Cyclone - Plug-Ins for Windows Live Writer

In an earlier blog post, I discussed the Windows Live Writer blogging tool. There's a project up on the Codeplex site, called Cyclone, which has a bunch of plug-ins for Live writer.

The plug-ins include:

• Windows Media Player Currently Playing (by Laurent Kempé)
• Code Syntax Highlighter (by Alexey Raga)
• Paste Clipboard as Html (by Bryant Likes)
• Rhapsody Currently Playing (by Justin Braun)
• Multiple Tags Plugin (by Peder Borg Poulsen)
• Smart Link Inserter (by Dmitry Maksimov)

Nice add-ons for this cool tool!

Technorati: livewriter, windows, microsoft

Mailing BIG Files

Most of us, from time to time, need to send large files - files that typically are above email send/receive limits. I've found two source of help:

• www.Yousendit.com - allows up to 100mb
• www.MailBigFile.com - allows up to 512mb

Both sites are free, and seem to rely on advertising. Of course, whenever you are sending anything on the Internet through a 3rd party, use care and discretion!

Yousendit used to support sending files up to 1GB, but the limt was reduced to 100MB (and up to 100 downloads) recently. For a monthly fee, they enable transmission of up to 2 GB and 200 downloads.

Can you resist clicking?

www.dontclick.it is a site looking at communication using the mouse,but avoiding clicking. For dedicated clickers, like me, it takes a bit of getting use to, but the idea that gestrure based navication is a good one.

Testing your network speed

Speedtest.net is a site that tests your upload and download speeds to/from a variety of locations. The UI is pretty cool too. This can be most useful to work out where holdsups are.

A View of Monad (PowerShell) - Another Cool Video

Earlier this year, I was lucky enough to get to deliver a "Best of IT Forum" talk on what we than called Monad (and now call PowerShell). It was recorded and much to my surprise, this talk is now up on the Microsoft TechNete site for your viewing pleasure.

A tip of the hat to Jeffrey Snover, Monad's architect, and a great presenter whose recent blog post alerted me to the existance of this talk! I love this stuff, but I'll never be as good as Jeffrey at presenting - he's the only guy that can get nearly perfect scores at IT Forum giving a talk on a scripting language!!

Vista Training in Europe

I've now joined Global Knowledge, and one of the first tasks I have is around Vista. It turns out that GK has its own Implementing and Maintaining Windows Vista class. The URL is a UK one, but we're running this course across Europe.

This is a 5-day class,which covers:

• How to deploy Windows Vista in an Enterprise environment using powerful imaging tools
• Test applications with the Application Compatibility toolkit and the built-in single session Virtual PC
• Manage group policy using the GPMC
• How to deploy workgroup group policy support with the Windows Shared Computers Toolkit
• Use Enterprise troubleshooting tools for Windows Vista
• Enable offline data storage using shadow volume copy services
• Hands-on labs to reinforce your Windows Vista support skills

PowerGadgets: Reporting and Monitoring for IT/DB Professionals Who Don't Write Code.

I got a heads up to this upcoming product. Called PowerGadgets, it's a reporting and monitoring for IT/DB Professionals who do not want to write code. It's based on PowerShell and claims to be an enterprise reporting tool for reporting against multiple data sources including SQL, ODBC, the file system, WMI, and even system processes and the registry. This is another in the line of tools that will leverage the intrinsic greatness of PowerShell.

Great PowerShell Video

The Microsoft TechNet site has a great free video titled Windows PowerShell: Next Generation Command Line Scripting. This video is Jeffrey Snover's TechEd US talk on PowerShell. Jeffrey is both a very good presenter, and the architect of PowerShell - and is definately work listening to.

MS a Glutton for Market Share Says Redmond Mag

In an interesting article titled Glutton for Market Share, Doug Barney make some interesting points about Redmond's desire for total domination of every market it ehnters. It's an article worth reading - whether you are a Microsoft customer or work for Microsoft. Some might say this gluttony was the cause of the US anti trust suit in the US, the huge fines in Europe. If so, it will almost certainly be the cause of future legal actions here in Europe.

Unemployed (for the weekend)

My previous contract employment was completed last Friday evening - so for this weekend I am unemployed. My new job as Chief Architect for Global Knowledge EMEA starts Monday morning, so I'm not out of work for much time. Sadly, I can't even collect employment!

For the first time in years, I spent Saturday afternoon doing something other than sitting in front of my PCs. I went to a yoga class, and then went for a long walk. I smelled the flowers, and talked to some of my neighbors. I came home and helped to cook up a nice dinner with a fine bottle of wine (a 1999  Spanish Ribera del Duero) then watched a DVD of House. I even went to bed early.

Tomorrow the new job starts, and I am really excited. I could probably even say I'm Super Excited. I am really looking forward to the opportunity to work across Europe - something I have wanted to do ever since I first came to the UK over 30 years ago. I've now met many of the folks I'll be working with and we share a passion for both IT Training and training excellence.

One of the first things I'm doing tomorrow is to get my new Laptop ordered. My old firm played dirty and refused to let me take my old laptop with me - but by doing so, they have done me a huge favor. I've discussed the spec with my new boss, and will be getting a Dell Latitude D820 - with the new Core 2 duo processor, lots of RAM, and nice graphics. While I'll be laptopless for the first time in over 10 years, the wait will be worth it. Intel briefed a few of us on the new Core 2 Duo processor over a year ago and it looked exciting then - it looks even better now and I look forward to getting it and to reporting back. One thing I didn't realise till yesterday, the Duo processor enables you to use a 64-bit OS! I can't wait.

MOF Train The Trainer

I'm back at home after a fantastic week in Zurich, where I had the privilege of conducting a Microsoft Operations framework TTT event for Swiss MCTs. It was a really good time and I hope the Swiss MCTs that attended went away as passionate about MOF as I am.

Like all TTT events, every one learned something - including me. I'd certainly run the class just a bit differently as a result. Asking other trainers how to make a course better was a fascinating experiment - and it got great answers!

The MOF MOC material (MOF Essentials and MOF Changing Quadrant) classes are several years old, but are pretty much as relevant today as when they were released. There are places where projections for the future, when made in 2001 are now reflections in the past, but these were few and far between (2-3 slides in total).

Sadly, Microsoft has decided to kill off the MOF material, which as I said in an earlier blog post seems to be a dumb decision. Naturally, MS never makes dumb decisions (so they tell me), but they do make ones that appear to be dumb. The justification for killing MOF MOC is that it never sells. Sadly, MSL and MS never really tried to sell or market MOF or MOF MOC, so it's not surprising.

While MOF can still be taught today, and will be freely downloadable from Jan 2007, there are simulations for each course that are no longer available. This is a shame - the simulations were fun, could be useful to reinforce the message, and were a useful diversion. With the best will in the world, training in process is dull. If you are an MCT and plan to teach MOF, you need to consider creating some sort of a case study for the delegates to play with. This can be simple paper and pencil exercises, but something to get the delegates to do.

I am very sad to see the end of MOF training. For a company that wants to dominate the Enterprise space with Enterprise products (and support), MOF would seem a vital asset. Sadly, MSL seems solely sales focused, and bad selling courses just get fixed.

Ecora Makes Auditor Lite Available for Free

Ecora are giving away Auditor Lite, a slimmed down version of their Auditor package. See the Ecora Web site for details of this offer.

Microsoft released Virtual Machine Manager Beta

Microsoft has released the System Center Virtual Machine Manager on the Connect site. Worth looking at if you use MS Virtual Machines!

Pastures New - 5 days and Counting

It would appear that there is some confusion about my new job with Global Knowledge, with some folks seeming to think I am on "Gardening Leave" until early October.For the voidance of doubt, my existing contract of employment expires this Friday coming (September 8th). From September 11th (perhaps not the most auspicious of days!), I take up the position of Chief Architect at Global Knowledge.

