Vlad Mazek – Vladville Blog

Yes, the title is misleading but it got your attention. This is actually regarding Lawrence Liu’s report from the Office 12 Curriculum Design Summit where Microsoft TS and consultants got together to review the new training material for Office 12. This product is a year out, is incomplete at best, so why should you care? Well, have you seen the screenshot? This is one of the most ambitious releases since 1997, with a completely new interface, behavior and look. If you’re in the SMB you know the folks that only know how to do things on their computer one way – and that one way is usually documented and taped to the monitor. If a new prompt comes up, or they get a question they can’t figure out they pick up the phone and call the IT department.

So get on the beta (mentioned how to get on it the other day) get training early and take a look at some of the PDC presentations to get a starting point:

# DAT315_Welcker_McKulka.ppt — Building Portals And Dashboards For Business Intelligence And Reporting Applications
# OFF308_Ammerlaan.ppt — Windows SharePoint Services ‘v3’: Creating And Defining Custom Templates, Sites, Features, And Solutions
# OFF310_Morton.ppt — Windows SharePoint Services “v3”: Developing Collaboration And Tracking Applications
# OFF313_Stocker.ppt — Web Content Management Application Development and Engine Extensibility
# OFF314_Lefferts.ppt — Developing Enterprise Document Solutions Using Office Client And Server Technologies
# OFF318_Lefferts.ppt — Developing Document Archiving, Records Management, And Policy Enforcement Extensions To The Microsoft Office System
# OFF320_Sherman.ppt — Developing With Microsoft Office System Search Technology
# OFF321_Burke.ppt — Surfacing Your Application’s Line-of-Business Data And Actions Within Enterprise Portals In Office “12”
# OFF405_Ammerlaan.ppt — Windows SharePoint Services “v3”: Using ASP.NET 2.0 Technology To Extend Pages, Sites, And Server Farms
# OFF409_Friesenhahn.ppt — Windows SharePoint Services: Advancements In Document, Content, And Data Storage
# OFF415_Hatoun.ppt — Windows SharePoint Services: Developing Custom Workflows

The more things change, the more they say the same. If you’ve gone to Firefox because you were tired of patching and getting hacked through Internet Explorer.. well, start patching. The Mozilla Foundation released FireFox 1.0.7 today in response to a very critical exploit that allowed hackers to launch commands on your system if you use Firefox as your default browser.

Pretty nasty, I’ve patched so hurry up and do so as well. It’s somewhat interesting that people are saying “the honeymoon is over” because of more exploits to Firefox. First of all, claiming x is more secure than y is just asking to become a target. Criminals behind worms and viruses, the folks that write them for commercial gain, are writing things for software they think will give them the largest deployment base. For the longest time, that was Windows XP and IE6. Well, with the new kids on the block, why not take advantage of the 10% install base that may not be hooked into Windows Update? After all, they think they are safe (ignorant) so they present a great target.

I’m sticking with Firefox because of additional functionality and their response to critical exploits has been more rapid than Microsoft. Thats just the nature of the beast, its open and easilly distributable. But if you aren’t patching, you’re really not any better off than Windows 98.

Point being: you’re not really safe, the best you can do is take care of your systems and patch the software you cannot proactively secure.

So today has been my first official back-to-work day and I started it off by pruning the two weeks off my Dilbert desk calendar. In a somewhat appropriate event (as a followup to PDC) I found a strip that definately reminds me of working with my bestest artist in the whole wide world (I have to kiss her ass because she works for eBay merchandise):

As a programmer, developing an interface is a hard and almost impossible task. You design the guts way before you design the look and the input — and you assume that the user will be able to fill-in-the-blank the remainder of the puzzle. Then you have two options: Hope its intuitive and simple enough (so you label an input field with an acronym nobody outside your industry understands).. or you do what I do – write a paragraph, fully knowing that nobody is ever going to read or even understand your hyper-extended run-on sentance.

Thank you Scott Adams!

P.S. You could buy the iMate JasJar for $149 at the PDC during the keynote. You don’t want to know the retail price.

Just got an email from Culminis confirming that Orlando IT Professional Association & OrlandoSBS will have a table at the biggest software launch of 2005 in Orlando on December 8th, 2005.

Sponsored by Microsoft executives, the nationwide tour of 15 U.S. cities will be held between November 7, 2005 and January 11, 2006 to celebrate the launch of SQL Server 2005. The list of cities and dates for this tour are:

San Francisco Nov. 7
Detroit Nov. 8
Chicago Nov. 10
New York Nov. 22
Atlanta Nov. 29
Seattle Nov. 29
Dallas Nov. 30
Denver Dec. 6
Anaheim Dec. 6
Houston Dec. 6
Orlando Dec. 8
Philadelphia Dec. 13
Minneapolis Dec. 14
Boston Dec. 15
Washington D.C. Jan. 11

The all day event offers an opportunity to learn how Microsoft’s application platform offerings enable organizations to gain better business insight and deliver faster results by easily connecting people, processes and information

Just got an email from Culminis confirming that Orlando IT Professional Association & OrlandoSBS will have a table at the biggest software launch of 2005 in Orlando on December 8th, 2005.

