Canadian IT Professionals

Office 2010 Beta is here!

rodney.buike — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:02:15 GMT

Woke up this morning and as is my usual custom I started reading my RSS feeds before starting the day. And what do I see? Office 2010 Beta, SharePoint 2010 Beta and more is available for TechNet and MSDN subscribers!

That’s right, if you have a TechNet and/or MSDN subscription you can head on over and download the first public beta of Office 2010! Have you been to TechDays? Yes? Then fire up that subscription and get downloading!

If you don’t have a subscription, have no fear! The beta will be available at the TechNet Eval Centre later this week!

What a way to start a week!

Thinking About Anti-Virus

rodney.buike — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:42:00 GMT

The other day this blog entry came through my RSS reader and got me thinking. Security technologist and author Bruce Schneier wrote a post called Is Antivirus Dead? He summarized his post with

“Bottom line: antivirus software is neither necessary nor sufficient for security, but it's still a good idea. It's not a panacea that magically makes you safe, nor is it is obsolete in the face of current threats. As countermeasures go, it's cheap, it's easy, and it's effective. I haven't dumped my antivirus program, and I have no intention of doing so anytime soon.”

Reading the rest of the article, as well as some of his other articles you see that he believes in the security onion.

Well more often referred to as a layered approach to security it is your best bet when looking at how to protect your organization, your home, really anything you want to secure. That is why we implement password policies, firewalls, access control lists, as well as other layers of security, including anti-virus. No single tool, policy or resource will protect you, but combined they offer a solution.

That is why you see most leading anti-virus applications, like Microsoft Forefront use multiple scanning engines. While vendor X might be first out the door with signatures for today’s virus, vendor Y might be first tomorrow and vendor Z the day after. By utilizing the scanning engines from all three vendors you’d always be up to date and protected. If you are using Microsoft Forefront there is some important news you need to know!

Microsoft is revising its engine mix on Dec. 1, 2009 for the Forefront and Antigen products. This change will allow customers to utilize a set of engines that help optimize detection, while also allowing us to invest in new areas for increasing overall protection for customers. The AhnLab, CA, and Sophos engines will be retired on Dec. 1, 2009. After December 1^st, customers will not receive any updates for these retired engines. In order to make sure your Antigen and Forefront products continue to scan efficiently and effectively for malware, any customers running the AhnLab, CA, or Sophos engines must DISABLE these engines before Dec. 1, 2009 and select from the new set of five engines – Authentium, Kaspersky, Microsoft, Norman, and VirusBuster.

There are a lot more changes coming with the ForeFront Suite of anti-virus and anti-spam tools and if you are running any of them please check out this blog post from the Forefront team!

“Security Bulletins for the regular IT guy” Podcast – 11/10/2009

Rick Claus — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:41:00 GMT

Three guys got together over pints in February 2009 and talked about how one of the issues facing Technical Professionals today is keeping their systems patched and up to date. This issue was brought up to them at a User Group meeting they were attending (Ottawa Windows Server User Group) where we were participating in an “Ask the Microsoft Guy” panel discussion.

Over pints at D’Arcy McGee’s, Pierre Roman, Bruce Cowper and I decided we would try to help solve the issue of information overload regarding patching and put together a timely podcast to go live each “Patch Tuesday”.

Goals:

Use plain English terms and every day language that any Technical professional can understand – minimize “corporate speak”.
Breakdown each Security Bulletin with summary information first followed by more details as to the impact an IT Pro would face.
Outline mitigation factors in case patches couldn’t be tested or applied in a timely fashion
Keep it top 20 minutes OR LESS. This one is critical – Keep It Simple, repeatable and get out of the IT Pros way to get on with their day.
Have fun!

Have a listen directly from the embedded Silverlight player OR subscribe to the specific feed and download it to your iTunes / Zune software.

As always - if you have suggestions on making it better - please pass on your comments. Mail me directly – rick.claus@microsoft.com

Direct Download:

Subscribe to the podcast: (so you don't miss an episode)

Disclaimer: This podcast was produced with the best information available to us at the time of recording. Your primary source for all things Security Bulletin related should always be the Microsoft Security Response Center blog.

Bulletins discussed for November 10th, 2009:

Podcast Participants: Pierre Roman, Bruce Cowper and myself.

Additional Technical Show Notes:

Recorded at the local Starbucks across the street from the Ottawa offices of Microsoft Canada.
Beverage of choice for this edition: Vanilla Latté and Chai Latté
Get Security Essentials from www.microsoft.com/securityessentials
Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) can be found here.

PodSafe music from PodSafe Music Network @ http://music.podshow.com/. Artist: Derek K Miller, song - “You’re the Big Sky - rock guitar instrumental”

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Ignite Your Career - 2009 - E4 - Developing your Leadership Qualities

Rick Claus — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:35:00 GMT

The Ignite Your Career webcast series was created as a result of your feedback that technical professionals needed help to develop those critical personal and professional skills that Technical Professionals so often neglect. We partnered with IT World Canada and the Canadian Information Processing Society – in order to bring industry experts and thought leaders together for a radio talk show chat where we discussed various topics and answered your questions

This special highlights edition of the Canadian Ignite Your Career webcast series takes the best ideas and soundbites from the previously recorded episodes. I’m joined by my co-host Shane Schick - editor in chief of IT World Canada – to help with the production

This session will focus on what a panel of Leaders/Managers has done in order to further their development of leader qualities. Whether you are part of a team, in charge of one already or aspiring to become a leader - you need to know how to develop your leadership skills. For some people, being a leader comes intuitively, for others it is something that requires both self awareness and leading by example.

Panel Members

Rob Howard:An expert in planning and growing Web communities, Mr. Howard is a pioneer in developing enterprise collaboration software. Whether it’s working with organizations such as Dell to plan and implement their single-vendor platform strategy or working with large social community customers such as MySpace.com or Microsoft, Mr. Howard is determined to help organizations of any size apply the value of collaborative work to their business.
Pedro Cardoso: Director of IT and e-business at Becton, Dickinson and Co. (BD-Canada), a medical devices company, where he also oversees application development. His areas of expertise include ERP, Business Process Engineering, Business Intelligence, Social Networking, SEO and Continuous Improvement (Lean & Transactional Six Sigma).
John Oxley: the Director of community evangelism, John manages a team of community advisors that reach out and connect with the IT community. The Team is all about community satisfaction and enabling the individual professional. His team of Advisors are Microsoft Canada ambassadors to the IT community, connecting, supporting and enabling the individual IT professional (IT Pros), Developer, User experience designer, Community Leaders, and technical enthusiast.
Cathy Shaughnessy: a Certified Executive Coach with Perspective In Action, has been working with people as they boost their performance in the workplace for almost 25 years. She has managed and coordinated corporate learning projects and established an outstanding track record of success as a sought after executive coach, speaker, training consultant and learning design specialist.

More information and resources related to the Ignite Your Career series can be found on it's main landing page.

Direct Download:

Subscribe to the podcast: (so you don't miss an episode)

Full episode available here.

Comments, Suggestions and Ideas for Future Topics can be left below as a comment or emailed directly to the Ignite Your Career feedback alias atmailto:IYC@microsoft.com

Music and audio production provided by Mark Blevis - ThirdStoryProductions.

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Ignite Your Career - 2009 - E3 - Selling Yourself

Rick Claus — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:31:00 GMT

In this episode - we talk about expressing the right level of details on your personal and professional accomplishments and how it can come in very handy when talking with your manager as well as a couple of levels up within your company. Are you doing yourself justice when someone asks you in the hallway "what have you been up to lately?" Now take this to the next level - would you be prepared if the unexpected happened and you were now out in the wild looking for a new job?

Panel Members:

Scott Hanselman: is a Microsoft as a Principal Program Manager, aiming to spread good information about developing software, usually on the Microsoft stack. Before this I was the Chief Architect at Corillian Corporation, now a part of Checkfree, for 6+ years. I was also involved in a few Microsoft Developer things for many years like the MVP and RD programs and I'll speak about computers (and other passions) whenever someone will listen.
Andrew Dillane: Group CIO, Andrew Dillane leads the overall e-business strategy for the Randstad Canada Group of companies including Randstad Canada, Sapphire Canada, ATS Reliance, OriginHR and GMS Canada. Andrew also serves on the Advisory Board for Kids Internet Safety Alliance (KINSA).
Nick Corcodilos: The host of Ask The Headhunter® and author of How to Work with Headhunters (2009). Nick started headhunting in 1979 in one of America's most competitive job markets: California's Silicon Valley. Using the methods described in his book and on the ATH blog, he has helped people win management and staff jobs in companies including IBM, GE, Hewlett-Packard and Merrill Lynch.
Heather Hamilton: Manages Microsoft’s Global Competitive Programs Team responsible for competitive research and programs. In this role, she leads Microsoft’s efforts aimed at enabling global research centers to monitor the competitive talent landscape and leverage opportunities to recruit the best technical talent through deliverables such as competitive intelligence, training and opportunistic recruiting programs.

More information and resources related to the Ignite Your Career series can be found on it's main landing page.

Direct Download:

Subscribe to the podcast: (so you don't miss an episode)

Full episode available here.

Comments, Suggestions and Ideas for Future Topics can be left below as a comment or emailed directly to the Ignite Your Career feedback alias atmailto:IYC@microsoft.com

Music and audio production provided by Mark Blevis - ThirdStoryProductions.

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Ignite Your Career - 2009 - E2 -Internal vs External training

Rick Claus — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:26:00 GMT

In this episode, we discuss maintaining your technical and personal skill sets and how they are critical to being successful in the job you already have and anything you might be looking to progress into. Unfortunately, the option of external training might not be available to you at this point in time. How can you take advantage of internal resources like job shadowing, mentoring, internal courses, study groups as well as external training activities when available? This episode is for you.

Panel Members

Barry Gervin: Founding Partner of ObjectSharp. Barry provides technical leadership to his valued clients, staff, and the development community. Over his 17 year career in the IT industry, he has helped many development teams architect and successfully deliver large software projects within tight schedules and budgets that consistently perform for their end users.
Brian Bourne: Industry expert with over 15 years of IT experience; he is responsible for managing all day to day operations at CMS Consulting Inc. and maintains his technical edge through consulting and participation with numerous technology related events.
Maurizio Laudisa: CIO of LifeLabs, where he rebuilt a national $14 million, 60 staff IT department in 6 months after sale of MDS Diagnostic to OMERS/Borealis. He has led or participated in several health IT initiatives, such as the Ontario Lab Information System (OLIS), Colon Cancer Check, integration to physicians’ CMS and EMR.
Aaron Skonnard: Co-founder of Pluralsight where he focuses on cloud computing, service-oriented architecture (SOA), XML and Web services technologies. He focuses primarily on the Microsoft platform and is considered an expert in the Microsoft community on Windows Azure, the Azure Services Platform, Windows Communication Foundation, BizTalk Server, SOAP/REST, and XML technologies.

More information and resources related to the Ignite Your Career series can be found on it's main landing page.

Direct Download:

Subscribe to the podcast: (so you don't miss an episode)

Full episode available here.

Comments, Suggestions and Ideas for Future Topics can be left below as a comment or emailed directly to the Ignite Your Career feedback alias atmailto:IYC@microsoft.com

Music and audio production provided by Mark Blevis - ThirdStoryProductions.

IT Pro Team Blog | IT Managers Blog |Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

Ignite Your Career - 2009 - E1 - Industry Insights and Trends Podcast

Rick Claus — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:16:00 GMT

In this episode, we revisit one of the most popular topics we've had on the ongoing Ignite Your Career webcast series to kick of this season. Industry Insights and Trends. You need to be on top of what is happening in the industry in order to position yourself and your organization to benefit from these trends. This panel discussion will arm you with the information you need from experts in the ICT industry in order to stay on top of your game.

Panel Members

Richard Campbell: One of the co-founders of Strangeloop Networks and part of the team building an appliance to accelerate ASP.NET. Richard is co-host of the ".NET Rocks!, the Internet Audio Talk Show for .NET Developers" (http://www.dotnetrocks.com/) podcast and the host of "RunAs Radio, the Internet Audio Talk Show for IT Professionals" (http://www.runasradio.com/) podcast.
Jay Payette: A consultant serving public and private organizations in the fields of technology and management. He currently works for the Ottawa office of Accenture in the Systems Integration and Technology practice.
Lee Jacobs: Program Director for Labour Marketing Information at the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC). Lee’s current focus at ICTC is on refreshing the ground breaking supply and demand forecast for ICT occupations in Canada, the Outlook 2008-2015.

More information and resources related to the Ignite Your Career series can be found on it's main landing page.

Direct Download:

Subscribe to the podcast: (so you don't miss an episode)

Full episode available here.

Comments, Suggestions and Ideas for Future Topics can be left below as a comment or emailed directly to the Ignite Your Career feedback alias atmailto:IYC@microsoft.com

Music and audio production provided by Mark Blevis - ThirdStoryProductions.

IT Pro Team Blog | IT Managers Blog |Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

Impromptu Windows 7 Demos

pierre.roman — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:11:28 GMT

I wanted to take a few minutes to tell you a little story about my trip to the Halifax edition of TechDays 2009. The reason why it’s interesting is the fact that all IT pros at some point need to “demo” or talk about certain solutions. So we must always be prepared.

So here i am on Sunday morning trying to get quickly through security with 4 laptops, 3 external hard drives, a wireless access point and a bag full of cable. Quickly… yeah right…

Anyway, the security personnel were very puzzled as to why I carry so much hardware, so a discussion followed regarding TechDays 2009. They actually were very interested to talk about Windows 7 once they noticed all the stickers on one of my laptops.

Also because of the amount of hardware I had they made me turn them on. Which lead to more questions and impromptu demo of Windows 7 at the security counter. Other travelers were starting to gather around and we had very good discussion regarding performance, usability, simplicity.

The moral of this story is that when you’re the IT guy people will want to pick your brain about things that will make their lives easier and simpler. If you want to get prepared, check out the Windows 7 How-to videos that you can base you own demo experience on.

Be prepared there’s an impromptu demo waiting for you just around the corner….

Cheers!

_________________________________________________

Pierre Roman | Senior Technical Account Manager | Directeur de Compte Technique Senior
Microsoft Canada

E-Mail:pierre.roman@Microsoft.com | Live Messenger: proman_2007@hotmail.com

Premier Support : 1-800-936-7358

Visual Studio and Virtualization

rodney.buike — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:11:00 GMT

Visual Studio is a tool usually associated with developers. I’ve installed it exactly twice, VS2005 after the launch to take a peek, and VS2008 for a TechDays session. Today, as the boundary between developers and IT pros dissolves, more and more IT pros are using Visual Studio and now there is another reason. Lab Management 2010 is new component in Visual Studio 2010 that allows you to build, monitor and manage your virtual lab environment.

Back in my former life as the admin for a software development company we were constantly tossing code around between the dev team, myself and the testers as we went through the process of building applications, installing them in the test lab, testing them and then repeating as bugs were found and corrected. We referred to this as playing tennis with bugs but it has also been referred to as bug ping pong. Lab Manager 2010 is aimed at speeding up the develop – build – test – deploy lifecycle.

Lab Management 2010 integrates with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) and Hyper-V to put an end to bug ping pong. It allows you to set up a test environment from scratch in minutes, deploy your applications to testers and then have them report back bugs with links to checkpoints (aka snapshots) for the developers to look at and reproduce bugs for a more efficient process.

