Spotted last week while we were in Seattle. I did not actually see this sign but a friend of mine saw the guy and unfortunately didn't have any money to give him.
If anyone has a photo, please post.
I present on BDD about once a week, and many times people ask what the next steps would be to get started. I suggest a few documents and web sites but James has posted a good solid set of links to online BDD labs. These would be a great experience if you are just getting your feet wet.
Views on Windows Vista : Learn how to efficiently deploy Vista and Office 2007 in your business
In fact it already is. One of the Technology Adoption Program (TAP) customers was in fact a University. See the webcast here:
http://blogs.technet.com/nap/archive/2007/06/27/nap-web-cast-real-world-customer-deployment-of-nap-louisiana-state-university.aspx
I will do my best to get this represented at the Windows HI-ED conference.
Of all the "tricks" Vista has available, there is one I use the most frequently and appreciate more than any other. That is resizing text.
I originally found this trick on Techlog.
I do not have perfect eyesight. I can focus on far away things or close things, but my eyes strain more than usual when making the transition. This makes my eyes very tired by the end of the day. So when I am still crunching through Email at 8pm, it doesn't matter how much coffee I drink, my eyes still hurt when staring at small text on my high resolution laptop.
Here's the fix, hold down the ctrl key and either role your mouse wheel up, or slide your finger up along the slider on your touchpad. Mine is on the right side and is indicated by a series of lines. This makes the text within the window larger. Now scroll down to make it smaller.
This trick works in an Email message, on web pages in IE, pretty much any readable text you can click on it and then make it bigger without actually changing your dpi setting or resolution. It also works on icons in Windows Explorer, or on your desktop. You can't resize text you are editing because then you would have no idea what it is going to look like when someone else opens it.
End result:
Scroll up
Scroll down
This afternoon purchased an EVDO modem so I could work out any bugs and have it in action before heading out to TR5. I have been researching these devices for months now and thinking about whether it would be a worthwhile investment. My upcoming trip will be a good opportunity to test the connection and hopefully save on hotel/airport wireless plus any time a convention hall is flooded by 2-3,000 Microsoft techies the wireless seems to go haywire. Not surprising really, these are the most active users of bandwidth found anywhere.
I decided on the Verizon USB720.
In terms of relative size, it is the same length and width as the remote control for the Zune dock, but about twice as thick. That's pretty large in my opinion but considering this will go in my backpack not my pocket I am not too concerned...
This is a device that plugs in via USB rather than PCMCIA or PC Express. I chose this after doing a lot of reading on evdo forums and blogs to see what others have found. The upsides to going USB are –
Next logical question – if you are going to tether a modem, why not just use your handset?
Several others on my team have tried EVDO modems. I have had the same experience as they have all reported - I couldn’t be happier with the results. The connection is fast and seems to be holding a connection. I spent about an hour figuring out a few caveats.
So to summarize, this device is providing a lightening fast connection and is working perfectly.
Last and least, now I am tempted to purchase an EVDO router such as the device from DLink or Kyocera. It would be insanely handy to have one of these during a spur of the moment meeting!
This week the Microsoft Global Exchange is taking place in Orlando. I chose not to attend this year since I'm leaving Friday to spend 7 days in Seattle and attend TechReady 5, our bi-annual technical briefing for the Microsoft field. I couldn't be more excited, seriously. I love Seattle, it's among my favorite places to visit, and I love any opportunity to interact with product teams at Microsoft.
This Week! The biggest announcement to come out today (Monday, although it's just past midnight as I'm writing this) from Microsoft is the RTM of Windows Home Server. I've been testing Home Server for many months now and only recently rebuilt my test server so I could start playing with multicast in WDS. If the HP MediaSmart server is affordable, I will be getting one for our Home. WHS is a really interesting solution as an appliance to ensure data fault tolerance and secure remote access in the home. As my family grows I think more about how to preserve my digital assets, they are becoming my most valuable possessions. I currently use a replication scheme with a PC at the Grandparents, WHS would be a better long term plan for local redundancy. I will probably still do some form of replication to prevent loss in case of fire. The one factor that will drive my purchase is digital video. I am would really like to do a HDD based HD video camera in October but I worry that unlike miniDV, a HDD camera does not have tapes to fall back on if files are ever lost. Home Server is also a great recovery solution for rebuilding our laptops should the need ever arise. If a sub-500$ version of WHS becomes available, I could see staging one with each Grandparent to lower support costs, speaking as the family IT guy...
