Keith Combs' Blahg

Register for the SQL Server 2008 Roadshow – act now!

Come and learn more about SQL Server 2008 and the new enhanced capabilities of the product.  We will be exploring security and database management, how to best manage your data, and what’s new in business intelligence with SQL Server 2008. 

Don’t miss this half-day event that will give you a better understanding of what Microsoft SQL Server 2008 has to offer and how you can best put it to use at your company. 

Roadshow cities include:

10/14 - Minneapolis, MN
10/14 - Columbus, OH
10/16 - St. Louis, MO
10/16 - Chicago, IL
10/21 - Indianapolis, IN
10/22 - Detroit, MI
10/29 - Portland, OR
10/31 - Seattle, WA
11/04 - Phoenix, AZ
11/06 - Denver, CO
11/11 - Washington DC
11/11 - Costa Mesa, CA
11/11 - New York, NY
11/12 - Philadelphia, PA
11/12 - Burlington, MA
11/12 - Houston, TX
11/13 - Atlanta, GA
11/20 - Dallas, TX

Ironman looks great on Blu-ray

As much as I would have liked to see HD-DVD succeed, I ended up caving and getting a Blu-ray disk player.  I purchased the Sony BDP-S350 player and have been enjoying it.  When I purchased the player a few weeks ago, I picked up a few titles but considering I already owned their SD equivalents I figured I’d wait until a good new title arrived before I wrote about it.

Ironman arrived in stores this week and BestBuy had it for a “great” price.  If you’ve been tracking prices you’ll know I’m being sarcastic considering the prices of Blu-ray titles are pretty expensive.  I also said had because the title sold out in my area very quickly and I ended up getting the title at a store by my office.

As expected, the movie looks great on my 58” DLP set.  The color and contrast look very nice and the sound is awesome.  I had a chance to compare the move in three different settings. 

Charles Van Huesen has a 73” Mitsubishi set at his house.  But Charles doesn’t have a Blu-ray player so I watched a few portions of the movie on his big screen in standard definition (upscaled) with his rocking sound system.  The explosions rattle the house and neighbors.  His sound system is far better than mine and adds some punch to the movie.

But the Blu-ray title is superior and adds some clarity so as soon as Charles returns the Lenovo ThinkPad W500 I loaned him, he’ll get the Blu-ray demo and you can imagine what’s going to happen after that.  I mean come on, if he can afford a 73” HDTV, he can afford a $300 Blu-ray player.  So much for the college fund for Austin.  Grin.

I am also watching the movie right now on my Dell XPS 420 using the 24” and 27” I have.  Looks great on both although it looks much better on the big screen.  I’m looking forward to other titles that will be coming out this fall.  Now if we can just get them to reduce the prices of the movies, maybe they’ll see more adoption of the tech.  Right now it’s a pretty expensive proposition.  Enjoy.

Road warrior tools – Polycom CX100

Ever wish you had a speaker phone when you were traveling?  Do you hate to use hotel phones?  Want to make long distance calls from your laptop?

What’s stopping you?

If you are using Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 and some of the other cool products and services we offer in the unified communication line of products, you’re nearly all the way down that path. 

But you need one last piece of hardware and Polycom has just the ticket.  Check out the Polycom CX100.  It’s a compact little speaker phone that is about the size and weight of an external USB 2.5” hard drive.  It’s actually slightly bigger than a lot of the cases on the market now, but you get the idea.

I just received mine today in the mail and will be taking it with me when I travel to Seattle Sunday for some events at Angelbeat.  I’ll also show it off there.  Looking forward to that.

Thanks to John Weston for scoring the goodies for everyone on my team.

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 RTW’s – download now

Microsoft® Hyper-V™ Server 2008 is a stand-alone product that provides a simplified, reliable, cost-effective and optimized virtualization solution enabling organizations to improve server utilization and reduce costs. It allows organizations to consolidate workloads onto a single physical server and is a good solution for organizations who want a basic and simplified virtualization solution for consolidating servers as well as for development and test environments. Low utilization infrastructure workloads, departmental applications and simple branch office workloads are also candidates to virtualize using Hyper-V Server 2008.

Hyper-V Server 2008 is a cost-effective solution that is convenient because it plugs into existing IT infrastructures enabling companies to reduce costs, improve utilization and provision new servers. It allows IT professionals to leverage existing patching, provisioning, management and support tools and processes. IT Professionals can continue to leverage their individual skills and the collective knowledge of Microsoft tools, minimizing the learning curve to manage Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. In addition, with Microsoft providing comprehensive support for Microsoft applications and heterogeneous guest operating systems support, customers can virtualize with confidence and peace of mind.

