December 2004 - Posts
I've updated the OSD Feature Pack FAQ to include some of the more common questions we're still seeing in the community. Check it out at: http://msmvps.com/lduncan/articles/19685.aspx
If you attended a previous Microsoft Management Summit in the last three years (2002 or later) you are also eligible to register as an MMS Alumni. This allows Microsoft to recognize you during the event, giving you entry to the Alumni lounge at the venue and early access to the Hands-on Lab reservation system.
If you are interested in this option, please send an email to mmsregal@microsoft.com placing the email address you used to register at the previous MMS event in the subject line and the year in which you attended in the message body. After verification, you will receive an email response with RSVP codes allowing you to register as an Alumni using the Registration Only or Registration Package options.
The MMS 2005 event team has released a call for papers. The theme of the event this year is "Knowledge" and Microsoft aims to provide a range of breakout sessions, hands-on labs and peer level sessions providing broad coverage of IT management topics in the area of Windows management.
If you're interested in presenting at a breakout session for the conference, please register by sending a blank email to mmstopic-at-microsoft-dot-com. Microsoft will send a reply with the link to submit your proposal. Selected speakers will be notified of their selection by Jan 14th 2005, prior to the session topics being published to the web.
In an attempt not to mix business with pleasure, I've created a new blog for Amanda and I's
geocaching efforts. If you're not familiar with Geocaching, it's basically a high-tech treasure hunt with GPS units. There are currently caches in over 200 countries! Anyhow, you can read about our recent adventures at
http://geofetch.blogspot.com/.
Here’s some pictures of Amanda, the girls and a BEAUTIFUL week in Austin.
Some of you may be aware of
blogcasting or
podcasting, both referring to the usage of streaming audio for the purposes of communicating tidbits of information. Coming in January, I along with other MVPs and community leaders will begin a series of blogcasts related to Microsoft and the Systems Management community. The format will be open forum discussion – much like your local morning radio show. To help us kickstart this effort, please submit your ideas for topics, questions for the ‘studio’ visitors, and such by clicking
here.
Looking for a last minute Christmas present for the geek on your list? Here's my list of the top 5 software products of the year 2004...
5. (tie) Photo Story 3 for Windows
Share all your special occasions and everyday life moments with family and friends in a whole new way. With Photo Story 3 for Windows, your digital photos will come to life with motion, music, voice narration, and more.
5. (tie) Windows Movie Maker
Windows Movie Maker 2.1 makes home movies amazingly fun. With Movie Maker 2.1, you can create, edit, and share your home movies right on your computer. Build your movie with a few simple drag-and-drops. Delete bad shots and include only the best scenes. Then share your movie via the Web, e-mail, or CD. Using third-party software you can even take movies you've made and turn them into DVDs. You can also save your movie back to the video tape in your camera to play back on a TV or on the camera itself.
4. Skype 1.0
Skype is free Internet telephony that just works. Skype is for calling other people on their computers or phones. Download Skype and start calling for free all over the world.
3. Total Recorder Professional Edition 5.0
Total Recorder records streaming audio, Mic input, Line-in input as well as CDs and DVDs. The resulting files are saved on your computer's hard-drive. The system also allows users to schedule any number of future recordings!
2. BlogJet 1.1
BlogJet is weblog client for Windows that allows you to manage your blog without opening a browser. It is easy-to-use and elegant.
1. NewsGator Outlook Edition 2.0
Do you spend most of your day interacting with Outlook? Now you can use Outlook to track and manage RSS feeds of news, blogs and other content - even newsgroups - with NewsGator Outlook Edition. Instead of wasting a lot of your time tracking online RSS feeds and blogs, NewsGator Outlook Edition fetches new and updated content from your favorite sites for you.
Austin, TX December 15, 2004
(For immediate distribution)
Faced with a great wave of interest in their recently released Operating System Deployment (OSD) Feature Pack for SMS, Microsoft today unveiled a FAQ aimed at helping customers answer questions relating to deployment.
Larry Duncan, Practice Manager for Austin-based Collective Technologies and a Microsoft recognized Most Valuable Professional (MVP), was quick to realize that the new feature pack was going to generate an onslaught of questions and concerns from SMS administrators seeking to use the OSD features within their SMS environments. Using a combination of questions asked during a live webcast and ensuing questions on SMS related Internet mailing lists, Duncan assembled a list of over 40 key questions and answers about the product. This FAQ (or list of Frequently Asked Questions) can now be directly accessed from Microsoft’s SMS product documentation website.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sms/sms2003/techfaq/tfaq13.mspx
Collective CEO Ed Taylor said “The addition of the OS Deployment Feature Pack for SMS is a significant enhancement. We are delighted to be able to help Microsoft keep their customers informed of the increasing capability and value offered by SMS and especially proud of Larry Duncan for his advanced efforts in making this information publicly available”.
