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My buddy Jason just let me know that the DPM2007 Rollup Update offering WS08 support is now available for download:
System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 - Rollup Update - x86 System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 - Rollup Update - x64
System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 - Rollup Update - x86
System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 - Rollup Update - x64
You can learn more about it here: DPM 2007 now backing up Windows Server 2008
Support includes:
This Update also enables:
Happy Friday, check out this fun Silverlight application, by Nikola Mihaylov, there is also a ton of great Silver Light applications on his site here: http://www.nokola.com/
Enjoy!!!!!!!
Click the link or the picture: http://www.nokola.com/shock/
One of my teammates Lynn Langit, just finished a new book on SQL. Very cool stuff Lynn! This book covers SSAS (OLAP cubes and Data Mining Structures), SSIS, SSRS and more. The target audience is .NET and database developers.
Learn more about the book from Lynn's post here:
Contagious Curiosity : Smart Business Intelligence Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2008
The book will be available around September/October 2008 but you can pre-order now at Barnes and Noble:
Smart Business Intelligence Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Congratulations Lynn!
I recently got on email from, Michael Walsh, in response to some of the postings I did for the imagine cup. If his name looks familiar you may have read his article. He wrote on one of my favorite technologies, group policy, can be used to help the environment: Sustainable Computing Conserving Energy with Group Policy
Michael made me aware of a Microsoft website I had not scene before. The website talks about the role of technology in our environment. Something, I have always thought is how can software help improve the planet, well folks I got my answers here:
Innovating to Improve Our Planet
I went over to the site found a wealth of great information on the types of impact that software can have. Personally I really liked the short video highlighting the Energy Efficiency Best Practices in Microsoft Data Center Operations. So if you had a data center in Ireland, how would you cool the facility? Check the video out to learn more! I also liked the article titled Microsoft "Tiny Web Services" Connect Household Appliances to Save Energy. How much code could you get if you only had 48 kilobytes for storing code? Interesting stuff from the folks in research!
Take a look at the site, and let me know what you think!
With all the articles talking about Bill Gates last day, I found this one from Newsweek very interesting. The group decided to reconvene. Take a look at brief and interesting article:
Return of the ’70s Weirdos
I do not know if any of work directly with Culminis directly, but you may want to check out the recent announcement on Graham Watson's blog:
User Groups and Community : Announcing some key changes to the way Microsoft supports User Groups
In a nutshell Culminis will become more like INETA and be a volunteer based organization, read the full announcement above.
This case study presents the key decision points, architecture design and definition, and test criteria and results from a scalability and performance test conducted at the Microsoft Partner Solutions Center (MPSC) in Redmond, Washington. It is intended to provide strategic information about designing a high-volume, high-availability enterprise solution that can easily grow.
You can download this paper to read and print it in three formats:
Getting to evaluate a FANTASTIC high end workstation like the Lenovo ThinkStation S10 is a one of the great things about working with great teammates. Even though Keith Combs, will not share his 8GB of memory with me he did send me a very simple email and said do you want to evaluate a Lenovo ThinkStation S10. I was like hell yeah!
I was able to get the S10 for a little over 30 days to evaluate. My initial thought as I began to work with system was AWESOME. I was really looking forward to more testing of the system.
The Goal
I decided to take a look at 2 overall workloads on the machine. The primary test I wanted to evaluate how well the system could handle video encoding, based on the interview work we have done recently. Secondly, we wanted to test the overall Windows Server 2008 installation experience with Hyper-V.
The System Configuration
First Impressions
The great thing about working with a new computer is opening it for the first time, plugging all the cables in and the margaritas. So as I was firing up the blender Keith was unpacking the very large shipping box and getting the system turned on. As he was turning it on, I thought he had brought another blender with him. The initial startup of the system can be very loud as all the system fans startup on the initial boot. The system then does quiet done quite a bit after just a few seconds but the primary boot. Just that initial can catch you by surprise a bit.
With that much horse power I do expect the system to need that much cooling. So I was interested to see how the machine would do, when I did get it up and running in my home office. My office has a desk with a built-in cabinet for the computer. I will admit that my office did get a little bit toasty with the machine running in the office. This was expected, and this particular machine is better suited for an business location. Although it certainty could do the job in the home.