I'll be based in Wokingham in Berkshire, but have an EMEA-wide role. I've always wanted to work in and across Europe - it was one of the many reasons I left the USA in 1975 for pastures new. Like  many  a young man's dreams, it was something that had dropped down the priority list as I acquired a wonderful family. The new role is one I am really looking forward to and I can't wait to begin my new job.

As fate would have it, I'm not even in the country this week as I'm teaching a MOF TTT event in Zurich! Roll on Friday night!!

Browzar - great idea, poor implementation

Ajaz Ahmed, the man behind UK's ISP first "free" ISP, Freeserve, has launched a new tool, called Browzar. The web site makes great claims that Browzar can help to to protect the privacy of its users. However critics claim that the product is little more than adware.

Browzar is a small (264KB) application that is in reality little more than an Internet Explorer add-in. Browzar's home pate is, however, not able to be changed, and it's search facility appears to be based on sponsored links.

This is a neat idea, but the implementation seems pretty poor - and in reality does not offer what it claims to offer.

Sysadmin.IT looks like it's been hacked

Navigate to http://www.sysadmin.it/eng/news/news.asp?ID=13034&titolo=Windows%20PowerShell%20RC2%20Release%20Notes%20(DRAFT) - a hacker named aLpTurkTegin has decorated at least this page with some anti-Israel grafiti. While I sort of agree with the political sentiments, vandalising an Itallian IT web site is probably not very productive.

Back From Holiday

I've been off for a blissful week in Rhode Island. There was no computer at the house we stayed in - and the mobile got very poor reception just about everywhere (except oddly enough just next to the local cemetery - no idea how to explain that one!).

Being off for a while with no gadgets was hard, for the first 24 hours, then it was bliss. No pinging of IM, or Outlook, no temptation to spend "just a few minutes more" looking at mail and news. A wonderful break.

Now I'm off to Zurich to do something I've been longing to do for years - teach a MOF class. I'm running a MOF TTT for 25 MCTs - it'll be a gas!

The Sweet Sound of Windows Vista - what are they smoking?

I've just read an article on the Windows Vista Team Blog entitled "The Sweet Sound of Windows Vista". As the pages states, "right before the log on screen appears in Windows Vista, an animation of the new Windows "orb" appears with a non-customizable start-up sound".

Thus every single Vista system will be hard coded to be noisy at start up? There's a second sound that plays at logon (although you can apparently turn this off). What are these guys smoking? Can you imagine an office full of Vista boxes starting up every morning? According to one MS manager: "My own belief is that most users will adapt"

The justification is that it'll help users know their sound is working correctly. Oh - and the X-Box does it so that's OK?

I wonder if the PMs that think this stuff up have ever had a real job in a real office with real people? I can only imagine next TechEd when 5000 Geeks all turn on their Vista boxes during the executive Key Note (although that'll be too late for MS - but they might get the message)!

The Sweet Sound of Windows Vista - what are they smoking?

I've just read an article on the Windows Vista Team Blog entitled "The Sweet Sound of Windows Vista". As the pages states, "right before the log on screen appears in Windows Vista, an animation of the new Windows "orb" appears with a non-customizable start-up sound".

Thus every single Vista system will be hard coded to be noisy at start up? There's a second sound that plays at logon (although you can apparently turn this off). What are these guys smoking? Can you imagine an office full of Vista boxes starting up every morning? According to one MS manager: "My own belief is that most users will adapt"

The justification is that it'll help users know their sound is working correctly. Oh - and the X-Box does it so that's OK?

I wonder if the PMs that think this stuff up have ever had a real job in a real office with real people? I can only imagine next TechEd when 5000 Geeks all turn on their Vista boxes during the executive Key Note (although that'll be too late for MS - but they might get the message)!

Another Cool PowerShell Related App - ShinyPower

ShinyPower is an application that you can use to browse PowerShell's help files. A cool app - but it'll need updating once PowerShell's RC2 ships!

Blog Comments Return

I've turned comments back on this blog. They had been turned off, but when I resumed blogging I'd forgotten to re-enable them. I'll turn on track-backs too, in due course.

Microsoft Learning Killing Off MOF Training

In one of the dumber moves by MSL (and that's saying something), I've just learned that the existing Microsoft Operations Framework training it to be killed off.

The official statement says: "Microsoft Learning is retiring Microsoft Official Courseware "Course 1737: Microsoft Operations Framework Essentials" and "Course 1787: Microsoft Operations Framework Changing Quadrant." Both courses will be retired on December 31. Until that time, you can order both Student Workbooks and Trainer Kits normally. However, these orders will not include the simulation that was previously provided in the Trainer Kit. This simulation is no longer available through Microsoft Learning. The Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) is not being retired. Only the existing courseware is being retired. After January 1, 2007, we will place the Microsoft Operations Framework curriculum for both courses for Free Download on the MCT download site. This will include both Trainer and Student books (not the simulations). "

Words fail me.

Browser Market Share

I watch the stats for this blog site using Site Meter. One interesting aspect of these stats is the Browser Share report which shows which browser types are used to access the content here. While the exact numbers vary, I can see some broad trends.

Almost to be expected, FireFox 1.x is used for 28% of hits, IE7  23% and IE6 at 45%. Mozilla, Netscape 5 and Netscape 4 each have 1%. From time to time, I also see Opera and Safari although today these don't show up. The interesting one is "Google 4.X", at 1%.

In terms of trends, I see two: first FireFox is slowly growing - A year ago, FF was at under 10%. The second is that while IE as a total is declining (due to FireFox growth), we can see the transition from IE6 to IE7.

Ryanair - Putting the fun back in to flying

I suspect this is not going to catch on - but it would certainly be one way to fly and would certainly be interesting.

A PowerShell IDE

Now this is cool - a decent IDE for PowerShell. For some great reasons, Microsoft has chosen to restrict PowerShell to being hosted in the old console (which means it's pretty sub-optimal as an IDE).

However, an enterprising MVP, Dr Tobias Weltner, has develop a really simple and neat IDE - PowerShell IDE 1.0. This is at present free ware, which is even cooler.

Tobias is also the author of a cool commercial product called System Scripter. This also supports PowerShell. One really useful feature of System Scripter is WYSIWYG editing of .HTAs.

Pretty much as predicted, PowerShell has provided inspiration to a huge eco-system. While I know that that is what folks like Jeffrey Snover hoped for, but I think the reaction has exceeded even Jeffrey's expectations.

Pay Pal is NOT Your Pal?

Matt Hartley writes for Lockergnome and has had a recent run-in with PayPal. Matt's problem was minor, but the feedback from other LockerGnome readers has been somewhat surprising.

I would have hoped that any respectable business, reading this feedback would pretty quickly clean up their act. PayPal seems, thus far at least, oblivious to the issues.

Use PayPal at your own risk seems to be the only answer.  Not a very good one, however.

Pain in Aid of Charity

As some readers know, my daughter has epilepsy. In her case, it's a condition that's been around pretty much since birth, and thus far, has not been completely resolved with drug treatment. Since the beginning of the year, we've put Rebecca on the ketogenic diet, a specialised diet for children with epilepsy. While the diet has not, yet. "cured" her, Rebecca's condition is much improved - fewer seizures and a reduced drug load.

We'd never have been able to do the diet without the help of a small local charity: Matthew's Friends. The folks there have been a constant source of help, inspiration and hope. A fantastic site, but one you'd probably never come across.

