Keith Combs' Blahg : Screencasts

Last Chance to Vote for “South By” 2010 Panels

Keith Combs — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:38:00 GMT

I submitted a panel proposal to this years South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Conference. The title is, “Screencasting Lessons Learned” and I’ll try to do the subject justice with the knowledge I’ve accumulated over the past four or five years.

I am getting ready to record a number of Windows 7 screencasts using both Camtasia Studio and Expression Encoder 3. I’ll be putting some of them through the ringer with adaptive streaming and Silverlight 3 so the information will be fresh and new. I may try to get my hands on the new version of Camtasia for OS X and give it a whirl on my Apple MacBook Pro, too. No promises on the later, but it would be a great comparison if I have time.

Screencasting Lessons Learned (http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/3477)

Your vote: Yes No
Event: Interactive 2010
Level: Intermediate
Type: Solo
Category: Blogging, Online Video, Writing / Technical Writing
Organizer: Keith Combs, Microsoft - IT Pro and Developer Evangelism
Questions:

How long should a screencast be?
How do I publish my screencast using Silverlight?
What do I need to worry about for a good client experience?
Where do I store my video?
What is the difference between progressive download and streaming?
What format should I use for the source recording?
What type of machine do I need for editing and encoding?
Should I use a demo script or wing it?
How long does it take to create a technical screencast?
Should I worry about my accent?

Description: Learning to publish screencasts online can be a challenge. Come learn some tips and tricks that will help you use Camtasia or Expression Encoder more effectively with your blog. I am actively recruiting other Microsoft MVPs and speakers with the goal of turning this into a panel.

NOTE: In order to vote, you need to first create an ID at http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/users/register. It’s a quick and dirty registration app. Very little hassle. Please register and vote even if you aren’t going. Thanks !!!

And don’t forget all of the other panel nominations. See http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/index/4/company:Microsoft.

Brush your teeth and shave – LifeCam Cinema HD on the way?

Keith Combs — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:25:00 GMT

I have not seen an official announcement so I have no idea if it’s real or a mock-up. But if it’s real, I want it. Especially if it works with Camtasia, Expression Encoder 3 and Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition 9 and above. My screencasts will never be the same and it’s looking like it’s time to buy my green screen.

[UPDATE] It's official now. See http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/digitalcommunication/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=008.

Vote for my SXSW Panel – Screencasting Lessons Learned !!!

Keith Combs — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:20:05 GMT

Screencasting Lessons Learned (http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/3477)

How long should a screencast be?
How do I publish my screencast using Silverlight?
What do I need to worry about for a good client experience?
Where do I store my video?
What is the difference between progressive download and streaming?
What format should I use for the source recording?
What type of machine do I need for editing and encoding?
Should I use a demo script or wing it?
How long does it take to create a technical screencast?
Should I worry about my accent?

Expression Encoder Screen Capture 3 – HD screencast demonstration

Keith Combs — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 08:15:00 GMT

You’ve seen me do literally hundreds of Camtasia captured screencast demos. One of the screencasts I did on Windows Server 2008 was captured using the Windows Media Encoder x64 product. That product has now been depricated and the screencast below was captured with a new product called Expression Encoder Screen Capture 3. This product ships with and is designed to run with Expression Encoder 3.

This new screen capturing tool does a great job of capturing high quality work you might like to demonstrate via a blog or webpage. The screencast below was captured where the source machine was running a display resolution of 1920x1200. In the demo I also execute and run a Halo 3 720p HD video. That Halo 3 video is 30fps and the data rate for the video is right at 6MB. Try duplicating this capture with other products on the market or the internet. Let me know how successful you were. Grin.

The following demo requires the released version of Silverlight 3. Install from http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/get-started/install/default.aspx. I haven’t quite figured out the code to force that check in the blog post. So for now, there’s a little manual human intervention required. You can handle it. Smiles.