Performance and Software
I used the pre-loaded Windows Vista Business as my base system. I then applied SP 1 to the image. I also went ahead and installed Sony Vegas 8.0d and Camtasia 5.1 for my video encoding process. So I had the base system, which by the Window Performance Index was a 5.9. which by the way is the highest number you can achieve. That is very impressive out of the box experience kudos to Lenovo!
Video Editing Tests
For these tests, I compared the S10 to the HP 6910p Notebook. I know what your thinking that it is not a fair test, and I agree. I fully expected the S10 to out perform the 6910. So why the test? Simply put, my current video editing platform is the 6910 and I wanted to quantify how much faster the S10 would be. Not only for my own education but also to help prove the case, that we as a team need dedicated workstations to perform our jobs.
I have to tell you I was extremely impressed! I did several tests with files from 120MG to 1.3gb HiDef video interviews and screen casts. I tracked all the tests in my handy dandy notebook. I did most of the encoding tests 3 times to come up with an average.
The results, as expected, the S10 outperformed the HP on the average by 57% faster for all encoding jobs. To put that in hours, on the 1.3 GB file, I had to restart it on the 6910, and then it still took over 2 hours. While on the S10 it was done it just a little over an hour. Additionally during the video encoding process, the HP’s processor was pegged at our near 100% during the entire process. While the S10 stayed in the 75%-85% range, this would enable the ability to accomplish other tasks during encoding instead of having to wait for processing to begin.
Windows Server 2008
What was great about this test was how easy Windows Server 2008 went smoothly. It was also very fast, the whole install took less than 1/2 hour. Very impressive, not only from the system but also from our software. I am also happy to report that Lenovo already has a driver and update site setup for the S10. It made getting the drivers and updates very easy.
During the process of downloading I noticed Lenovo had and auto updating tool. I downloaded it worked pretty well. Although I am still a little curious why it did not find the update for the video card, but overall Lenovo's site had plenty of 64-bit drivers to make their systems work very well. I was able to get the Windows Server up and running in no time.
Hyper-V went on also without any problems and my primary VPC (about 13gb) booted well and with no hitches. The virtualized image worked very well, and overall I think Hyper-V will be how I do all my virtual work in the future. (Get to build a new platform..yeah!) I really did not stress the system too much on this test but was happy with the overall performance of Hyper V and Windows Server 2008. When you look at the horsepower of this system, out the box this system could be a great Windows Server 2008 virtualization solution.
Summary
This system is an extremely powerful high end workstations. In particular the 15000rpm drives performed remarkably well. In addition this system, does compete well in the price category, when compared with similarly configured systems from other OEM's. If your looking for a high-end workstation, I would seriously consider this system. Take a S10 for spin!
Okay I admit it, I went through Harry Potter withdraw. I enjoyed reading the books but no new ones. So as I was waiting for a flight, and I wandered into the airport bookstore. I saw the 4th book The Battle of the Labyrinth, as it was predominately on display in hardcover. So I decided to start at the beginning, and went looking for the first book which is called The Lighting Thief by Rick Riordan. To my surprise I could not find any of the books in the main fiction section. So I asked the clerk in the store if they had the first book. That is when I was politely informed that it was in the Young Adult fiction section.
So undaunted I went in and bought the book, I was already committed. I picked up the book and hopped on the plane. I was pleasantly surprised on how good the book was. The stories, take you through the life of Percy Jackson who finds out he is a son of a Greek god, and how he learns about his heritage. What I really liked about the book is how Rick Riordan blended a modern story with all the older Greek tales of heroes and gods. I think the main reason I really enjoyed this book is that I really enjoyed reading about the tales of the Greek Gods when I was a kid. I think this is great book to introduce the next generation to those tales. As I finished the first book, I went out and purchased the next two books in the series, which I also recommend:
I will most likely pick up the 4th book, The Battle of the Labyrinth when it comes out on paperback. Enjoy these books they are fun and quick paced, I recommend these books for both Adults and I think are great for any young readers.