Go get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6067CB24-06CC-483A-AF92-B919F699C3A0&displaylang=en

Gears of War 2 – Special Edition 120GB Zune

If only it was a phone, too!!!  Click the pic for more pictures and information.

Lenovo ThinkPad W500 - mini review

I recently had the opportunity to take a look at the Lenovo ThinkPad W500 (model 4061-2KU).  This machine is really similar to my ThinkPad T61p in many ways, but there are some improvements that have been made in some key areas.  Click the image at right for a high resolution image of the ThinkPad W500.

Video

The W500 I received has the “switchable graphics.”  What this really means is that is contains two video chipsets and you can swtich back and forth between them.  The W500 I tested has the ATI™ Mobility FireGL™ V5700 and the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD video chipsets.  The Intel chipset is used for battery consumption.  The ATI chipset is used for high performance graphics.

Screen

The W500 I looked at came with the 15.4" (391mm) WUXGA (1920x1200) color, anti-glare, CCFL backlit, 175 nits, 16:10 aspect ratio, 500:1 contrast ratio LCD screen.  This particular screen is slightly dimmer than the WSXGA+ T61p’s I have but frankly I end up turning the brightness down on them anyway.

Making a choice between a screen with a native resolution of 1920x1200 and one with a native res of 1680x1050 is a really personal subjective decision.  I’m a firm believer that most people would pick the brighter 1680x1050 screen, but you really need to see them side-by-side and make the decision on your own.  The screen on the W500 I received also has an integrated webcam (although I did not test it).

Memory

The W500 uses DDR3 memory and came configured with two 2GB memory sticks for a total of 4GB.  For those of you wanting to upgrade the amount to 8GB, keep in mind that means upgrading the OS to 64bit and finding some 4GB PC3-8500 1066MHz DDR3 204 pin memory sticks.  Good luck with that.  The good news is that those are the same sticks used by the ThinkPad W700.  That’s also the bad news because the allocation of those sticks are going to the W700 Quad bad boys right now.

Ports

Lenovo moved the ports around on the machine (as compared to the T61p).  A DisplayPort is new for the W500 and like the T61p it includes three USB ports, IEEE 1394, Ethernet, VGA connector, and modem.  Oddly, the modem port is now where the T61p USB jacks were.  Does anyone still use analog modem?  I don’t really get that.  I guess if you need a fax it’s there but I can’t remember the last time I used dial-up.

All of the USB ports were moved to the left side of the machine and are now vertical instead of horizontal.  This could present some problems for those of you that are using fat USB sticks or cell cards.  I am now carrying a USB extender cable for this very reason.

CPU

Back to the meat of the machine.  The proc is a Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T9600 1066MHz system bus 6MB L2 cache processor.  In short, it’s fast.  Much faster than my lowly T61p T7500.  It’ll be interesting to see if Lenovo decides to add one of the mobile Quad Core CPU’s later.  I have no idea if they will but considering how well engineered the ThinkPad cooling is you would think they would want to compete in the 15.4” space.  For now, if you want a Quad, you’ll have to step up to the big brother W700.

Case, Keyboard and Power

The W500 case construction is rock solid like the T61p and as usual, the keyboard rocks.  For those of you that want the CTRL key where the FN key is, sorry, Lenovo is still doing their lone wolf thing.  As I understand it, this mostly affects developers that use the CTRL key a lot.  As you might expect, the W500 weighs about the same as the T61p.  All of my T61p’s have the 9 cell bateries but considering how little I use battery power, I’ll probably replace them with 6 cells and reduce the weight some.

A lot of emphasis has been placed on green computing with this machine and there are all sorts of power management profiles and “battery stretch” capabilities.  I haven’t really had a chance to test how long I could really run on battery power but they advertise 9 hours with the 9 cell battery.  If that’s true, you could fly from Dallas to Hawaii on battery power.  Now I’m guessing that life doesn’t include DVD playback, but it sounds like you’ll have plenty of email checking juice when using the proper profiles.

OS Checks

As expected, the machine arrived with Windows Vista Business x86.  I created the factory disk set and tested that the disks would put the machine back to factory shipped specs.  You should be aware that the factory config will partition your drive into three partitions for recovery and rollback purposes.

I flattened the machine and tested that Windows Server 2008 x64 would install and run Hyper-V.  It does.  I had a bit of an issue getting the Ethernet driver to load for Windows Server 2008, but I managed to force it.  I reported this to Lenovo and asked our internal team to look at it and see if they can improve that a bit.