The Demo

Download Location

If you want to download the Windows Media Video file that was produced by Expression Encoder 3, right mouse click the following link and SAVE TARGET AS to a location local to your machine.

http://msinetpub.vo.llnwd.net/d1/keithcombs/screencasts/ee3/CaptureDemo/EncoderCapture.wmv

Some Notes on the Source and Output

The captured file size ended up being slightly less than 800MB. After selecting the Expression Encoder 3 VC-1 Screen profile and making some slight adjustments, I encoded to the Silverlight VC-1 format with a resulting file size of 40.5MB. That’s some serious crunching and compression folks.

The most impressive aspect is the quality of output. To truly appreciate this, run this screencast on a 24” monitor that has a native res of 1920x1200 and go full screen with the Silverlight 3 player control. The full screen button shows up if you move your mouse into the lower portion of the player and the controls pop up. The button I am referring to is bottom right. When full screen on a 24” monitor, the clarity should be nearly perfect with very little blurriness, artifacting, or other noise.

If you are using a smaller LCD panel like I am at the moment (15.4” laptop LCD at 1680x1050), you will see some blurriness but it should not be too bad. I haven’t yet decided what ot use in the future for my recordings so feedback now would be VERY welcome.

Since the data rate for this screencast is 4MB, those of you with slower internet connection may see some issues with playback buffering before the file is progressively downloaded. I am not using the adaptive bitrate streaming for this example.

Software locations

Be sure to install the released version of Silverlight 3 at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/get-started/install/default.aspx. After that, be sure to download the trial versions of the Expression Suite 3 products at http://www.microsoft.com/expression/try-it/#PageTop when they come out (soon). Expression Blend 3 with Sketchflow is available now.

Other References

James Clarke has a killer blog post at http://blogs.msdn.com/expressionencoder/ on all of the new features in Expression Encoder 3.
The Forum – see http://social.expression.microsoft.com/forums/en-us/encoder/threads/. Interesting orange color there.
Marketing - http://www.microsoft.com/expression/Default.aspx. Lots of information on all of the new products. I am looking forward to move off Dreamweaver and switching to Expression Web 3. It’s also time for me to learn Blend 3.

Seen the light?

Keith Combs — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:56:10 GMT

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/seethelight/default.html

[UPDATE] Apparently they moved some stuff around after I posted some of the links. Thanks for the comments. Enjoy the new tools!!!

Dual Boot from VHD Using Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Keith Combs — Fri, 22 May 2009 10:10:00 GMT

Executive Summary

Boot from VHD is a new technique for installing and maintaining operating system environments. Unlike virtual machines, the operating system that is running from a “boot from VHD” environment is using the actual hardware instead of emulated hardware. This means a developer could easily use WPF and the full GPU processing power of a high end graphics card. In another scenario, this technology makes it easy to setup and run Windows Server 2008 R2 with the Hyper-V role, thus supporting 64 bit virtualization workloads.

The Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) is the container for the installed operating system. Because everything is inside a single file, there are a number of benefits that can be realized for data center server environments, as well as managed desktop environments. The following article dives into the technical details of implementing two operating systems. Both are installed in a VHD file and can easily be booted by selecting the preferred environment at power on. This could easily be scripted and automated.

The Installation Foundation – Windows PE

The Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) has been updated for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. One of those improvements is the ability to use a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file as the target for an installation of the operating system (OS).

This has some interesting implications. Booting from a .VHD file that contains an entire OS seems rather magical. I mean think about it. You go to look at a hard drive and there’s a single file but Windows Server 2008 R2 is installed inside it. This would certainly simplify the ability to boot your servers on a completely new environment with little effort. This is going to turn change management on its ear.

The same is true for the desktop OS, Windows 7. You can install Windows 7 inside a .VHD file. Again, the OS is installed inside a single file and thus makes it rather easy to move or change out and bring up a completely different version of the environment. This will make test environments for developers super easy to construct and test discrete sets of applications or components.

One thing that is not well known is how easy it is to create the initial .VHD file and install the operating system into it. The supported and documented ways are geared towards very well defined support scenarios. You can see the supported scenarios in the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK). Most people have been reluctant to take the time to learn this because it involves the use of imagex captures and applies.

What if you could install with just the DVD?

You can. All you need is a hard drive with disk space and the DVD for Windows 7 RC or Windows Server 2008 R2 RC. In fact, when I was investigating the tools for this article I used a brand spanking new Hitachi 2.5” 320GB 7200rpm hard drive and both DVDs to create a dual boot environment. Nothing more. And it’s much simpler than I thought. The key is WinPE and DISKPART. Here is the screencast demonstration of the tools in action.

The Screencast Video – 23 minutes – Win7 and R2 Dual Boot via VHD

The Command Sequence Used in the Video

Boot your machine with a blank hard drive using the Windows 7 DVD.
Click next on the language screen if English is appropriate.
SHIFT+F10 to launch a WinPE command console. Although the commands below are in upper case, the commands are not case sensitive. I am only using upper case for readability here.
Enter DISKPART to run the utility.
LIST DISK to see the available disks in your system. I am assuming a single raw disk.
SEL DISK 0
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK
LIST VOL
ASSIGN
LIST VOL
CREATE VDISK FILE=c:\windows7rc.vhd MAXIMUM=200000 TYPE=EXPANDABLE
SELECT VDISK FILE=c:\windows7rc.vhd
ATTACH VDISK
CRE PART PRI
FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK
ASSIGN LETTER=V:
LIST VOL
LIST VDISK
exit DISPART
exit WinPE command console
Install to the newly created 200GB (fuzzy math) virtual hard disk which looks just like a partition to Windows Setup
Repeat steps 11-18 for the Windows Server 2008 R2 VHD but with the obvious changes for the vdisk filename, size, etc.

Other References and Articles

Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 RC – get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=60a07e71-0acb-453a-8035-d30ead27ef72. This is the bible for the supported methods of using “Boot from VHD”.

Windows Virtualization Blog – see their VHD boot post at http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/05/14/native-vhd-support-in-windows-7.aspx. Particularly interesting is the performance area of the post.

Knom’s Developer Corner – another nice post at http://blogs.msdn.com/knom/archive/2009/04/07/windows-7-vhd-boot-setup-guideline.aspx.

So What’s Next ???

Tomorrow I am going to backup my existing Windows 7 production hard drive. Windows 7 is installed in the traditional fashion on a 200GB drive right now. I am going to restore the backup to a larger disk then install Windows Server 2008 R2 RC into a .VHD and test mixing them. That’s a bit of a hybrid and one I think a lot of developers might be interested in. It would certainly demonstrate you can have a traditional implementation of your production OS, but flip to any other Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7 testbed very easily. I’ll follow-up here or another post when I get that implemented. Enjoy.

[UPDATE for 5/23/2009] As I indicated just above, I wanted to run an extension of the test I recorded. I backed up my 200GB Windows 7 RC environment then restored it to a 320GB drive. After that, I booted from the Windows Server 2008 R2 RC DVD and created a bootable VHD with R2 inside. The VHD is stored in a folder at the root of my 320GB disk. The R2 setup program fixed up the bcdstore area and I now have a dual boot hybrid. Windows 7 is installed in the traditional manner. R2 is booting from the VHD. Both are available on the selection menu at power up. Interesting stuff for sure.

[UPDATE for 5/25/2009] Since I received a couple of questions out of band on how I captured the demo, let me explain. The demo was captured using Camtasia v6.0.2. The demo was a Hyper-V virtual machine, not native hardware. I had mentioned that in some of the preliminary takes but I guess I didn't make that clear in the final take. Therefore, the booted OS in the screencast is actually using the emulated hardware of the virtual machine. Everything you see in the demo works on my native hardware, a Lenovo ThinkPad T61p.

One other thing, the VHD that is being booted from will expand to the maximum size specified at creation. It will revert to the used size when you shut it down. Keep this in mind because that buffer must exist at boot time or else.

[UPDATE for 6/14/2009] Although this article was originally written using a blank hard drive, I have received a few suggestions for adds, so here they are.

Backup your machine first. Yep, this is a good idea as always if you are messing with a drive you care about.
Decrypt the drive if using BitLocker.

Windows Server 2008 Interop with Linux and OS X

Keith Combs — Sat, 16 May 2009 10:35:00 GMT

We’re a little over halfway done with the Interop Road Show I helped create. Last week Matt Hester did a simulcast of the live event from Chicago. Although he did a great job, I wanted to capture the demos with Camtasia v6.0.2 and provide some high quality audio and video of the demos, so here they are.

A Party of Protocols

There are a number of ways to invite Linux, UNIX, and OS X to the Windows Server Active Directory party. The operating systems we use today will interoperate in many ways because each includes some level of common protocol support. Support for HTTP is an obvious protocol they all share. SMB is also commonly used for access to Windows file system shares. In the UNIX world, NFS ruled the ether for years. Thankfully directory and security protocols like LDAP and Kerberos have also become common in the desktop and server operating systems.

There are pros and cons to any approach to integrating heterogeneous environments. Usually this means there will be tradeoffs on functionality. Thankfully, there is a robust market out there to lower the number of tradeoffs and attempt to provide near seamless coexistence and integration.

For those of you that get TechNet Magazine, you probably noticed the December 2008 issue devoted to this subject. You also probably noticed it isn’t necessarily trivial to do everything you might set out to accomplish. As Matt likes to say, get some sleep, get up early, and eat your Nerdflakes because you are going to need them.

I shopped the partner market. I wanted to see if there were some products you should consider that ease the pain. There are and you should by all means evaluate the products from Centrify, Quest, Likewise and others. You’ll notice I am using Centrify DirectControl.

The main reason for that is simple. Linux, OS X and UNIX and Windows include support for authentication, directories and file sharing. That capability is built into the OS. However, if you want to do desktop management, you really need help from an additional set of agents and code. You’ll see what I mean in demo number three below.

Adding SUSE Linux to Active Directory (AD)

In the video just below, we are going to add a SLED 10 SP2 virtual machine to the contoso.com domain. We’ll first check and verify the vm is able to find the domain controllers and that we have good connectivity. Then we’ll join the domain and reboot the vm. Check it out.

Security Security

Now that our workstation vm is a citizen of the contoso.com domain, we can start doing the stuff that would be a normal next step. For instance, we would want to verify user principals from AD can login on the Linux machine and use it. We would also want to check the security model and verify share and file permissions are working as expected. Checkout this next video on that subject.

Bow to Group Policy

Now that we can see networking, authentication and security is working properly, we can start to take advantage of the management infrastructure. For this demo, we are going to make a simple change to the SLED 10 SP2 GNOME settings to verify Group Policy Object (GPO) settings are flowing from Windows to Linux.

Summary

There is obviously a lot more to this subject, but as you can see, interoperability between Windows Server 2008 and a number of other server and desktop operating systems is quite good. You can do this the easy way, or you can do it the not so easy way. It’s really going to depend on your needs. If you have no need for desktop management via group policies, then you should investigate the native integration possibilities. If you have more advanced management needs to get the wild wild west tamed, then I would highly recommend looking at the partner tools.

Windows 7 Screencast on DirectAccess – the killer Enterprise feature

Keith Combs — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 06:11:54 GMT

Remember when you jumped from dial-up to DSL or a cable modem? You know what I mean. Those technology jumps that just make you smile really wide? Well, I have news for you. There’s another one coming that is going to rock your world. It’s called DirectAccess and although I am not particularly fond of the name, the name is accurate.

What is DirectAccess?

Simply put, it’s direct access to your corporate network across an automatically established tunnel. There’s a lot that has to happen in order for that to occur, but thankfully nearly everything is transparent to the user.

DirectAccess clients maintain constant connectivity with the intranet, and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) provides the end-to-end addressing necessary to accomplish this. Since many organizations do not yet have IPv6 deployed, DirectAccess includes IPv6 transition technologies to help ensure IPv6 connectivity.

IP-HTTPS is a new protocol for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 that allows hosts behind a Web proxy server or firewall to establish connectivity by tunneling IPv6 packets inside an IPv4-based HTTPS session. HTTPS is used instead of HTTP so that Web proxy servers will not attempt to examine the data stream and terminate the connection.

The Screencast

Want to see this in action? Sure you do! And unlike a lot of the content you see us demo in virtual machines, this demo is the real thing. This is my production Windows 7 laptop. Our MSIT department is hardcore on security so I’ve already logged in using multi factor authentication via a Smartcard.

