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Genius wireless mouse does away with batteries

2012-01-27T14:06:00.000-08:00

The Genius BlueEy DX-ECO mouse uses a rechargeable gold capacitor to keep charged up.

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I am so enamored of my solar-powered, wireless keyboard from Logitech that I had to mention a new product that I just heard about from Taiwanese technology company Genius: a battery-free mouse called the DX-ECO BlueEye Mouse.

According to the product specification sheet, the mouse uses a rechargeable gold capacitor instead of a battery. The capacitor charges fully via a microUSB cord in about three minutes. The Genius BlueEye DX-ECO product literature doesn’t say how long the capacitor will hold a charge, but it can be recharged up to 100,000 times.

The device uses 2.4 Ghz wireless communications technology (which means you have to use a Pico receiver, which will require a USB slot). It can communicate up almost 50 feet away. There is not shortage of buttons and features, including a scroll button, a button for adjusting DPI settings, and even a button for clicking back and forth between pages (previous and next). The products supports Windows 7, Vista and XP and works with Macintosh OSX 10.4 or later, according to the specs.

The suggested retail price on the DX-ECO is $39.99. I haven’t managed to find the mouse for sale at any of the usual retail suspects, although the company appears to have a relationship with many of them.

E-learning Managment System

2012-01-25T23:16:00.000-08:00

In the world of learning, where education plays a critical role from centuries to centuries and passed of many generations and trends its still been improving day by day. The source of education has been to many forms and styles where each country follows they own education system. But the most common and latest one is E-learning.
The main idea of this system is “You can learn where ever your”.
Its been the latest trend followed by many educational institution and universities in the world. The motto behind this system is a person can learn anything with its own individual knowledge and the information he/she gets from the system without depending on any one to teach. In these way of learning a person does not under go any stress or pain, its a way of individuality to learn from the information and data’s given. And can read anytime/anywhere from the place where they are with fresh minds and ideas which can excel them in betterment of they learning.

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What is E-Learning?

A learning process through electronic means is called e-learning. This involves online learning and training through internet or intranet or any other technology means. E-learning mainly includes the use of electronic device such as computers, laptops, tablets, mobile phones etc.

Some of the approaches used in e-learning services are:

• Computer Based Learning.
• Computer Based Training (CBT).
• Web Based Learning.
• Web Based Training (WBT) or Internet Based Training (IBT).
• Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL).
• Technology-enhanced learning (TEL).
• Virtual Classrooms.
• Digital Collaboration.

History of E-learning:

In the mid of 20th century, for the first time a new word e-learning was introduced by CBT systems in a seminar in Los Angeles. It was associated with the expression online learning or virtual learning. It had a great start up in beginning of 1990’s and under gone a great hype in mid of 1990’s to 2000. Where many students and institution started to use these system by the end of 21st century it has become a standard and realistic one to be used in educational system and technologically too. Many companies these days are offering E-learning development and sources as per the needs of people. And it as been one of leading and matured market in the tech world.

Uses of E-learning:

E-learning as been used tremendously in educational area especially in colleges and schools where students can learn on their own and get many ideas, and much more information on same topic. It can also effectively improve the efficiency of students and bring they own pace among others.
It helps disability people who have they own liberty to learn and work. Its one of the beneficial method to be thought practically and excel on it.
It’s also used in medical education where students have to carry very large books and these books are blended into e-books and used well, where the data are stored permanently and carried with them.

Advantages of E-Learning:

• Reduces travel cost and time.
• Learners may have the option to select learning materials.
• Learners can study wherever they have access to a computer and Internet.
• Self-paced learning modules allow learners to work on their own pace.
• Different learning styles are addressed.
• Development of computer and Internet skills.

Gen Y fuels trend in online tuition

2012-01-24T14:25:00.000-08:00

Parents are moving towards online tutorship for the younger generation’s educational requirements.

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Following a trend in home tutors to provide additional learning support, it seems e-learning is also on the rise.

