Viral Tarpara's Blog

Try Out Office Web Apps, Edit Office Docs with SkyDrive

I must admit, I don’t use SkyDrive as often I’d like simply because Microsoft is really good at providing me with a lot of enterprise storage internally.  Nonetheless, I do use SkyDrive to share my presentations and decks with a lot of people.  This is exactly why I was pleasantly surprised today when there was a link in the SkyDrive menu asking if I wanted to join the improvement program. 

ACCEPT *click* :)

What I then witnessed was a shear surprise!  Editing Office documents in the browser!  Of course, as a Microsoft employee, I knew this was being worked on for the enterprise world with the likes of SharePoint 2010 and Office2010, but I had no idea that Windows Live was going to get such a polished treatment.  So if you don’t use SkyDrive, my first question would be, why not? With 25GBs free, its a great way to share files.  Secondly, if you want to try the future of Office on the web, join the improvement program by clicking on the text link in the SkyDrive menu.  The only limitation I have found so far is that the Office document must be saved using the Open XML format i.e. PPTX, DOCX, XLSX extensions.  For those of you who do not have Office 2007, you aren’t left out, you can download and install the Office Compatibility Pack for free.  Make sure you also download the service pack for it as well.

Downloads:

Office Compatibility Pack

Office Compatibility Pack service pack 1

Hosted Microsoft Services on the Cheap? Yes Please!

There has never been a better time for hosted business software!  Software available today isn’t the same stuff that was offered by vendors ten years ago.  In fact, the notion that hosted software lacks in customization and integration are things of the past.  Microsoft’s latest foray in hosted services is a product called Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS).  Imagine getting Exchange, SharePoint, and instant messaging all at a cost point lower than Google’s. 

 

CNET article on Microsoft price drop

Office 2010 Tips – Make Quality Diagrams with Visio

Get a backstage pass to vibrant diagrams

Microsoft Visio 2010 gives you fast and easy access to a rich set of diagram templates that meet your needs. Choose the right template for the job and you’re on your way to creating a professional-looking diagram that simplifies complexity and gets everyone on the same page. Just go to Microsoft® Office Backstage™ view to get started.

Step by Step:                  To open a Visio template 1. Click the Office button   in the Ribbon to go to Backstage view. 2.  Click New to open a view of template categories and your recently used templates. 3. Click a Template Category folder such as Business, Flowchart, or Network to view available diagram templates. 4. Click Create to open the template type. 5. Start dragging pre-drawn shapes onto your diagram. To open a new diagram based on another diagram 1. Click the Office button in the Ribbon to go to Backstage View. 2. Click New. 3. Click New from Existing and then select a Visio drawing file to serve as the template for a new diagram.

SharePoint Conference Day 2 – IT Pro Overview of 2010

While I’m really busy tweeting live at this conference, I read a great overview for IT Pros who are interested in SharePoint 2010.  I’m doing more of a dev focus for this conference so if you’re interested, follow me on Twitter @tarpara 

See Natalya's post.

SharePoint Conference Day 1 – Keynote Bullet Points

• What a conference!
• 7400+ Attendees
• 150+ Breakout sessions, Hands On Labs, and Chalk Talks
• 7.5 Miles of Cat5 cable…ironically for the wifi connection
• The biggest party the Mandalay Bay has ever had!

Excellent Bullet Points from Keynote session

SharePoint Conference has started stronger than any conference I’ve ever been too.  There is no fluff, no BS, and its 100% relevant  in today’s business environment.  After watching the keynote, I started thinking about the role of rich clients and cloud services.  Stay tuned for my end of the day write-up.  If you want zero-day news snippets follow me on Twitter - @tarpara

Office 2010 Tips – Language Translation on Steroids *laughs at Google Docs*

What language barrier?

Find improved tools for translation in Word

Word 2010 has great tools for anyone who’s ever worked with someone—a coworker, customer, or entire market segment—who speak a language different than their own. The improved translation tools in Word 2010 provide easy options for translating a word, phrase, or your entire document.

Use Word Translator When working in a Word document, you may find the need to translate a word, phrase, whole paragraphs, or even the entire document into a different language. Word 2010’s translation tools allow for all of the above. Watch this short video of Word Translate  options in action
Send Your Document to the Web for Instant Translation Step by Step: 1. Start with a Word document you’d like to translate, and decide how much you need translated. 2. On the Review tab of the Ribbon, in the Language group, click Translate. You see the following options: Translate Document, Translate Selected Text, and Mini Translator.

· Translate Document takes you out of Word and into the browser, where you see an instant machine-generated translation of your document. 

· The Translate Selected Text option opens the Research pane that you may know from earlier versions of Word. You see translations in the Research pane and can easily change translation languages for the selection. · Finally, the improved Mini Translator allows you to point to a word and view an instant translation in a screen tip. To enable the Mini Translator, on the Review tab, click Translate and then click Mini Translator. You will be automatically prompted to select a translation language.

Note: Get extra help from the Mini Translator for English as a second language. Click the green arrow icon, as shown in this image, for English text-to-speech playback of your selected term.

 

Seriously, hardcore language translation has been in Office since the 2000 days.  Office 2010 really takes it to the next level with the new browser integration!  Of course if you really want to know what *cough* competition is doing, just visit their blog.

Office 2010 Tips – Visio “Quick Shapes” Remembers What You Use the Most

A home for your favorite shapes and functions!

Microsoft Visio 2010 gives you fast and easy access to shapes for your diagrams. The new Quick Shapes area at the top of every stencil – above a faint dividing line – holds the shapes you use most often. Simply drag shapes into or out of the Quick Shapes area as needed. The new Quick Shapes stencil collects all Quick Shapes from open stencils in one, convenient location.

Step by Step:      To see the shapes in a stencil · In the Shapes window, click the stencil’s title bar.
To add shapes to the Quick Shapes area of a stencil · In a stencil window, drag a shape into the Quick Shape area (above the faint dividing line).
To use the Quick Shapes stencil · In the Shapes window, click the Quick Shapes title bar. The Quick Shapes from each open stencil appear, grouped by stencil name, in the Quick Shapes stencil.

Orange Broadband Router SE572 Fix – Block UDP 500

I just got a Orange Broadband since they have a deal for Microsoft UK employees.  They conveniently provide a wireless b/g router from Seimens, unfortunately its not the most high-performance access point on the market.  For the last few days I’ve been scouring the internet on forums for a firmware update, fix, or workaround all the while getting up every 20 minutes or so to reset my router.  At first I thought the wireless part of the hardware was malfunctioning but even the hardwire connection would die after a while.  Luckily, Windows 7 built-in network diagnostics really helped me isolate the problem with each problem.

 

After a while, I realized that the router wasn’t passing DNS server information so I manually configured that in IPv4 setup directly with the adaptor properties.  That kept me on a little longer, that is until the gateway itself stopped responding.  Once again, I had to go back to the switch to reset.  With the weekend, there was no Orange Broadband support even on the business line!  It got to the point where I fell back on my iPhone 3G connection with tethering…not fun for getting hardcore IT work done. 

Anyways, I finally had a chance to call Orange today and they were very prompt in letting me know it was a known issue.  They proceeded to tell me to block UDP port 500 in the router config under “access control”.  I created a new rule and so far since, my router has only crashed once since then (about 2 hours).  Overall not a perfect fix, but it certainly helps.  For those of you wondering what’s up with port 500, its there to pass certain types of security key headers, IPSEC and meant for VPN access.  I haven’t VPNed in to my corporate network, but hopefully its not required for our systems.  *crossing fingers*

Moral of the story broadband companies, if you’re going to ship routers to your customers, test your routers and ensure they work reliably!  There are too many poorly built routers that fail with high traffic loads like VOIP, multi-connection apps, and P2P, but in my case it was failing the browser/email workload.  Props to Orange Broadband Business Support for great service though!