For More Information

There is a ton of information on the internet about DirectAccess already. I would highly recommend you start studying and learning about IPv6 if you haven’t already. I would also recommend you start learning about the IPv4 to IPv6 transitional technologies that will help you get there. Here are some good references.

TechNet DirectAccess Area - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/network/dd420463.aspx.
Early Adopter’s Guide - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2fdc531d-9138-454f-a820-78211755b52a&displaylang=en.
Windows 7 DirectAccess section - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/products/directaccess.aspx.
MSDN Protocol Info in IP-HTTPS - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd357723(PROT.10).aspx

Errata and other Stupidity

I am constantly amazed at the stupid stuff I say, but don’t pick up on it until after I’ve published something. For instance, I said “a business people’s lives” instead of “a business persons life”. Close to the end I say, “this is some technical networking” instead of “this is some complex or advanced networking”. Wow. Major idiot moments there. LOL.

And I need a chair that shocks the crap out of me when I say “got” too much. Sigh… I probably won’t re-record the darn thing because I am time boxed at the moment. Maybe I’ll record it again when the Windows 7 RC is available and do it from a VM so you can see the full login process and experience.

Windows 7 Screencast – Resource Monitor (resmon)

Keith Combs — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:41:09 GMT

The other day I was complaining to myself (grumbling) about some application on my system using the wireless network nearly constantly. That sort of thing bugs me. It’s not like I was visiting one of those horrific myspace sites laden with heaven knows what. I suspected it might be one of the Silverlight player controls on my blog.

Since I had recently added the post David Tesar did on edge.technet.com, the spotlight was put on the Silverlight player in that post. Sure enough, it’s the culprit. It’s autoloading the data when the page is displayed. See for yourself at http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/01/28/internet-explorer-8-rc1-admin-kit-ieak-now-available-for-download.aspx. I reported this to the Edge team so hopefully they will change their defaults for their players. Mine don’t do that.

But how would you triage and troubleshoot the problem? My first inclination was to fire up netmon and start sniffing the wireless traffic. Netmon is a super powerful tool, but it’s probably overkill for spotting the culprit. What I should have done instead was fire up resmon.exe on Windows 7.

The new Resource Monitor in Windows 7 adds a lot of capabilities to the tool you see in the Reliability and Performance Monitor of Windows Vista. I really like those new views and displays so I thought it would be good to bring it to your attention.

Screencast

See the following 7 minute screencast on Resmon. As always, you can see the video full screen by double clicking the Silverlight player, or use the full screen button on the bottom right of the player toolbar. Enjoy!

Windows 7 Screencast – Problem Steps Recorder (PSR)

Keith Combs — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 02:07:46 GMT

Are you the “Computer Guy” ??? You know, the Saturday Night Live character Nick Burns played by Jimmy Fallon? Well, one of the reasons computer users bring out the “Nick Burns” in many of us is the disconnect in communications and lingo between computer experts and computer users.

Thankfully the developers of Windows 7 have included a blood pressure reducing little tool called the Problem Steps Recorder (PSR). You won’t find a whole lot of information on this nifty little tool yet, but nearly everyone that sees it and uses it agrees, this baby rocks.

Psr.exe is available in both Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. Some people may refer to it as WER PSR for the Windows Error Reporting angle. Unfortunately this application is not capturing video (a common misconception), but hey, it’s still a really nice way to alleviate the communication pain between users and a Tier 1 helpdesk, cut time and cut frustration.

The Screencast

Check out the following 4 minute screencast demo on this feature. Be sure to double click the player to see the large full screen view or use the full screen button on the bottom right portion of the player controls.

Windows 7 Screencast – BitLocker To Go

Keith Combs — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Lets face it, we all make mistakes. Fortunately there’s a new Windows 7 feature that might just save your bacon if you misplace a USB drive with sensitive information on it. You’ve probably heard about BitLocker. It’s the drive encryption technology that’s been around now for a little while. With Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, we took another step and now allow you to encrypt more than just the operating system drive. BitLocker To Go is an easy to use encryption technology that will allow you to encrypt the contents of a USB stick or drive and prevent prying eyes from looking at your data. Considering the number of recent horror stories about all sorts of sensitive data getting into the wrong hands, this feature is long overdue.

