thurrott, a popular blogger who writes SuperSite for Windows. Read the full story at Computer World.

Delivering Business Intelligence with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Tue, 15 May 2012 14:20:58 EDT

Get ready to learn, but be ready to work for it. This book is packed full of hands on exercises the author calls "Learn by Doing". Every topic covered is accompanied by a "Learn by Doing" section. If you take the time to go through these while reading the book you will absorb triple the information. It takes a lot of time, but is definitely worth it. The author does provide a download of all the databases and projects created throughout the book, so if you do not have time to manually type everything in, you can download and configure them. I did the exercises of the things I had not done before, but used the downloads to explore solutions of concepts I already had a pretty good understanding of.

Getting Productive with Windows Server 2012 (Part 2)

Tue, 15 May 2012 12:32:38 EDT

This is Part 2 of the 12 routines for a Windows Server 2008 user to accelerate the learning and adoption of Windows Server 2012 without the need of a touch device. It is intended for those who are familiar with the administration of Windows Server 2008 (or later) to become comfortable with and productive with Windows Server 2012 within an hour or two using conventional input devices like a keyboard and a mouse. Windows Server 2012 is an essential component in establishing a private cloud. And those IT professionals who the earlier master Windows Server 2012 platform, the sooner will be become a leader in the private cloud transformation of an IT organization. There is everything to gain to start learning Windows Server 2012 now as opposed to later.

Microsoft Carnival: a Different Kind of Carnival

Tue, 15 May 2012 06:00:00 EDT

This is Packt's Microsoft Carnival. You can buy the latest books related to Microsoft's ground breaking software from the best of the breed (with great humility I add myself to this group) authors at great bargains.

Xeround Adds AppHarbor and PHP Fog Integration to Cloud Database

Tue, 15 May 2012 06:00:00 EDT

Xeround, the Cloud Database Company, on Tuesday announced the availability of their database-as-a-service for MySQL applications as an add-on for the AppHarbor .Net platform and for AppFog's PHP Fog PHP platform. Xeround's add-on provides .NET and PHP developers using these platforms with a zero-management, highly available and scalable cloud database solution in just one click. Xeround's add-on on AppHarbor and AppFog platforms provides simple one-click integration between the applications hosted on these platforms and Xeround's Database-as-a-Service. From the users' perspective, all they need to do is add the add-on to their application from within their environment. This automatically creates a MySQL-compatible cloud database that easily connects to their application.

Getting Productive with Windows Server 2012 (Part 1)

Mon, 14 May 2012 10:00:00 EDT

This article details 12 routines for a Windows Server 2008 user to accelerate the learning and adoption of Windows Server 2012 without the need of a touch device. It is intended for those who are familiar with the administration of Windows Server 2008 (or later) to become comfortable with and productive with Windows Server 2012 within an hour or two using conventional input devices like a keyboard and a mouse. Windows Server 2012 is an essential component in establishing a private cloud. And those IT professionals who the earlier master Windows Server 2012 platform, the sooner will be become a leader in the private cloud transformation of an IT organization. There is everything to gain to start learning Windows Server 2012 now as opposed to later.

Microsoft Presents a Vision of the Future

Mon, 14 May 2012 07:15:00 EDT

Here is a Microsoft vision piece mean to show us some ways that future technologies can help us make better use of our time and get things done. It is a pretty cool video that can help us think through requirements for what we want out of the future.

Windows RT Raises Antitrust Specter & It Isn’t Even Out Yet

Mon, 14 May 2012 07:00:00 EDT

This sound familiar? Mozilla is complaining that Microsoft is impeding its Firefox web browser from getting on the devices being designed to carry the unseen next-generation Windows for ARM chip, now officially called Windows RT. RT, which has a Metro environment for tablets and phones, as well as a classic Windows interface, won’t support legacy apps like the x86 version of Windows 8 and programs that run on it will only be available Apple-like from Microsoft’s store. Developers who support RT will only be able to use the Windows runtime stack and standard APIs. Microsoft claims that’s for reasons of security, performance and battery life. It’s supposedly typical of ARM. But it means third-party browsers, which need more than the standard APIs, won’t be supported in the classic desktop mode.