Some interesting recent posts from fellow Microsoft bloggers. It seams Microsoft has published a Malware Protection Center which provides an online encyclopedia of information on viruses/adware/spyware. From here you can research existing threats or submit information if you believe you have found a new threat, including sample files.
The 2007 Faculty Summit is going on this week. This is an opportunity for Microsoft Research to share their upcoming plans with Universities, and also have discussions around what the research agenda should be in the future.
Larry posted information about the Higher Education Consortium which provides an opportunity for Microsoft customers in EDU to provide feedback to Microsoft on various concepts including subjects like student collaboration tools. They specifically are looking for feedback at this point on future projects.
The beta program for Mac Office 2008 is taking nominations for beta testers now. Good opportunity to nominate yourself and not only get to test the product but also help report any issues you encounter prior to the final code.
Finally, I've been reading about VMRCPlus for a few weeks now and a friend (Troy) mentioned I should give it a try. It's great! I will never use the web console again unless I am doing remote administration, and even then the cases are limited.
Hoping to get lots more posts out this week so hopefully you'll hear more from me.
... on Matt's site. I will be adding these to my del.icio.us collection for Server_2008.
Microsoft Higher Education Tech NE : Longhorn...um I mean Windows Server 2008
One item I neglected to include in This Week this morning -
Any Xbox 360 customer who experiences a general hardware failure indicated by three flashing red lights will now be covered by a three year warranty from date of purchase.
So, all the more reason to buy an Elite as I've been threatening for some time now!
Xbox.com | System Use - Xbox 360 Warranty and Service Enhancements
Once again posting "This Week" on Tuesday. I spent most of the day yesterday on an airplane and needed to wrap-up some work when I finally reached the hotel. I'm on a roadshow this week visiting multiple customers across the Midwest to discuss Vista deployment.
The big event this week is the World Wide Partner Conference. I don't have the privilege of attending this year but in the past I found the event to be a great opportunity to meet new people within the industry that share my passion for technology. Sessions often include new solutions that partners can leverage to build and enrich their business. See this EWeek article for an overview discussion with Microsoft executives on topics to be discussed this week.
One interesting note. Over the weekend a massive concert, Live Earth was the most watched online event in history. Impressive. I noticed it was also on Universal HD but I have to admit I didn't get a chance to watch much of it. I'm looking forward to viewing a few key performers on demand.
I heard on Buzz Out Loud yesterday about a press conference going on today related to gaming. I'm not going to hold my post until later in the day to review the outcome but check out Microsoft.com for details.
Gotta go present, have a good week!
Crickets, crickets... Not much going on this week! Of course there is a lot of buzz-buzz from people who finally have the iPhone in their hands. I actually saw one at St. Louis Bread Company yesterday. Smaller than I expected but it was pressed against a guys head, so who knows, maybe he had a big head.
Some personal news. As many already know, July 1 is the beginning of our fiscal year. This is the point where all kinds of organizational changes happen to make sure we are doing our best to stay aligned with our customer's needs. In the Education Specialist Team Unit we run a pretty slim crew so we try to stay agile.
I'm anticipating that most people by now have some concept of how and when they will deploy Vista, although many will continue to have questions. On the other hand, Server 2008 is on the horizon and we anticipate there will be a lot of requests in the coming months for information and technical insight to how changes will impact customer environments and what features to plan for. So I am switching my role from a Windows Client Technology Solutions Professional to a Network Technology Solutions Professional.
I will be keeping a few "commitments" to the client OS so you can expect me to keep posting on Vista along side new content for Server 2008. I still have a long list of Vista posts that I just haven't had time to get to. Ironically, many of them are related to things like NAP which cross client/server interests.
I had lunch with a Network TSP from our local district office last week. He described the role as being very different from person to person based on the needs and demands from other specialists on each respective STU team and each set of customers. He primarily focuses on NAP (Network Access Protection), PKI, and a variety of network load balancing and network infrastructure planning.
In education, I regularly encounter people who have a tremendous level of technical depth. It would be foolish for me to think I could ever hold my own against the network specialists in EDU. I hope to be a source of information on Server 2008, and do everything I can to introduce the new features to the education community through speaking events, proof of concepts, correspondence via phone/Email/IM, public webcasts, private LiveMeeting events, and blogging.
BTW, I am starting a Tumblr log. This is really just a place for me to send more frequent, random links and comments. I often see something and either don't have time to blog about it or feel it would be inappropriate to send it out through the TechNet master OPML. So this works out well as a parallel feed and allows me to add more personal touch.
migreene.tumblr.com