Recently (well a few months ago really), the firm I used to work for, QA, had a "Dress Down Day" to raise a bit of money to support Matthew's Friends. As part of the day's entertainment I agreed to have my legs waxed. Much to my surprise, and genuine delight, two of my colleagues agreed to take part as well. I've put up 4 pictures at http://www.reskit.net/MF. The pictures are kind of big, but the last is perhaps the best!

The day was fantastic - as you can see, the folks at QA all had a lot of fun. It was, all in all, possibly the best day I ever had at QA (now sadly defunct after being taken over by InterQuad). We had a lot of fun, and managed to raise a reasonable sum for a truly great charity. Can it get much better?

Microsoft Turns SUS off

Microsoft's first attempt at Internet based Software Update Services (SUS) was a basic, but useful tool for Windows syadmins. Replaced by WSUS, SUS has now being killed off, according to a report on the Inquirer.

I'd have hoped that most admins would have, by now, migrated up to WSUS - a much better product. If you are still using SUS, upgrade soon!

SharePoint Team Blog

Today seems to be a day for finding new blogs - I just found the Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies Team Blog.There is much more there than I can possibly read and use (until someone invents a much longer day!).

Vista Security Blog

Windows Vista Security is a blog, oddly enough, that discusses Vista Security. It's a good read! The recent post on Kernel Patch Protection is a great explanation!

Jesper to Leave Microsoft

It's not a particularly NEW item, but sad too - Jesper joins the brain drain leaving Microsoft. Jesper Johannsen is the Senior Security Strategist in the Security Technology Unit at Microsoft, and an all around nice guy (and smart too!). I have learned a lot from Jesper and am very sad to hear he is leaving.

UK Partner Blog

I stumbled across the Insights in the Partner Programme blog this morning. The blog has two aims. The first is to enable MS to post information quicker and provide insight into Partner Programme.  The second is to highlight ways to interact with the interesting people at Microsoft UK.

If you work in the MS Partner Channel - this is a useful blog to watch.

Boeing to Hang Up it's Connexion

In an arcile in the New York times, entitled "Boeing to End Its Service for Using Internet Aloft ", the demise of the Connextion service is spelt out. I'm not sure whether th laugh or cry.

I travel a fair bit, around Europe and to the US. With my new job, I'll be on planes most weeks. Being able to connect to the office to pick up mail, etc is ueful, especially on longer flights. At the same time, I'm not so sure I want to sit next to someone Skyping for 8 hours.

Vista Mag - Freelancers needed too!

In a recent blog post, I mentioned Windows Vista Magazine was hiring. Turns out they are also looking for some freelance writers!

Microsoft for Office "inevitable" - or so says IT Week

In an article posted today,that venerable IT rag IT Week quotes OSDL's Stuart Cohen that "Microsoft will release a version of Office to run on Linux within the next couple of years.""  Cohen believes that since MS did this for Apple they'll do it for Linux. While it's a nice theory, I can't see it happening for many reasons:

1. The underlying platform is different. In writing Office, MS has leveraged the best from Windows. To port Office to Unix, MS would need to re-implement a lot of lower level code in Linux, or do some massive re-writes (leading to 2 code bases).

2. There's more than one Linux. And that means MS (or someone) do the testing and creating installers on multiple platforms: Suse, Mandrake, etc, etc, etc, etc. The more SKUs MS has to produce (and test), the more expensive it becomes.

3. Taking on a new platform is also expensive. To support such a beast, MS would have to acquire a core of Linux support skills, across the many variants of Linux that MS chooses to support.

4. People may not want to pay (enough) for it. It's all fine and well for Cohen to ask MS to invest millions of dollars to produce such a product - but would people actually pay for it? And would that total market make investment sense.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying MS won't produce such a product. But based on today's market, I'm not sure it would make good business sense. Having said that, I'd bet money that someone is sitting in Redmond and running the numbers on this near-daily. It there was a serious market, where MS could make a decent ROI, then they'd be there in a shot.

The reality is that the market probably isn't there, no matter how rose-tinted Cohen's glasses. We'll see.

Windows Vista Magazine

The new Microsoft  Vista magazine is hiring. At present, it appears that the positions are full time only - maybe later they'll have some freelance journalist slots open.

PowerShell and Security

A few weeks ago, the press were all agog with the latest "virus/worm" to attack PowerShell. As Ars Technica points out, it was a pretty lame bit of malware (see Microsoft's assessment of this worm to find out more). But besides that, the basic issue seemed to be that PowerShell is somehow an attack vector. I suppose that any sufficiently powerful tool can be misused and any tool that can't be misused is unlikely to be of much interest to the malware writers.

The developers of PowerShell have taken extraordinary steps to avoid that misuse. Although some of the design decisions complicate initial setup and configuration. The admin has to do a bit of work before getting PowerShell up and running- but that seems a fair tradeoff.

For a good description of the issues - take a look at a recent blog posting by Leonard Chung which lays out the PowerShell security model in action. He shows how hard it would be for the ordinary user to be infected by this worm. As Leonard summarises: a user truly has to go out of his or her way to be infected". Which isn't to say that this won't happen - just that it's not a problem with the product.

Lebanon/Israel Wine Tasting Canceled

I'm a keen wine drinker and have for may years admired the ability of folks in both Lebanon and Israel to make good wine. Ch Mussar from Lebanon is a fantastic example! But most of the other good wines are rarely seen here in the UK.

A few days ago, I got a mail from Robersons about an upcoming Lebanese and Israeli wine tasting. I was quite excited about the chance to taste some of these wines, and perhaps find a source for some of these wines. 

Sadly, today, I got the news that it's been canceled. The full details are on a forum page at zero forum. 

Very sad - at this time, I'd have thought such a tasting might be a good thing.

Windows Live Writer - Blogging Tool (part 2)

Well, I've just downloaded the beta of Windows Life Writer, and this is my first post with it. It works well - complete with a spelling checker. A neat feature is that WLW downloads the blog style sheet, thus real WYSIWYG!

The WLW tool is simple and easy to use and passes the Ronseal test (It does what it says on the tin).

WLW also lets you insert a map into a blog posting. Unfortunately, WLW can not upload the map to Blogger.

Microsoft's New Blogging Tool Windows Live Writer

In a post on the Writer Zone (the WIndows Live Writer Team blog, the team introduce a beta of Windows Live Writer. WLW is a desktop application that makes it easy to compose better blog articles. The interesting thing is that this new tool also works with existing blog services. I'll be trying this out once the MSI gets downloaded!

Aero: Is It All It's Cracked Up To Be?

In an article on the TechRepublic site, Deb Shinder takes a look at the advantages and disadvantages of Vista's new Aero Glass UI, and examines what you need to get the most out of it. Deb's summary is that while Aero Glass can make Windows look better and, in many cases, makes the user experience a more pleasant one, the decision as to whether it's worth it or not is very much a personal decision. For most corporate users, Aero will not be relevant since their hardware will not support it.

Moving on

As some folks will have gathered, I have resigned from QA-Interquad. It has been a really great ride - QA were a great company to have worked for. But they no longer exist (even though my QA shares have STILL not been paid for by Interquad!).

With the takeover (and please let's stop talking about this being a "meger"!!), I am moving on and will post details soon.

Performancing for Firefox

Performancing for Firefox is a Fire-fox add-on that provides a full featured blog editor that sits right within Firefox. Performancing works with all the major blogging software (this and all my recent posts were created using Performancing. It has a reasonablly good WYSIWYG editor, plus support for Trackback, and integration with both Technorati and Del.icio.us. The web site has an an overview of the features in Performancing, and a Guided tour.

Technorati Tags: firefox performancing windows add-in

The Second Posting about Power Shell Was Here?

