• Dave Northey's Blog

    Featured PC – The Samsung Series 9

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    The Samsung Series 9 has been updated for business use. This outstanding piece of hardware now ships with a TPM chip option, allowing you to install Windows 7 Enterprise and enable Bitlocker!  The fashionista’s dream PC is now primed for the commercial environment. Ultra Light and Ultra Portable, this PC should seriously be entering into your considerations for your next PC purchase. You’ll get lot of attention walking around with this under your arm!

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    Specifications

    Processor: Intel® Core™ i5 2467M

    RAM: up to 8 GB

    Hard Drive: up to 128 GB SSD

    Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000

    Optical Drive: External Option

    Screen: 13.3 in. \ 1366 x 768

    HDMI Out: Yes

    IO Ports: HDMI, 1 USB 2.0, 1 USB 3.0

    Media Reader: Media Card Reader

    Weight: 2.9 lbs. / 1.3 kgs.

    Height: 0.6 in. / 1.5 cm.

    Just to explain – Microsoft is now a (cloud) services and devices company.  We’ve always sold Windows as an OS that runs on every PC – now we get to comment on those PCs.  This is a fantastic ultraportable laptop that competes with the MacBook Air.

    Oh, did I mention? – it runs WindowsSmile

    dave

  • Dave Northey's Blog

    Featured PC – The Toshiba R830

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    The TOSHIBA R830 Series of laptops boast portability with a 13.3” screen, lightening fast USB 3.0 transfer speeds and a battery life of up to 8hr 55mins! This allows for some serious productivity! To add to the array of features Toshiba have included a TPM chip which allows heightened security features with the installation of Windows Bitlocker – a feature of Windows 7 Enterprise and Ultimate. This is a serious powerhouse in portable computing.

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    Specifications

    Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-2410M processor

    RAM: up to 8 GB

    Hard Drive: up to 640 GB

    Graphics: Mobile Intel® HD Graphics

    Optical Drive: DVD RW

    Screen: 13.3 in. \ 1366 x 768

    HDMI Out: Yes

    IO Ports: HDMI, 2 USB 2.0, 1 USB 3.0

    Media Reader: Media Card Reader

    Weight: 3.2 lbs. / 1.5 kgs.

    Height: 1.1 in. / 2.8 cm

    Just to explain – Microsoft is now a (cloud) services and devices company. We’ve always sold Windows as an OS that runs on every PC – now we get to comment on those PCs. This is an awesome ultraportable laptop that includes a built in DVD drive!

    Oh, did I mention? – it runs WindowsSmile

    dave_thumb2

  • Dave Northey's Blog

    I’m now posting on our team blog…

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    Just click this picture to be taken to the TechNet Ireland IT Pro Blog.

    Dave

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  • Dave Northey's Blog

    Great Virtualisation Case Study from Lionbridge in Ballina

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    Lionbridge have been working with Microsoft virtualisation technologies for a good long while now, and have just released a case study explaining it all.

    Lionbridge have created a Virtual Cloud Lab using Hyper-V and System Centre and give secure, global access to it using Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services.  Lionbridge reduced hardware costs by 80 percent for its virtual LAB environment, standardized its testing environments, accelerated machine provisioning, and enhanced security and business continuity.

    The lab itself is in Boston and is currently 9 servers running around 300 virtual machines – this will reduce down to 6 physical servers in the not too distant future.  They use the Self Service Portal feature of System Centre Virtual Machine Manager to dynamically deploy new environments without any input from the local IT staff.

    It really is a great case study, I encourage you to read it.

    Dave

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    Free business guidance for Start-ups

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    Digital Media Forum and Microsoft Ireland are delighted to bring you the Microsoft BizSpark Innovation Accelerator Event – an event designed to help accelerate the Start-up community in Ireland and Northern Ireland. This day-long conference will run on Tuesday, February 24th in the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel in Dublin’s city centre. Entrance is free of charge.

    The aim of the event is to provide business guidance for Start-ups and anyone in Ireland or Northern Ireland who thinks they might like to start-up a tech company. The plan is to get together some of Ireland’s most experienced entrepreneurs and business people to share their stories about what makes businesses succeed and what are the pitfalls to avoid.