I also flattened it again and installed Windows Vista Enterprise x64 with all of the drivers and software.  The goal was to install Vista from scratch and install the drivers and software to see if there were any gotchas.  I didn’t see any but my testing was pretty brief.  I was mostly interested in making sure the networking worked, video switching worked, power management worked, etc.  Like I said, I didn’t spot any glaring issues on the core stuff but I didn’t test over a long term.

I did not test Windows XP or any Linux variants like Novel SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.  Sorry, I just didn’t have the time for this round of testing and I need to get this machine in the hands of some other folks.

Summary

If you are looking for a new machine and were worried about the replacement for the T61p, there’s no need to worry.  As expected the Lenovo ThinkPad W500 is a rock solid machine and will be a contender in the corporate laptop market.  It comes with an impressive set of credentials and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the W500 for several years.  Buy with confidence.

Want my job?

Looking for the best job in the entire world?  Are you a seasoned veteran of a wide variety of technologies?  Do you dig talking to customers in good times and bad?  Do you have the passion to be a Microsoft employee on the US IT Pro Evangelist team?

Well I have good news for you!!!  My manager informed my team last Friday that we just opened up a head for my team.  That’s microspeak for we’re hiring.  I’ll have a job description and instructions for you soon so get to editing those resumes.

In the meantime, check out a couple of interviews Matt and I did of the latest editions to my team.  Yung Chou is a 10 year Microsoft veteran and joined our team a few months ago.  Dan Stolts has been with Microsoft for three months but has been a Consultant for many years.

Interview with Yung Chou

 

Interview with Dan Stolts

Dynamics Roadshow – register now before it’s too late!!!

The Microsoft Dynamics Customer Roadshow is coming to a location near you!

With today’s economic challenges, maximizing the capabilities of your Microsoft Dynamics business management solution is more important than ever. Join Microsoft Dynamics specialists for this exciting event and learn firsthand how you can best leverage and expand your current solution—to maximize productivity and profitability.

To register and for more information, visit Microsoft Dynamics Customer Roadshow Live Space at http://dynamicsroadshow.spaces.live.com or contact your Microsoft partner.  The event is free, but attendance at each event is limited, so be sure to register today!

UCLA group discovers massive prime number with Windows XP

LOS ANGELES - Mathematicians at UCLA have discovered a 13-million-digit prime number, a long-sought milestone that makes them eligible for a $100,000 prize.

The group found the 46th known Mersenne prime last month on a network of 75 computers running Windows XP. The number was verified by a different computer system running a different algorithm.

"We're delighted," said UCLA's Edson Smith, the leader of the effort. "Now we're looking for the next one, despite the odds."

See the rest of this article at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26914730/.

See the gory details @ http://www.math.ucla.edu/~edson/prime/ like the following question and answer:

Q.  When did the discovery occur?  What kind of computer was used?

A.  The UCLA Mersenne Prime was reported on August 23, 2008 on a computer named zeppelin.pic.ucla.edu, a Dell Optiplex 745 running Windows XP with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU running at 2.4 GHz.  The name "zeppelin" was part of our Classic Rock Band series of computers.

Glad they weren’t using OS X or Linux.  I’m a PC. I rock Zeppelin.  Grin.

ITE’s corner a DPE – Glen Gordon interview

Check out this interview with Glen Gordon who is a Developer Evangelist in the DPE organization.  Glen was on the MSDN team when it was part of my organization so we’ve known him for many years as this point.  He’s a funny guy to have around, even if you’re doing events in the cold of Alaska.  Ask him about his turtle when you get a chance.

Springboard Series – Windows Vista Performance

WARNING – this is a progressive download video.  It is not streamed.  Therefore the entire 400MB video is downloaded and played if you click the big START button above.  What’d you expect for 60 minutes of video?

If you want to download the video and play it offline, right mouse click the following URL and then use the SAVE AS function to save it locally to your hard drive.

Get it @ http://msinetpub.vo.llnwd.net/d1/keithcombs/videos/SpringboardPerformance.wmv

The Impact of Groove on Your Network

The Microsoft Office Groove 2007 client communication architecture is considered a hybrid because the Groove client can communicate directly to peers it discovers on the network, or it can use native network protocols and firewall-friendly ports to communicate through a Groove server. Client communication that is both peer-to-peer and peer-to-server enables robust and flexible communication options, but poses a difficult challenge for network administrators who need to predict, plan, and control Groove traffic on their network.

This paper presents information about how Groove communicates on the network, provides some best practices for running Groove on your network, and introduce some basic communication troubleshooting steps.

