I have learned that the age-old question “Is the glass half-empty, or half-full?” is a false one intended to prime your thinking.

The glass is completely full: half with water, and half with air.

In this picture, do you see an attractive young woman or “witchy” woman? Or can you see both in turns?

Watch The Ascent of Money online to get some perspective, because things are out of whack.

Watch full program: THE ASCENT OF MONEY | The Ascent of Money | PBS

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ascentofmoney/video/watch-full-program-the-ascent-of-money/24/

Here’s my list of blogs to read on virtualization, Hyper-V, VMM and related technologies:

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/default.aspx - Windows Virtualization Product Group

http://blogs.msdn.com/taylorb/ - Taylor Brown (Test Lead)

http://blogs.technet.com/jonjor/default.aspx - Jonathan Jordan 

http://blogs.technet.com/blogms/pages/directory-of-microsoft-team-blogs.aspx (OPML)

http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/ - Ben Armstrong's Blog (Senior Virtualization PM)

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/ - John Howard's Hyper-V Blog (Senior Virtualization PM)

http://blogs.technet.com/roblarson/ - Rob Larson’s Virtualization Blog (Architect)

http://blogs.msdn.com/tvoellm/ - Tony Voellm (Principal SDET)

http://blogs.msdn.com/mikekol/default.aspx - Mike Kolitz (SDET)

http://blogs.technet.com/chengw/default.aspx  - Cheng Wei- Senior Program Manager VMM

http://blogs.technet.com/rakeshm/ - Rakesh Malhotra – Group Program Manager VMM

http://blogs.technet.com/jonjor/default.aspx - Jonathan Jordan - CSS Subject Matter Expert for VMM

http://blogs.technet.com/m2/default.aspx - Michael Michael - Senior SDE VMM

http://blogs.msdn.com/mikester/

If you are a TN/MSDN subscriber, download the beta bits here today: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/default.aspx

Available to Levels: TechNet Plus SA Media; TechNet Plus (Retail); TechNet Direct (Retail); TechNet Plus (VL); TechNet Plus Direct (VL); TechNet Cert Partner; TechNet Gold Cert Partner; 

Tony Voellm’s blog posts bring you up to speed:

• VM IO perf depends on the type of virtual disk you are using.  Fixed / Dynamic / Diff all have different characteristics:
• http://blogs.msdn.com/tvoellm/archive/2007/10/13/what-windows-server-virtualization-aka-viridian-storage-is-best-for-you.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/tvoellm/archive/2008/09/24/what-hyper-v-storage-is-best-for-you-show-me-the-numbers.aspx
• A component called the IO load balancer manages each VMs access to a shared volume:
• http://blogs.msdn.com/tvoellm/archive/2008/06/18/windows-server-performance-2008-tuning-guide-now-includes-hyper-v.aspx

Go to http://www.microsoft.com/Windowsserver2008/en/us/R2-Beta.aspx for the bits, reviewer's guide, relnotes and other info.

What’s in it for virtualization?

1. Live migration of Virtual machines

2. Hardware enhancements: Nested Page Tables (NPT) and Extended Page tables (EPT)

3. Hot add VHDs

4. Networking upgrades: TCP offload engines, Virtual machine device queues (VMDq), and Jumbo Frames.

5. Better power management

6. VDI Connection Broker

Wikipedia defines Bricolage as : 

• the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things which happen to be available
• a work created by such a process.

“…from the verb bricoler – the core meaning in French being, "fiddle, tinker" and, by extension, "make creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are to hand (regardless of their original purpose)."

That’s a good characterization of this blog.

Karl Weick’s  attributes for successful bricolage include:

• intimate knowledge of resources
• careful observation and listening
• trusting one's ideas
• self-correcting structures, with feedback

As  a bricoleur* of technical content from Microsoft, I work hard every day on the first three. I need your help on the last bullet. Please leave feedback and let me know what needs correction/improvement.

Thanks in advance .

* According to Lévi-Strauss (1962),  bricoleur describes

… a type of thinking and symbolization; the opposite of "engineer". The engineer creates specialized tools for specialized purposes. The bricoleur is a "jack-of-all-trades", who uses few, non-specialized tools for a wide variety of purposes.

A fundamental security precept is “patch up all machines before brining into production.” This advice applies to VMs and hosts, and is included in the Planning for Hyper-V Security content in the Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide.

OK, so how are you supposed to know what updates apply? For Hyper-V, you can bookmark http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd430893.aspx. This page has the cumulative updates list for Hyper-V.

Using the Community Content feature of this page (and most MSDN/TN pages) we can also list for you the updates you may need for Windows, VMM, VPC and VSC.

Click the “Annotations” RSS Feed button to subscribe (this feed is for ALL annotations, not just annotations to the Hyper-V update list).

You asked, we listened. One URL to bookmark where you can find the current list of patches.

We’d love to hear your feedback on this, leave comments here.

Startups just got another Angel: Microsoft’s BizSpark. BizSpark helps Startups by providing access to Microsoft software* when they most need it and can least afford it, and by supporting the network of organizations - startup incubators, investors, advisors, government agencies - that are equally involved and invested in software-fueled innovation and entrepreneurship.

* including: