Middle E@st and Afric@ blog

Welcome to Gulf Developer Conference 09!

2009-11-11T06:06:05Z

This is the event to attend this winter! Deep content about new products + local insights and understanding of implementation (not just like ‘Look how cool Win7 is!”, but “here are 1-2-3 steps on how to use Win7 in your current IT-infra and dev process”)

Looking forward to see you at GDC’09

Good news – all attendees of GDC’09 will be offered special conditions to participate in TechEd Middle East (Dubai, Mar 2010 1-3). So stay tuned and register for GDC now!

Flying out of Jordan

2009-11-07T12:00:00Z

Just would like to say big thank you for Jordanian IT community drivers! (I’m sure I’ll not name them all, but these particular guys were really amazingly helpful with helping me to understand local IT needs and how Microsoft can help) – Muhanad, Hikmat, Suliman, Mohamed, thank you!

Guys, just to sum up our looooong conversations:

required UG support services: share what you need, ping your contacts @ http://www.usergroupsupportservices.com/ and let me know about results)
next UG meeting to be online broadcasted: let me know details of upcoming event and you’re @ microsoft.com!
broad impact challenge: I’m keep asking you what would be the best reward for people who help IT Community the most. just for my information :)

Let me know if I forgot something! ready to share whatever I can :)

P.S. Want to have the same support for you IT community activities from Microsoft and partners? Just ping me through a comment or email!

Small, very small world.. Discoveries from Jordan meetings

2009-11-05T10:54:28Z

Like one of my friends says: the Earth is actually not a globe, but a cube – that’s why so many people are meeting each other right behind the corner :)

During my biz trip to Jordan I had a meeting with local user group leads. An I was really surprised when one of them suddenly switched from Arabic and start to talk in very good Russian :)

As I found out in further discussion, Hikmat Kanaan, one of the the main driver of Jordan IT Pros, spent 5 years in Russia helping local IT industry in 199x. Then he got back to Palestine to land a lot of amazing IT-projects to eliminate digital illiteracy. Fun thing that appeared in discussion as well – they were collaborating with Intel in Palestine and used the such exotic Intel’s equipment as Digital Microscope. We used the same stuff during Intel University Campus Program in Russia. Looks like global companies can really land global impact. And I really glad when it’s positive impact.

Now Hikmat is in Jordan, helping to land Rue of Law project in Jordan, and helps to form IT Community jointly with other active members and MVPs – I’ll definitely will write next post about those great guys as well.

Looking forward to great discussions we started here with MVP community and UG leads here. The team and myself are really keen to help you to help IT people to do the most with Microsoft and take as much benefits of being in IT as possible.

A few great MEA events I wished to visit last month..

2009-11-03T15:08:46Z

Just wanted to share with you some pictures from a few great events that happened across Middle East and Africa. Using my chance would like to say BIG THANK YOU for all attendees (online or offline!) for the interest and to my colleagues for organizing it!

Microsoft Developer Days @ Nigeria Great job by Ken Spann and presentation from Anton Delsink (http://blogs.msdn.com/codedebate). These guys are really changing the world!

The First Joint Microsoft Community Summit @ Saudi Arabia – 300 attendees, “full-contact” chats and feedback, driven by great guys from local communities with support from Ammar Abutharaya

Jordan reMix was not only great offline event, but since it was broadcasted online, it has reached 1K+. Once again I’m super happy to see those events being organized not by MS, but by great local tech communities and influencers. Special kudos to Muhanad Omar (@muhanado) and Samer Chidiac (http://blogs.msdn.com/samer/)!

Testing week festival @ Israel – where the team ran 6 events in where was sharing info about freshly baked VSTS 2010 beta 2! Shelly Linor and the team done everything really great! (just in case – I don’t know if Shelly is on photo and I will not ask! corporate ethics, you know :))

To be honest there a way more events and great examples from Pakistan, South Africa, Gulf and many others, but it simply doesn’t fit in one post. Will continue soon while be travelling through the countries and meeting with teams and communities personally.