Bonus Book: That's right boys and girls, I have an extra book for this month!! If you enjoy the stories and enjoyed the Greek mythology as much as I do then I would strongly recommend looking at Edith Hamilton's classic book: Mythology. You will find that it does a great job to help remind you about the stories that Rick Riordan based his characters on. I also had to read this in college, great book!
Enjoy and as always please comment if you have read the books and enjoy! I am also still looking for good books to read on computers and industry. Please drop me a line and give me some recommendations!
My buddy Keith has way too much time on his hands and not too mention way to much memory for his laptop. Keith recently got 8gb for his t61p and he got bored. Take a look at what he did to that poor little laptop, when he loaded Server 2k8 and Hyper V on it:
Running A Bunch Of Vista SP1 VMs on Hyper-V With A Single Laptop
Pretty awesome stuff even though he is not sharing his 8gb of memory with me. :-)
The next generation of Windows Desktop search is now available! This release signifies a fantastic step forward with common code! The version will be the same for Vista and XP. I will have more information on another post on speed and reliability improvements. Very exciting and important technology!
Windows Search 4.0 lets you perform an instant search of your computer. Windows Search 4.0 helps you find and preview documents, e-mail messages, music files, photos, and other items on the computer. The search engine in Windows Search 4.0 is a Microsoft Windows service that is also used by programs such as Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Office OneNote 2007. You can use this search engine to index a program's content and to obtain instant results when you search in a particular program. Windows Search 4.0 includes the following improvements:
To learn more and download the latest bits take a look here:
Windows Search 4.0 and the Multilingual User Interface Pack for Windows Search 4.0
As I posted last month, we have welcomed Caitlin to our family! Having your 3rd child is as exciting as having the first two and I like my family have fallen in love all over again! However I do have to admit there is a lot of been there done that. The 3am dinner bell, the poopy diapers, the general noises, smiles, and coos that Caitlin gives me is new and old and the same time.
So if it is "been there done that", why this post? Well there was brand new thing when Caitlin was born and it involved an interesting aspect of IT I want to tell you about. As you can imagine my joy and happiness at Caitlin's birth, I was even more surprised when she was just a few minutes old, the hospital placed a mechanical device on her leg (called a hugs tag the picture to the right is an example) they also placed a bracelet (called a Kisses tag)on my wife that was matched to the unit on Caitlin's leg. Yes that is very cute, my wife and daughter were now inseparable hugs and kisses.
This is one system made by VeriChip called the Hugs System. This system is what VeriChip calls a “Wearable” RFID tag. These tags are worn individuals (usually on the wrist or leg). the system is designed to help prevent infant abductions and accidental mother/baby switching.
Being the curious IT guy that I am I started asking questions like how does it work, how can you be sure....etc. The tags are a part of system of receivers that are tied to control PC's. The receivers are mounted throughout the hospital, and they have special receivers called exciters usually placed at the exits to prevent the child being taken. (Diagram to the left)
The hugs and kisses tags are also tied together so when the nursery nurse brought Caitlin to the room before she was handed to Deb they could verify they had the correct mom and child. What happened is when Caitlin was close to Deb you heard a quick 5 note lullaby. Very Cute.
So how does the whole process work? It starts with Caitlin needing food, then she cries, then the nurse decides to bring her to Deb to feed. The nurse goes to a controller PC and signs Caitlin out and walks quickly to Deb's room. Yes there is a time limit and if the nurse does not make it the room in time, then Elevators and doors in the wing shut down. According to the people I spoke to this happens occasionally due to the distance from the nursery to the maternity wing. When the nurse arrives, signs the kid in at the maternity pc and then they bring her into the room and wait for the lullaby notes and Caitlin is passed to Deb.
As the nurse was explaining to the system to me, I had thoughts of testing the system, getting my camera from home and seeing what really happens. I believed it, but I thought it would be a fun adventure and I wanted to try it. At about that same time Deb gave that "mom glare", she new what I was thinking, must have been the smirk on my face. I started to pout and tell Deb about the fun adventure and bonding time Caitlin and I would have. Still a no, so then I thought what if I cut the tag off and run. That is when I got the un-approving glare from the nurse, apparently there are even bigger things that happen when that happens.
So for all of you expecting parents, do not need be surprised when your newly arrived addition gets hugs and kisses right away.
To learn more about this technology take a look here: