The word on the street is that there is a rise of Windows computer systems infected due to the Win32/Conficker.B (a.k.a. “Downadup”) worm. Microsoft addressed this issue (MS08-067) in October 2008, as did other anti-virus vendors, but there are quite a number of unpatched, vulnerable systems in the wild.

This vulnerability affects Windows 2000, XP, and Vista; and Windows Server 2003 and 2008. Attacked systems may lock out users, disable update services, and block access to security related websites. That’s a serious matter. Don’t become a victim!

What you should do.

Earlier this month, Microsoft updated their Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) to help remove variants of Win32/Conficker. Download and run this tool.

If you regularly update your Windows system, either with Automatic Updates or manually applying Windows Updates, chances are you are fine. Run the most recent MSRT anyway, for your own peace of mind.

If you run Windows operating systems, turn on the Automatic Updates. You can control if updates are applied automatically or prompt to be run. If you are inside an IT-savvy organization, they may push these updates out to your machine already. If you absolutely can’t live with automatic download of updates, then add a recurring task to your calendar to check for and apply updates manually. I’d suggest doing it once a week.

Run a commercial-grade anti-virus product, and keep its malware definitions up to date.

If you want more information about this specific threat, including manual steps to remove it from your system, read this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Virus alert about the Win32/Conficker.B worm.

Daniel Lyons of Newsweek really lets it rip with his review entitled, “Macworld, Macboring.” He found the hour-and-a-half keynote “awful” and “almost unbearable.” And that, he said, was putting it as politely as possible. Jeepers!

You might be able to watch the Macworld keynote address on Apple’s site, but at least for me, the page started to display, and then seemed to forward to another page that returned a 404 error. Huh? Guess I’ll try again later.

Meanwhile, back to the Newsweek article, the question to ponder is whether this lackluster keynote address by Apple’s marketing chief, Phill Schiller, might signal that Apple’s “run as the hottest company in consumer electronics may be drawing to a close?” Or, I am wondering, is it just that Steve Jobs an incredibly hard act to follow?

Steve excused himself from Macworld due to serious but not dire health concerns. Wishing you all the best, Steve!

After nearly four years with Corillian (now part of CheckFree (now part of Fiserv)), I have accepted a position with Aivea as chief software architect. I will be starting later this month. My initial focus will be on their Aivea Commerce Server product. Aivea is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, and their commerce server is build on the latest Microsoft technologies: WCF, WF, ASP.NET 3.5, LINQ, SQL Server 2008… you get the picture. This is a very cool opportunity, and I am excited about the product’s and the company’s potential.

I’m hoping for a seamless transition that looks something like this. : )

using ( TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope() )
{
  var me = Identity.StuartCelarier;
  Fiserv.CheckFree.Corillian -= me;
  Aivea += me;
  scope.Complete();
}

Aivea is located in Beaverton, Oregon, just west of Portland. Folks who don’t live here sometimes have a hard time understanding that Portland is the world’s largest small town. You always run into people you know. (Note to Noobs: do not burn bridges.) At Aivea, one of my new colleagues will be Rich Claussen, president of the Portland Area .NET User Group (PADNUG). Rich and I have worked on a number of local activities including Portland Code Camp and being judges at last year’s TechStart Oregon Game Project Challenge.

I’ve had a great run with “CoriFreeServ,” working with really talented people, working on the Voyager architecture and exploring online banking domain, being involved in incredibly interesting projects, and even facing the challenges of two iterations of corporate acquisition in six months. But, at the end of the day, I simply couldn’t pass up this position with Aivea.

My 2009 is certainly shaping up to be one wild ride. I can’t wait!

Staying in touch. Around the middle of January, my old corporate email addresses at the corillian.com, checkfree.com or fiserv.com domains will become obsolete. You can reach me through my blog (under About Visual Stuart select the E-mail link) as well as my LinkedIn and Facebook accounts.

Steve Martin (no, the other Steve Martin) recently blogged about the Beta release of BizTalk Server 2009 — and there was much rejoicing. If you haven’t been keeping up — and who can keep up with everything? — Microsoft announced in September 2008 that the effort formerly known as BizTalk Server (BTS) 2006 R3 will be BTS 2009 and will be a full release of the product.

But back to our story: Steve also highlighted the release of the ESB Guidance 2.0 CTP October 2008, based on the BTS 2009 Beta, which updates the existing guidance, Microsoft ESB Guidance for BTS 2006 R2, from November 2007.

