Craig Swartz on Microsoft

Bing translator - For Enterprise apps

Craig Swartz — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:29:00 GMT

Bing has a number of web services offered in addition to search. One example is the Bing translator. There is a great description of how to integrate the Bing translator engine (Ajax service via API) with enterprise search.

Find it here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/enterprisesearch/archive/2009/09/22/enterprise-search-and-bing-services-part-1-the-bing-translator.aspx

Find N Go on the IPhone with MotionX and Bing maps

Craig Swartz — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:18:00 GMT

Search for a locale, and get directed there using Bing Maps on the iphone. This 2.99 app makes navigation pretty cost effective (that is, if you have already the sunk cost of an iphone)..

Heres a link to Chris Pendleton's post o the app:

http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/maps/archive/2009/09/25/iphone-navigation-with-motionx-and-bing-maps.aspx

Microsoft's free security download - Security Essentials

Craig Swartz — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:11:00 GMT

Just released, Security Essentials is a security package for the home PC, as a download from Microsoft. The key difference is this version is not centrally managed as the corporate version is.

Get it Here: http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials

Office 2007 Deployment- information and webcast

Craig Swartz — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:54:00 GMT

Joy Dakin-Schwalm has created a space specifically for all things Office deployment related. Included are webcasts, tips for deployment, and downloads for Office. This is a great wealth of Office related information.

Rather than restate it, I suggest you visit. Heres the link:

http://deploymentjoy1.spaces.live.com/

Bing Maps for the Enterprise - Enhancing Business applications with geo data

Craig Swartz — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 07:47:00 GMT

Business intelligence is enhanced by visualizing data patterns. Best of all, geo maps highlight location and regional awareness of key performance indicators. Add this to the great integration with Sharepoint, SQL and Performance point, and you have a service snap in to add POW to performance measurement.

Software as a Service: Bing Maps is truly a SAAS model; Microsoft hosts all data, which makes it extremely easy to take advantage of the industry leading feature set. Features include worldwide street-level maps, high-quality imagery, driving directions, points of interest, real-time traffic and much more. Bing Maps also easily integrates with SharePoint, SQL and Performance Point; Bing Maps can also be leveraged as an Enterprise Business Intelligence Platform supported by Microsoft.

See some live examples in Retail and Financial services here: http://www.microsoft.com/maps/platform/gallery.aspx

Productivity Hub is now live as a Sharepoint download

Craig Swartz — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 07:44:00 GMT

What is the Productivity Hub?

The Productivity Hub is a SharePoint Server 2007 site collection. It comes packed with over 300* pieces of content, including videos, documents and PowerPoint slides. This gives you a great start at building a learning community behind your firewall.

Microsoft has developed the Productivity Hub to help you optimize your Microsoft end user training plans, and is provided at no cost.

The Hub centralizes Microsoft’s end user training content while providing a great use case for using SharePoint Server throughout your organization. It removes the need for you to have to find, centralize and publish Microsoft’s free end user training to an internal site; we have done the work for you. You can customize the Hub to fit your branding and needs. The flexibility and rich feature set of SharePoint Server 2007 allows you to add web parts, remove web parts, and add your own content to the Hub.

The Hub highlights the best features of SharePoint Server 2007, while providing you with end user training for the newest versions of Office, SharePoint, and Windows.

The Hub uses SharePoint Server’s social networking features to engage end users. It also offers training for “coaches” or power users internal to each customer. Coaches can help reduce the burden on training and helpdesk staff by adding another level of support.

The Productivity blog is another way to give your end users ongoing Tips and Tricks – and the blog is where you will find out about new content for the Hub. You can either keep the RSS feed on your Hub home page, or put it on a hidden page and reuse the blog content in your own internal SharePoint blog.

Benefits to you:

•Helps reduce costs: Streamlines training and helps reduce training overhead. Acts as a tool for training departments and IT.

•Multiple learning paths: Includes learning roadmaps, coaches, forums, searchable content and more.

•Helps increase productivity: Accelerates 2007 Office system use through a learning community.

•Drives adoption: Ongoing access to training enables deeper use and helps create new power users.

•Ignites collaboration: Encourages self-help through the coach program.

•Proof of concept: Provides a vision for collaborative learning – leading to collaborative work.

Quarterly Content Updates

We will provide quarterly content updates for your Hub beginning August 2009. You can learn about the updates on the Productivity blog. The following is an approximate delivery schedule (subject to change).

Update	Month
First quarterly update	August 2009
Second quarterly update	November 2009
Third quarterly update	February 2010
Fourth quarterly update	May 2010

2010 Office Content

We will provide content updates for 2010 Office when it becomes available. We are also planning an upgrade to SharePoint Server 2010 and will have a migration path for customers currently using the SharePoint Server 2007 Hub.

Hub Download link

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=277fefca-d62f-41bc-943d-79002254cfee

*Content updates are available for the Hub, adding over 200 documents. Follow the instructions in the customization guide to add new products to your Hub.

Sharepoint Development Patterns and Practices released

Craig Swartz — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 07:23:00 GMT

While Sharepoint has been known as a comprehensive platform for collaboration and Line of Business application enrichment, guidance has been needed on the how-tos of creating these integrations and rich collaborations on the platform. This is why I'm happy to report that Microsoft has released Patterns and Practices guidance for Sharepoint Development.

The following are key elements of what is included as well as links to the actual Patterns and Practices Guidance:

What’s in Developing SharePoint Applications?

Developing SharePoint Applications guidance integrates new guidance with the original release, SharePoint Guidance – November 2008, into a single download.

The guidance contains the following components:

Component	Description
SharePoint Guidance Library	A set of reusable components that helps developers manage configuration, build repositories for SharePoint lists, log traces and events, and use service location.
Guide	The documentation includes a variety of topics, such as how to use design and application patterns, how to integrate LOB systems with SharePoint applications, building scalable applications, upgrading SharePoint applications, and using SharePoint capabilities to create, and deploy content. It also includes the design decisions made for the Partner Portal and Training Management applications and explanations of their implementations.
Contoso Partner Portal Reference Implementation	This SharePoint application shows how Contoso created an extranet where it can interact with its partners. Among the items demonstrated are techniques for building manageable and scalable enterprise applications, and how to incorporate publishing and page composition features, flexible navigation, collaboration sites, and LOB integration. It includes more advanced techniques than the Training Management reference implementation and requires Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 with Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2.
Contoso Training Management Reference Implementation	This SharePoint application illustrates how the Contoso Human Resources department manages its training course offerings. It shows how to solve many basic SharePoint challenges that you might encounter when you develop your own applications. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is required.

Click here to download this release.

Goals of This Release

This goal of patterns & practices Developing SharePoint Applications guidance is to help understand how to develop large scale, content-driven SharePoint applications that extend the value of existing line of business systems. We achieve this goal through the Partner Portal reference implementation and general guidance. We had three primary objectives to meet this goal:

· Large Scale – Show how to build a large scale SharePoint application. This includes guidance on building in the manageability, configurability, and performance expected from large scale applications.

· Content Driven – More advanced SharePoint applications often include many sites and combine custom coded logic with created content. We demonstrate areas like custom navigation and publishing, composing Web parts with published information, and managing a consistent user experience.

· Extend LOB Systems – SharePoint can aggregate and extend information from Line of Business systems to end users, enhancing structured business processes with informal processes through collaboration. We show how to integrate security considerations into business services, and demonstrate how to create collaborative sites that help manage business events like incident escalations and order exceptions.

The goal of the guidance incorporated from the first version was to help build effective development teams for creating SharePoint applications, and understand the fundamentals of building, updating and unit testing a SharePoint application.

Getting Started

The guidance provides value for experienced developers just starting in SharePoint development as well as experienced SharePoint developers looking to expand their skills.

If you are new to SharePoint development, the first step is to study the Training Management application, which is based on Windows SharePoint Services. The documentation and the application can help developers understand the fundamentals of SharePoint development, and compliments other training resources and publications.

For those that already are experienced in developing SharePoint applications, or who have gone through the Training Management application, the Partner Portal application and SharePoint Guidance library demonstrate these advanced areas. You can explore the guidance and Partner Portal reference implementation based upon your areas of interest. The general guidance refers into areas of the reference implementation that illustrate the covered concepts.

This guide enhances product documentation by applying the information to a realistic business situation illustrated in the reference implementations. In many cases, the guidance refers to the product documentation. You can use the guidance to gain initial understanding. You can then use the product documentation for deeper understanding.

The following topics may help in understanding the guidance and how it applies to your scenarios:

· When to Use This Guidance

· Intended Audience

· Evaluating the SharePoint Guidance

· Developing SharePoint Applications

Videos

Channel 9 videos

· Setting up the Contoso RI

· Walkthrough of the Contoso Reference Implementation

· How to use the configuration component?

· How to use the logging components?

· How to use the SharePoint Service Locator?

Microsoft's Web Platform Available for Download

Craig Swartz — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 02:33:00 GMT

What is the Microsoft Web platform?

Its a pre built stack with the .Net components, IIS, SQL server 2008 express, and Visual Web developer. Additionally, popular PHP and ASP.Net applications are available for download, ready to run on the platform.

If you are looking for a platform to run a variety of applications, including open source, or to develop on, try the download, available here:

http://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx

Windows 7 Application Compatibility Virtual Roundtable

Craig Swartz — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:21:00 GMT

On Thursday, June 18 at 11 PST Mark Russinovich will host a virtual roundtable for IT Pros on the subject of Windows 7 Application Compatibility.

Use this link to Join:

https://ms.istreamplanet.com/springboard

Windows 7 Inside tips

Craig Swartz — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:38:00 GMT

Here are some good tips and techniques to use around your testing of Windows 7 thanks to the great work of Jeff Asis and Joel Schoenberg on the Windows Client team for providing these techniques!

Windows 7 Training kit for Developers published for download

Downloading and installing this training kit requires you to have Visual Studio and the Windows SDK installed, but it is completely worth it. In this kit, you'll get detailed information on code development for some great Windows 7 features. This training teaches you about interfaces with the Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) stack in Windows 7, the Sensor and Location platform, Mulitouch, Libraries, Taskbar, Ribbon, etc. Download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=12100526-ed26-476b-8e20-69662b8546c1&displaylang=en.

Boot to VHD Screen cast now available

Learn more about booting Windows 7 directly to a VHD file by watching this video walkthrough: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=80EDE31D-3509-407B-A896-0BEEA8705589&displaylang=en The purpose of the boot to VHD feature in Windows 7 is not for enterprise-wide deployment, but is very useful in certain scenarios. The documentation for automating deployment of VHDs currently exists here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd363560.aspx If you want additional detail on this, please send me a note and we can discuss it offline.

WIM2VHD code project helps you virtualize straight from your deployment images

This tool is a great way to take your existing WIM file and convert it to a VHD. I expect this tool to be heavily used, especially given the boot to VHD feature in Windows 7. Try it here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/wim2vhd

Virtual PC 7 requirements (and the MEDV mitigation)

The latest version of the Virtual PC product requires CPU-specific virtualization extensions in order to run. Therefore, detecting the presence of this chipset becomes important if you want to use this new software. Here are a few tools to detect the presence of virtualization extensions on a given machine:

Intel: http://www.intel.com/support/processors/tools/piu/

AMD: http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/dynamicDetails.aspx?ListID=c5cd2c08-1432-4756-aafa-4d9dc646342f&ItemID=172

Gibson Research: http://www.grc.com/securable.htm

Remember that Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MEDV) does not have this restriction. You can have these killer integrated virtualization features (just like XP Mode) even on non-virtualization extension CPUs. Learn more about MEDV here: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/default.aspx

New Windows features in Windows PE version 3.0

With the Windows 7 WAIK, available here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4AD85860-D1F4-42A1-A46C-E039E3D0DB5D&displaylang=en, we will get a new version of Windows PE. This version contains several key enhancements you should know about:

• Smaller default Size. Windows PE version 2.0 contains staged optional components that add additional size, which required additional effort to remove. The Windows PE 3.0 default image contains only the minimum resources to support most deployment scenarios. Optional components can be added using Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM).

• Serviceable. In Windows Vista®, after you run PEImg /prep against a Windows PE 2.0 image, the image cannot be modified. Windows PE 3.0 images can be serviced at any time using DISM. The PEImg.exe tool is not supported in Windows PE 3.0.

• Image optimization. Previous versions of Windows PE provides limited support for optimizing (reducing) the size of an image. Using the new DISM /apply-profiles option, you can reduce the contents of a Windows PE 3.0 image to only those files necessary to support a given set of applications.

• System drive letter. You can assign any letter to the system drive using the new DISM /Set-TargetPath option.

• Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM). DISM is a new command-line tool you can use to customize a Windows PE 3.0 image offline. DISM replaces PEImg.exe. For more information, see Deployment Image Servicing and Management Command-Line Options.

• Mounted images. Windows PE 3.0 supports mounting a Windows image (WIM).

• Hyper-V support. Windows PE 3.0 includes all Hyper-V™ drivers except display drivers. This enables Windows PE to run in Hypervisor. Supported features include mass storage, mouse integration, and network adapters.