Super Fast Technical Overview of BPOS – Exchange, SharePoint, and OCS Online

One of our partners at CSC posted an excellent presentation of Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) offering which introduces IT to SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Office Communications Online, and Live Meeting.  Some of the topics covered in this in-depth 24 page presentation are aspects around security, data storage, identity management, active directory synchronization, and end-user experience.  What is really help in this deck are all the charts and comparison tables and almost perfectly breakdown the offering down to the line item.  Of course the devil is in the detail so if anyone want more information about BPOS after this, drop me an email via my blog.

If you are thinking about Google Apps, this is an absolute must read as Microsoft provides more functionality, better manageability, better user experience, and lower cost ESPECIALLY with our “Deskless Worker” version.  Visit the Microsoft BPOS site for more information.

Microsoft is Having a Big Patch Tuesday – Webcast Announced

For October we are releasing 13 bulletins (eight critical and five important), addressing 34 vulnerabilities, affecting Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, Silverlight, Forefront, Developer Tools, and SQL Server. Most of these updates require a restart so please factor that into your deployment planning.  For more information visit the Advanced Notification page on the MSRC blog

Also, for customers who have some questions, there will be a live webcast on Wednesday Oct. 14 at 11:00 a.m. PST and get answers to any questions you might have. To register, just follow this link.

Office 2010 Tips – Easily Edit Video in PowerPoint 2010

Break out the director’s chair

Embed and edit video files directly in PowerPoint 2010. Easily bookmark and trim your video to show only relevant sections. Video triggers let you insert text and captions to call attention to scenes. Style effects such as fades, reflection, soft bevels and 3-D rotation are also available to help you quickly capture your audience’s attention.

Step by Step: 1. Click the Insert tab of the Ribbon, and Video on the far right. 2. Choose “from file” (“From Online Video Site” is not yet activated) 3. Click through the menu to insert your video, and use new commands in the Video Tools tab of the Ribbon to Trim Bookmark, Fade in, or Loop your video

Microsoft OCS Improves Interoperability – XMPP Supported and AOL is Free

Starting October 1, 2009,, a PIC License will no longer be required for federation with American Online (AOL).  Customers qualify for federation with AOL if they have Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard CAL or active Software Assurance on their current LCS/OCS license. 

Microsoft is  also releasing the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 XMPP Gateway at no additional licensing cost that allows basic Presence sharing and instant messaging (IM) with XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) networks Jabber and Google Talk. For Office Communications Server customers, this means Jabber and GoogleTalk users can now be part of Office Communications Server IM contacts.

Additional Blogs to Learn More

 http://blogs.msdn.com/interoperability/archive/2009/10/01/instant-messaging-interoperability-extended-through-xmpp-and-new-partnerships.aspx

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/jccim/Instant-Messaging-Interoperability-extended-through-XMPP-Jabber/

http://twitter.com/OpenAtMicrosoft/status/4528307986

Q&A

Q: What is being announced?

A: :  Microsoft is releasing the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 XMPP Gateway at no additional licensing cost that allows basic Presence sharing and instant messaging (IM) with XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) networks Jabber and Google Talk.

Effective October 1, 2009, a PIC license will no longer be required to federate with AOL for customers with an Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard CAL or Office Communications Server 2007/Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 Standard CAL with Software Assurance. (PIC licenses will still be required for federation with Yahoo! Networks.)

Q: Is this announcement accompanied by a price change to the PIC license?

A: There is a price change related to the AOL Announcement.  The price of PIC will be reduced by 50% effective October 1, 2009, to reflect this change.

Q. What did Microsoft announce in June 2009 regarding PIC? 

A: In June 2009, we announced a similar change for Windows Live and renamed the OCS PIC license. 

1. The LCS PIC license was renamed to Office Communications Server Public IM Connectivity (OCS PIC in the price list). Customers who want Yahoo! federation will continue to purchase OCS PIC licenses.

2. A PIC License is no longer required for federation with Windows Live (effective July 1, 2009). Customers qualify for federation with Windows Live if they have Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard CAL or active SA on their current LCS/OCS license. 

3. There was no price change related to the Windows Live Announcement in June.  The price of PIC was updated in December 2008 to reflect this change. 