Thank you for making IT world better!

WARNING: Hazardous content! almost not kidding

2009-11-02T16:46:16Z

We live in the insecure world. Some countries are less secure than others. When it comes to IT Security – it’s the same. The difference for IT security – it is really up to us to change it!

Meanwhile, latest Microsoft Security Intelligence Report v7 gives pretty interesting picture:

Some short summary:

5 of MEA countries are in Top25 most infected world wide (Turkey #2!!, Saudi Arabia #6, Egypt #12, Jordan #20, Bahrein #23)
SIR v7 offers is detailed reports for Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and South Africa
Knowledge is power – SIR v7 includes the most effective tactics for fighting with cyber hazards. Relevant data, common sense and your professionalism – all you need to be successful!

You may download key findings (~2MB) or full report (~11MB)

P.S. Below is some more interesting pictures and data via @rhalbheer

Now, to close this very, very short summary of the report, it is definitely worth looking at two additional graphs. One is the malware distribution per Operating System:

This supports a statement I make so often: If I would have one wish to our customers, it would be: “Always stay on the latest version of all the software you have” – not from a business perspective but from a security view. And the second wish would be, cover all your software, when you do patch management. Remember my post called Patch Management – Cover the whole 9 yards? I told you that you should take care of the whole software stack – not “just” Microsoft. And the reason for that is the following diagram:

As you can easily see, our share in the overall vulnerability landscape is very, very small. So, we need a joint effort across the whole industry to write secure software from the bottom up with processes like the Security Development Lifecycle! And guess what – your problem will not become easier to solve when you move to the cloud.

Now, if you want to read the report, here are the important links:

The Security Intelligence Report landing page
The download page for the report
And the video with Ken and Vinny

All Microsoft Newsletters in one link

2009-11-02T13:11:43Z

Ok, let’s face it - I know that not all MS newsletters are super helpful. But some of them are really priceless and super important to be subscribed to. How not to miss important ones? Here is

the link to track and manage all your NLs

My personal recommendation would be to subscribe for:

TechNet and/or MSDN Flash (depending on your primary role in IT)
Microsoft Technical Security Notifications subscriptions (just need-to-know-basics re Security)
any local newsletter you have for your country/area (just to keep in touch with local team)

Please share your feedback here in comments or just by dropping me an email/twit – will be happy to share with NL owners and editors!

Gitex and TechEd Middle East

2009-09-24T10:24:04Z

A friend of mine shared a secret re MS@Gitex – looks like attendees of Microsoft booth there will have a chance to get free tickets to TechEd Middle East. If you're not familiar with TechEd – it's super cool. Here is what going to be on TechEd Berlin. I'm sure that TechEd Middle East @ Dubai next Spring is going to be even cooler (ok-ok, not from the temperature perspective, but from content and speakers for sure :))

Chart your IT Career

2009-09-24T10:11:35Z

MS Learning are getting better in tailoring offers for each particular role. And they right – this is the time to invest in your professionalism (i.e. competitive advantage on the IT labor market). Try http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/start/start-career.aspx

Белое солнце пустыни 2009

2009-09-02T16:56:02Z

Разлюбезная Катерина Матвевна… и дорогие мои друзья сотоварищи,

Пишу вам из ~~горящего танка~~ почти из города Дубай (где температура временами приближается к тому самому танку). Судьба и карьера обещают забросить меня в эти края, начиная с 7 сентября, эдак на 2+ года, чтобы строить общение Microsoft c ИТ-сообществами стран региона Middle East and Africa (проще говоря, всё, что от Пакистана и налево-вниз до ЮАР :)).

Надо ли говорить, что мне искренне дорого общение с вами. Взимодействие с лучшими людьми российской ИТ-индустрии было не только моей работой, но и искренним удовольствием последние 4 года.