Microsoft Office Groove 2007, in its simplest form, allows two or more people to share and synchronize data that is stored on their PCs. All Groove components, tools, user account information, and user data reside on the client PCs. The preferred protocol for Groove client-to-client and client-to-Relay communication is its native Simple Symmetric Transmission Protocol (SSTP).

To sustain communications in the dynamic and increasingly diverse conditions of today's enterprise networks, the Groove 2007 client utilizes several transport and application-layer protocols.

Want to learn more?  Go get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7258c08f-7ca3-485d-8134-cfd9a013f38f&DisplayLang=en.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Fusion Man !!!

Virtualization Roadshow – register now before it fills up

If you have not signed up for the Virtualization Launch Tour that is getting ready to kick off, be sure to sign up fast before all of the seats get reserved.  Here’s the agenda and city list for registration.  Looks like they are going to have some good hands on labs, too.

Agenda

Welcome: Understanding Microsoft Virtualization from Desktop to Data Center

Session I: Sever Virtualization and Management - An inside look at Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager from an architectural and a real world view. Complete with live demo’s of real life scenarios, and even a look at SCVMM managing a VMWare ESX.

Session II: How Microsoft IT builds Dynamic Data Centers - A look at the current and future Microsoft Data Center. See how Microsoft IT, one of the world’s largest IT organizations, uses Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V to provide dynamic, scalable, and real-time adjustment to business needs.

Session III: Understanding Virtualization at the Desktop Level - The future of the Enterprise Desktop is very exciting, and Microsoft Virtualization technologies like Softgrid, Med-V, MDOP, VECD and Terminal Services are in the middle of it all. This session will provide an understanding of the direction of the industry, and highlight the capabilities of the technologies available, as well as look at what the future will bring.

Hands on Labs

• Technical Introduction to System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 - Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (VMM) is the new Virtualization Management solution from Microsoft. VMM 2008 provides for centralized physical and virtual machine management, with support for both Microsoft and VMware Virtualization software. This lab will introduce VMM 2008, with an overview of the interface and the usages of management of Virtual Machines. Topics to be covered include creation of host systems and virtual machines, migration of virtual machines, as well as automation using Powershell.
• Technical Introduction to Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V - Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is the new Hypervisor software available with Windows Server 2008. Hyper-V provides a high-performance virtualization platform to leverage the rich capabilities of server virtualization. This lab will introduce Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, with an overview of the installation, configuration, and operation of Hyper-V. Topics to be covered include configuration settings, creation of Virtual Machines (VMs), Virtual Hard Disks (VHD’s), configuration of Virtual Networks, as well as automation and security topics.
• Advanced Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V - Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is the new Hypervisor software available with Windows Server 2008. Hyper-V provides a high-performance virtualization platform to leverage the rich capabilities of server virtualization. This lab will cover advanced Hyper-V configuration, including clustering and quick migration of Virtual Machines.
• Windows Server 2008 Presentation Virtualization - This lab is intended for IT professionals who wish to learn about the management, security and usability features available with Windows Server 2008 Presentation Virtualization. After completing this lab, you will know how to configure a TS Gateway computer to allow connections to an internal client from an external client. You will also learn how to configure a TS RemoteApp program, and access that program from outside the TS Gateway. Finally, you will learn how to implement TS Web Access on the TS Gateway computer and verify that you can use TS Web Access as a portal to access TS RemoteApp programs.
• Implementing Citrix XenDesktop with Hyper-V and SCVMM - This lab is intended for IT Professional who wish to deploy virtual desktop computers using Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, and Citrix XenDesktop. You will work through the steps to simulate deploying multiple virtual desktops that will be used by bank employees. You will first capture a reference image using the Citrix Provisioning Server. You will then verify you can boot the computer from a diskless client PC. You will then create multiple virtual machines using the reference computer as a template. Finally you will use the Citrix Desktop Delivery Controller and System Center Virtual Machine manager to create a group of virtual desktops, and deploy them to thin clients running on bank computers. At the end of this lab you will have worked through all the steps required to implement Citrix XenDestkop using System Center Virtual Machine Manager and Hyper-V.

City List and Registration Links – see @ https://www.getvirtualnow.com/usevents/CitySelect.aspx?#cities or click the image below.  I know that seems weird, but they had some funky form code I couldn’t get to redirect correctly from my blog.

Need a life? How about a second? Second Life PowerShell event this Saturday!!!

This weekend Microsoft is hosting another virtual event on Second Life.  Get all of the information on Blain Barton’s blog at http://blogs.technet.com/blainbar/archive/2008/09/19/second-life-windows-powershell-3-part-series-by-max-trinidad.aspx.