Posted on July 3rd, 2008 by Ron Bertino
Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA) 2006 service pack 1 has been released.
A number of issues have been fixed, and extra features added (full reference).
Make sure you follow the correct process when applying the updates.
Since I do a lot of Exchange 2007 work, one of my biggest complaints about ISA 2006 was that it didn’t support UCC/SAN certificates.
Fortunately service pack 1 now fully supports UCC/SAN certs. Thank goodness!
As mentioned in the past, the best place to get UCC/SAN certificates from is GoDaddy.
Filed under: Microsoft |
No Comments »
Loading ...
Posted on June 26th, 2008 by Ron Bertino
Windows Server 2008 has a whole variety of new features, and one of the most talked about features is the vastly improved virtualization technology which is now built-in to Windows 2008, called Hyper-V.
You can download Hyper-V starting today, and will be available via Windows Update on July 9th.
Hyper-V supports a number of virtual machine (VM) guests, such as:
- Windows Server 2008
- Windows Server 2003
- Windows 2000 Server
- Windows Vista
- Windows XP
- Novell SUSE Enterprise Linux
Many people have been wondering whether Microsoft will update their support of virtualization technology when it comes to Exchange 2007.
During the TechEd 2008 conference, Microsoft said that they would be releasing the updated Exchange 2007 virtualization support document 60 days after the release of Hyper-V. So mark your calendars for 60 days from today.
Here’s some unofficial news from Microsoft regarding what is expected to be supported with Exchange 2007 in virutalized environments.
Filed under: Microsoft, virtualization, Exchange |
No Comments »
Loading ...
Posted on February 1st, 2008 by Ron Bertino
I’ve managed to find a freeware product that allows you to take an image backup of any partition (including the system partition) while the server is still live.
It’s capable of using a “volume lock” or “volume shadow copy services”. The latter will only interrupt server access for a matter of around 5 seconds or so.
I spent some time testing this, and the 2 tools work perfectly.
To create the live images, you’ll need a tool called DriveImage XML.
You can use DriveImage XML in order to create live images of any partition, and you can also restore any partition other than the system partition, right from within Windows as usual.
If you want to restore the system partition, then you need to boot from a CD and then run the restore operation.
Read more »
Filed under: Windows Vista, Microsoft, tools, Windows Server 2003 |
No Comments »
Loading ...
Posted on January 24th, 2008 by Ron Bertino
Video: Bill Gates Last Day CES Clip
In July 2008, Bill Gates is set to retire from full-time work at Microsoft and will devote himself to his Gates Foundation work, which is one of the biggest philanthropic organizations in the world. He will remain as chairman of Microsoft but will only be working for Microsoft part-time.
Bill Gates has made an amazing contribution to how we all live our lives.
Say what you want about Vista and Microsoft bully tactics, but it’s hard to imagine how different our world would be had he not come along.
I can just hear the Unix crowd screaming: “yes, the world would be run by Unix, and would be a better place!”
Or perhaps Steve Jobs would have taken over the world with a Mac that costs as much as a house……but looks very sexy.
Bill Gates has written two books which have been highly reviewed: “The Road Ahead” and “Business at the Speed of Thought“.
Personally, I can’t say I’m a fan of Steve Balmer, so I hope that the company doesn’t start going downhill once he takes the helm.
Here’s a funny video with a whole pile of celebs, done as a farewell gag video.
Bill’s the traditional geek personified, and it’s great to see him be able to poke fun at himself.
Farewell Bill, and thank you for your contributions.
Filed under: Fun, Microsoft |
No Comments »
Loading ...
Posted on June 26th, 2007 by Ron Bertino
Microsoft has decided to quietly discontinue the Digital Imaging Suite product line, saying that all of the features can now be found in Windows Vista.
The Microsoft Digital Imaging Suite is an excellent set of tools for managing your digital photos. It has a photo library organizer and also a very powerful and easy to use photo editor. I personally believe that it’s the best of breed photo management and editing suite that’s currently available on the PC. I’m quite sad to see this product be discontinued.
But all the features are now in Windows Vista, right? Nope! Only a limited subset of features are available in Windows Vista. Microsoft Digital Imaging Suite is vastly superior to the features available in Windows Vista.
I’ve personally tried out all of the photo management and editing features in Vista myself, and then quickly found that I went back to installing and using Digital Imaging Suite.