Microsoft's SMS doc team has decided to link to the OSD FAQ I've published here instead of creating their own. A nice gesture of the guys to show the improved focus on community efforts to help better the support offerings to end users. The article is linked from Microsoft's SMS 2003 Technical FAQ page located at:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sms/sms2003/techfaq/tfaq13.mspx
The American Stock Exchange (Amex) began launch trading in options on Wednesday, December 15, 2004 for the following Nasdaq Stock Market and New York Stock Exchange listed stocks:
* Altiris, Inc. (Stock Symbol: ATRS/Option Symbol: QJI)
* China Netcom Group Corporation (Hong Kong) Limited, American Depositary
Shares (Symbol: CN)
* PortalPlayer Inc. (Stock Symbol: PLAY/Option Symbol: PQP)
* PPG Industries, Inc. (Symbol: PPG)
* Synaptics Incorporated (Stock Symbol: SYNA/Option Symbol: QYG)
Altiris, Inc. will opened with position limits of 3,150,000 shares. The options will trade on the March expiration cycle. Altiris, Inc. develops and markets a line of personal computer (PC) management and deployment solutions.
Source: http://www.mytechnologyadvisor.com
From the SMS 2003 SP1 release notes:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sms/sms2003/instreln.mspx
SMS 2003 SP1 Advanced Clients Supported on Beta 64-Bit Windows Operating Systems SMS will not provide support for the Legacy Client and site server roles on any 64-bit Windows operating system. However, the SMS 32-bit Advanced Client will be supported on the following 64-bit Windows operating systems when they become commercially available:
• Windows XP 64-Bit Edition for Extended Processors
• Windows XP 64-Bit Edition 2003 SP1
• Windows Standard Server for 64-Bit Extended Processors
• Windows Server Standard Edition for Itanium Processors
The Advanced Client running on a computer with a 64-bit operating system operates in much the same way as it does on a 32-bit operating system. However, the SMS 2003 Advanced Client running on Beta 64-bit Windows operating systems differs in the following ways:
• The Advanced Client installation location differs on computers running Beta 64-bit Windows operating systems. In this case, Advanced Client installation files are always copied to systemroot\CCMSetup before installation. SMS 2003 Advanced Client software is always installed to systemroot\Syswow64\CCM on Beta 64-bit Windows operating systems. You cannot modify this installation location.
• Hardware inventory reported from a 64-bit Advanced Client yields specific information about its 64-bit architecture.
• Remote control is not supported.
• Although Remote Assistance is supported, remote tools are not.
• Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer 1.2 does not support 64-bit computers.
Additional information about support for Advanced Clients running 64-bit Windows operating systems will be provided in the SMS 2003 Product Documentation as it becomes available.
Today Microsoft released the following security update bulletins. For more information please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/ms04-dec.mspx
EATTLE, Dec. 14 (Reuters) - Microsoft has released a preliminary version of its search tool for finding documents, e-mail messages and other files stored on personal computer hard drives.
The move Monday came as its rivals in the search arena, Google and Yahoo, were also releasing desktop search tools to attract more users to their search-related services.
Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/technology/14search.html
Campusi.com allows you to search over 70 bookstores and 60,000 sellers from a single search engine. The result: savings! Sometime big savings. For example, last night I was about to purchase Mitch Tolluch's Windows Server Hacks for $16.47 plus $3.99 for shipping. Total cost: $20.46.
To their own undoing, Amazon had an advertiser link to bookpool.com for the same book, so I thought I would see what bookpool.com had it priced at before committing to my Amazon purchase. However, something was wrong with BookPool's website last night that prevented me from accessing it. As a result, I decided to Google the ISBN number for Mitch's book, which is where I discovered Campusi.com's book search engine. By putting the ISBN number in I was able to fairly quickly scan the pricing options for Windows Server Hacks and find it available from Half.com for only $9.99 plus $2.79 shipping, for a total cost of $12.78 or a $7.68 savings over Amazon.com!
Order Information
Now, it's worth mentioning that as I write this the cheapest current price I can find on Campusi.com is $16.93. This is because inventory within the online stores and through affiliate sellers is constantly changing and updating. But, if you have a book purchase to make online, why not check out Campusi.com first and save yourself some money.
(By the way, you can also use the Campusi.com search engine to compare prices for Movies, Music, and Video Games!)
According to Sun Microsystems CEO - Scott McNeally, Sun is ready and eagerly looking forward
to doing business with Lenovo - the new owner of the IBM's PC business.