BitLocker To Go extends BitLocker data protection to USB storage devices, enabling them to be restricted with a passphrase. In addition to having control over passphrase length and complexity, IT administrators can set a policy that requires users to apply BitLocker protection to removable drives before being able to write to them. BitLocker To Go also allows users to more securely share data with users who have not yet deployed Windows 7. Windows 7 gives administrators more control over how data in their environment is protected. From policy configured Active Directory Domain Services integration for the escrow of recovery keys to simple and efficient hardware recovery processes, BitLocker provides an integrated management experience for IT professionals.

BitLocker To Go adds administrators control over how removable storage devices can be utilized within their environment and the strength of protection that they require. Administrators can require data protection for any removable storage device that users want to write data upon; while still allowing unprotected storage devices to be utilized in a read-only mode. Policies are also available to require appropriate passwords, smart card, or domain user credentials to utilize a protected removable storage device.

Screencast

Take a look at the following 9 minute screencast to get an idea of how this works. It’s rather easy to setup and use. That’s the whole point. Make it easy for the user to use, and they’ll use it. Be sure to double click the player for a full screen view, or use the player's full screen button on the bottom far right. The player tool bar pops up if you hover on the bottom portion of the video.

For more information:

BitLocker area on technet.microsoft.com
BitLocker Technical Overview – the must read
BitLocker Interview and demos on edge.technet.com – a really good overview created by Adam Bomb.
BitLocker Step-by-Step Guide – html online version
KB Article on the BitLocker Drive Prep Tool
The old BitLocker team blog – ghost town. I don’t know who started this, but it’s time for a new post.

TechNet Radio - SCVMM 2008 with Edwin Yuen

Keith Combs — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Here's the latest installment of the popular TechNet Radio program. In this audio only episode, I had the chance to catch up with friend and colleague Edwin Yuen. Edwin is a Senior Program Manager in the System Center Virtual Machine Manager development team.

Download the audio - length: 0:36:00

WMA | MP3 High | MP3 Low

Download the Evaluation

New to System Center Virtual Machine Manager? Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 provides a comprehensive, cross-platform management solution for the virtualized data center that helps enable centralized management of virtual infrastructure, increased server utilization, and dynamic resource optimization of virtual IT infrastructure. And when you download the 180-day trial software, you're automatically registered to receive valuable resources delivered at convenient intervals throughout the software evaluation period.

Other Resources

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 Reviewers Guide
SCVMM 2008 Data Sheet
SCVMM TechNet Tech Center

Backing up Hyper-V with DPM 2007 SP1 - screencast now available

Keith Combs — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 04:45:57 GMT

If you weren't already aware, Data Protection Manager Service Pack 1 released last week and is now available. Senior Program Manager, Jason Buffington, is cranking out the information on his blog and via the screencasts he is recording.

Jason tells me has about four of five other screencasts in the pipeline, but knowing Jason and tis the season for Xbox 360 gaming, look for those videos in January. In the meantime, checkout his latest on how to protect Hyper-V virtualization workloads with DPM SP1.

Running LAMP on Windows Server 2008 - webcast and screencasts now available

Keith Combs — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:03:00 GMT

I don't know about you, but that title sounds odd to me. Why on earth would you run the LAMP stack on Windows? Well for one thing LAMP commonly refers to Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. So running LAMP on Windows Server 2008 really means running it in a virtual machine and the only supported method for doing that at the moment is via SUSE Enterprise Server from Novell. This was discussed in the webcast Running Open Source Software (OSS) on Windows Server with IIS7 that I delivered yesterday.

In order to take one or more open source applications to the Windows platform, you might choose the prudent and safe route. First running the entire LAMP stack in a VM. Next, you might decide to remove the L and run the AMP portions on Windows Server 2008. That's where the meat of the webcast I did today really starts. You'll see in the second webcast demo we install Apache. Later we install PHP, MySQL then Drupal on top of all of that.

