The Vacuum Tube : IT

5 Things About Me You All Probably Don't Know

Viral Tarpara — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:12:00 GMT

So apparently my best friend since joining Microsoft, Anand Iyer, feels the need to involve me in his childish online ice breakers. Apparently he is currently involved in an inescapable game of blog tag. To better understand this phenomenon to the masses, I decided to research this odd online social dynamic with the world's definitive source for accurate, updated, and editable information--Wikipedia.org. According to Wikipedia:

Blog Tag, or better known as memetag, and I quote, "is a blog tag that is included in all posts that reference a meme. When a meme is started on a blog — for example, 'your top five favourite movies' — the meme tag is included at the foot of the text of each post that responds to the meme invitation. By including a memetag, bloggers are recognising the initial creator of the meme and allowing them to track how their meme has spread across the blogosphere through the use of social media tools such as Technorati. While inclusion of a memetag is not mandatory, it is done in the spirit of information sharing across the web and is a system based on trust."

In all honesty, if there wasn't a wiki about it, I was going to create one and attribute it to Stephen Colbert ~~hey it's true he created it~~. But I suppose it would be interesting how far my online presence could propagate ~~you can't start a sentence with 'but'~~. So...

#5 - I wrote production design code in Intel's XScale Monahans chip. ~~Did you ever wonder why your battery meter didn't work?~~ I converted old VHDL legacy code into fresh Verilog code. It was pretty cool work and it taught me that I could never work in a cubicle again. After my experience at that company, I was ecstatic to come to Microsoft.

#4 - I use Gmail for my personal email and my personal computer is an iBook G4. I know what all of you are thinking. That being said, if I didn't have my work laptop with Outlook 2007 on it, my productivity would go down 80%. Please forgive me if I seem less than convinced when Eric Schmidt and Douglass Merrill say they completely "eat their dogfood" and use Google Apps within their company. It wouldn't surprise me that they actually have a super-duper version of it running internally, but lets be honest, Google Apps, in its present form, is a half baked attempt at an enterprise suite. Enterprises would be better off with deploying Office Live even if Microsoft is currently only targetting small and medium businesses with that offering. The funniest part of the Google Apps video is when Merrill makes the argument that Google Apps meets your compliance standards because it meets Google's compliance standards. WOW...I'm pissed, I should write an article about this.

#3 - My first computer was my Dad's AT&T 8088 machine with two double-density floppy drives and a green monochrome monitor. I was age 4. I learned how to turn on and load "Zaxxon" and "Wheel of Fortune" from disks. Oddly I got glasses by age 5. I wonder if it is a coincidence?

#2 - I've seen a lot of the world and done some amazing things in my life so far. I've gone skiing in the Himalayas, went white-water rafting in Nepal, seen half of Europe, seen some of Hinduism's and Jainism's most holiest shrines, and faced certain death in a Los Angeles drive-by but survived ~~don't ever flip the bird at LAX~~. If my life ended today, I would leave satisfied.

#1 - And finally the number one thing you probably don't know about me, when I was 3, I rode a red tricycle down the stairs in my uncle's house because I saw a guy do it on a motorcycle on TV. Let's just say to this day, every person in my family never fails to remind me of my...err..daring ~~retarded~~ nature.

*Tags TBA*

Thank you. That is all. Here it is! Your moment of zen! ~~milk does her body good~~ *cards flying* *laughing like Letterman*

Video: Milk does body good! It did for Carmen.

Daylight Savings Time Information for the Frustrated IT Professional

Viral Tarpara — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 01:54:00 GMT

I'm sure there are more than a handful of you that are swamped with some DST issues. If you want to find the latest updated information, refer to these two links:

http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2007/03/02/get-your-daylight-savings-time-dst-answers-real-time.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/dst2007/default.aspx

The first link will point you to information regarding a live chat room where you can share, troubleshoot, and get information regarding your DST issues. The second link will point you to a blog dedicated to the DST issue. Hopefully you can all resolve your questions!

Microsoft IT Showcase: How We Deployed Vista

Viral Tarpara — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 01:32:00 GMT

Hi everyone! I want to invite all of you out there to join Microsoft for a live webcast on March 27th, 2007 to learn how Microsoft deployed Vista within the company. It will give all attendees a great 300-level view of the process as well as an inside look at MSIT! Register here! The webcast will be presented by Chad Lewis, Microsoft IT Group Program Manager. For more information on our many IT showcases and whitepapers, go to http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itshowcase

And now back to college basketball :)

Microsoft IT Whitepaper on Virtualization

Viral Tarpara — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 01:51:00 GMT

I'm sure many of you have seen this, and though I linked to it in response to one of my TechNet emails, I thought it should warrant a separate post. The whitepaper is an interesting read on how MSIT has done planning and deployment of virtual servers using Virtual Server 2005. Many businesses are now grasping the concept of virtualization and how it can reduce their IT costs. Something that was only previously deployable with a large IT staff can now be done in a single room on a few boxes. When I think of virtualization, I am reminded of that hilarious IBM ad with the guy who says, "the servers are our friends!" ~~If only their products were as easy to like as their messaging.~~ The point of that commerical is that as IT needs grow, it is logical to add more appliances and servers to meet those needs--but somewhere along the line, many IT departments forget about efficiency. This is not surprising considering senior IT administrators are routinely tasked with putting out fires rather than being an active layer of overall business strategy. As small and mid-size business managers wise up to the cost savings that virtualization can provide now and in the near future with Longhorn, it is important for professionals in the industry learn from best practices from corporations that have gone through the hurdles of deployment using alpha and beta builds. Now, some two years later, explore how a mature solution like Virtual Server 2005 R2 can impact your business today.