Sponsored by Microsoft executives, the nationwide tour of 15 U.S. cities will be held between November 7, 2005 and January 11, 2006 to celebrate the launch of SQL Server 2005. The list of cities and dates for this tour are:

San Francisco Nov. 7
Detroit Nov. 8
Chicago Nov. 10
New York Nov. 22
Atlanta Nov. 29
Seattle Nov. 29
Dallas Nov. 30
Denver Dec. 6
Anaheim Dec. 6
Houston Dec. 6
Orlando Dec. 8
Philadelphia Dec. 13
Minneapolis Dec. 14
Boston Dec. 15
Washington D.C. Jan. 11

The all day event offers an opportunity to learn how Microsoft’s application platform offerings enable organizations to gain better business insight and deliver faster results by easily connecting people, processes and information

Care of Susan Bradley comes an article from Wall Street Journal talking about Microsoft splitting into 3 divisions to better handle emerging threats from smaller, more nimble or even entreprenurial organizations. They hope this will help them attack SalesForce, QuickBooks, Linux. They aren’t actually spliting the company (ala DOJ’s wishes) but actually restructuring into 3 divisions each directly reporting to the CEO.

Link to the actual article.

So its Monday morning, you’re feeling somewhat suicidal and that computer in front of you is working just fine. So is the cell phone. The environment for you to work and be productive is perfect. Except, you’ve partied too hard this weekend and don’t feel like doing anything at all. Well, I got something that will eat up all sorts of time for you while wasting away your entire day (and perhaps destroying your computer in the process.

Office 12 Beta – Yup, its open and waiting for nominations. You can enter the beta here using the following invitation code: PDCOffice.

Windows Mobile 5 – Yes, Sprint may have claimed to “sell” the first WM5 device in United States in PPC 6700 but they are over a week off – The Pocket_Vlad has been running Windows Mobile 5 on HTC Blue Angel since last Thursday! Remember those presentations I held during spring when I told you how big of an enthusiast community HTC Blue Angel’s have and how it was THE device you need to own if you’re a geek? Well, I was not lying. It took a little know how, few helping hands but I’m on the bleeding edge and the phone didn’t turn into a brick.

Just something to start off your week.

The following was posted on one of my mailing lists today. This is a very sensitive subject and IT professionals hate to hear that their skill set is becoming obsolete and that their business model needs to change in order for their business to survive. The following was written by Amy Luby:

I would challenge everyone by saying that you cannot provide value if all you do is infrastructure. How can you focus on providing truely valuable services if all you are doing is keeping the infrastructure running smoothly? Managed Services is a way to move into selling a commodity service at a premium, while allowing you and your customer to then focus on the truely valuable services. For example, if you have your customer’s infrastructure running smoothly, you can now talk to them on how they’re going to use their Share Point site to become more efficient. You can talk to them about how CRM is going to make them more productive and save them money. Now your customer can budget for that Great Plains solution that they have needed for the last year. This is the “face time” you refer to. Move up the solutions stack in Microsoft speak. Not only is this time billable, but billable at a premium price, and so are the proj! ects that come out of that face time. That “guy” who does infrastructure at night can’t touch you. He becomes a non-issue and so do most of your competitors for that matter. That big Gold Certified Partner does not have the business model to be successful in SMB. But, this is a whole other topic.

It arrived today! Somewhat ironic, this shirt was made in India. For 5c extra you could have a PSS rep of your choice sign it for you. Go Microsoft!

All joke aside, looks like a very cool shirt. It took a while for it to get here but now I at least have something to wear for the SBS presentation I’m doing on Sunday. If it were not for Microsoft, I would go around naked.

I’m OK now, it took me a little while to wash off that webcast. First of all, I sat through the entire SA webcast and I would not wish that infomercial on my enemies. But to save everyone from having to go through it, here is the summary of the new SA which launches in March 2006:

The official Microsoft statement:

“In March 2006, enhancements to Software Assurance benefits will offer customers 24×7 business-critical support, improved deployment and manageability, greater cost savings, and more technology protection. Software Assurance benefits are designed to help you realize the full value of your software investment throughout each stage of the software lifecycle, whenever you need it.”

What it actually means: (in my opinion)

Windows Fundamentals: Microsoft is enabling the “Managed Desktop” environment by providing Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PC’s. Basically, it is a stripped down Windows XP SP2 designed to run RDP (terminal services client), some .NET applications and not much else.
More about Windows Fundamentals >

Desktop Deployment Services: If you have enough PC’s Microsoft will send out MCC or MCP to your site to design your deployment strategy.
More about Desktop Deployment Services >

Information Worker Solution Services: In addition to training vouchers you’ll be able to send decision makers and information workers to webcasts that show them how to use MS Office, web forms, etc.
More about Information Worker Solution Services >

Enhanced Extended Support: They’ll hit you with a bat and tell you to upgrade J Just kidding. Right now if the product drops out of mainstream support (5 years from release) Microsoft will only release a security hotfix. Like Windows 2000 SP4 re-releases you’re seeing, you won’t see an SP5 because Windows 2000 is in extended support. If you need something else you’re essentially SOL. Under the new SA terms, you can sign up for an enhanced extended support and get Microsoft to release a hotfix for a non-security related bug. This appears to be Premium level so if you’re under that support contract and you’re looking at my blog post as a source of information you should be fired.
More about Enhanced Extended Support >

As always, contact your PAM and have them explain Software Assurance to you. I heard they have a great contact outside of the company to ask about PE for deployments instead of providing directions to the Microsoft Store on the campus 🙂 And if you really want to watch the webcast here is a link to it.