January 2006 - Posts
So, I got this email today:
Hey Nick
Excellent article in Windows IT Pro magazine!
All my colleagues are congratulating me on it and are assuming that the magazine put the wrong photo next to the name - heh!!
Best regards
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nick Whittome
Manager, Desktop/Server Technology - Canada
Computershare Trust Company of Canada
Two Nick Whittomes, both in the IT industry. Spooky stuff.... Any more out there?
There has been a lot of discussion on various newsgroups about Small Business Server 2003 R2 and what it does and does not include. I am sorry to say, but Microsoft has not been clear enough on the point and therefore I am going to try to assist the many people confused by this in this blog post.
I should be clear that these opinions are my own interpretations of various posts and discussions that have gone on around the web. I will provide you with some references where I can.
Does SBS 2003 Include any of the Windows 2003 R2 Feature Set?
First, the quick answer……
No. This was publicly announced at SBM Nation 2005 on this powerpoint slide.
Now for the long answer….
SBS 2003 R2 includes the following features, and only these features: (From the SBS Blog)
- Automated, network-wide patch and update management for all Microsoft Update supported products, lowering the costs of managing a Microsoft-based network and helping to maintain a more secure network
- Increased mailbox limits from 16 GB to 75 GB, enabling improved productivity for employees
- Inclusion of SQL Server 2005 Workgroup Edition technology in SBS 2003 R2 Premium Edition
- Expanded client access license (CAL) rights, including access to additional Exchange Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005 Workgroup Edition servers in the SBS 2003 R2 network, allowing customers more flexibility in growth
Paula Rooney wrote this about SBS R2 as well if you want more information.
OK, so what does it include?
Also public is the fact that SBS R2 will include SBS 2003 Server Pack 1 out of the box, with some other patches that have been released since then. I read this on the Yahoogroups.
You can see on the Microsoft Page for SBS R2 that “Automated, network-wide patch and update management” will be included. I assume that this will be WSUS, maybe with SBS type interfaces, but I am guessing ;)
So, what do you think about this Nick?
Honestly… I cannot make my mind up. I think that Microsoft Marketing have gotten there hands on the product and are naming it incorrectly and in the most confusing way possible. That I am pretty pissed about…
The main reason for being so annoyed is that I know that SBS 2003 is a great product, and one which the product team, the MVP’s and the end users love. What all of those groups hate more than anything is being “the evil smaller product”. I believe that because of Marketing, we are going to be portrayed (no matter how true it is) in a bad light against the “full products”. People are going to have the ammo (like in the SBS 4.0 days) to say “SBS Is different…”, and by different I meant more than just the current well known restrictions.
I suppose that I am looking at this not as a MVP, but as a Microsoft Partner. It has given me a bad taste in my mouth and made me seriously consider not selling the product. Microsoft Marketing needs to understand that. If you can give me, and avid fan of the product, this feeling…. You can give it to anyone…
Later…
Nick
I woke this morning to the news that Steve Lacey is moving on from Microsoft.
When I first met Steve, it was one of those true "Geek" moments. I was walked into his office and the first thing I noticed was the amazing amount of empty Coke cans on his desk. I think that the team were having some kind of competition on the amount of cans they could drink or something.... I never did figure that out.
The next thing was how dark the room was, complete with 4 or 5 monitors. Some had "Matrix" type stuff going on, and others had Flight Simulator running in Development mode. At the time, it did not hit me how much Steve had done / was doing for Microsoft as I was in "La La Land" about being in the FS Building in the first place. In fact, I will not go into it except to say that it is significant and you can read his own summary here
Steve, thanks for all the cool stuff you have done for the game. It's a shame that not everyone will realise just how much that was...
Good luck with the start-up....
Two MVP summits ago, I was hassling the FS team to get blogging. By the time of the last summit, a lot were already and since then many more have started. (All the links are on the right side of this blog). The SBS Team have many blogs and Feeds all listed on our community page.
Anyway, I would like to know the answer to this question.... and I suspect that Robert Scoble is the man to answer this...
What team in Microsoft has the largest percentage of bloggers including the MVP's?
The SBS Team and the FS Team must be right up the charts..... Surely?
Hey, I just noticed, but I may be behind the times here... ISA Server is now a product listing in WSUS. Great stuff ;)
Wow... some weekend. All started with the magic call about the ticket. I knew people in very "high" rugby circles that could not get one. The Munster / Sale Sharks game was simply one of the best I have ever been at. If we play like that from now on, we'll win the Heineken Cup for sure. I also heard on the news last night that the young Barry Murphy got a call up to the Irish squad which he well deserves. (As long as that poxy Eddie O'Sullivan does not leave him on the bench).
Anyway.... since I have taken two days to get over the weekend, I have been missing some good posts on the blogs. Here are a few:
How to Write a Feature Request - From Mike
More explainations of DirectX - Also from Mike
Flight Simulator and SLI - From Steve
I can see clearly now... - Jason
The call just came in... with 5 hours to the match and a 3 hour drive. I got a ticket to the Munster - Sale Sharks Match.
Yay!
As you know, I am a big fan of Skylook, the Skype Outlook add-in. Today I received the following great news from the team:
Melbourne, Australia (October 17, 2005) - Netralia Pty Ltd, authors of Skylook (www.skylook.biz) and WaxMail (www.waxmail.biz) today announced the release of Skylook 1.5 Beta.
Skylook 1.0 provided the ability to make Skype voice calls and start Skype text chats from Outlook contacts, as well as providing the ability to keep a complete archive of all communications (including recorded calls) in Outlook folders.
Skylook 1.5 extends these capabilities to provide true unified messaging utilising the Outlook Email client and the Skype VoIP and IM client.
Major new features in Skylook 1.5 are:
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Answering machine built into Outlook that places recorded messages in the user's inbox without requiring a Skype Voice Mail subscription.
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Call monitoring, with ability to pick up call after hearing the first piece of what the caller has to say.
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Skype Voice Mails in the Outlook inbox.
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Missed calls in the Outlook inbox.
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Missed Instant Messages in the Outlook inbox.
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Convert Skype Voice Mails to MP3 and archive inside Outlook.
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Record outgoing Voice Mails and archive inside Outlook.
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One-click hyperlinks to reply immediately to Voice Mails, Missed Calls and Recorder Messages with voice, IM or email.
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Answer calls and hang up directly from Outlook.
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Advanced phone number dialing capabilities.
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Show up to ten on-line Skype contacts in the Outlook toolbar.
"The vision behind Skylook 1.5 is simplicity," Jeremy Hague of Netralia commented today. "I don't want to be looking in multiple different places to see who has been trying to contact me and to review what they are trying to tell me. I want to have all of that stuff in one place, and the Outlook inbox is what I am used to. I think a lot of Skype users will feel the same way". "With Skylook 1.5, I only ever need look in one place for my incoming messages, whether they are missed calls, automatically answered calls, voice mails, text messages, or, of course, emails. That place is the Outlook inbox".
More details are available at www.skylook.biz.
Did I mention that I love the fact the Flight Simulator team are blogging? ;)
Now, I do not have an Xbox 360 yet (what! I hear you scream!). Well, there are two reasons... the first is that you cannot get them here as everywhere is out of stock, and second, I always prefer the "second version" of hardware so I will be waiting a while longer.
That said, I may now go and get an Xbox 360 Controller and use it on my PC thanks to the post from Mike.
I am still not so sure that I will be pulled away from my joystick :)
I have had a few emails from readers of my ActiveX Article in this months WindowsITPro Magazine all with the same question. That question is....
I have added the bp SHLWAPI!SHCoExtensionAllowed "db poi(esp+4);g" breakpoint in the windbg.exe application as instructed in your article, but I get an error that says:
Couldn't resolve error at 'SHLWAPI!SHCoExtensionAllowed "db poi(esp+4);g"'
This is caused when the public symbols from Microsoft are not loading correctly. I was not very specific in my article about adding the symbols path in windbg.exe, so here is how.
- Open up windbg.exe
- Click File, Symbol File Path from the menu.
- Type SRV*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols in the window and click ok. (Note the SRV)
Then you can go about the rest of the article..... :)
http://feedicons.com/
Thank you Matt Brett for releasing this excellent set of syndicated content icons. Hopefully more people will start to use them!
ANYTHING is better than those silly RSS and Atom icons.
Sometimes I do feel for the Flight Simulator developers on their new endeavour to spend more time in the community.
There is nothing worse than working hard on a product and seeing negative comments on forums about that product, especially when the "bigger picture" is not understood by the poster. Steve has a post about once such comment that humoured me.
Steve, as I told you at the summit... The more time you and the team spend in the community, the more people will understand and help you get to that happy and calm place. The community simply needs to understand and yours and others posts are working.... I promise ;)
Oh, and by the way... I wanted a Pelican.
Apart from Flight Simulator, there is another game I am pretty addicted to. Call of Duty / Call of Duty 2.
The original Call of Duty / Call of Duty UO implemented an anticheat system called Punkbuster, which got rid of most of the cretins. However, with the release of Call of Duty 2, Infinity Ward decided not to include such an anti cheat system. Here is the result. This guy owned this game....
I only managed to capture a few seconds, but it is so obvious there is an aimbot in use...
View the video here
Please can we have an anti cheat system again :)
Adrian Woods has posted links and some more information on his blog. Worth a read.
Microsoft have released a patch for the recently discovered critical security flaw in the graphics rendering engine. You can download the patch here
A quick piece of news...
For those that have asked in the past how to find GUID's for Internet Explorer Add-ons that do not show up in IE, I have written an article for this months Windows IT Pro Magazine that explains all.
The start of the article is here
We have, so far, 4 new MVP's in the Small Business Server category. All very welcome!
Kevin Royalty
Eriq Neale
Stuart Applegate
Tobias Redeleberger
No new Games / FS MVP's from what I know.... I must go hassle some people about that again.... ;)
Thanks to FSStation.com for ripping the FSX video from last nights presentation. I tried, and failed :)
I also note that Adrian Woods has given us add-on developers something nice to think about.
Quick Edit:
I See that FSInsider (via Jason) has also been updated
Well, I said I was going to bed, but watching Steve B getting beat up by Bill gates (Fight Night demo) has kept me awake :) I do hope they release tonight's keynote on microsoft.com, I believe it will show users just how good this year!
Jason has posted a quick comment on his blog about tonights announcement.
Simflight also have some unique shots here
That's it.... its late and I am going to bed :) 4AM!
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