Is Windows Server 2012 Cloud-Ready?

Sun, 13 May 2012 08:30:00 EDT

To answer this question we need to take a closer look at the requirements for a server system to be considered cloud ready and then investigate the different features of Windows Server 2012 that does or does not meet these requirements.

Infopedia – Microsoft Salesforce 2.0

Fri, 11 May 2012 14:00:00 EDT

One of the most powerful IT case studies I have read recently was the Microsoft one for their own in-house `Salesforce 2.0′ platform, what they call Infopedia. As detailed in the full white paper on this topic of Cloud 2.0, when it is applied to the sales activities of an organization it`s called `Salesforce 2.0`. [...]

Get Sharepoint FAST!

Thu, 10 May 2012 16:54:00 EDT

Microsoft Sharepoint FAST is the powerful technology described as the foundation for ‘Microsoft Cloud 2.0‘. fpweb offers FAST hosting, and you can get a quote fast!

Bing to Be Revamped in War for Search Engine Supremacy

Thu, 10 May 2012 13:33:00 EDT

When Facebook goes public in the coming weeks, there will be a lot of winners. Among them is one of the stalwarts of the tech industry, Microsoft, which has a small stake in the company. But Microsoft has an even bigger bet on Facebook through an alliance between its Bing search engine and the social [...]

Introduction to SQL Server 2012

Thu, 10 May 2012 07:30:00 EDT

In our previous article, SQL Server 2008 Overview, we looked over the different features that the Microsoft SQL Server provides. In this article we will focus on the new and advanced features of the latest SQL Server release – SQL Server 2012. They include, but are not limited to, the new High Availability solution AlwaysOn, improved security, and the capability of syncing with the cloud. AlwaysOn consists of two main components – AlwaysOn Availability Groups and AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances. Let’s first focus on the Availability Groups. An availability group is a combination of databases that are hosted on a primary server and up to four secondary servers. Each availability group member is capable of replying to clients’ requests in the event that the primary group member is unavailable. All the databases in an availability group fail over to another group member together. This functionality is built on top of the Windows Server Failover Clustering feature and requires its installation.

Agile Testing Challenges - Performance Bottlenecks

Thu, 10 May 2012 05:30:00 EDT

This is the final installment of blogs in the Top 5 Agile Testing Challenges series. You can view the prior blogs ...

Amazon Enters Microsoft’s Turf of .NET PaaS

Thu, 10 May 2012 05:00:00 EDT

The PaaS competition heats up with Amazon adding ASP.NET support to its AWS Elastic Beanstalk environment and MS SQL Server to the Amazon RDS offerings. This is a significant announcement from Amazon as it draws the battle lines with Microsoft which is aggressively positioning Windows Azure as the .NET Cloud offering to the developer community. [...]

Microsoft Pledges to Go Carbon Neutral

Tue, 08 May 2012 16:47:00 EDT

Microsoft has pledged to make all of its data centers, software development labs and any other direct operations carbon neutral, starting in fiscal 2013. Read the full story at The Washington Post

RPost’s .NET API Helps Outlook Developers Add Email Tracking & Encryption

Tue, 08 May 2012 11:55:36 EDT

RPost is enabling Outlook developers to extend their apps with email tracking, legal proof, encryption, and e-signatures. These additions will ensure that users stay legally compliant with HIPAA, Sarbanes Oxley, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley. RPost's Outlook application is now offered packaged as a dynamic-link library (DLL) file that is executable by other Outlook add-ins and those offering Hosted Microsoft Exchange services. This was done to make it easy for developers to embed the RPost code into their software as a self-contained DLL triggered by the appropriate function within their software. This speeds the configuration and launch of more than 20 RPost messaging security, productivity, and collaboration services, without need for extensive programming and quality testing. One of the first companies to adopt the new RPost .Net DLL is Esquire Innovations, a leader in document metadata management. Their app is used by thousands of lawyers worldwide. Esquire CEO Randall Farrar says, "We were able to trigger RPost's functionality at the logical point in the user experience within our software, greatly expanding the services that our platform provides. RPost provides us with placement in their Apps Marketplace to showcase the combined offering to the world, and routes download requests to us to manage."

