Here’s a list of the Microsoft UK TechNet events that are running between now and Christmas: 13 August 2008, London: Microsoft Virtualisation and Management Technologies 21 August 2008, Liverpool: Microsoft Virtualisation and Management Technologies 2 September 2008, Reading : TechNet: the Microsoft Vision for Unified Communications 9 September 2008, Reading: Microsoft Virtualisation and Management Technologies 10 September 2008, Reading: SQL Server 2008 Unleashed 10 September 2008, London: Microsoft

Many of you have asked me both by posting comments to my NAP post and also at the main launch event last week in Birmingham If you'd like to register and find out the exact details for the locations then browse to the Launch tour area of the HeroesHappenHere website . Note: The Keynote will not simply be a time filler catering for those who are late - it will challenge your perceptions and encourage you to consider some alternative perspectives to the way to manage and deploy infrastructure. Each

A friend of mine has a good degree in a non-technical subject and is considering taking a post-grad computing degree and wondering which on to go for. I'm wondering whether they actually need to do so - my gut feeling is that they'd be better off getting experience by offering to shadow someone for free. What do you think?

James Senior has an interesting post that explains how you can become an early adoptor for the next exams and hence upgrade your qualification by studying for the new certifications and passing a single transistion exam. It's well worth reading more on James' site.

Eileen recently wrote a post titled Security for the 78 year olds which referred to an interview with Scott Charney (head of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative) who talked about his experience advising his mother on the need for security precautions - here are a couple of quotes: " I told her she really needed to get broadband, but to make sure to have a firewall -- and she asked me why broadband causes fires." " The reality is my mom doesn't want to become a system administrator, and she

GetSafeOnline is a partnership between Government, Law Enforcement and Commerce - in excess of fifty people have volunteered our time to get out on the road for a week. Our focus is to raise the security awareness of the UK consumers so if you have a friend / relative who would like practical advice then they're very welcome too. The website is an excellent resource as it provides unbiased guidance for non-technical (i.e. real) people for Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac and LINUX/UNIX systems. No one's

Following Rafal's excellent Identity Management event in Reading today many people asked when they could hear from Kim Cameron in person - as I mentioned Kim's kindly agreed to speak at our Security Summit in London on the 5th July . As is the norm with TechNet events it's free to attend (assuming you can make the time) and therefore I encourage you to register for the event and join us on the day. The Security Summit will cover a range of subjects including Identity Management, Securing Mobile devices

Browse to the Channel9 InfoCard video - it's an hour long and promises the following Nigel Watling, InfoCard Technical Evangelist, leads an in depth discussion of how InfoCard works, how it's designed (and why) and how it will evolve in the future(great Going Deep stuff!) with InfoCard chief Architect Arun Nanda and Software Developer Ruchi Bhargava.

Click here to download all presentations as used for InfoSec 2006's Microsoft Security Academy. The content includes the following: Secure Messaging (PowerPoint document - 2.1 Mb) Secure against Malware (PowerPoint document - 4.0 Mb) Securing the Branch (PowerPoint document - 3.8 Mb) Securing Tomorrow's World (PowerPoint document - 8.3 Mb) Security for Free (PowerPoint document - 0.5 Mb) Note: I've just tried to access the content and discovered broken links - I'll ask those that run the site to

The following resources make it easy for you to get to grips with Rights Management - enabling you to share more with less risk. General business and technical information - www.microsoft.com/rms - RMS 2-min flash demo – http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/demos/rms.html RMS Hands on Lab - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/traincert/virtuallab/rms.mspx The hands on lab enables you to use our virtual machines to perform the following tasks all from your browser: Provision and Enroll

There's a wealth of webcasts available from TechEd Orlando - I know it's a while since the event but the shear breadth of content makes this a handy source of knowledge. Many of the topics remain highly relavent including the following: Michael Howard's "Advances in Threat Modelling" How Microsoft IT Implements Exchange Security Next Generation Command Line Scripting with Monad - part 1 Next Generation Command Line Scripting with Monad - part 2 Jesper Johansson's Security Configuration Wizard session

Tuesday 29th Nov- Public Key Infrastructure – tell me in plain English AND THEN deep technical how PKI works - deep technical session taking place in Reading (England) - it's free to join us - just follow the link to register Wednesday 30th Nov - British Computer Society Microsoft Security Day The Information Security Specialist Group (BCS-ISSG) would like you to join an action packed day in Reading (England) - the agenda is as follows: Keynote presentation: Real world experiences from the world

Many of you have asked me questions about Public Key Infrastructure with regard to it's use for securing web transactions (SSL), wireless (PEAP & EAL-TLS), email (S/MIME) and Rights Management. Prior to joining Microsoft I was a security consultant for many years during which time I designed and implemented PKIs for many large commercial and government organisations. I hope you are able to join this session as we'll spend the entire two hours looking purely @ PKI (and symmetric encryption). Don't

Halloween Spooktacular Date: Monday 31 October 2005 Topic: Understanding and Fighting Malware: Viruses, Spyware and Rootkits Overview: On this Halloween night, join Microsofts very own Van Helsing in how to Exorcise your PC. Todays internet is fraught with peril in the form of undesirable and malicious software. These types of software continue to evolve new ways of propagating and embedding themselves more deeply into the systems they infect. You will gain an understanding of their propagation methods

Tony Blair kicked off the Get Safe Online campaign at a press launch in London this morning. Microsoft in partnership with the UK Government and a many large companies are evangelising the importance of information security to the entire UK population - at least those who watch TV, read the major newspapers, and visit shopping centres. We have a fleet of ten identical Minis which are branded with the logos of all partners. The team comprising security experts will tour around the UK for two weeks

So, apart from being a great showcase for using Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 to run online labs, this provides a great opportunity to learn about how to migrate from Novell to Windows in this brand new online lab. To sign up and for more information, click here .

I'm a huge fan of getting the most value from the software I already have - I always talk about this at events and in papers I write. The Microsoft Solutions for Security(MSS) team produce prescriptive guidance to show you exactly HOW to get the most from the security features built into Windows and other Microsoft products. The MSS content is posted for free our website. It's incredibly detailed best practise advice from our experts who've implemented it in business critical environments. The MSS

Follow this link to access free webcasts from technical experts showing you how to get the maximum value from a range of Microsoft technologies including Security of course. Please give feedback to this post if there are topics you'd like us to cover or if you have suggestions how we can make this even better. Adam has already looked at the content - here's a link to his article . Here's a list of the content that's available right now - more is being added very soon including Practicing Better than

IMHO many of the most interesting security labs are actually listed under "Microsoft Windows Server 2003" in the labs - these include IPSec, Group Policy and Rights Management. I've listed the available sessions for both below - just incase my earlier post didn't get your attention these labs are your opportunity to get some hands on practical experience of applying our best practise security advice in a totally safe environment AND IT'S FREE for you to access. Our motivation is simply that we want

TechNet Virtual Labs Ever wanted to test Microsoft's newest software in a totally secure sandbox environment? Wouldn't it be great to be able to test new servers immediately, without formatting hard drives or dedicating one or more computers to the project? Now you can, with the TechNet Virtual Labs. The Virtual Labs are available via this link There's a huge range of labs available for you to play with and learn how techniques such as network isolation / segmentation can be applied via IPSec all