Thousands of British students are taking advantage of the services, in order to try and improve their grades before exam times loom too close. With many parents across the UK having hired a traditional home tutor at some point, it is likely that the potential in this market will expand as more pressure is placed on students to do well and secure limited university places.

For a generation that spends more time using technology than their predecessors, it is not uncommon that many students may prefer this method of learning. Technology is gaining more popularity in classrooms, and some school syllabuses are changing to accommodate the demand for students to use more technology within school.

Teaching methods for online students vary, but often they work by building upon existing knowledge and improving confidence before the pupil has to sit their exams. It does take additional training, as well as good computational knowledge to teach across an online network — when you train as a teacher you learn how to cope in a classroom setting, not how to use Skype or keep the attention of a student potentially hundreds of miles away.

An example service is Make the Grade, who offer tuition in Maths, Science, and English at various levels. They cater for students with special needs, offer extra help in exam techniques and indicate they tutor to remedy any knowledge gaps:

Just teaching the subject alone is not sufficient in today’s competitive environment, but by showing them the correct technique they can maximise their grades.

For the first time, e-learning services will be reviewed in The Good Schools Guide, which will hopefully indicate to parents which services they can trust, and afford. Sue Fieldman, senior adviser at The Good Schools Guide, said:

“While parents often prefer the personal touch of a tutor coming to the house, youngsters are so wrapped up with technology that the only way a parent can persuade them to do any extra academic work is if it is done online. A teenager would rather work on a computer than be confronted face to face with a tutor in the living room.”

However, choosing the right service provider can prove full of risk. E-learning platforms are currently unregulated, although there have been recent attempts to change this. An example is epprobate, who have begun devising a standardised rating system that can be extended across all online course materials and learning support structures.

If the trend of e-learning is to continue to expand, then it is recommended that more traditional guides such as The Good Schools Guide take note of this avenue — and help make sure that parents are paying for good quality learning support.

Executive Certificates

2012-01-16T06:14:00.000-08:00

Gain the advanced business skills you need, without having to enrol on a full postgraduate programme.

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Our online Executive Certificates allow you to focus on precise business disciplines, and all in a way that fits around your life. Each can be completed in up to 3 months, with the award-winning InterActive platform putting HD video lectures, lecture notes, case studies and practice tutor assessments at your disposal.

We offer 29 certificates covering key areas of business, including Advanced Financial Management, Global Marketing and International Human Resource Management.

Full Executive Certificates List

Advanced Financial Management
Business Continuity & Crisis Management
Buy Out Strategies: LBOs and MBOs
Coaching and Mentoring for Leadership & Management
Consumer Behaviour
Corporate Finance Strategy
Equity and Fixed Income Investments
Financial Reporting and Analysis
Fundamentals of Islamic Finance
Global Marketing
Integrated Marketing Communications
International Financial Management
International Financial Markets and Institutions
International Human Resource Management
Internet and Digital Marketing Communications
Islamic Portfolio Management
Managing Information
Marketing Management
Marketing: Metrics, Analysis and Evaluation
Operations Management
Options, Futures and Derivatives
Organisational Behaviour
Performance Measurement & Control
Project Management
Quantitative Methods in Investment Management
Risk Management
Strategic Planning
Strategic Sales Management
Valuation of Mergers and Acquisitions

An Executive Certificate is the ideal way to prepare yourself for top managerial positions that require advanced, specialist knowledge. You will be able to:

Focus on the specific business disciplines that will benefit your career most.
Harness the most relevant, up-to-date industry insights, skills and knowledge.
Gain accredited certification that is recognised and respected around the world.
Study anywhere, anytime at a pace that suits your current commitments.

Gain the advanced skills your career needs. Apply now for your Executive Certificate by filling the form on the right.

It’s time for Apple to bring back the Newton

2012-01-13T06:34:00.000-08:00

It’s time for Apple to bring back the Newton
Apple pushes the envelope when it comes to breakthrough devices that become iconic symbols in the marketplace. Even before the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, there was the ill-fated Newton. The Newton’s short life had as much to do with being too far ahead of the capable technology of the time as it did internal fighting at Apple. It was doomed when Sculley was forced out at Apple and Steve Jobs came back, as the latter was not a fan of the stylus.