According to a post to Abhishek Agrawal's recent blog post, this blog contained just the second posting about PowerShell. I thought mine was the first, but I'll settle for 2nd. I can certainly remember the Jeffrey Snover and Jim Truher show ("Let's see what you get for 7 lines of code"), as well waving a US$20 at Jeffrey Snover after his talk saying "I'll buy it now!!!".

25 Years Ago

August 12 1981. I was working for Arthur Andersen & Co Management Consultants as a newly hired senior consultant. I remember the day well - sitting in the classroom (I was talking the Systems Installation 1 class), getting ready for the day, and reading the Wall Street Journal. The paper had this huge write up about IBM's IBM PC (IBM5150). While it was a pretty puny system (both by today's standards and even the standards at the time), but it was something I just knew would be big.

The following Monday morning, I hot-footed it into the office to catch the AA Partner I reported to. I told him I thought this would change our business. His reply was curt - to the effect that if it was important, he'd know. And since he didn't know, it could not be important (and could you close the door on your way out). It was perhaps the only time in many years Keith Burgess was utterly and totally wrong.

The amusing side to this tale is that many years later, Keith became MD andn Chairman at UK training company QA (where I worked as Chief Technologist for 4 years), until the take over.

It's hard to believe that it was only 25 years ago - it seems like several life times!

Happy birthday IBM PC!!

Vista RC1 coming Soon?

I've just seen a blog article that cites Information Week suggesting that Vista RC1 is due soon. According to the Information Week article, also picked up by BetaNews, MIcrosoft will be opening the testing to more users. Betanews suggests that Microsoft has ignored it's testers advice to go for a real Beta 3 and are pressing on with the current schedule.

From what I have seen so far, I do not think Vista is any where near ready, but maybe MS has managed to pull it off. Certainly one way to get Vista out the door is to just close down bugs - and MS has been doing this big time of late. Certainly most of the bugs I've reported, while present in the latest CTP, are now marked as closed. It's clear to me that the Vista team are just closing bugs rather than fixing them.

My view continues to be that Vista RTM will not be a release any corporate is likely to want, and SP1 (which will most likely have to be released soon after release) is going to be worth waiting for. But we'll see how good (or bad) RC1 is once released.

Once interesting point - apparently Cusomers who participeated in the Preview Program for Beta 2, and otthers are to be given RC1.

Wireshark - a new name, but the software's the same

Last Thursday, I resigned from QA and with that resignation, I now feel I am now able to blog again. Horray! I'll be posting more deails about my next job during the coming week.

I was searching this morning and discovered that that well known Ethteral protocol analyser has changed its name to Wireshark. While the is new, the software is the same (and it continues to improve!).

Wireshark's powerful features make it a great tool for all serious network admins. I used earlier version in the development of my TCP/IP books. It's a great product all the more so since it's free to use. For more information about Wireshark, see the FAQ.

Wireshark was written by networking experts around the world, and is an example of the power of open source. It runs on Windows, Linux, UNIX, and other platforms. The latest version 0.99.2 was released in mid-July and contains a number of fixes plus new features. The updates also include a number of fixes to potential security issues. New features include improvements to the dissectors (protocol analyssers). This version also includes support for new protocls (e.g Bluetooth, Cisco WIDS, TiVo, etc) plus updatesto a large number of protocols.

You can download the latest windows version as well as full source code from the Wireshark site.

Suspending Work Here for Now

I now work for a new company following a take over. As a result I feel unable to post to this blog and therefore have no option but to cease publication of this blog, at least for the time being. Comments are also disabled. And finally, for those that use it, www.reskit.net is to be taken down at the weekend. I am sorry for any inconveinece caused.

What a long strange trip it's been.

[August 12 2006]

The reasons behind the temporary stop in work are now no longer relevant and I have resumed posting to the web. Also, www.reskit.net is up and running just fine.

Windows Vista Beta 2 - Public Download

MS has released Vista Beta 2 to the wider audience. See the Windows Vista Beta 2 download page. NB: The web site is not responding well at the moment due to load - so be patient.

Firefox 1.5.0.4 Fixes the Copy & Paste Bug at Last! at Ramblings of a Computer Guru

I have been using FireFox since its release last year. I loved the product as soon as I saw it. It is extensible, and this extensibilty has provided far more functinality than is available in IE. IE7 had done a nice job in catching up, but FireFox still has the edge. Plus I can get rid of the worst of the ads, making browsing a far more pleasant experience.

While I like Firefox, it's not without it's issues. It turns out that there's been a bug in the product for years around cut/paste not working randomly But now there is a fix, as described in Firefox 1.5.0.4 Fixes the Copy & Paste Bug at Last! at Ramblings of a Computer Guru. And here I thought this problem was local to me!

The solution is to upgrade to 1.5.0.4!

PDF out of Office

At a Reviewer's Workshop in London this week, MS folks were crowing about how they loved open file formats, and were committed to them. Well they're open to some formats. Despite saying how much they loved open formats, Open Document Format is not one of them. But by comparison, PDF is a really important feature. Then I woke up to a Bloomberg.com report saying MS is going to remove PDF from Office 12. Well, I guess that means either they now have time to go for OpenDoc, or they're going to have to remove a bunch of slides from their marketing deck, and change some messages ("we love open formats, but only the ones we control and which won't get us sued"). ,p>

Microsoft IIS 7 SIte

MS has launched a new IIS 7 portal http://www.iis.net. Useful for IIS 7 information.

Windows: Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Development and Debugging

Microsoft has published a new white paper, titled Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 Development and Debugging which talks about development and debugging using VPC.

VistaBootPRO

WIth Windows Vista, the boot process for Windows has changed. I just found a cool tool, VistaBootPRO that helps you to manage your settings. There is a console application shipped with Vista, but VistaBootPro is far easier to use!!

[[later]]

Thanks to a blog comment, I've changed the linke to the tool. If this tool interests you, there are suppport forums at http://neosmart.net/forums, and the authors blog at http://neosmart.net/blog/.

One Note Blog Post

An attempt at a blog post from One Note...

 

Thanks to Chris Pratley’s blog post pointing out that this is slightly broken but can be fixed with a quick copy.

 

As it happens, this feature first send the post to Word 2007. At first thought this was weird, but as I think about it, it’s kind of a neat idea.

Office 2007 Beta 2 - Some First Impressions

Now that the teething problems of Office 2007 B2 are behind us, I've now started to use these products. The versions available from the Beta site are not quite the same as those for corporates (i.e. no /admin switch) sadly.

The initial download was problematic, but a week on, and the download and registration sites are working OK. Activation is quick too. The basic installation process for all the Office client application is nice - and I really like the side by side capability. as I want to run both Office 2003 while testing Office 2007 Beta 2.

The first application I loaded was Visio 2007. WOW - seriously nice. I'll have no problem ditching Visio 2003! The new version just plain looks better as well as already enabling me to produce better diagrams. And thankfully the Ribbon Police have not ruined the UI!

Running Word 2007 brought up the dreaded Ribbon. I continue to both loathe and love it. The idea of, in effect, unfolding the menu structure to a visual ribbon is a good one. But much like parts of Vista, I think the Office designers forgot who was in charge of the UI. The Ribbon is very inflexible. You can't drag and drop things to it to change the appearance. And if you click, say on Mailings, you have to re-click on Home to get the Editing ribbon to come back. Then there's the floatie - Office 2007's re-incarnation of Clippie.

Upgrading Outlook was a particular fear, especially as I could not get Outlook 2007 to sync properly when testing it on Vista Beta 2. The upgrade to Outlook 2007 however has hung (the first time I ran it). Not an impressive upgrade, but restating Outlook in safe mode seems to work OK.

Like the curate's egg, this upgrade is good. In parts. Some bits are dreadful, but others I love. I just wish the ribbon were implemented with a bit of intelligence.

A Test Post From Word 2007

This is a test blog post from inside Word 2007 B2.