The ESB Guidance 2.0 CTP is delivered as a zip file which contains two MSI files (for x86 and x64) and an installation doc. For now, I am primarily interested in the documentation, so I performed and administrative installation of the MSI using the msiexec.exe command line utility:

          msiexec /a "ESB Guidance 2.0 CTP October 2008.msi"
        

I don’t know how msiexec.exe determines the destination of an administrative installation, but I found the results easily enough in “D:\Programs\Microsoft ESB Guidance 2.0 CTP – October 2008”. In the Docs folder is a compiled help (.chm) file with the goods. Happy reading.

Bonus track. If terms like BTS, ESB, SOA, and BPM are the very stuff that piques your interest, then take note of the 2009 Microsoft SOA and BP Conference in Redmond, January 28–29, 2009, and the accompanying road show. Last year’s SOA and BP Conference is where Microsoft publically announced the Oslo initiative. This year’s conference looks to be quite compelling.

I received word today that I’ve been chosen as a speaker for the INETA North America Speakers Bureau. What a cool New Year’s present! Thanks to the selection committee and INETA for this opportunity.

INETA is the world-wide association of .NET user groups, and I have volunteered with INETA for several years on their membership and activities committees, and it is through the auspices of INETA that I co-chair the Birds-of-a-Feather track at TechEd and PDC conferences.

The INETA Speakers Bureau provides speakers to member .NET user groups. I believe that I’ll also be called on to contribute a webcast to INETA Live. I will be getting details on the program in the next few weeks, and I’ll let you know when local user groups can start requesting me to speak.

My friend, colleague, and fellow alumnus, Kilong Ung is featured in an article titled "Fearless, Now" in the Reed College magazine. Kilong is a Cambodian refugee who survived the Khmer Rouge genocide and escaped through the infamous Killing Fields. From a refugee camp in Thailand, he eventually came to live in Portland as a high school student, and later graduated from Reed College in mathematics.

I worked with Kilong at Corillian for about half a year before we figured out we are both Reedies, both in mathematics, albeit at different times. Kilong is a relentless civic activist and motivational speaker, and he is working on a memoir, Golden Leaf, to be published in 2009. I encourage you read the article about Kilong and be inspired by his story.

Luca Bolognese has put together a .NET library of financial functions which is now available on CodeGallery on Microsoft. His goal was to replicate the financial functions in Excel, right or wrong. And if you think that Excel got a function wrong, he invites you to contribute a different implementation.

Luca implemented the library in F#. The library is available in two forms, one which statically links to F# (so that you don't need to redistribute F#) and one that doesn't (which is correspondingly smaller). Luca gave an outstanding talk on F# at PDC2008, which is well worth checking out.

Brian Randell, Microsoft MVP on Team System, announced that he's put together new VSTS virtual machines for Microsoft, and they're available for download. The previous VSTS VMs are set to expire at the end of 2008; the new ones expire at the end of 2009. Additionally, all the components have been updated to recent versions.

There are four VM images to choose from. You can select an "all-up" image with Team Foundation Server (TFS), Team Build, Team Explorer, and Team Suite, or a "TFS-only" image with TFS, Team Build, and Team Explorer only. Each of those comes in two flavors: one compatible with Virtual PC 2007 and Virtual Server 2005 R2, and one compatible with Hyper-V. As Brian says, "Download the ones that make you happy!"

See Brian's post for the details and download links. Thanks, Brian!

A story on NPR's All Things Considered considers if cloud computing will work in the White House.

Both Google and Microsoft are lobbying the Obama transition team to adopt cloud computing to get work done in the White House. In the story, security expert Kevin Jackson discusses how cloud computing can make data and computing more secure than traditional systems. It would also improve collaboration, an area that government is particularly bad at. Vince Cerf, the so-called father of the Internet, who now works at Google, opines that cloud computing would also be a good paradigm for the new administration to help achieve the new openness that has been championed.

I wasn't able to attend last weekend's WhereCampPDX, an unconference on all things geographical. I find the current Stuart v1.0's inability to be in two places at the same time to be overly restrictive. I'll have to work on a time-travel upgrade or cloning technology or something.

That meant that I missed real-life Pac Man on the streets of Portland. What a concept! It turns out that some grad students in NYU's Interactive Telecommunications program started the idea with Pac Manhattan, running through the streets around Washington Square Park in Manhattan. Each real-life player (Pac Man and the ghosts) is paired with a controller back in a game room, and players and controllers are in constant contact via cell phone communicating location and status.

WhereCampPDX transported the game to Portland's Park Blocks. Now you can watch the video of Jason Mauer in interview and in action as the Pac Man. Wild, man!