The Amazon Kindle Is Very Cool

brianken — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 06:41:31 GMT

The Amazon Kindle is quite possibly the coolest piece of hardware I have owned since I got my first laptop. Seriously. As an often on the road consultant it has changed my life. I read a lot. Generally 2 or 3 books a week. Doing this with printed books was always an exercise in, well in exercise. Being on the road also left little time to actually go shopping for books. To be honest I was never a big fan of Amazon.com except for those books that were never to be found in an actual book store. Shopping in a real book store, while the only kind of shopping I actually like took too much of my precious at home time since I’m on the road so much. Enter the Kindle. As small as trade paperback book it solved the problem of walking around with one shoulder lower than the other. It has a built in wireless data connection that uses (I think) the Verizon network. This means that i can shop the Amazon store from the device, buy a book and get it on my device in under 5 mins. You can also get newspapers (NY Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, etc), magazines like The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, and Time. These get delivered automatically via the ‘Whispernet’ connection on the device.

Then there is the price of books. Best sellers are $9.99. Since the price of hardcover new releases has been creaping up toward $30 this is a big deal. What it means is that the price of the Kindle ($359) is made up for after 24 new release books. For me that is about six months (I read 2 or 3 books a week but not all of them are new releases.) After that I’m saving $15 every time I buy a new release. So far the average price seems to be about $9.99. Many are cheaper (lots of classics are $1.99 to $3) and there are some more scholarly\obscure books are priced more comparably with their print counterparts. For example, I’m reading a book on IT Portfolio Management that cost me $29 on the kindle while the print edition is $32.97.

There are people that are upset with the Kindle because of its design. Sure I think the buttons could be better placed. But I got used to the placement after about an hour. There are others that don’t like that you cannot give the book away or print it. I would certainly prefer I could do this but as someone that has written a book and then seen it downloadable for free before I even made back my advance I can understand the desire of an author or publisher to control access to their product.

So if you are on the road and love to read this device deserves a good look.

Project Server Infrastructure Update

brianken — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:43:58 GMT

<This is a reposting of content from the Official Project Blog but since it is a pretty important item I am reposting completely.>

Introduction

On July 15th, 2008 Microsoft announced the availability of the Infrastructure Update for Office Servers. The Infrastructure Update for Office Servers is a set of updates to improve platform performance and contain several customer driven fixes. The updates are applicable to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Microsoft Search Server 2008 & Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express, Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Project 2007.

There are several noteworthy new features and fixes shipped in these updates for Project Server 2007 and Project 2007; specifically:

Project Server

Timesheets and My Tasks stability and usability improvements
Queue Management user interface improvements
Logging Tracing improvements
Project Server performance improvements
Project Server 2003 to Project Server 2007 migration fixes
Database performance improvements to enhance the cube building process and Project Professional Save/Publish scenarios

Project Professional

Cost Resources calculation fixes
Improved Custom Fields stability
Improved local Project Cache stability
Fixed Excel Import problem

Please read Project 2007 Infrastructure Update Release for Server and Client to learn about its content in detail.

The Infrastructure Updates are available as free downloads to customers via the download center on http://www.microsoft.com/download.

Before you install the Infrastructure Update there are some very important things to understand. In this post we'll try to provide you with the resources you need to be successful in your updates. It is essential that you understand the appropriate links, and thoroughly read the guidance and test out the patch in a separate environment prior to a production rollout.

Full installation instructions and guidance is provided in the Knowledge Base articles linked from the download pages for each update along with existing TechNet guidance for patching Office Servers. The links are also included further on in this Q&A, but for reference, the following products require the following updates to be applied.

If you are running SharePoint Server 2007 you should install the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) first and the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) second.
If you are running Project Server 2007 you should install the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) first and the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) second. You should also then install the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547) on all Project 2007 client PC’s.

Knowledge Base Articles

Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

KB951695 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951695

Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers

KB951297 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951297

Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007

KB951547 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951547

List of Fixes

Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007

KB953751 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953751

Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

KB953749 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953749

Installation Instructions

It is strongly recommended that you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1 and Office Servers Service Pack 1 before installing the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) and the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695).

The installation process will incur server and farm downtime that you will need to plan for – the updates should be installed on all servers in a farm.

Deploy Software Updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Deploy Software Updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007 - This article also applies to Project Server 2007, SharePoint Server 2007, Search Server 2008 and Search Server 2008 Express.
Install the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
Install the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (Search Server 2008)

Downloads

	x64	x86
Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695)	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3A74E566-CB4A-4DB9-851C-E3FBBE5E6D6E&displaylang=en	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=256CE3C3-6A42-4953-8E1B-E0BF27FD465B&displaylang=en
Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297)	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6E4F31AB-AF25-47DF-9BF1-423E248FA6FC&displaylang=en	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3811C371-0E83-47C8-976B-0B7F26A3B3C4&displaylang=en
Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547)		http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F385ADB8-0425-4BA4-BECE-7664B8F49D12&displaylang=en

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is Office Servers Service Pack 1 (SP1) a prerequisite or installed as part of this fix?
A: No. Our supportability commitments to customers include providing the ability to install hotfixes on the two most recent versions of a product, in this case RTM and SP1. So installing these updates directly onto an RTM server is not blocked and will install some of the fixes shipped in Office Servers Service Pack 1, but only those that are contained in files that are changed by the Infrastructure updates.

Q: Can I uninstall the server updates?
A: No. The Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297) and the Infrastructure Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (KB951695) cannot be uninstalled. Both updates make database schema changes.

Q: Can I install the “Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547)” Project 2007 client update without installing the “Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (KB951297)” on the server?
A: Yes, the “Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007 (KB951547)” includes fixes for both client/server communication and local client features, so if you don’t have Office Project Server 2007 but use Office Project 2007 client this update can be safely installed and you will be able to take advantage of all the client updates.

Q: Where can I find information on Service Pack 1 for Project Server and Project Professional 2007?

A: Please check the following: http://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie/archive/2007/12/12/announcing-the-release-of-epm-2007-service-pack-1.aspx

Q: What if I have an issue that isn’t addressed by this update?
A: If your customer has a specific issue that these updates do not address you should follow the Microsoft Support process to log the issue and request a hotfix.

New Home for Projectified

brianken — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:31:10 GMT

I have moved Projectified to the following address:

http://blogs.technet.com/projectified/

The same FeedBurner RSS feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/Projectified) still works as I changed its settings to point to the TechNet blog.

The existing www.projectified.com site will stay up for a long time or until I can figure out how to bulk export the posts from here and import them into the TechNet blog.

projectified : News

The Amazon Kindle Is Very Cool

Project Server Infrastructure Update

New Home for Projectified

I have moved Projectified to the following address: