June 2005 - Posts
Well, that was quick. Microsoft has cut downloads of the recently obsolete SUS and will only be offering content through it till July 2006. Those moving from SUS to WSUS might want to
check out this page.
This page may be helpful for people looking to get started with WSUS.
Ah, back inside with the nice AC and juice for my laptop. Plus with Nirvana on XM, life is good. I'll be headed out this weekend. We're driving down to Portland and then out along the Oregon coast before heading back to Spokane, with a possible stop in Seattle. I'll be around a bit tomorrow and then back on Tuesday or Wednesday. I'll be taking the laptop along but I'm not sure if the hotel will have internet or not. Anyway, have a good holiday weekend for those in the US, and a good weekend for non-Americans :-)
So right now I have three apps open that have almost the exact same layout and relatively same purpose - Outlook (for my email), Outlook Express (for my newsgroups), and RSS Bandit (for my feeds). I know there are plug-ins for Outlook that let it handle all of these features, but I don't see why they couldn't be supported natively (well, I understand Outlook not supporting feeds... for now). Oh, and the ability to post to blogs (a la w.bloggar) would be excellent. Mail, newsgroups, and feeds are all different, sure, but I think they're related enough that a unifying app would be just kick ass. Well, my battery is dying, so I must be off.
I try to stay away from blogging about blogging, but Josh Ledgard has a good reply to Scoble's recent talk of turning off comments. Before I get to my point, I should point out that Scoble has been teasing readers about some “secret new technology” that changes the way he blogs (and will so even more once it is not so secret). He says, “But, when you see this thing (probably a couple more months) you'll see that all you need to do to leave a comment on my blog is to have a blog yourself and link to it.”
Scoble has talked a lot about turning off his comments lately, and said that he's enjoyed them being down cause he's gotten a lot more done. And that's cool, I'm sure we all like having more time. However, it just strikes me odd since Scoble is all about having discussions. Even though I've come down on Scoble a time or two, I do really like him and I think he's done a lot to pioneer conversation on the web (especially when it comes to interation with Microsoft). That said, I think turning off comments is a bad idea. And this new technology that he's talking about (maybe some kind of linking technology?) sounds like it will silence a lot of people out there who don't have blogs (assuming the blogger turns off traditional comments). Anyway, go check out Josh's post that articulates this much better than I'm doing.
I know this is a little late, but better that never, right?
For those who are not ready to upgrade their 2003 boxes to SP1 yet, Microsoft has released a tool for blocking the upgrade.
From MS: “A blocking tool is available for organizations that have AU enabled on their servers to ensure prompt delivery of critical updates, but would like to temporarily disable delivery of the Windows Server 2003 SP1 automatic update through AU that is set to take place starting July 26, 2005.“
Get it here.
From Microsoft: “The Update Rollup contains all security updates produced for Windows 2000 between the time SP4 was released and April 30, 2005, the time when the contents of the Update Rollup were locked down for final testing by Microsoft and by external beta & customer sites. The Update Rollup also contains a number of updates that increase system security, reliability, reduce support costs, and support the current generation of PC hardware.”
Download Here
I've heard that every good blog has a picture of a cat. So here's mine:
I'm sure most of you have heard about how Microsoft is integrating RSS into IE 7 and Longhorn. They're also adding an extention to RSS - the ability to create lists. I really like RSS (and ATOM, for that matter). I think it's just one of those simple ideas that makes so much sense (it's usually the simple ones that do). And I'm excited about Microsoft embracing it and piping it into Windows. At the same time, should we be a bit apprehensive? Is Microsoft doing to RSS what it did with HTML? Well, Microsoft is pegging a lot on RSS. Looking forward, they believe, there will be browsing, search, and subscriptions when it comes to the internet. Microsoft has invested a lot fighting Google over search, so it's no surprise that they're trying to get an early (well, earlier) start on subscriptions.
This is where I'm torn. I'm just not sure how I feel about Microsoft tinkering with RSS. They may add a bunch of proprietary options to tie the RSS technology (and, as the conspiracy goes, all subscriptions... which will be a huge thing in the coming years) to Windows. At the same time, is that necessarily a bad thing? If they embrace it and extend it in ways that the community can't, are we worse off? I think it could be a great thing for the technology, especially if they keep the underpinnings open. What do you guys think?
I've been looking for a place to host a blog for a little while, and this finally looks like it! I'd especially like to thank
Susan Bradley for letting me work here. Since I'm a Server MVP, you can expect to see lots of news on Windows Server, but also expect a lot of other types of news, too (I'm honestly not sure what all I'm going to put here). Anyway, thanks for stopping by and expect more soon!