Apply Agile When Deploying Apps

Tue, 08 May 2012 09:45:00 EDT

The application release lifecycle is unnecessarily complex, manual and time-consuming and its cumbersome nature is putting businesses in a position of weakness. This one very critical process determines how fast a business can deliver products to market and yet is complex, error-prone and full of bottlenecks. An application release process can drive products to market faster, to strengthen the overall product roadmap and get the business to be more reactive to market needs. A focus on speed of deployment is an off-shoot of the growth of cloud and Agile development methodology. The bottom line is – the faster that new features, fixes and improvements reach the customer, the better for everyone. The same principle applies in an enterprise environment – the faster the latest version of an application reaches users, the more productive they can be.

Book Review: Elemental Design Patterns

Mon, 07 May 2012 05:15:00 EDT

Elemental Design Patterns are the underlying core concepts of programming and software design that have remained described. This book is a book I wish I had 15 years ago to help me put the basics of programming into their proper context. Learning how to make use of patterns over the years would have been much simpler had I read this book first. I have listed the chapters of the book below along with the patterns in the catalog. Take a look at he names of the patterns and you can see how low level these patterns are.

Microsoft’s Endpoint Protection Overview

Mon, 07 May 2012 04:00:00 EDT

First, let’s make it clear what an endpoint is. In Microsoft’s world this term represents any client computer, server, or laptop in an organization. Forefront Endpoint Protection is a line-of-business application developed by Microsoft to provide defense against viruses, worms, and other threats. Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP) 2010 was closely tied to System Center Configuration [...]

SaaS-Based APM: How to Troubleshoot Application Performance in Production

Sun, 06 May 2012 11:15:00 EDT

The most enjoyable part of my job at AppDynamics is to witness and evangelize customer success. What’s slightly strange is that for this to happen, an application has to slow down or crash. It’s a bittersweet feeling when End Users, Operations, Developers and many Businesses suffer application performance pain.

You Can Have My Excel When You Pry It from My Cold Dead Hands

Fri, 04 May 2012 14:52:00 EDT

It's frustrating that business users will often articulate about IT and the enterprise technology architect, but more frequently in an environment where one of the major ERP vendor products like SAP or Oracle Business Suite have been invested in. I am talking about the general disregard and dismissal of the electronic spreadsheet. Even in this era of mobile devices and electronic forms, tweeting, ecommerce and in-memory analytics engines spreadsheets are one of those seemingly Jurassic technologies that IT still appears to have a hard time getting its head around. I thought I'd drop a few thoughts on the subject simply because lately I have seen a resurgence of solutions where using a spreadsheet was more pivotal to solving the problem than looking exclusively at one of the newer technologies. The Enterprise Architect (for technologies) has a tough job, there's no doubt about that. Blending the right combination of technologies to keep business operations contemporary and agile enough to match or beat competitors is a challenge. There are many choices of vendors, still many platforms and very few clear leaders. The more cautious architect will perhaps have learned from past mistakes or those of predecessors. Examples might be those who bet on technologies like Adobe Flash, Google Wave or WebOS. We always think of those that go with outlier or fringe technology as a strategic direction, as risk takers. Sometimes they are innovators, pioneers or on the bleeding edge. On other occasions they have a significant investment already pinned to the technology choice and there is inevitability to the technology choice. Sometimes the choice is made because many other attempts have been made to solve a particular problem and they have failed.