Word 2007 supports posting from Blogger and other blogging services. We'll see what this post ends up looking like!

[later]

The post was OK, except for a small problem with single quotes - these were not quite rendered right. But it works OK!

Ultimate OneNote 2007

Over on Chris Pratley's blog, there's an article regarding Ultimate OneNote 2007. The article also points out that the teething troubles over Office 2007 beta downloads and activation problems are over.

The Offfice 2007 Beta 2 downloads now work fine, with the server overloads solved. And the emails now contain keys too!

But even better is news of Ultimate One Note. I love OneNote - it's a great product and even better in Office 2007. It's cool that it'll be included in Ultimate (although at US$679, Office 2007 Ultimate is certainly on the pricey side).

I am using One Note 2007 B2 and can't wait for it's release! OneNote rocks! Now if only there was a PowerShell interface...

Windows Vista Beta 2 Product Guide is Released

Also known as "The Book of Vista", Microsoft has a new updated version for download of the Windows Vista Beta 2 Product Guide. Available in either .XPS or .DOC format, this is a big document - roughly 300 pages.

SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive for Vista

I use Virtual Machines along with ISOs a lot in my testing, writing and teaching. Up till recently, I've used Daemon Tools, but this does not seem to work very well in Vista. Thanks to two great MCTs, Matthew Roche and Jeffrey Roach, I've found a good solution. The tool is called SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive and you can download it from their site. The main page suggests that the product is free, but the download page suggests all products are pay (wiht 21 days grace for eval) so I am not sure if this is a free or commerical product.

Bahaa Beih's Blog: One way around slow download of Office 2007 Beta

Microsoft has released Office 2007 Beta 2 to the world. The Office team decided to use a brand new method of distributing the code. As almost could have been predicted (by anyone who knows ITIL), the release proces has been very poor - loads of server time outs, .NET exceptions, mails that were supposed to have PIDs were pid-less, issues with activation, etc. Hardly much of an example of how to use Microsoft technology well. But one enterpring blooger has saved us from a lot of hassle - see Bahaa Beih's blog Bahaa here for quick download and PIDs for Office 2007. Thanks Bahaa - this page saved me some time today! And the keys are the same as mine!

Vista Beta 2 First Impressions

I am now running Vista Beta 2, build 5384.4 on my Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop although it's not been a very easy install. My laptop has three partitions (C:, D: and E:), with C: being the "safe" XP build, E being for my data and D: room for Vista betas. I has loaded 5381 on this partition, but it proved hard to remove - after several hours of playing around,I finally moved imporant data off the drive, and reformatted.

Next I booted from CD - or tried to. Due to the previous Vista Builds boot from CD required I used the one-time boot menu. I installed Vista, which took a long time, and far longer than I'd expected and I think I understand why. The Vista DVD image ship with the OS image contained in a single WIM file instead of the x86 folder. Nice, but itit appears that the files are copied from the WIM file to "C:\$Windows.~LS" and _then_ copied to c:\window (thus doubling the amount of disk I/O). And since Vista is around 5-6 times the size of XP, that means a lot of extra disk I/O. Another problem when I tried to install from DVD - Vista insisted on re-naming the partitions, with the 1st partition changing from C: to D: and the 2nd partition changing from D: to C: - which is pretty brain dead and I thought had been fixed a long, long time ago. Sadly, it looks like all the new Program Managers are going to have to re-learn why some things are not a good idea in real life.

After getting Vista running, I see UAC is no better than on earlier versions . Fortunately MSConfig allows me to turn it off.

The discomfort of Vista continues as I start to settle in and get it setup the way I want it. The first think I do when I load any version of Windows to tweak the desktop settings. Sadly, doing so just shows another example of the "let's move some stuff around because we can, whoops we don't have budget to do it right" syndrome - customising the UI is now much harder than it used to be. Right clicking on the desktop you now have to "personalise" (the old standard or right click and selecting properties on ALL objects seems gone, except where it remains. You are presented with a nice HTML based screen that nearly mimics the Display Prperties dialog in XP,but using far more code/dialogs/windows to do it. Instead of one tiny multi-tabed dialog box you had in XP, there are now there several screens that come up. Some appear as menus but others as 1-tab dialog boxes (i.e. the single tab from XP) with tab and window headings not consistent. And for reasons I really can not understand, the desktop icons facility is moved to a different place totally from XP. Thus instead of the one dialog box, you now have three different and inconsistent styles of setting properties for the display and more code/woindows too. While Microsoft Focus groups may have tested well on this, I think it's just plain awful - and hardly very cool. The worst thing about this is that soemone took XP's dialog box and then spent the time to design it this badly. Highly dissapointing.

Thus far, I do not see Vista as anything like ready for prime time and not even ready for self hosting. I always said I'd try to self host at Beta 2, but I do not mind admitting I am not looking forward to it. I am sick (after 20 minutes) of UAC, and the new UI is harder for me to use than XP but that should change as I get more familiar with the OS. I just wish MS has not made Explorer shell extensions (e.g. my Turnpike mail/news product) look so darned awful - and if the choice is XP/Turnpike vs Vista - I may just wait for Vista's Beta 3. And before any one points out that there is not going to be one, I'm betting on a B3 before shipping. But we'll see!

Is Vista Ready?

Microsoft has now "shipped" Vista Beta 2. When I say "shipped" - I no longer quite know how to describe this on line deliver model. It's not quite released to the web. Or is it? Whatever, it's out and folks are running it.

The real question is whether the beta is indicative of a product on the shipping glideslope set for launch as previously advertised. With MS suggesting at WinHEC that things might be delayed a bit (more), the question os when will Vista ship? I am planning on self hosting at least one of my main workstations on Vista Beta 2. But to be honest, and based on beta tester feedback - I am not certain this will be a good idea. We'll see!!!

3 Weeks on - and no resolution yet

The firm I currently work for is the target of a takeover bid. The bid was formally announced 3 three weeks ago and the 21 day period is effectively now up. As a shareholder I have still not had my formal offer document, which is very dissapointing. I can only guess that the larger share holders have made their minds up, making my tiny shareholding irrelevant and not worth the time of the bidder. I would have liked to have had the legal documentation and to have seen the detailed offer in writing.

As an employee, I have had not any word as to the progress of the bid, aside from view of the formal regulatory announcements on our web site. Thus many of us begin the bank holiday not even knowing whether we have a future to come back to next week.

I was in our London office today, for one last look around at the company as is is and to say goodbye. Despite the obvious sadness, it was a proud day too. I left the office knowing I'd done my best, and so had the folks I worked with. I was so lucky to have had such great people to work with; people who made a difference to me, to our delegates and to our customers. It may not be done and dusted yet, we'll see. But it looks like the sun has set on something truly special. I shall miss the place.

Dave's Weblog - another QA Blogger

I am pleased to see my colleague, Principal Tehnologist Dave Britt, now has a Weblog. Dave contentrates mainy on Windows - and soon on SharePoint 2007!

Microsoft Beta Fest Begins

Microsoft has released Beta 2 for Windows Vista, Windows Longhorn Server, and Office 2007. WOW - all three at once. It's going to be a bugfest weekend of software installation!!

Well it might be - if I can get the software downloaded. The betas for Vista and Longhorn are being provisioned from Microsoft's new Connect site. Right now, I'm downloading Longhorn server and the download is saturating my 2mbs adsl pipe! It was no problem to et on and the download has been very steady. But there are big (6 GB for both).

Office 2007, however, has been harder to get. First, you must register (again on yet another site). This took me around an hour due to over loaded servers, lots of retries, etc. Once this is completed, you are required to download (yet another) download manager called SmartSource. When this runs it asks for the email address you registerd with and prompty fails in my case. So after 2 hours, I've got the keys, but no Office.