TechNet Emails: Zooming Utility, Exchange 32-bit, TechNet Laptop Specs

Viral Tarpara — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 22:52:00 GMT

So I received a lot of emails congratulating me on a well received presentation, but of course after reading the comment sheets I saw a good many of you were put off by the sound quality. Rest assured future events will address this issue. I'll be answering many questions as I get more time this weekend, as well as do a recap, but in the mean time, I thought I would answer a few emails.

Oscar of Gmail writes

Hi.

I was one of the many in your presentation in the SD convention center.

First of all let me say you did an awesome job, i dunno what other thought about it, but i think it had a little bit of everything and all well explained. I wanted to ask a question at the end of the presentation but a bunch of people just gathered like crazy .

My question was... what are your laptop specs, i mean you had like a bunch of windows and virtual machines running and i didn't see any lag or anything. Well i dunno if it was your laptop running all that cause i saw you had like 3 machines set-up.

Offtopic...

And yeah haha, i saw that WoW icon on one of those desktops, so i guess thats the MMO you talked about. Well then, thanx for the awesome presentation. I'll be reading your blog frequently now.

Thanks Oscar, I appreciate your words. My laptops are awesome aren't they :) At present I am using the IBM (Lenovo) T60P with a Core Duo & 3GB of RAM, though it ran great with 2GB. The only reason Technet guys went up to 3GB was for the large number of server VMs we had to run. Memory is the biggest limitation for us when doing demos since it must be statically allocated when using Virtual PC 2007 RTM (IT'S FREE) ~~LIKE BEER!!~~! The laptop has an ATI FireGL V5200 card, runs most of my DX9 and DX8 games at 1600x1200 and it has a built-in EVDO card from Verizon. Using the drive bay, I have two 100GB 7200rpm drives. Running flawless VPCs is all about managing CPU usage as well as memory. If you have 5 VPCs running but are only at 40% CPU on average load, pile more on and you won't notice a thing as long as you have enough memory. Just make sure you factor in CPU usage spikes per VM 'cause a dual processor will overload quickly as you increase the number of VMs. Read about Microsoft IT and their experience with virtualization in house. I also had a Dell Latitude D820 with 2GB RAM running on a Core 2 Duo. It also had two 100GB drives and 1080P resolution. The only thing ~~two things~~ i hate about the Dell are the video card drivers from Nvidia and the crappy trackpad.

Steve of BK Electric

Hey,

I was at your presentation yesterday morning. I learned alot, thanks! So I'm sold on exhange 2007 but I only have 32 bit hardware and no budget for new hardware. So I have 2.5 questions.

1. will micrsoft be releasing a deployable 32 bit version?

1.5. If so, when?

2. If I purchase a 64 bit license will it cover the 32 bit version when it is realeased?

Thanks!

Steve

Good questions Steve, and ~~unfortunately I don't have an answer of you since I can't comment on vaporware~~ *found it* fortunately I have an official answer if you read this FAQ. For you lazy people, SBS "Cougar" will release after Longhorn and will be 64-bit ONLY. I can tell you that our server products will all be supporting 64-bit here on out as it is much more efficient, stable, and secure platform compared to x86. I wouldn't count on being able upgrade to 32-bit products in the near future. For those of you making hardware decisions, buy x64 even if you plan on deploying 32-bit now.

Junianto of Hotmail

Hi Viral,

I attended your presentation at "Microsoft Launch" in San Diego, CA. I like it. It has a lot of good features with the new platform. My question is that where could I get a copy of the "zoom in" software that you have used during your presentation?

Thank you.

Regards,

Junianto

Yeah that is a great tool for anyone who doesn’t follow Guy Kawasaki’s “10-20-30” rule for Powerpoint presentations. The tool is called ZoomIT and it is a free utility from Microsoft. Download it here.

Here it is "Your Moment of Zen," have a great weekend all!

Vista, Office 2007, BDD, Exchange, Infrastructure Protection Oh My!

Viral Tarpara — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:29:00 GMT

Test Windows Vista and 2007 Office system for your organization http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/default.mspx Download the free Business Desktop Deployment 2007 solution to get all the deployment tools http://microsoft.com/desktopdeployment...(read more)

Google Study on Harddrive Failure Released

Viral Tarpara — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 01:08:00 GMT

Google Labs is known for periodically releasing internal statistics and research to the general public. Just released a few days ago is a study showing the rate of failure for Google's harddisk infrastructure in their insanely huge data centers. Surprisingly, "heat" is not concluded to be a significant factor in harddrive failure, relatively speaking. Among other things, it breaks down the failure rates of drive between 0-5 years old and acknowledges the benefits and short-comings of SMART (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) that is built into all modern drives today. If you're planning on building a data center in the near future ~~5 FIOS in my mom's basement muahahaha~~ this is a must read!

On a related noted and as a Hindu, I am eagarly waiting for Google Caste Beta to be released! ~~Beyonce Subhramaniradhakrishan?~~

And now ladies and gentlemen, "your moment of zen."

IBM Discovers the IT "Ark" with Open Desktop Platform

Viral Tarpara — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:23:00 GMT

I read this article and thought to myself, "Cool!" Then reality set in. I've been waiting for Apple to enter the enterprise space for a while, though, knowing full well that there are a plethora of manageabilty issues related to deploying and securing OS X in large numbers. Since Apple is probably a few month away from having a proper roadmap for enterprise, it seems IBM has done some legwork to help them out as they are supporting Apple in their new desktop platform. IBM's support of OS X shows that Apple is increasingly winning mindshare in the industry as a business operating system (see: Lotus Notes for OS X). They plan to roll out the platform internally to about 5% of the company which is admirable. I'll be waiting for IBM to release more information on how they plan to easily *cough* manage 3 different OSes with granular control using their "Open Client Offering." I'm sure IBM has their top people on it...top people