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September 2005 - Posts

Friday, September 30, 2005 4:54 PM

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Security Hardening Guide

I missed this over the summer, tasked on other products and projects, but if you haven't read the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Security Hardening Guide yet, go download it now. Updated July 21, 2005, and available in 9 languages, the guide is
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Friday, September 30, 2005 4:39 PM

Labrat Strikes Again

There has been another labrat sighting - check out this nifty tip from his blog - you are reading his blog, right? Um, here are the results from one customer engagement with the services labs (labrat territory): "After the 3 week lab engagement,
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Thursday, September 29, 2005 7:29 PM

ITIL, You Til, We All Til

Although MeadWestvaco's transformation is still ongoing, to date the company has eliminated more than $100,000 annually in IT maintenance contracts and recognized a 10 percent gain in operational stability. McGrane credits these gains and savings to
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Thursday, September 29, 2005 7:14 PM

Try Microsoft Software Free Before You Buy - New Trial Software Center

Check out the Trial Software Center. You can download Microsoft sofware you are considering for deployment, and try it out in your environment for free. For example, you can order a free (for 60 days) copy of Microsoft Small Business Financials 8.0.
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Wednesday, September 28, 2005 8:35 PM

Exchange SLA Scorecard Launches With Service Offering

MOCO LOCO. I love this company. I'm an alumn of the Microsoft IT group, and proud of it (especially if it gets me an invite to the upcoming charity poker tournament that would give me a chance to play against Microsoft execs Rick Devenutti and Ron Markezich).
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
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Wednesday, September 28, 2005 3:56 PM

Exchange SLA Scorecard webcast

Webcast today @ 11:30 AM PST.  http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032280070&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Tuesday, September 27, 2005 8:56 PM

Good to Great

Jim Collins, a former professor at Stanford Business School and founder of his own management research laboratory, author of Good to Great (HarperCollins, 2001), is quoted on ChristianityToday (emphasis mine): "How do Good to Great companies treat
posted by tonyso | 1 Comments
Tuesday, September 27, 2005 5:23 PM

Tapdancing to Work

I love this company. I love NPR. Bill Gates recently recorded his entry in the NPR series "This I Believe". Here is the text, but you should listen to his recording at the link above. Bill Gates: "I've always been an optimist and I suppose that is rooted
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Tuesday, September 27, 2005 4:26 PM

The Bravery of Being Out of Range

The Microsoft.com operations guys have a blog. Stop, think for a minute. The ops guys who run the largest website in the world have a blog where they share tips, tricks, gotchas and best practices. Consider the strategic value you can get from what they
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Monday, September 26, 2005 6:16 PM

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Scoble did a nifty webacast last week. Quick cull of the chat transcript nets you some Blog-related links below. If you haven't checked them all out, then....unh, you should.... http://www.technorati.com http://www.feedster.com http://www.bloglines.com/citations
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Friday, September 23, 2005 4:30 AM

Cake or Death?

Acting as tech support for your friends and family getting to be a drag? OneCare is on the way. Check out this article - excerpt: If computers are so smart, why can't they take care of themselves? Keeping a PC in proper trim involves a host of niggling
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Wednesday, September 21, 2005 8:41 PM

Nattering Nabobs

new Turing Test website has a clever twist - detect of the "other?" is a human or bot by communication over IM. Aside from the computer-science, marketing and philosophical implications, this site has some hilarious/surreal dialogue:  I'm begging
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Wednesday, September 21, 2005 7:41 PM

Rats

The Labrat has started a blog - looks likely you can pick up/request some good IT insider tips. Check him out.
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Tuesday, September 20, 2005 4:41 PM

PITA Relief - ACT 4.1 Released

Find out whether your existing apps are compatible with Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2). The Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 4.1 was designed to help minimize the risks associated with changes to the operating system and to deploy Windows
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Monday, September 19, 2005 9:40 PM

Back to School - Shared Computer Toolkit is Gold

Ff you are a parent of a student with computers in your home or at school, then you should check out the Shared Computer Toolkit V1.0 released today. Things in the Toolkit you can use on your home computers, or bring to the attention of your school's
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Monday, September 19, 2005 4:24 PM

6 Degrees of Blogeration

Bloglines has a nifty search that lets you see who is citing you. A quick search this morning on "blogs.technet.com" shows 2526 citations. Way to go TN bloggers! Not to be competitive or anything, but multiple searches this morning for the number for
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Friday, September 16, 2005 6:43 PM

Salty Extools Goodness

Here are some nifty Exchange Server 2003 migration planning/perf optimization planning tools for you,a nd check out the link at the bottom of this post to the new tools newsgroup: ExBPA 1.1 programmatically collects settings and values from data repositories
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Thursday, September 15, 2005 5:24 PM

5 minute Emergency Prep

ICE, ICE, Baby Step 1> Get out your cellphone Step 2> Find your pri1 emergency contact Step 3> edit that contact to begin with the letters ICE, for In Case of Emergency Step 4> Rinse, repeat for pri(N) contacts, using the ICE(n), as in
posted by tonyso | 1 Comments
Wednesday, September 14, 2005 5:19 PM

Send it to OneNote

Paving my Tablet PC today in prep for a new role. As I am loading tools and add-ins, I find that in the top 10 are 2 OneNote powertoys that I cannot live without. Fall in love today with the Send to OneNote from IE PowerToy and the Send to OneNote from
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Tuesday, September 13, 2005 8:47 PM

Photo Max-imus

Meet MAX. From the website, launced today: Microsoft® Codename Max is not like any other product. That's because it's not a product—it's your opportunity to try an exciting new user experience from Microsoft. Today Max lets you make lists of your photos
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Monday, September 12, 2005 1:26 AM

Why We Fight

I love this company. Before you read this press pass announcement of US$9M (so far) donated by Microsoft and its employees for Katrina relief, keep in mind that what you read here is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many, many inspirational
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Friday, September 09, 2005 10:34 PM

The Unbearable Blogness of Being

A researcher has just completed a prelim analysis of Microsoft employee bloggers. Some interesting observations: Less than 10% of Microsoft employees blog, either corp or private. About 3 times as many employees blog externally as have
posted by tonyso | 0 Comments
Friday, September 09, 2005 9:28 PM

Blank Check on Ops Knowledge

Pssst. Keep this under you hat, and you didn't hear it from me, got it? The ops team at microsoft.com has opened a blog. They have invited you to share your top ops pain points, then they will share some of their tips, tricks, solutions. Can you say
posted by tonyso | 1 Comments