Поэтому не собираюсь его (общение) прекращать и надеюсь, что и вы при случае/вопросе не постесняетесь бросить мне пару строк через многочисленные доступные каналы связи в том числе:

И я очень рад, что здесь остается отличная команда во главе с Антоном Белоусовым (и если страничка ещё не обновилась, то в ближайшее время обязательно :))

Желаю всем всего самого замечательного! И увидимся он- и оффлайн!

Renat Minazhdinov
Regional Technical Audience Marketing Manager | Microsoft Middle East and Africa HQ

ЗЫ В виду вышесказанного просьба не удивляться появлению англоязычного контетна в блоге. Ну а как с арабским станет лучше, то и на арабском чуть-чуть будет появляться :)

Первая блого-жалоба

2009-08-30T17:29:00Z

Первая моя блого-жалоба. Ну КАК можно написать на сайте, что "позвони 0509" для доступа, а после 20 минут общения с поддержкой (т.к. полученный пароль нифига не работал), сказать, что оказывается при подключении именно к Beeline Wi-Fi Premium "способ оплаты через SMS не работает". Блин, ну я искренне расстраиваюсь, что большой российский бизнес ТАК изо всех сил запутывает путь клиента к кассе. Они только что лишились небольшой части прибыли, клиента, а также пара операторов колцентра лишилась нескольких пунктов кармы за откровенное нежелание решить проблему, а попытки объяснить почему это так и должно быть. Пока писал понял, что хорошим делом занимаюсь - донося до разума и менеджмента нашей большой корпорации жалобы и пожелания дорогих участников ИТ-сообщества. Да, и скоро тот самый ежеполугодовой опрос (GRS) - пожалуйста, расскажите, что мы делаем хорошо, а что не очень. Заранее спасибо!

Пятничное: Office 2010 The Movie

2009-07-10T13:27:41Z

Продолжают жечь коллеги из офисной группы - ниже образец. Лично я заинтригован и хочу посмтотреть этот блокбастер в день премьеры :)

ЗЫ Прошу прощения, если боян.

update: Спокойствие, только спокойствие

2009-07-08T10:34:35Z

В KB972890 опубликован способ эффективного workaround’a проблемы с ActiveX (см. предыдущий пост). Очередной раз порадовался за доходчивость инструкций от родной компании – БОЛЬШАЯ кнопка “Починить” (Fix It). Просто, быстро, эффективно:

Спокойствие, только спокойствие

2009-07-07T11:27:13Z

Несколько коллег постучались ко мне с заявлениями “аааа!!! ужос-ужос! уязвимость в ActiveX!!” Мне искренне приятная такая бдительность, но самое время процитировать Карлсона (см. заглавие поста), т.к.:

Во-первых уже опубликован Microsoft Security Advisory (972890)

Во вторых, см. список Non-affected software – Vista и WS2008 вне зоны риска (но для профилактики и здоровой паранойи ради - таки посмотрите Workround)

Предупрежден – значит вооружен!

Твиттер и безопасность

2009-07-06T13:25:23Z

Тут коллеги всё таки затащили меня на twitter (если что, велкам @renatmin). Но не прошло и пары дней как другие коллеги по цеху информационной безопасности прислали ссылку на статью про баги да уязвимости твиттера - Month of Twitter Bugs Begins. Вывод – каким бы простым (да хоть амёбоподобным) сервис ни был, всё равно найдутся уязвимости. Интересно, а они SDL при написании пользовали?

Unified Communications, однако

2009-07-01T16:06:13Z

Тут натолкнулся на красивое заявление - “cisco telepresence will reduce 2.1m airlines seat in 2012”. Ну справдливости ради отметил бы, что

а) день, когда авиакомпании будут считать ИТ своими конкурентами, пока не настал

б) бабушка ещё надвое сказала, чей конкретно Unified Communications будет в основах этого тренда

В догонку к пункту “б” – хороший ресурс как раз про UC с разных его сторон от коллег по цеху из MS и не только.