Why does the Office 2007 team has to reinvent the wheel and use yet another 3rd party tool that breaks the first time they use it? Especially when Connect works. So far as I can tell, Connect is standing up very well to the strain. Well done to the Windows beta team!

TechNet Forums for Office 2007 and Vista/Longhorn Open For Business

Have a question about Office 2007, Vista or Longhorn>? Come on down to the TechNet Forums now featuring Office 2007 and Longhorn Forums. Sadly, for true IT Pros - there is no NNTP access yet. But come on over, set a spell and ask away!

2007 Microsoft Office System Beta 2: Get the Beta

Microsoft has used WinHEC to lauch Office 2007 Beta 2. As to be expected the web site is currently overloaded but with patience, you will be able to dowload it from here.

A Long Week Ahead

I work for a company which is the target of a take-over bid. For our people this is going to be a very long, and nerve-wracking week.

Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003

Microsoft is closing in on RTM for Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003. According to Microsoft, it is imed to be complted by the "first half of this year and is still on target", cunning code for RTM in June barring any last minute hitches. Full release will be "in the Summer", apparently more code for August.

The Compute Cluster product is pretty cool, and shouuld bring super computing to the masses or to a mass anyway. It's as easy to install as Windows and you manage it like it like Windows box - complete with a MOM management pack. Oh, and it's as easy to use as Windows apps tend to be. Application development with VS integration makes applications easier although hardly easy to develop. And it all runs on commodity X64 or EM64T boxes. Charlie Russel has written a nice paper entitled Overview of Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 which tells you more about the product.

Getting Beta Code

I often get asked the question "How do I get onto Microsoft betas?". Technet now has a Pre-Beta Release Registration page where you can sign up for some upcoming betas.

If you are an IT Pro that is not yet on the Vista and/or Office 2007 beta, then head over and sign up. You've nothing to lose!!

Vista and Office 12 - IT Pro Support is Comming!

I spent some time today on a conference call around the support that Microsoft plans to provide around the Vista/Office 12 Beta 2 releases that are due out very soon. The idea is that there will be some web based forums, plus a bunch of stuff. The web only forums are to be moderated by an elite group of MCTs. This is a great reach-out to the community! While the concept of equipping beta users with great support is fantastic, there are some flaws in the approach, IMHO. First, there is NO support for NNTP based newsgroups - the web is the way and the only way. As a member of the Big-8 Managagement Board, I think this utterly sucks. Why on earth cut OFF an important avenue of support. Heck - Community Server handles this fine! But I suppose I would say all of this. Another concern is over the role of the moderators. It's one thing for a moderator to remove ads for Sindy's Eexxyy Syn Syte, but it's much different than enabling somone to edit the post or just silently delete it. The moderator is allowed, for example, to edit a post for profanity (I think the term was 'inappropriate language'). Inappropriate "to whom" was not answered thus this probably means inappropriate for anyone in a US Sunday School deep in the Bible Belt mixed with that of the Chineese censor :-(. I guess I find it unacceptable for anyone to tamper with my language or my words, even with total transparency - is a non MS employee really able to tamper with my copyright here? Sure - fix my typos (and $Deity knows that there are enough of these), but tamper with my words and you change my meaning a privalege I may not want to give a moderator I do now know. I don't think the team putting this together fully understood these points. But we'll see. In summary, full marks for what's comming in terms of Beta support. I can't give all the details just yet, but MS is really stepping up to the plate to help beta users. There are however some really blinkered views (no NNTP - what's up with that - which I hope to widen!

Microsoft Expression Web Designer

Microsoft has released the latest version of Expression Web Designer for free download. As many of you know, Microsoft are ditching Front Page in Office 2007. In effect, it's morphing into two products: Sharepoint Web Designer and Expressions Web Designer.

Unfortunately, it looks like the web site is overloaded - I get this error message when I try to download EWD as shown here. Assuming the error message is accurate, it means waiting 24 more hours or so. Hopefully the site will come back soon.

Powershell RC1 Refresh - If you can get it

Microsoft has posted an update to the PowerShell RC1 package. You can get this update from the Microsoft download site, as described on PowerShell Team Blog posting. There are a few bug fixes included which make it a recommended download. If you are a Windows admin, you really should be looking at PowerShell. And if you're an Exchange admin, you really need to get started (assuming you ever plan to use E12 and beyond!). I've got this update on my laptop and it works well. If you are upgrading from MSH, there are some changes you may need to make to your older MSH scripts and setup environment, but the changes are not massive.

I've put up a bunch of MSH scripts on my web site (www.reskit.net/monad) and I am in the process of updating them from Monad to PowerScript. Be patient - I'll get these up there soon!

While uploading, however, I ran into a problem. In order to download PowerShell RC1, you need to 'register', which means in this case, logging in with your Passport. Or is it Windows Live? Anyway, on both my laptop and several of my desktop systems, Passport fails to log me in and insists on alternative credentials (none of which work). I'm also unable to get to the Passport site to create new credentials. Finally, I went off to a machine I very rarely use interactively (my ISA server) and was able to download the code. It took me nearly an hour to finally get the download. But to add insult to injury, I got one of those "would you like to take a survey on MS download" popups. OH YES! So after getting PSH RC1, I filled it out. During the survey, on 8 separate occasions, clicking Next on the survey brought me up a HTTP 500 error page. You have to see the funny side.

Music for a Sunday Morning

I came across two sites this morning. The first is a Cajun Music MP3 site with some good cajun MP3s for you. And what must be one of the more bizzare pages, WFMU has the Stairway to Heaven Page - with links to 56 versions of the song.

Interquad Bid to take over QA

The news is now out that Interquad have made a bid to take over bid for QA.

The Blue Frog - Giving Spammers a Taste of Their Own Meds!

Blue Security has an intersting approach to spam. For each spam you get, they send one complaint to the (real) sender. That means when a spammer sends you hundreds of junk mails, they get hundreds back. Naturally, some of the spammers are angry - this is getting in the way of their money making and the spammers are fighting back. Their latest tatics include sending aggressive emails to Blue Security "members" and a sophisticated DDOS attack on Blue Security's site. This DDOS also took down the TypePad and LiveJournal sites, as reported by Netcraft.

I've been trying to get onto Blue Security's page to download the Frog. After several attempts last night, I managed to get the software down, but can't get to their site to register.

Looking at the tatics being used by the spammers, it's clear they are scared. Sending aggressive and threatening emails must be borderline extortion (get off the list or else), and the DDOS attacks must be illegal. Frankly, if they want to send more spam, it's just more spam the Frog can return to them with an opt out request.

I'm tired of spam, and I suspect most of you are too. The spammers tactics here convince me more than ever that they need to be stopped. Arguably, there is a place for direct e-mail - but what we're seeing sure is not responsible, ethical or helpful to their cause. I suggest you wait till the latest attack blows over then register. And the report each and every spam you get till the spammers just get tired and move on.

Gartner warns of additional Vista delays - vnunet.com

According to Vunet, Gartner is warnning of additional delays to Vista. Naturally, MS are disagreeing with this. We'll see. My personal take is that the earliest we can expect RTM is (no sooner than) 6 months after the release of B2 (which has not happened yet). Unless MS either agree to lower the quality bar or are willing to cut still more features. We'll see.

It's official - Vista's UAC Sucks By Design

As readers of this blog may know, I'm not enamoured with Vista's UAC feature. I'm sure I'm not along judging from other web posts. In disgust, I filed a bug (titled "UAC Utterly Sucks") and it has just been closed. It was closed "BY DESIGN".

That's right, MS actually designed UAC to be this bad. The bug was closed with apologies for invoncenience caused, and offered a workaround to login as admin. Actually, this is not a great workaround - a much better way to deal with UAC is to just turn off the service using MSConfig.

So when you spend the rest of your life hitting the "yes" just remember that MS designed your experience to be this poor.

Ed Bott Looks at UAC

Over at his ZDNet Blog, Ed Bott has a post titled A fresh look at Vista's User Account Control where he walks you through the details of UAC. I've already posted my views on this feature previously. Nothing that Ed discusses makes me think any more highly of the implementation. Mileage, as always, varies, but Vista is just plain easier to use with UAC turned off.

Moving to PowerShell - Some Upgrade Blues

I've just installed the RC of the re-named PowerShell (Monad, MSH, etc). To upgrade, you need to de-install the older version of MSH and install the new version of PowerShell. But there are some changes that took a while to work out. If you know MSH and are about to upgrade, there are some changes you need to know about as they may impact you!

First, the name of the exe has changed as has its location in %programfiles%. The target of your shortcut has changed to "%programfile%\Windows PowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" (NB: there's a space between the Windows and Powershell.

The first time you run PowerShell, you get the sadly now standard "security" warnings due to the "secure" default setting of Powershell's Execution Policy. The location in the registry where PowerShell stores its policy settings (and where most admins are going to want to change the Execution Policy to Unrestricted) has also changed. The registry key is now: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell. It would also appear that UnRestricted is not quite Unrestricted - every time I run a script off of my Intranet, I get asked if it's OK. YUCK!

Another minor annoyance is that the extension for Powerscript scripts has changed to ps1. What the heck is this name - clearly the markeing droids were on overtime when these names were invented! If you try to run an old MSH script,eg fix.msh, the OS just pops up in the text editor (not quite what was wanted). But a quick rename of my scripts got them working again.

Monad wraps .NET objects with additional properties. These names began with MSH, but now begin with PS. Also, somecmdlet names are different - New-Drive becomes New-PSDrive. If you have used these properties in your scripts you need to change the names - this took some careful editing in my case, but was not a hard problem!

As with earlier versions of Monad, PowerShell has a default profile script that is run at startup. The name of this script is held in the variable $profile. This means you should be able to type Notepad $profile to edit this default script. Well you would if the folders that are pointed to, or the file itself,were actually created by the installation program (as once was the case). The setup routine is distinctly admin hostile. Sadly.

All this means most of my more complex scripts no longer work without modification and setupp/installation takes much more time to setup than should be necessary. Fortunately, the changes are minor, but I'm annoyed at the extra unnecessary work needed. Some of the changes were always going to be necessary - that's a price I'm willing to pay as an early adopter. But some of the work (setting up $profile, making un-restricted mean what I say it means, etc) just seem to be throwing road blocks in the way without good reason.

Allegedly, this stuff is due to "security". However, this level of "security" is just plain overkill in my view. It also ruins the first experience for a new admin since it's just harder than it needs to be in order to get things up and running (and even then why doesn't "unrestricted" actually mean UN-RESTRICTED??). This approach just tends to reinforce bad habits and something to be exploited by social engineering. For example, I run a bunch of scripts off of a remote machine in my intranet - on a mapped X: and M: Drive. These scripts examine files in these mapped drives and print important statistics. Every time I run these remote scripts with PowerShell it asks me for permission to run them (this despite an UnRestricted Execution Policy). Thie means I have to type "r" to run the script, something I find my self doing this without thinking. Due to overuse, the value of this warning is lost and is open to social engineering. This is the same issue plaguging UAC in the latest builds of Vista.

At the end of the day and despite the utterly naff name, I love the product. I love the underpinnings and what you can do with it. But this approach to security is just plain dumb.

I Hate Enforced Registration

I'm trying to download the latest beta of PowerShell (fka Monad). In order to download, you must 'register'. The registration page suggests "registration information enables us to better provide you with the latest resources relevant to your needs...". Except Passport is barfing ("We're unable to complete your request - The Passport Network is experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later."). So where's the 'just download' button?

Microsoft Script Center

The latest TLA from Microsoft is IOI - Infrastructure Optimisation Initiative. The basic idea of IOI is that every organisation can improve their infrastructure, and by doing so both reduce TCO and improve ROI. One key pillar in IOI is the automation. With automation, tasks take less time - the more you automate the better. The original MS Script center (half a dozen scripts and grand ambitions) has morphed into today's Script Center Technology Areas. Wow - scripts for everything, including PowerShell. This is a site that should be in every IT Pro's favourites list.

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2

You can download the latest beta of IE7 from the Internet Explorer 7: download page. I've been playing with this beta, and it appears stable. I'd switch to it in a second if it had half of FireFox's add on features (including various extensions including blog this, tiny url maker, and most importantly Adblock.

Squeet - A Free Email RSS Reader

Squeet is an interesting service - it converts RSS feeds to email so you get emails with each post. You can get to it from Squeet home page.

The concept is good, but the service is pretty flakey. I can't get this blog's feed to be validated (Blogger strips out HTML comments when creating the RSS feed, thus the feed can't be validated), and I am repeatedly getting errors trying things ("An unknown error has occurred in the application. Please contact the site admin or try again."). So while I like the idea, the service offered does not appear to be quite ready for prime time.

LIfe is hard for one Microsoft Beta Tester

Life is hard as a beta tester. Take it from Rob La Gesse, who bares his soul in a blog entry entitled TechWrecked: It's hard to be a Microsot Beta Tester (and how it could be easier!).

Rob has some almost legitimate complaints. But I see them more as the whine than genuine complaints to be urgenly actioned. He seems to want beta testing across the company to be run like a complete product group in its own right. And he wants the product team to take him seriously and to provide a way to get his feeedback. Maybe I'm being a little unfair, and the masters of "customer love is always right" will disagree with me, but I don't buy some at least of his argument.

Rob's main issue is that he's testing a bunch of products (13 or more) and there's no apparent joined-up ness between them. Yup - while he's right about this, I'm not sure it's really a problem. I see a beta test being all about one product's team vision - their vision for the product and how it's to be used and suported. Hence, betas have been product team specific with different rule, procedures and "benefits" for each one. And that's fine by me. Rob also wants a single beta portal. This is what connect.microsoft.com has in essence become or is becomming - a single connection portal to MS. Not all beta are there yet, but of late, I'm seeing a lot more products on Connect than ever before. The download service from Connect seems fine to me (saturates my 2mbs pipe regularly!).It also provides a mechanism for feedback, direct into product studio, IIRC.

As an aside, Rob complains about feedback and his difficulties in providing it in some cases. I can see the product team's dilema here. In order to test something as big as Live, you need a very large number of people playing. And with that large number, unless the team has huge resources, they could not possibly take deep comment from every person on the beta test.

So my message to Rob is this. First try to test fewer products - IMHO anyone with a full time job (and/or a life) can't realistically test 13 individual products beyond a trivial level. When you download something, you might like to consider using new and old technologoy to help you - pen/paper or use notepad to write stuff down. And finally concentrate on the product rather than on the mechanics of the beta programme. Be thankful that you have the chance to affect the product's development. And one last thing - try Connect.

Asta La Vista UAC!

OK - I give up. I like UAC (User Account Control) in Vista - well I like the concept. But its implementation utterly sucks and is painful to use. Yes, I know the idea, but the implentatation is overly simplistic - relying as it does on 'authorising' each attempt to elevate priveleges. It just gets folks into the habit of clicking "yes - please go do whatever I just asked you to do" button. Which of course becomes a target of social engineering.

UAC is just not good for my blood pressure. So, thanks to the Windows Vista Build 5365 Tweak Guide, UAC is gone - and Vista is better. Bliss - or nearly. This guide to 5365 is not bad, although in step 3 to disable UAC, you have to click the Launch button (not the run button). This page has some other useful tweaks I'll explore in due course.