    The Innovation Accelerator Event will feature practical sessions on business areas key to success of any Start-up such as Sales, Marketing, Finance and Legal. Participating speakers are coming from every area of the Irish tech community to help with this initiative. Seminar style-sessions will run alongside some panel discussions where our more experienced entrepreneurs can relate stories from the trenches.

    The agenda is available at http://digitalmediaisland.com/on-tour/bizspark-innovation-accelerator-feb-24th/schedule/

    You can find more details and register at http://digitalmediaisland.com/on-tour/bizspark-innovation-accelerator-feb-24th/

    Dave

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  • Dave Northey's Blog

    Windows 7 in 20 minutes..

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    I was given the task of introducing Windows 7 to a crowd of IT Professionals last week – easy enough, but not so in just 20 minutes.  Searching around inside Microsoft for the elevator pitch PowerPoint deck proved to be impossible (there’s decks for each audience type, and they all had way too many slides).  So I ended up creating my own (well, stealing a few from here & there, making the odd modification), and then just demonstrating everything I could within the time allowed.

    This is what I ended up with:

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    Slide1: Lets me talk to the good points of Windows Vista.  Also a bit of a history lesson.  Vista = the most secure OS.

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    Slide 2: This lets me talk to the fact that we’re all Consumers (as well as IT Pros).  Feedback = Goals for Windows 7.

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    Slide 3: A bit more detail on the goals.

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    Slide 4: Now I’m talking to the IT Professionals (the work related stuff).  Obviously most of the consumer stuff I’ve just spoken about relates to the being more productive (at their desk).  The “In a branch” is Branch Cache.  “On the road” is DirectAccess.

    The main security bits are UAC (which you can now control) and BitLocker To Go (the ability to encrypt USB sticks and have them be used in XP & Vista as read only devices).

    Then there’s all the management components.  Virtualisation is MEDV and App-V.

    Dave.

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  • Dave Northey's Blog

    The Business Case for IPv6

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    I got to talk at the IPv6 Summit last week in Dublin Castle – Agenda, Slides and Videos of all the sessions are here.

    My talk was on Finding the Business Case for IPv6.

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    The video of my session is now online and can be viewed here.  And my slides are here.

    I’m still working on finding the questions that I promised to find answers to (I’ve a conference call next week that will hopefully get me the answers).

    Enjoy

    Dave

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    Developer Developer Developer!

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    I know, I know, I’m an IT Pro – what am I doing writing anything about Developers?

    Well, turns out that most of us (IT Pros) do the small bit of developing every now and again (even if it’s only the odd script).

    Anyway, on Saturday the 4th April, there’s a FREE day of developer training being arranged by the community for the community and they’re looking for a few extra talks (and I can’t see why they can’t be from IT Pros).

    Details here.  And you can submit your talk here.

    Oh, and if you’re speaking, not only is the event FREE, but so is your overnight accommodation!

    Good luck,

    Dave.

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    Virtualisation Unplugged

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    Discover end-to-end virtualisation, from desktop to data centre.

    Join our virtualisation expert, James O'Neill, for a full day technical session in which you'll discover a full set of virtualisation solutions, from desktop to data centre, that will improve business continuity and maximise ROI throughout your organisation.

    As well as guiding you through Microsoft's virtualisation strategy, Virtualisation Unplugged covers:

    • The importance of green IT
    • Building your virtualised environment with Hyper-V
    • Managing your virtualised environment with System Center
    • Virtualising your desktops (VDI) and applications (MDOP)
    • What's new in Terminal Services 2008?

    Due to the current virtualisation buzz we expect places to be extremely limited, so reserve yours now.

    Wellington Hotel, Belfast on February 3rd (9:30 – 16:30)

    Rochestown Park Hotel, 4th (9:30 – 16:30)

    See you there,

    Dave.

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  • Dave Northey's Blog

    VHDMount without VHDMount

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    To mount a VHD file onto your file system, you either ran some very complicated VB (or PowerShell) Script or you used VHDMount.exe that came with Virtual Server.  If you’re running Windows 7 (or Windows Server 2008 R2), you can now use Diskpart.

    So, from an elevated command prompt, run Diskpart.

    Select the VHD in question:

    sel vdisk file="c:\users\daven\desktop\xp professional.vhd"

    Then attach it to your system:

    attach vdisk

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    That’s it.  Pretty easy.

    Dave

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