Q: What is the guidance for customers who want to buy licenses for federation with Yahoo!?

A: We advise a PIC License for federation with Yahoo! be sold as a 1 year subscription.  While strongly discouraged, if your customer is adamant for a 3-year subscription you will need to make them aware that Yahoo! will no longer support federation beyond June 30^th, 2012.  We do not know the terms and availability of federation post this date.   Please refer to the following guidelines and consult with your Licensing Executive for appropriate discount to mitigate this issue. 

Q: Why does Yahoo still require a license?

A: The capability for our customers to federate with Yahoo! already exists and at this time requires a separate license.  Our customers have said that interoperability is a critical requirement, and as a result, we will continue to work across partners so that users can access a wide IM network using a single identity. In general, our partners have a shared commitment to making our products work better together, and we will continue to work with Yahoo! to provide the best connectivity experience for our mutual customers.

Q: How can my customer enable federation with AOL per this announcement?

A: The licensing changes to AOL will be effective October 1, 2009.  Customers will be able to provision for AOL at that time.  Refer to provisioning guide for details at that time.

Q: How can my customer enable Windows Live federation?

A: Please refer to the provisioning guide on the provisioning process for Windows Live.

Q: How can my customer enable Yahoo! federation?

A: A PIC license is required for federation with Yahoo network.  Provisioning requests can be submitted through the Microsoft Volume Licensing (MVLS) website upon purchase of PIC licenses.

Q.  What is the significance of the recent PIC changes? 

With these changes, customers qualify for IM/P federation with Windows Live and AOL with the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard CAL or OCS 2007/LCS 2005 SP1 Standard CAL with Software Assurance.  We are enthused about growing the network of users for Office Communications Server and excited to see the added value to the Standard CAL!

Q: Where can customers go for more information around PIC?

A: For general information on Office Communications Server, visit the website at: www.microsoft.com/ocs.

For information on Office Communications Server Public IM Connectivity, visit: http://www.microsoft.com/communicationsserver/en/us/public-im-connectivity.aspx

Q: How can I learn more about PIC?

A: Use the following materials:

Licensing guidance: http://ArsenalContent/ContentDetail.aspx?ContentID=170269

Provisioning process: http://ArsenalContent/ContentDetail.aspx?ContentID=170875

Q: What are we announcing around XMPP interoperability?

A: Today we are announcing the General Availability of the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 XMPP Gateway. This gateway supports interoperability between OCS 2007 or OCS 2007 R2 and the Jabber XMPP Server and the Google Talk XMPP-based public IM service.

Q: What functionality does the XMPP Gateway support?

A: The XMPP Gateway supports adding and removing users of Interdomain federated organizations using Jabber (recently acquired by Cisco) and Google, sharing basic presence and two-party instant messaging among those users.

The IT administrator has the flexibility to define which organizations it would like his/her organization to federate with.

Q: What XMPP interop has been tested and will be supported by Microsoft?

A: The XMPP Gateway has been tested against Jabber XCP Server version 5.4 and the current Google Talk implementation.

At times Google changes its Google Talk protocols with short or no notice and the interop can be affected by such changes.

Q: Does the XMPP Gateway support interop with older versions of IBM Lotus Sametime through XMPP?

A: The XMPP Gateway has NOT been tested to interop with IBM Sametime.

Q: How can organizations enable IBM Lotus Sametime interop with OCS?

A: To enable interoperability with IBM Lotus Sametime, IBM has released a Hotfix of the IBM Lotus Sametime Gateway 8.0.2 based on Microsoft’s SIP/SIMPLE-based Interdomain Federation Protocol. The Sametime Gateway 8.0.2 hot-fix one HF1 that supports OCS 2007 and OCS 2007 R2 is available at this link: http://www.ibm.com/eserver/support/fixes/fixcentral/swg/quickorder?brandid=2&productid=Lotus%20Sametime&fixes=ST-8.0.2.0-MultiOS-DLAR-7RYJSZ (IBM customers will need to sign-in to download). The required part numbers are “IBM Lotus Sametime Standard V8.0.2 Multiplatform English eAssembly (CR8PLEN)” and “IBM Lotus Sametime Gateway 8.0.2.1 Multilingual Multiplatform eAssembly (CR6H4ML)”.