MediaValet Thrives on Microsoft’s Cloud Platform

Fri, 04 May 2012 06:30:00 EDT

“MediaValet Thrives on Microsoft’s Cloud Platform” is the title of this press release. It’s great to hear about the cases where Windows Azure is being used so effectively, and really taking full advantage of its… well.. advantages. Things such as global scale and pay-as-you-go. Great, reliable, redundant storage. And the opportunity to create some massively parallel compute engines for heavy tasks such as image or video rendering.

Eleven Reasons Why Windows Phone Will Overtake Android

Thu, 03 May 2012 11:30:00 EDT

Please hold your skepticism, keep an open mind, go through the following points and only then pass a judgment on my prediction that “three years down Windows Phone would have overtaken Android." The UI is different but very well designed for mobile and tablet. The same view is expressed by most experts and most owners of “Mango” phone. Google and Android handset manufacturers are fighting legal battles with Apple in so many different countries. These battles are prompted by similarity in the design and user interface.

MMI Gets Toothless Injunction Against Microsoft

Thu, 03 May 2012 10:00:00 EDT

In what FOSS Patents calls the “most anticipated German patent ruling ever,” the Mannheim Regional Court Wednesday gave Motorola Mobility the permanent injunction it was looking for against Windows 7, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player and Xbox and they might be using those things for landfill right now if it wasn’t for one little thing. MMI’s infringement case is based on two patents essential to the widely used H.264 video codec standard and on April 11 the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington gave Microsoft a temporary restraining order staying Motorola’s hand worldwide. The US court is supposed to hear Microsoft’s motion for summary judgment on its breach-of-contract claims against MMI this coming Monday. Microsoft sued 18 months ago – before any German litigation was lodged – seeking to force Motorola to stand by its FRAND pledges.

Improving .NET Application Performance Part 2: Iteration and Looping

Thu, 03 May 2012 07:00:00 EDT

In this article in the optimizing .NET code series, we’ll discuss “Iteration and Looping”. Non-optimized code within loops can lead to performance issues, ranging from increased memory consumption to CPU exhaustion. This section summarizes guidelines that will improve iteration and loop efficiency: Avoid Repetitive Field or Property Access If your data is static for the duration of the loop, obtain it before the loop instead of repeatedly accessing a field or property. The following code shows a collection of orders being processed for a single customer.

Twilio's Cloud-based Telephony Aligns with Microsoft Azure

Thu, 03 May 2012 05:15:00 EDT

You may start hearing voices from Microsoft Azure. Do not send for an exorcist.

The new strategic alliance between Twilio and Microsoft make this possible by aligning Twilio's Cloud-based telephony (voice and messaging services) with Microsoft Azure Cloud.

You may recall that an earlier post was related to Skype integrated with the IE browser. Twilio offers a similar advantage in that there is no need to download an app or plug-in.

Twilio in some ways may be similar to Skype but it appears to offer much more such as:

interactive voice response,
mobile app distribution via SMS
call automation
two-factor authentication.

Using Twilio's demo program from this site, I called up my Windows 7 phone and I got immediately connected. My browser was talking to my phone via internet through a weak Wi-Fi connection.

Twilio offers a number of features as shown in the following screen shots.

Quarter penny calls are great!!

Are You Abandoning 32-bit in Windows 8?

Wed, 02 May 2012 12:39:00 EDT

Yes, I’m back (finally) with another in my series of expanded-answers to questions I have received during TechNet Events and IT Camps I’ve facilitated. But for these next blog posts I’m going to have a little fun by actually showing you the written question. Great question. Windows 8 – the consumer and professional desktop product – will still be available for 32-bit and 64-bit platforms. So we’re not yet ready to abandon 32-bit desktops. It’s not going away. Certainly there are still a lot of you out there running or supporting people running 32-bit installations, and you’d still like to be able to do an in-place upgrade.

Deploying ASP.NET Applications with IIS 7

Wed, 02 May 2012 07:00:00 EDT

The primary function of the Internet Information Server (IIS) is to host Web based applications, such as ASP.NET. If you have to set your IIS 7 to host such an application, there are several terms you need to know and a procedure you have to follow. We will focus on them in this article. In summary, with IIS 7, end users connect to an application by querying a site. Each site listens for clients’ requests through its bindings to virtual directories. Furthermore, each site is associated with a default, or root application, and one site may host many applications. Each application is also associated with an application pool. For each application pool there is at least one Worker Process (w3wp) and one application can be served by many Worker Processes (in a web garden). Now we’ll explain all of these terms one by one.

Microsoft Buys into Nook Business

Tue, 01 May 2012 08:00:00 EDT

Microsoft and Barnes & Noble have struck a strategic deal that will end their patent litigation and put the substantial Barnes & Noble e-book library including college textbooks on Windows 8. Microsoft is investing $300 million in a new Barnes & Noble subsidiary that is called Newco for the moment and is valued at $1.7 billion. Microsoft will have 17.6% of the unit, which may or may not be spun off. Barnes & Noble will pay Microsoft an unsung royalty for a patent-settling license that covers its Nook e-readers, which are based on a forked version of Android.

Sharepoint FAST from the Cloud

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 08:00:00 EDT

In 2008 Microsoft acquired enterprise search software company FAST, and have been integrating the software into the Sharepoint suite. While Sharepoint is an excellent document and collaboration tool, the reality of a busy corporate life is that over 80% of corporate information is spread across ‘unstructured’ content stored in web pages, Word documents, email archives, [...]

Microsoft Gets Another Android Vendor to Pay Up

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:00:00 EDT

If anybody’s making money off of Android, it’s Microsoft, which has just signed another licensing deal with another Android merchant. This time it’s Pegatron, which is gonna pay Microsoft to run Android and Chrome on its e-readers, tablets and phones. How much is secret like Microsoft’s other licensing arrangements. Nailing Pegatron means Microsoft now has four of the top five Taiwanese ODMs, according to Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez. That would give it 70% of all US Android devices.

Nine Steps to Secure Your Exchange Server

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 05:00:00 EDT

In this article we will list some steps you can take to make sure your Exchange Server is running as securely as possible. 1. Harden the OS We can’t stress enough how important it is to harden the OS that is hosting the Exchange Server.

Windows Azure Custom Monitor in C#

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 03:00:00 EDT

In this article we’ll describe the Windows Azure monitor written in C#. Windows Azure has a set of different services, but we’ll limit our article to only those services that we use for capturing performance counters. If you’re new to Windows Azure and want more information you can visit the Microsoft Azure website. Windows Azure [...]

Improving .NET Application Performance Part 8: Locking and Synchronization

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 08:30:00 EDT

In our last article we discussed best practices when using asynchronous calls. In this article we’ll look at guidelines for Locking and Synchronization. Locking and synchronization provide a mechanism to grant exclusive access to data or code in order to avoid concurrent execution. Determine That You Need Synchronization Before considering synchronization options, you should think [...]

MS SQL Server 2008 Overview

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 03:00:00 EDT

MS SQL Server is Microsoft’s product for delivering database functionality. It is used for storing and retrieving information from different applications. It is considered a relational database server and uses T-SQL and ANSI SQL for querying languages. In this article we will focus on the 2008 edition. This is available in 6 different editions as [...]

Creating a Windows Phone App in Three Quick Steps

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:45:00 EDT

Yesterday we attended mobile hackathon sponsored by Microsoft and PhoneGap. The goal was to build a PhoneGap app and install in on Windows Phone. We used Tiggzi App Builder, PhoneGap Build and very quickly installed an app on Windows Phone.