Sales of Digital Imaging Suite will continue until current supplies run out, and existing customers will be supported for another 3 years or so (April 30, 2010).
The software is still available for purchase via Amazon
If you don’t own a copy of this software, then you may want to consider getting a copy before it goes away forever.
Filed under: Microsoft, Digital photography, tools |
No Comments »
Loading ...
Posted on June 7th, 2007 by Ron Bertino
Microsoft have just released one of their new hardware/software inventions called Microsoft Surface.
It’s a multi-touch multi-user interface which allows you to manipulate digital items directly with your fingers, without requiring a mouse or keyboard.
Even though the interface looks excellent, the amazing thing is seeing how the “surface computer” is able to interact with physical objects such as credit cards, media players, and digital cameras.
Drop your camera onto the surface computer and it instantly sucks out all of the photos; you can then use your finger to drag them into another camera which is also placed on top of the surface computer. Nice and easy.
The best way to comprehend this new invention is to have a look at a few videos:
- Video 1 - from Microsoft’s Channel 10 blog (18 minutes)
- Video 2 - video from Popular Mechanics (4 minutes)
For more information you can also head on over to the Microsoft Surface homepage.
Filed under: Microsoft |
No Comments »
Loading ...
Posted on May 23rd, 2007 by Ron Bertino
Here’s a large list of useful free MS Office 2007 software. You’ll find templates, add-ins, tools, training guides, extensions and many other goodies.
And here’s a large list of Windows Vista goodies, all of which are absolutely free.
Filed under: Windows Vista, Microsoft, tools |
No Comments »
Loading ...
Posted on May 18th, 2007 by Ron Bertino
Microsoft Exchange 2007 can be managed via the graphical user interface (GUI), like any other Microsoft application, but it also allows management via the command line.
Exchange 2007 leverages Windows Powershell, such that you now have an extremely powerful (sorry for the pun) way of being able to manage your Exchange environments. When Exchange is installed, it adds many “commandlets” that extend the default commands available in Windows Powershell.
If you would like to see a prior video overview of the new management features available in Exchange 2007, then please take a few minutes to watch it.
Here are many useful examples of Exchange Powershell commands:
Read more »
Filed under: Microsoft, Exchange, Powershell |
No Comments »
Loading ...
Posted on May 4th, 2007 by Ron Bertino
If you use Windows Server 2003, then you may or may not be aware that there are various free downloads (tools and feature packs) that are available to you, which can provide very useful services to your users.
One of these is Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) v3.
WSS allows you to easily create an intranet/extranet or even various pre-built web applications for you to use.
And let me repeat once again, that this is absolutely free. So there’s no good reason to not give it a go.
Here are some videos that will introduce you to the technology and features available. Note that these videos are from mid-2006, prior to WSS v3 being released; so the people on the videos will say that “the product will be released soon”, etc. You can safely ignore that, since the product is fully available today.
Read more »
Filed under: Microsoft, Office, Sharepoint |
No Comments »
Loading ...
Posted on May 2nd, 2007 by Ron Bertino
During the development phase of Office 2007, Microsoft approached many users and asked them what features they would like to see added to the various Office products.
It turns out that approximately 95% of the “new” features requested were already within Office 2003.
This meant that the majority of the features in Office 2003 were buried so deep within the various menus, that it resulted in users never discovering that these features were available in the first place.
In order to combat this big problem, Microsoft decided to totally redesign the Office user interface, and came up with the Office ribbon. The main purpose of this new user interface is to expose as many features of the software as possible to the user, while still maintaining a relatively simple look and feel.
That all sounds well and good. The problem was that they also decided to force people into using this new interface, and therefore removed almost all traces of traditional application menus.
This left many users frustrated, since they no longer knew how to access the features that they were used to using in Office 2003. This was especially so for power users which were aware of the more advanced features of the various programs.
Well, some smart Chinese programmer has listened to these user complaints and decided to do something about it. He has released an add-on to Office 2007 which installs an application menu interface so you can keep accessing the features in the way that you were used to doing in Office 2003.
The nice thing is that you get the best of both worlds: the ribbon plus the old menu structure. This will allow you to slowly phase into using the new ribbon rather than being dropped in the deep end of the pool and left to fend for yourself.
There is a 15 day trial available, and the product costs US$30.
Filed under: Microsoft, tools, Office |
No Comments »
Loading ...