Lab Management 2010 is really intriguing for a virtual guy like myself and I will be digging into this a little further as time permits and blogging my learning's and resources as I discover them. For now I am working on building a Lab Management lab (oh the irony) using the publicly available beta of Visual Studio 2010.

Stay tuned for more as I progress but for now you can download Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 here and learn how Visual Studio is not just for developers any more!

Are Resource Kits Dead? NOPE!

rodney.buike — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:05:00 GMT

UPDATE!!! The Windows 7 Resource Kit is now available from Microsoft Press. This 1700 page book and CD is the book for administrators who will be deploying, maintaining and troubleshooting Windows 7 in their organizations. The book was authored by three MVPs Mitch Tulloch, Tony Northrup and Jerry Honeycutt, and also by Ed Wilson who is commonly known as The Scripting Guy on Microsoft TechNet. The lead author Mitch Tulloch also maintains an Unofficial Support Site for the Windows 7 Resource Kit at http://www.mtit.com/reskit/ where he posts additional resources and responds to questions from readers.

Find out more about the Windows 7 Resource Kit on the Microsoft Learning website and order it from Amazon today.

------------------------------

I remember the first set of books I bought on Windows. The Windows 2000 Resource Kit was 7 volumes plus a poster and a CD with some great tools on it. The other day while flying to Vancouver for TechDays I was sorting through email lists and came across an email asking if the resource kits were dead. Mitch Tulloch, a friend, MVP and author chimed in with this response which he allowed me to post.

-------------------------

GROAN. Resource Kits are NOT dead--it's only unsupported Resource Kit TOOLS (executables) that are no longer provided. The Windows 7 Resource Kit is an 1800 page book on how to deploy, manage, maintain and troubleshoot Windows 7 and will be available in bookstores in mid-October. You can also pre-order this book today from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735627002/mtitenterprises). In addition to having 32 chapters of content that has been peer-reviewed by dozens of individuals on the Windows team at Microsoft, there is also a companion CD in the book that includes:

- The Windows 7 Resource Kit PowerShell Pack, a collection of Windows PowerShell modules that adds over 700 new Windows PowerShell cmdlets and functions to those already present in-box in Windows 7.

- Almost 200 sample Windows PowerShell scripts are included to demonstrate how you can administer different aspects of Windows 7 using Windows PowerShell.

To repeat, Resource Kits are definitely NOT dead--I should know as I'm the lead author for this book :)

Cheers,

Mitch Tulloch

Mississauga SharePoint User Group Kicks Things off with 2010!

damirb — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:58:22 GMT

This week was a busy one not only because of the fact that Windows 7and Windows Server 2008 R2 hit the streets, but also because many details surrounding Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 were announced at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas which just ended.

Many of you that attended TechDays in Toronto and Vancouver have asked me questions about SharePoint 2010 and what some of the new features will be, and, to be quite honest, I did not have a good answer as I was not privy to many of the details. This Monday, at the Microsoft Mississauga office you can learn about SharePoint 2010 at the inaugural meeting of the Mississauga SharePoint User Group.

Rob Windsor from ObjectSharp will take you through what’s new in SharePoint 2010. The session will provide an overview of the product with a particular focus on what’s new for developers. You will learn about the new designers, explorers and templates and overall developer experience for SharePoint 2010. Along the way you’ll see several of the enhancements to the end-user experience including the ribbon, in-place editing, and the new page and dialog interface model.

To register for the event, please go to https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=142514.

Damir

Canadian Windows 7 Launch

rodney.buike — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:07:49 GMT

The day is here! Tomorrow, October 22nd 2009, Windows 7 will be released and you’ll be able to head to your favourite reseller and pick up a copy or maybe even a new PC with Windows 7! Today is the press launch at the Westin Harbour Castle in downtown Toronto.

The media launch brought our fearless leader Steve Ballmer to open the event and he took the stage to talk about Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and what is in store.

I am stationed in the “tweet lounge” talking with press, customer, partners and listening to some great Windows 7 stories. Follow along with the festivities on Twitter, just look for the #cdnwin7 hashtag. If you are not on Twitter you can still follow along at http://search.twitter.com/ just do a search for #cdnwin7!