Support for this Sametime Gateway is available from IBM. A list of known issues is published here: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=477&context=SSKTXQ&dc=DB540&uid=swg21388997&loc=en_US&cs=UTF-8&lang=en&rss=ct477lotus

Q: How is the OCS 2007 R2 XMPP Gateway licensed?

A: The XMPP Gateway is licensed as “additional software” of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2.
This means that customers will need to have a valid license of OCS 2007 R2 and will not need to pay additional licensing cost to deploy the Gateway.

Q: Where can a customer get support on the XMPP Gateway?

A: The XMPP Gateway is an official release of Microsoft and is part of the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 release. Support can be obtained via the regular Microsoft support channels. Detailed additional information on configuring the XMPP Gateway with the Google Talk Service and the Jabber XCP 5.4 server will be posted on TechNet in the coming weeks.
Support incidents can be filed in the Unified Communications queue of Microsoft Support.

Q: Where can the customers get the XMPP Gateway and its documentation?

A: The XMPP Gateway can be downloaded from Microsoft.com/downloads at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=141529

Microsoft Gets Top Marks in SAML 2.0 Interoperability

Microsoft security experts have never really been fans of SAML, a markup language, that is crucial to many e-government initiatives and SSO models.  The problem with SAML is that it is obese and almost no one had a full implementation of it until recently, yet it was always Microsoft that receive the brunt of the criticism for not supporting it.  Well I’m happy to say that a lot work was put it to address shortcomings of SAML support and ADFS 2.0 is fully interoperable with SAML 2.0 implementations. 

Microsoft still thinks that SAML is over-defined and that WS-* and WS-Federation protocols are better all around, however, SAML interop is a fact of life in does industries and people should no longer have excuses for adopting our federation solutions especially in heterogeneous computing environments.

NetworkWorld has a great in-depth article on this new development!

Office Tips - Search Documents Super Fast in Word 2010

Discover an improved search and navigation experience

Locating the information you need is easier and faster in Word 2010. With the new and improved find experience, you can now search for content by graphics, tables, footnotes and comments. The improved Navigation Pane provides you with a visual representation of your document so you can browse, sort and find what you need quickly. Step by Step: 1. Click “find” on the far right section of the Home tab on the Ribbon. 2. Type a query in the Search navigation 3. All instances will come up, in the context of any assigned headings. Click to jump to that location in your document.

Speed Up Your Boot Time, Shave 30 Seconds Off Windows 7 Boot

I just finished installing our Microsoft IT build of Windows 7 x64 with Office 2010.  After I installed all the updates on my Lenovo T61p with 4GB RAM, I decided to reboot my machine a few times and clock it with my stopwatch.  From shutdown to usable desktop interactivity, my laptop required about 1 minute and 35 seconds.  I wasn’t to pleased with this consider that I had recently seen an Engadget video showing a Lenovo and a Dell booting a machine from 10-20 seconds.

I decided to identify where the largest chunks of time resided during the boot process using the lap feature on my stopwatch.  The culprit seemed to be the BIOS.  I checked if there were any BIOS updates for my machine and as it turns out my version was quite dates.  I updated to recent build that dropped in May 2009.  I checked out out any new features in the BIOS and there didn’t seem to be anything of notable value, but then I noticed “Extended Memory Test” set to “Enabled”.  I looked at my phone and decided that 2009 is the year that I deem this test to be obsolete.  Seriously, with 4GB of RAM, soon to be 8GB, why on Earth would any sane IT guy enable this test on a production machine?  It doesn’t really test anything major and it actually only performs a worst-case memory failure scenario, not nearly as thorough as Windows Memory Diagnostics found in Vista and Windows 7.  I turned it off.

Combined with the new BIOS, I managed to reduce 30 seconds off my boot time! Now if I can only retrofit my machine with an UEFI and eliminate the last vestige of a bygone era…the BIOS.