MS Earnings Report Hits Share Prices

It's been an interesting day on Wall Street. As Reuters reports here, Microsoft's stock lost 11% on the day. OUCH!

So let me get this right. Income is up 13%, profit is up 17%, and the firm is on the crest of a huge wave of new products (PowerShell, E12, O12 and Longhorn), and the stock goes DOWN??? What is Wall Street thinking?

Joe Wilcox at Microsoft Monitor explains the results. He notes that Microsoft faces some interesting challenges. Wilcox says: "I expect some companies will see the new user interface and file formats as generating unnecessary additional overhead, because of retraining and other cost considerations."

I've believed all along that a Classic Mode is needed for O12. I'm sure Classic Mode could still be done. And it would a super way to reduce the initial training overhead, or at least the fear of the new UI. I've been using O12 a lot of late. I hate bits of it, but I quite like others. But Wilcox is right that users, particulary power users will need retraining.

Google Maps For ALL of Europe!

This is cool: Google now has Google Map Street Maps for ALL of Europe! Perfectamundo as we say at home. I've been checking on London and Amsterdam, two cities I have spent time in. These maps are excellent - and the satelite imagery is stunning. Nice one!

Watching History Change in Google

With Microsoft's arketing decision to call Monad "PowerShell", Google's index is now out of date. If you search on Google for "Powershell Windows" the current hits are all about a free-ware prodduct, and nothing on Monad (aka Powershell). Over the coming hours, we should see the index change. It'll be fun to watch the real hits rise!

,p> As I post this, Googling for "Powershell Microsoft" returns just 923 hits, while "Powershell Microsoft Monad" returns 23. MSN's index is marginally more up to date, but only by a bit. I wonder what these numbers are going to be in the morning?

Monad Becomes PowerShell

Monad has finally been given it's final real name: PowerShell. Not a bad name, I supppose, but what was wrong with MSH (Or The Microsoft Shell)? But whatever it's called, it's still one heck of a product"!

One small thing, James Smith, developer with a site at http://www.jastek.net/pro.php, might be just a tad annoyed since already has a product called PowerShell. I wonder whose lawyers will win?

TechEd Bloggers

Being quoted on TechEd Bloggers home page is not quite like getting Slash-dotted, but still fun. The bit cited on the TechEd Bloggers site is not quite the full story. The build is pretty stable, and works reasonably well - this bodes well. As a consumer OS, it'll sell well (if only because any OEM version of Windows sells well). It looks pretty too.

The bit of my earlier post cited by the TechEd Bloggers site related to the "move things around because we can" problem. Here are just two examples. First, in XP, you could right click the desktop background, select properties to open up the desktop properties. There was a single tabbed dialog box with all the options. But in Vista this is all changed. Your right click on the desktop brings up a Personalise (SIC) option. This is a menu listing the individual tabs in XP's dialog box and a bit more. Clicking some of those just brings up a (single tabbed!!!) dialog box which looks much like one tab in XPs's dialog. Clicking others brings up new windows. All very confusing and to me just adds more complexity to the process. At a very minimum lose the tab in the XP-cloned dialogs. A singe dialog needs both a window title and a tab why? Oh - and by the way, the window title and tab title are not really consistent in terms of what they display anyway!

The second example is the Desktop icons. In Win2k, the default desktop had a bunch of icons (the computer, IE, etc) in a particular order. In XP this changed to nothing being displayed, but you could change to a default order by clicking down into desktop properties. In Vista, this is done a different way, and the default order displayed are different. I like the ability to display the control panel - but why did the order have to change?

Compatibility is not quite there, but that's to be expected. I'm certain this is going to get better as Vista drives towards release. Also, the UI has butchered my beloved Turnpike. Turnpike looks so awful under Vista, I'm actually considering finding a new mail and news client. After using the product for something like 10 years, I'm reluctant. I'd really like a "compatibility mode for shell extensions that looked cool in XP" feature.

Another thing that jumps out is how much bigger Vista is than XP. Vista now comes on a DVD, roughly 6 times the size XP, if I have my maths right. The Windows folder alone is just a tad under 7GB! And after a day's running, the background memory usage is 1.3GB. I'm struggling to understand this apparant bloat. While there is some really great eye-candy and the stabilty is good, Vista is going to represent a wholesale replacement of my home network. While it all works fine under XP and Win2k3, several of my machines are just too long in the tooth for Vista. I suspect this may be true of many corporate clients.

But the thing that bugs me the most is UAP. This can not have passed the Jim Alchin's Mom test, and gets me angry every time it kicks in. Trying to delete windows.old (the folder the 5365 installer created from the previous build of vista on this box) has taken hours to complete. The combination of permissions, and the need to ask for admin priveleges drives me nuts. The think that makes least sense is that Vista doesn't make me enter admin credentials, just to click twice - with a couple of 2-3 second pauses in between. Now what is the point in that?? I really hope Vista RTM will have an easy way to turn this stuff off!!

Mind Map of Linux distributions - Version 2

I just found this really cool mind map of Linux distributions. A nice view of the various Linux flavoours and some of the relationships between the various distributions.

Vista 5365 - Looking Good (well better anyway)

I've just downloaded and installed the latest beta version of Vista, build 5365. The installation was relatively uneventful and in use, VIsta seems relatively smooth. The new pictures and screen savers are very cool to look at. With my big screen (24" wide screen TFT) and a reasonable graphics card (GeForce FX 5200) Vista looks very nice with all the eye candy. But it's still a beta.

But from a usability point of view, 5365 still seems to suffer from a "let's move stuff around because we can" syndrome. Sadly things that were easy to find in XP have been moved around for no obvious reason. Although I do like some of the improvements, the consistent sense of inconsistency in XP continues - we just have different bits that are inconsistent.

There are some other things about 5365 I hate - particularly UAP. The concept of forcing users to run with relatively low privaleges is a great one. But the implementation is Vista is just plain lame. As I'm setting up the system, the entire screen goes black for 2-3 seconds (a visual sensation similar to what we saw when XP blue-screened) then a silly dialog box pops up - I click Accept - the screen goes black for another 2-3 seconds, and I can carry on. It's very, very annoying - sufficiently so that I'm going to just log on with admin privaleges. It's easier and far less intrusive. Sadly, while I like the concept, MS has made a poor job of the implementation. Of course, mileage may vary on this - but I doubt many IT Pros will even come close to liking this implementation. We'll see.

Carmine - A Virtual Server Management Tool

Paula Rooney at CRN reports that MS are planning a Virtual Server management product, code-named Carmine. Her article, Microsoft Virtual Server Manager Augurs Partner Opportunities does not mention likely release dates. Also, although Paula's article does not specifically say so, other folks talking about Carmine say that it is to be based around Monad (e.g. here).

Whether or not it's based around Monad, a more compelling management product would certainly be very welcome. VS's UI is fairly lame - and that may be being kind. If Carmine is based around Monad, that would be really cool.

Informit.com article on Monad

Informit.com has an interesting article on Monad titled: As Exchange 12 Looms, Microsoft Tackles Monad Bugs > Concepts for Grokking. The article has a few minor errors (unless I've been awarded a doctorate and someone's fogotten to tell me), but it's an interesting background read.

Microsoft extends tool giveaway

CNET report that Micrsoft is to make Visual Stuidio Express free permanently. EXCELLENT!!

Microsoft extends tool giveaway

DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper! Day in June, I'll be speaking about Monad. This event, which is free, looks to have a pretty good line up of speakers and topics. Book early!!

Microsoft To End Windows 9x Support in July

Redmond Magazine reports that Microsoft is to end Windows 9x support in July 2006. Not before time!