“Security Bulletins for the regular IT guy” Podcast – 10/13/2009

Rick Claus — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:20:00 GMT

Goals:

Use plain English terms and every day language that any Technical professional can understand – minimize “corporate speak”.
Breakdown each Security Bulletin with summary information first followed by more details as to the impact an IT Pro would face.
Outline mitigation factors in case patches couldn’t be tested or applied in a timely fashion
Keep it top 20 minutes OR LESS. This one is critical – Keep It Simple, repeatable and get out of the IT Pros way to get on with their day.
Have fun!

Have a listen directly from the embedded Silverlight player OR subscribe to the specific feed and download it to your iTunes / Zune software.

As always - if you have suggestions on making it better - please pass on your comments. Mail me directly – rick.claus@microsoft.com

Direct Download:

Subscribe to the podcast: (so you don't miss an episode)

Bulletins discussed for October 13th, 2009:

Podcast Participants: Pierre Roman and myself.

Additional Technical Show Notes:

Recorded in my backyard on Thanksgiving Weekend in Canada. Clear skies, but darn cold.
Beverage of choice for this edition: leftover Mooshead “Cracked Canoe” ale (http://www.crackedcanoe.com/) from my Thanksgiving festivities.

PodSafe music from PodSafe Music Network @ http://music.podshow.com/. Artist: Derek K Miller, song - “You’re the Big Sky - rock guitar instrumental”

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Red Hat Virtualization Support

rodney.buike — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:30:22 GMT

I was just catching up on some RSS feeds and came across this post from the Microsoft Virtualization team. As of October 7th 2009 Microsoft and Red Hat will support each others OS on their respective virtualization platforms.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2, 5.3, 5.4 have passed cert tests when running on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. See more at RedHat's certified hardware site.
Windows Server 2003/ Windows Server 2008 / Windows Server 2008 R2 are validated to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4, using their KVM-based hypervisor. See more at Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program site.

So no whether you are running Windows on Red Hat or Red Hat on Windows you are supported. Great news but that’s not all. Running an OS is one thing but what about application and management support?

The KB article outlining applications supported in a virtual environment was updated and can be found here.

Also System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 has been released and supports monitoring of the following operating systems:

HP-UX 11i v2 and v3 (PA-RISC and IA64)
Sun Solaris 8 and 9 (SPARC) and Solaris 10 (SPARC and x86)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (x86/x64) and 5 (x86/x64) Server
Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 (x86) and 10 SP1 (x86/x64)
IBM AIX v5.3 and v6.1 (POWER)

Great news all around!

So you want to be an MVP?

rodney.buike — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:14:00 GMT

Hi Everyone,

My name is Simran Chaudhry and I am the MVP (Most Valuable Professional) Lead for Developer & IT Pro MVP’s in Canada. Along with Sasha Krsmanovic & Ljupco Grmaskoski, we run the Microsoft MVP Award Program in Canada. I thought it would be a good idea to let you know who MVP’s are, what they do, and let you know a bit more about how you can submit a nomination for yourself or someone else that you think deserves the award.

MVP’s are exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who are awarded for voluntarily sharing their high quality, real world expertise in offline and online technical communities. They are great assets to the community and are superstars in the technology they are experts in (sometimes more than one). They volunteer much of their personal time to help others, all for free, through proactively seeking out problems in online & offline technical communities. Microsoft MVPs are a highly select group of experts that represents the technical community's best and brightest, and they share a deep commitment to community and a willingness to help others.

Some of you may be thinking that you or someone you know would make a great candidate for the MVP award. How can you be a part of the MVP program and become an MVP? Now you can submit a nomination online. Click here if you would like to nominate yourself or someone you know for the Microsoft MVP Award program.

If you would like to know more about the Microsoft MVP Award Program, please visit the MVP Program page or contact me directly.

On behalf of the entire Canadian MVP Team, thanks for reading,

Simran Chaudhry

Canadian MVP Lead