Improving .NET Application Performance Part 7: Asynchronous Calls

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EDT

In our last article we discussed guidelines for optimizing Threading. In this article we’ll look at best practices for using asynchronous calls. Asynchronous calls are non-blocking meaning when you call a method asynchronously, the calling thread returns immediately and continues execution of the current method. You can use asynchronous calls to increase the responsiveness of client applications. However, think about this carefully because asynchronous calls introduce additional programming complexity and require careful synchronization logic to be added to your graphical interface code.

Improving .NET Application Performance

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 05:00:00 EDT

The CLR exposes managed threads, which are different from the Win32 threads. The logical thread is the managed version of a thread, while the Win32 thread is the physical thread that actually executes code. If you create a managed thread object and then do not start it by calling its Start method, a new Win32 thread is not created. When a managed thread is terminated or it completes, the underlying Win32 thread is destroyed. The Thread object is cleaned up only during garbage collection.

Top Ten Reasons to Use SQL 2012

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 11:00:00 EDT

Our new SQL 2012 just released. I get asked all the time why should I upgrade to the latest. There are 100's of reasons with this one, I tried to pick the best 10. Multi-subnet failover clusters: A SQL Server multi-subnet failover cluster is a configuration where each failover cluster node is connected to a different subnet or different set of subnets. These subnets can be in the same location or in geographically dispersed sites. Clustering across geographically dispersed sites is sometimes referred to as Stretch clusters. As there is no shared storage that all the nodes can access, data should be replicated between the data storage on the multiple subnets. With data replication, there is more than one copy of the data available. Therefore, a multi-subnet failover cluster provides a disaster recovery solution in addition to high availability. For more information, see SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering.

Microsoft Sets Up an Open Source Subsidiary

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 08:30:00 EDT

Microsoft – for reasons that haven’t been plumbed enough to satisfy skeptics – has set up a wholly owned open source subsidiary. Given history that’s an unusual step. It’s called Microsoft Open Technologies and it’ll be run by Jean Paoli, an XML standards expert whose interoperability strategy team will form the nucleus of the new subsidiary. Figure about 50-75 people and a board composed of Microsoft people. Paoli will be president. He’s credited with calming the ISO brouhaha between Open Office XML and the competing OpenDocument contingent. His new domain is supposed to advance Microsoft’s investments in openness, he said in a blog posting, including interoperability, open standards and open source. Through it Microsoft should get out code more quickly and ensure compatibility.

Book Review: Designing Silverlight Business Applications

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 10:00:00 EDT

If I could change one decision Microsoft has made, it would be the one they made to drop Silverlight. Silverlight is the prefect line of business application platform for the enterprise, and this book shows us how to take full advantage of it. Although the author does an excellent job of building a case for using Silverlight over HTML5 in many scenarios, the key ingredient missing that would allow me to build Silverlight applications for my customers is support from Microsoft. Why read this book then? Because XAML is here to stay and I don't want to skip a release. I want to stay completely current even if there is no chance of building Silverlight applications with my current customers. Microsoft not saying it is dead, is not enough for them. They need to hear it will be supported before they use it again. Since that isn't happening anytime soon, neither will a Silverlight project.

Bank of New Zealand (BNZ), an Early Adopter of SQL Server 2012, Feels Good

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:52:00 EDT

BNZ tried earlier to get their BI act together with SAS, SAP and even SQL Server 2008 R2 but there were excessive delays in getting BI views from their huge data. With SQL Server 2012 and the PowerView feature, it appears they can now provide 80 Views every week. This is a great thing going for MSFT. Self-service BI feature of SQL Server 2012 removed the dependance on DB staff and hastened up the whole process.

Quality Assurance: The Most Undervalued Piece of Devops

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 07:15:00 EDT

Software works the way it was designed because of a group of downtrodden, undervalued and unsung heroes. Often dismissively described as testers, these champions of precision can be more accurately termed Quality Assurance. They set the bar high and work hard to ensure that the software you buy is easy to use and efficient. Without their expertise you would encounter a lot of inaccessible, bug-ridden releases. QA is frequently undervalued by software developers. It is often seen as an unnecessary expense – a drain on time and resources. The truth is that finding and fixing bugs is an unrewarding task that demands a great deal of effort for very little palpable return. It’s tough to calculate the cost of bugs in your finished product and even tougher to take your eye off spiraling costs and a slipping deadline.