"As soon as this deal is done, the first phone call we'll make is to the CEO of Lenovo," McNealy said.
Sun Microsystems is a prime competitor to IBM in the enterprise computing space.
Our Take:
Sun and IBM have been competing with each other for a long time. The friction between IBM and Sun goes
back a long time. The two rivals have been going head-to-head in their efforts to lure new customers by
reshaping their computing offerings through the formation of new business units.
Sun looks at the breakup of IBM as an opportunity and sees a better chance selling the Java Desktop to
Lenovo than to IBM.
Sun Microsystems markets their Java Desktop System (JDS), and Star Office software as cheaper alternatives
to Microsoft's operating system and its enterprise office suite.
Sun Microsystems has already signed a deal with Chinese Government supported China Standard Software
Company to supply nearly 200 million copies of JDS.
In our estimation, the demand for Sun enterprise computing will rebound in the near future largely
by their Open Source (Opteron-based servers and workstations, Solaris x86 Operating System)
product offerings enabling Sun to gain a significant market share in this space.
TRACTION: Sun shares have risen 33 percent since October, to $5.30 at the close on Wednesday.
If you you have any questions or need more information on this topic/SUNW, please let me know.
Shawn Sheik
Founder, CTO
myTechnologyAdvisor.com
Advisor, Gerson Lehrman Group.
Silicon Valley, California
Email: shawn@mytechnologyadvisor.com
As I type this, I’m using a Dell Latitude D600 with a 1.4Ghz Intel Centrino processor, 2GB of RAM and a 40GB hard disk drive.
One question: Why? What are we doing these days that places such strong hardware requirements on the average laptop/desktop user?
Granted, I use Virtual PC for virtualizing customer testing scenarios and such, but even without the 2GB of RAM that takes, I’d still have a 1.4Ghz processor, 512MB RAM and a 40GB drive. Why?
Think about it for a minute. Are the things that you’re doing on your PC today that much different from say 5 or even 10 years ago? Back then I was:
- Browsing the web
- Doing email
- Creating/editing Microsoft Word documents
- Creating MS Project files
- Using Excel spreadsheets
- Creating PowerPoint presentations
Now, today I do all those same things. Yet the system that I was doing those things on (say, 8 years ago) was a Compaq Deskpro 2000 with a 100Mhz processor, 32MB RAM and (I don’t know… maybe) a 400MB hard drive. I now own a PDA with more processing capabilities than that desktop of yesteryear.
Don’t get me wrong. I am a technology enthusiast. But, perhaps (just perhaps) our friends in Redmond and other developers throughout the world should think about extending the hardware lifecycle as much as they do about the software lifecycles and write code that doesn’t require such a beefy box. Are all the animated dogs barking helpful suggestions at you really worth it?
Tell me what you think… 
I have installed an interesting application - BlogJet. It's a cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). I’ve also included a sample sound file with automatic FTP posting.
Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." -- Pablo Picasso
The Active Directory Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 provides a predefined, ready-to-run set of processing rules, monitoring scripts, and reports that are designed specifically to monitor the performance and availability of the Active Directory® directory service.
This guide provides information about the most common Active Directory monitoring scenarios, state monitoring definitions, tasks, reports, and views. This guide also includes instructions for deploying and operating the Active Directory Management Pack.
More Info: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=1602190
The MOM 2005 Management Pack Development Guide provides high-level overview information about MOM 2005, along with detailed procedures and guidelines that are used to develop a custom Management Pack.
This guide will assist you with collecting information about your application, defining various states for your application, and creating a Management Pack to monitor the application and alert an operator of state changes. The information contained in this guide is specifically focused on features new to MOM 2005 that affect Management Pack development.
More info: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=1602188
According to sources claiming to be working on the alleged IBM deal have named Lenovo - China's largest maker of personal computers as the probable buyer.
IBM is so far refusing to confirm or deny any such reports. Lenovo (formerly Legend) accounts for nearly a quarter of China's PC sales, while IBM sells five percent of the world's PCs.
Our Take:
Based on the emerging industry wide trend of consolidations, acquisitions and realignment, seeing IBM
selling off its PC business should not come as a surprise to anyone. As we move into 2005, we are likely going to see more and more consolidations and acquisitions where major players will focus on the lucrative software side of the technology market, offer unified solutions with bigger margins, and sell off their low revenue generating operations to smaller players who are likely going to be more hungry, innovative and willing to accept thinner margins.
If you have any questions or wish to post this news, please let us know.
Regards,
Shawn Sheik
Founder, CTO
Silicon Valley, California
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