Tim Mintner : General Information

Add myITforum Search to IE7

tmintner — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 00:29:09 GMT

One of the cool features of IE7 is that you can easily add any new search provider to your search bar. I use myITforums Forums search quite a bit when finding answers to problems to I created my own search provider for searching their forums.

To do this go to this page:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/searchguide/en-en/default.mspx#

On the right hand side their will be instructions for creating your own search provider. In step 3, past the following URL:

http://www.myitforum.com/forums/searchpro.asp?phrase=TEST&author=&forumid=ALL&topicreply=both&message=body&timeframe=%3E&timefilter=0&language=single&top=300&criteria=AND&minRank=0&sortMethod=r&submitbutton=+OK+

In step 4, name it something like myITForum Forums and then click on Install in Step 5.

Now you have a new search provider listed in the drop down box that will search the myITforum's Forums!

Rod and Ron, you all should download this XML file and put it on your site!

Tim

Great stuff coming in the System Center family

tmintner — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 18:43:00 GMT

Well I am back after having a week at Techready 3 in Seattle and a week of vacation. I have caught up with the over 400+ email messages and am back to blogging.

Techready 3 was awesome. We have SOO many great products coming out in the System Center Family. I spent a lot of time at the System Center Operations Manager 2007 sessions. I will be blogging quite a bit about the changes coming in SCOM 2007 over the next couple of months.

Over the next year we will be releasing the following products:

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SMS V4)
System Center Operations Manager 2007
System Center Virtual Machine Manager
System Center Capacity Planner
Syscem Center Service Desk
Softricity!! (Title to be announced later)

I haven't been this excited about the management space in years. We are really going leaps and bounds above our competition and we are really pulling everything togehter.

For those who want to try System Center Virtual Machine Manager, you can now download Beta 1 on Connect (http://connect.microsoft.com)

One of the most exciting technlogies that I saw was the Softricity demo. This technology is really going to change the IT world. Softricity will all but eliminate the need for application repacking due to registry or DLL conflicts as well as allowing users to run applications as Administrator but still be standard users. Start reading up on Softricity now at http://www.softricity.com. We haven't officially re-released the software yet but it will be coming in the next few months probably with a new name.

I have a lot to blog about so stay tuned!

Tim

Day in the life of

tmintner — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 09:07:00 GMT

I often get asked, "What is it that you actually do for Microsoft?" Well the short answer is that I am a consultant in the Managment, Operations, and Deployment space. Unless they are IT savvy that usually generates a deer in the headlights look. For the rest of you here is a sample of what my day consisted of today:

Morning:

Conference call with one of my Vista TAP customers to discuss detailed testing plans and schedules for the different departments to start detailed testing of Vista
Answered numerous customer questions on Vista
Worked on debugging/modifying a VPN network quarantine script so that the checks are compatible with Vista and UAC
Scheduled a meeting with another consultant to discuss Vista TAP engagements
Answered Virtual Server questions from a co-worker

Lunch:

Lunch with my wife (most important event of the day)

Afternoon:

Ran into an old colleague and discussed new jobs and User Group information
Met with another consultant to talk about how to start a Vista TAP engagement
Received and responded to numerous email requests from an account rep regarding the status of a local client and their involvement with the SCCM 2007 TAP
Sent an email to the SCCM product team to find out the information
Had a brief phone call with a consultant who is starting a MOM engagement at a former client of mine
Received information back from the SCCM product team and shared it with all of the account reps for that client
Continued to debug/modify the VPN quarantine script
Sent proposed changes to my client on the VPN quarantine script
Tested new video drivers for Vista on my laptop...didn't work...had to roll back to a previous version of the driver
Responded to numerous internal "community" email lists on BDD, SMS, and MOM questions

Well that is a sample of the type of work I do on a daily basis. My time can be pretty hectic but I have to say that I still love my job and I wouldn't trade it for a standard corporate IT job any day. :)

My Blogging Manifesto

tmintner — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 18:46:00 GMT

Since Robert Scoble announced that he was leaving Microsoft, I have done a lot of reading and thinking about his philosophy on blogging. Scoble states that you should blog about your passion and what drove you to create the blog in the first place. After looking through a number of posts I realized that I haven’t done a good job of communicating my passion.

Well the reason that I have created this blog and consequently the reason that I joined Microsoft is that I have a passion for management technologies and automation. I did a series of posts on myITforum last year entitled “The Lazy Administrator.” My first post outlined why I believe in automation. Here is brief recap:

“It really seems that in IT, we have gotten so caught up in keeping our servers running and performing our day to day mundane tasks that we've really missed the point of computers. It seems we've swapped one mundane task for another. I mean accountants don't hand write out the numbers in books anymore. There are countless accounting applications that do all of that for you. So instead the mundane tasks have switched over to the IT world. Why should we as IT administrators do all of the mundane tasks while we have computer systems that will do it for us?!?

I realize that there are a lot of misconceptions out there about automation. Some people actually fear it! They think automation will put them out of a job. While I am sure many horse and buggy operators feared the automobile, I'm confident they weren't complaining all that much when they realized they didn't have to pick up horse crap any longer. “

As I stated, managing IT today is way too complex. Computer Systems are a tool that should be used to drive business value. Time and money spent on managing computer systems take time and money away from creating the business value that Computer Systems are supposed to provide.

As a Microsoft Consultant, it is my job to make sure that my customers are using our tools in the most effective manner. To me there is nothing more exciting than showing a customer a cool script or rule inside of MOM that can save them many hours of work. I often hear, “I never knew you could do that.”

Well the point of this blog is to alleviate the “I never knew you could do that.” I hope in the years to come that I can work with our product teams to produce computer systems that are self managing, self updating, and notify you only when things are not working as expected. Until that day, I plan on using this blog to fill the gaps, show tools and technologies that will make your jobs easier and allow you to realize the value of your Windows environment.

Scripting Center RSS Feed!

tmintner — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 05:55:00 GMT

I went out to the scripting center tonight on Technet and noticed that they now have a RSS feed for all of the scripts! That is awesome! In fact, almost everything on Technet now has a RSS feed.

Here is the URL for the scripting feed: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/whatsnew.xml

Way to go Technet team!

Fun link for the holidays

tmintner — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 01:45:00 GMT

Great song to appreciate what we do:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7193470719293309352

myITforum Site Move

tmintner — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:53:00 GMT

The web site http://www.myitforum.com is in process of moving their site and is currently not available by DNS name. If you would like to access the site you can access it directly by IP address until they get all of the bugs worked out: http://209.34.241.244/

Update

The site is back up again so you should be able to access the site by using http://www.myitforum.com

Welcome

tmintner — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 19:49:00 GMT

Welcome to my new blog! This blog is really an experiment to see if the Technet blogs generate more traffic than the myITforum blogs. I currently have a blog already at myITforum (http://myitforum.techtarget.com/blog/tmintner) but now that I am a Microsoft employee I thought I would give our own blogging service a try. I am going to duplicate my blog entries at both places for a while and see how the traffic shapes up.

So who am I? I am a Microsoft consultant who specializes in Infrastructure technologies. I spend most of my time working with the management products such as SMS and MOM. I will be posting tips and tricks as well as my own personal rantings on just about all Microsoft technologies.

Well thank you for reading and I am looking forward to providing you with some great information!