New features in User State Migration Tool 4.0

Also contained in the WAIK, available here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4AD85860-D1F4-42A1-A46C-E039E3D0DB5D&displaylang=en, is the User State Migration Tool (USMT) 4.0, which will be key for any customer expecting to go from Windows XP to Windows 7. This migration path requires a fresh install, which means migrating the user's settings and data is very important to accomplish well. Therefore these following improvements in USMT 4.0 are timely:

• Hard-link migration store

• Ability to run the ScanState command on an offline Windows image

• Volume shadow copy support

• New helper functions

• Improved space estimation

• Configurable file errors

• Local group migration

• List of files being migrated

• Usmtutils.exe

• New Advanced Encryption Standard encryption options

Record quality screencasts easy and cheap with Community Clips

Office Labs has published a great tool for you to communicate more effectively about technology. Office Labs Community Clips will let you instantly record a compressed (but decent quality, actually) video of your desktop or portion of your desktop. Get it here: http://communityclips.officelabs.com/

Windows Sensor and Location platform "lights up" Windows 7

Literally, in a way. The Windows Sensor platform allows your Windows 7 PC to use ambient light sensors on your laptop to adaptively change your screen brightness (even if you don't have a fancy new laptop, you can try it out with this code from the Windows SDK: http://blogs.msdn.com/gavingear/archive/2009/04/22/don-t-have-a-light-sensor-use-virtuallightsensor-exe-from-the-sdk.aspx). The Windows location platform aims to make very specific location information (GPS, for instance) available for your application without having to interface directly with the GPS unit. Here's sample code for that: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=SensorsAndLocation&DownloadId=5857 You can learn more about this platform here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/d/f/adf1347d-08dc-41a4-9084-623b1194d4b2/Introducing_Sensors.docx

Bing Maps is localizing content in the cloud

Microsoft (and other companies) get a lot of press about building huge centrally-located data centers (http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-06/look-inside-data-centers-cloud?page=), while at the same time Microsoft and the industry are also moving in the opposite direction by localizing content delivery, rather than centralizing. Content Delivery Networks (CDN) like Akamai and Limelight have been around for quite some time to help the internet deal with large file transfers such as HD video, video game content (Xbox) and massively downloaded binaries (such as the Windows 7 Release Candidate) by localizing the download to close-by servers. Now, with increasing expectations on how our software works, Microsoft is seeing big value in providing even more localized content to enterprises. Thus, Microsoft has invested in Content Delivery Network technology and is beginning to integrate, as reported last year: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/01/11/microsoft-building-own-cdn-network/. And now with the release of Bing Maps, the content is delivered from this CDN, and is now both strongly localizable and much faster for the user to view and navigate. Try it for yourself here: http://maps.bing.com.

Windows Live Maps (now Bing Maps) unintentionally aids scientific discovery

Scientist Martyn Barber was using Windows Live Maps to get driving directions to an archeological site, and noticed an earth formation suggesting something was in the undergrowth. This 'something turned out to be a 6,000 year old tomb, which might be a peer to the archeological site at Stonehenge. An amazing find! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090608143835.htm

Network World takes a crack at diagramming Microsoft's desktop virtualization offerings

Read the brief blog post with a chart here: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/42507

ReadyBoost gets a boost in Windows 7

For Windows Vista the maximum you could have for a ReadyBoost cache was 4GB. In Windows 7 your cache can be 32GB when you format the device as exFAT or NTFS. Also, in Windows Vista you could have only one ReadyBoost device per machine, while Windows 7 allows eight per machine. With this improved functionality we expect newer tests to show improvements, and while our white paper has not been finished yet, you should know there are significant performance improvements, even on computers with 4GB or RAM. The sweet spot for how much helps depends on workload and configuration, but the general recommendation is 2-4x RAM size. In our live-user test results, due to be published soon, both "process" and "thread" speedup was over 25% and 15% respectively, on machines with both large and small amounts of RAM.

Windows Speech Recognition (WSR) Platform profile migration tool released

The WSR in Windows Vista was greatly improved over previous operating systems, but as people have pointed out to me, when these users migrate to Windows 7, they will want to move their speech profiles to avoid re-training your new computer. Fortunately, we have released a tool to migrate your speech profiles. Try it out here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=1d60a5a6-85d4-4db2-a581-a41f66561a7d

Windows Speech Recognition (WSR) Macro recording tool expands usability of speech API

Now, without redeveloping your applications, you can improve the speech capabilities with WSR Macros. These are essentially manifests that define phrases to 'listen for', and the resulting action you want the computer to take. This should help you consume complex technical phrasing and perform a complex technical tasks without being a developer. Very geeky: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=FAD62198-220C-4717-B044-829AE4F7C125&displaylang=en

How to set up WMI to use a specific port

Out of the box, WMI uses port 135 to set up and then uses dynamic port mapping between 1024 and 65535 thereafter. Obviously, this complicates WMI remoting across restrictive networks, so you now have the ability to statically set the port that WMI will work with. Here's a 'how to': http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb219447.aspx

Powershell Code

Use Powershell to get useful info out of the event logs. In this case, the most recent error events in the system log:

$SysEvent = get-EventLog -logname system -newest 2000

$SysError = $SysEvent |where {$_.entryType -match "Error"}

$SysError | sort eventid | Format-Table EventID, Source, TimeWritten, Message -auto

Learn more at the Powershell blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/archive/2009/05/21/processing-event-logs-in-powershell.aspx

Downloads you can use

LogParser 2.2 - Parses many types of textual content, it's a mature tool with well upgraded functionality

Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 RC - Manage Windows server infrastructure from Windows 7 RC

Windows Automated Installation Kit - Create your own Windows PE images, migrate user data

Windows 7 Applocker technical documentation - how to use Group Policy to control application usage

Tips for Virtual PC 7 - Details about how to use the new features, including XP Mode

Tips

· When you are using the MSTSC applet (Remote Desktop) in full screen mode you'll see a small title bar at the top showing your computer name. Well, in Windows 7, you can now drag and move this title bar! Which is fantastic for opening multiple TS sessions to multiple machines. Great feature!

· Yes, the "Switch Windows with Flip3D" icon is gone in Windows 7, but if you want it back, just create a new shortcut with this following command line. Then you can pin it to the Taskbar, if you like! %WinDir%\System32\rundll32.exe dwmapi #105

· If you are migrating to a new Windows 7 machine, you might want to back up your sticky notes from here: %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Sticky Notes

· When in Magnifier, hold down the Windows Key and press the plus (actually the equal key....no SHIFT needed) and minus keys.

· Check out the Windows 7 Jumplists for Powershell. Nice!

Hardware news

A wave of new devices is coming with Windows 7 that are touch enabled, yet highly capable like a netbook. Some people think of them as next-generation UMPC. Check out Archos' re-entry into this market with the 9PC here: http://www.umpcportal.com/2009/06/archos-launch-9%e2%80%9d-windows-7-tablet-umpc

Lists of changes in Windows 7

For your reference:

Whats new in Windows 7

Craig Swartz — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:31:00 GMT

As a preview to whats new, or a tutorial for those who have installed RC, here are some learning guides:

What’s New in Windows 7 for Consumers (1 Hour)

What’s New in Windows 7 for IT Professionals (2 Hours)

What’s New in Windows 7 for Information Workers (2 Hours)

Also, in case you are interested in more Windows 7 training and skills development information,the Windows 7 Learning Portal is live! This site is currently showcasing: 7 Silverlight Learning Snacks, free sample chapters from upcoming MS Press Books, Learning Plans, links to clinics/HOLs and more. This page can be found here - http://www.microsoft.com/learning/windows-7/default.mspx

Windows 7 on...

Craig Swartz — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:24:00 GMT

For those anxious to deploy all the goodies such as Aero Peek,Snap, Jump lists, Pin to taskbar, and more, The official Windows 7 release date announced today as October 22! See the Windows team blog for details at:

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/06/02/the-date-for-general-availability-ga-of-windows-7-is.aspx

Bing!

Craig Swartz — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:19:00 GMT

Search has been pretty much the same since Altavista in 95..now something new - Microsoft has published a new Search/Map and Enterprise Map capability in an easier to remember reference - Bing!

Try and see at http://www.bing.com

For backstory see:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/bing/default.mspx

Adding Social capability to your website

Craig Swartz — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:49:00 GMT

You can now use the Windows Live Messsenger toolkit to add social capability to your existing website. This allows you to add Messenger chat in your website to create deeper engagement and return visits.

Here is the Live messenger blog link for more information:

http://dev.live.com/blogs/devlive/archive/2009/03/18/481.aspx

Previewing your standards compliant Web site in Expressions Web Superpreview

Craig Swartz — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:38:00 GMT

The Expressions Web team just announced Superpreview - the capability to view what your web site code would look like rendered in differnet browsers. This will allow you to address layout rendering issues across browsers.

Take a look at the preview, and download it to try it out:

http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/dd565874.aspx