The purpose of the webcast is to highlight the migration and coexistence that is possible. You don't have to totally tear down everything you know and love then replace it. Windows Server 2008 will be happy to run Apache, MySQL and PHP. If you decide to replace pieces of that solution over time, you can do so pretty easily and that is demonstrated in the webcast replay.

I decided to record a higher fidelity version of some of the demos and instead of using the Drupal software used in the webcast, I used a common blogging software product called Wordpress. So here are the screencasts.

Part 1 - Installing PHP on Windows Server 2008 and IIS7 (length 8:51)

Downloading and installing PHP is pretty easy. Testing that it is installed successfully is super easy via the phpinfo() function. Learning to use PHP effectively is a little harder but the product has been around for years so there are a ton of books on using it with Linux or Windows.

Part 2 - Installing MySQL on Windows Server 2008 (length 5:39)

MySQL is a popular database product used for a variety of applications on the Internet. Just like Apache and PHP, MySQL can be installed and used on Windows Server 2008 as well. In the linked webcast replay above I spent some time creating a table, inserting some data, the executing a query against the database to confirm it works.

In this short screencast, we just go through the motions of installation, configuration, and creation of the database we'll use with the blogging software. We'll know soon enough if we made any mistakes.

Part 3 - Installing Wordpress on the Windows, IIS7, MySQL, PHP (length 5:13)

Wordpress is blogging software widely used on the Internet. I actually have a Wordpress blog but I haven't posted anything to it in six months. It's part of the hosting plan we use for my wife's websites so you'll likely run across it in your hosting adventures. One of the reasons it's so popular is because it's so easy to install and customize. Check out the screencast below. See what I mean?

There were several important points made in the webcast. You should consider downloading it and watching the entire 90 minutes when you have some spare time. I think you'll find that there are some nuggets of information there that you may now be aware of. Like:

Apache runs really well on Windows Server 2008
MySQL runs really well on Windows Server 2008
PHP runs really well on Windows Server 2008
You can replace Apache with IIS7 and the applications will hardly notice
All of the above runs really well on Windows Server 2008 Core.
Migration is easy but not perfect so as always, test, test, test
IIS7 stores a lot of configuration data in XML and is easily edited like Apache, but unlike Apache, picks up the changes dynamically without a restart
And lots more!!!

Enjoy!!!

We are giving away a Lenovo ThinkPad T61p

Keith Combs — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:09:00 GMT

Right now I am installing Windows Vista Ultimate x64 on a Lenovo ThinkPad T61p. I’ll add all of the drivers, service packs and fixes, verify it works properly on my network, etc.

Then we are going to give it away on or about December 19th, 2008. Just call me Keith “Santa Claus” Combs. Matt's the Elf. Ho Ho Ho.

What’s the catch?

Well, Matt Hester and I will be announcing all of the details very soon on our blogs so stay tuned. Matt will be the keeper of the official rules, status, etc. In the meantime, you can lust over the following specs of the machine we are giving away.

It’s a Lenovo ThinkPad T61p model 6458-F55. This particular model is a Microsoft specific SKU but it includes the Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T9300, 4GB of RAM, 160GB 7200rpm hard drive, 15.4" WSXGA+ (1680x1050), 200 nits, 16:10 aspect ratio, 500:1 contrast ratio wide screen display, internal Ultrabay DVD burner, NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 570M, PCI Express® x16, 256MB memory video chipset, Mobile Intel PM965 Express Chipset, 9 cell extended life battery, and has three USB 2.0 ports, IEEE 1394 firewire port, a PCMCIA slot, an ExpressCard slot and fingerprint reader.

In short, one killer machine. Sorry, I’m all out of 4GB SoDIMM sticks so I won’t be giving it away loaded with 8GB of RAM.

Sound good? Oh, and that’s not all. We are also giving away a 60GB XBOX 360. Is that kewl or what? Oh, we aren’t stopping there. We’re also giving away a 120GB Zune. And a 8GB Zune. Sound good now?

And if you don’t qualify for this first round and win, I’m going to build another brand new machine and give it away early next year. And we have another XBOX and Zunes for that contest as well. Assuming of course you can pry all of these goodies from my cold dead hands. Grin.

Stay tuned for more details… coming very soon.