Windows Azure Overview Part 4: Security

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 05:00:00 EDT

This blog post is part of the series on Windows Azure. There are very few organizations that apply as many security measures as Microsoft does for its Windows Azure service. Listed below are some of the precautions Microsoft has implemented for Windows Azure to secure your applications and data:

Windows for ARM Will Be Windows RT

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:45:00 EDT

When Windows on ARM (WOA) finally hits the market it’s going to be called Windows RT, not Windows 8. The designation Windows 8 is reserved for x86/64 widgets run by Intel and AMD chips. The decision complicates promotion and one can easily imagine Intel insisting on profiting from whatever momentum has built up for the coming of Windows 8. But the branding decision is more likely Microsoft’s own so it can make it clear that Windows RT isn’t backwards-compatible like Windows 8 – it’s still going to be an educational hurdle for some people – and something of a new start for Microsoft.

Amazing Day of Announcements for Microsoft

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:27:31 EDT

Today is day two of MMS 2012, April 17th, 2012. I just can't believe the number of Announcements that have come out today. First here at the Keynote at MMS we announced the world wide availability of System Center 2012. To download the trial go to http://aka.ms/syscntr If you missed the keynote you can watch it here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/new.aspx Brad Anderson published a blog post today that further details the opportunities for IT professionals to accelerate their careers in the era of continuous services and connected devices

Using SQL Server 2012

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 06:30:00 EDT

Present day data originates from all kinds of devices from hand held devices to mega data centers and it is not always homogeneous even from a single enterprise. The reality is that more often heterogeneous data from disparate systems needs to be consumed whether it is data from enterprise sites or from cloud based data sources. Interoperability tools make life easier to deal with this multifaceted data. Connectivity to data is the first thing that you need to take care of and in case you are accessing data on SQL Server 2012 from your LINUX box you need a connector and SQL Server 2012 provides the SQL Server ODBC Driver (v1.0) for LINUX.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2012 is RTW

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 05:30:00 EDT

RTW = Released to the Webitubes

Wow.. what a big week. The System Center 2012 release, the official naming of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, and now the newest version of the MDT - Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 – is released and available for download.

For those not familiar with it, the MDT is “a Solution Accelerator for operating system and application deployment.” Here is the overview from the download page:

Overview

Deploy Windows 7, Office 2010 and 365, and Windows Server 2008 R2 with the newly released Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012. MDT is the recommended process and toolset for automating desktop and server deployment. MDT provides you with the following benefits:

Unified tools and processes, including a set of guidance, for deploying desktops and servers in a common deployment console.

Reduced deployment time and standardized desktop and server images, along with improved security and ongoing configuration management.

Some of the key changes in MDT 2012 are:

Comprehensive tools and guidance to efficiently manage large-scale deployments of Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 365.

An enhanced user-Driven Installation (UDI) deployment method that utilizes System Center Configuration Manager 2012. UDI lets end users initiate and customize an OS deployment on their PCs—via an easy-to-use wizard.

Ease Lite Touch installation through integration with Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolkit (DaRT).

This release provides support for deploying Windows 8 Consumer Preview in a lab environment.

Highlighting was my own. Notice that this is a good start in helping you gear up for your Windows 8 deployments.

Get it HERE.

And for even more information, be sure to check out the Microsoft Solution Accelerators page, and the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit Team Blog.

Top Ten Advantages That PowerPoint Files Have

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 02:02:00 EDT

Microsoft PowerPoint is a part of the Microsoft Office suite and runs on Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. It is a powerful communication tool to present our views and ideas effectively using diagrams, photos, clip arts, sounds, designs and animated special effects. Microsoft PowerPoint was originally called “Presenter” designed for Macintosh computer by