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It didn’t last long but the Newton became a cult device that is still around today. While the interest is due to being a groundbreaking device with a place in consumer electronics history, the concept is still intriguing. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and I think that it’s time for Apple to bring back the Newton. I think it could become the next iconic product line from the company famous for iconic products.

Imagine a 6-inch slate, a mini-iPad if you will, that is thin, light and ties into the Apple iTunes/iCloud ecosystem. Basically a larger iPod Touch, with fast processor and tons of internal storage. The Wi-Fi connected Newton would fit right into the existing Apple customer base.

This Newton would allow Apple to introduce what is essentially a smaller iPad without losing face. There is definitely a market for a smaller iPad, but under Steve Jobs Apple has said no. Introducing the Newton as a “new” product line gets around past statements, and lets Apple test the waters for a small iPad. Tim Cook could make this his inaugural vision post-Jobs.

The new Newton would be a full iPad, but with special apps to make it more personal and tie into the Newton history. I envision a super calendar, contacts, and email experience that make this little guy instantly appealing. Tight integration with social networks and iTunes content would make this a very personal device for the owner. Apple’s penchant for making the device owner feel like the gadget was made just for him/her would permeate the Newton experience.

What about Apple’s disdain for the stylus? The new Newton doesn’t need one. Think Siri voice control integrated into every aspect of Newton operation. The Siri technology is already good enough to pull this off, with dictation, and Apple could expand it to make the Newton the new definition of “personal” assistant.

I believe a Newton could be the Next Big Thing for Apple, one that competitors can’t touch given the Siri technology. Apple would once again have a totally new product line that is built on existing products, but developed in ways the competition can’t touch. This is the very model Apple is famous for following, and I believe it would work wonderfully for a new Newton.

70-432 Q & A / Study Guide

2012-01-07T01:37:00.000-08:00

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QUESTION 4
You work as a database administrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com is using a SQL Server 2008
instance. The SQL Server 2008 instance hosts quite a few applications. ABC also has a server
named ABC-SR43 that is used to store log files.
You have to set up a new job that stores log files on ABC-SR43. You create a new account
ABC\Log_Account. You set it up to be run by the SQL Server Agent Services.
However, your job fails to store any log files on ABC-SR43. After some investigation you notice
that the job does not have permissions to store files on ABC-SR43.
How should you remedy the situation? Select the best option.

A. You should set up ABC\Log_Accoun as a Remote Service account.
B. You should set up ABC\Log_Accoun as a Domain service account.
C. You should set up ABC\Log_Accoun as a Local Service account.
D. You should set up ABC\Log_Accoun as a Local System account.
E. You should set up ABC\Log_Accoun as a Network Service account.
F. You should set up ABC\Log_Account as a Domain account.

Answer: F

Explanation:
The service startup account defines the Microsoft Windows account in which SQL Server Agent
runs and its network permissions. SQL Server Agent runs as a specified user account. For
compatibility with earlier versions of SQL Server, SQL Server Agent can also run as the Local
System account.
In this scenario you should select a Domain account, which allows sufficient permissions and
improved security.

QUESTION 5
You work as a database administrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com is using a SQL Server 2008
instance that has a table named ABC_Training. ABC_ Training contains a column named
ABC_Distance. A new Certkingdom.com training policy states that the training (ie. The ABC_Distance
column in the ABC_Training table) cannot be increased or decreased by more than 3%.
How should you implement the ABC Training Policy?

A. You should consider developing a view which rolls back non-compliant Certkingdom.com policy
changes to ABC_Distance.
B. You should consider developing a stored procedure which rolls back non-compliant Certkingdom.com
policy compliant changes to the ABC_Distance column.
C. You should consider developing a primary key constraint to the ABC_training table which only
contains valid values on ABC_Distance.
D. You should consider developing a create trigger which rolls back non-compliant Certkingdom.com
policy changes to the ABC_Distance column.
E. You should consider developing an update trigger which rolls back non-compliant Certkingdom.com
policy changes to the ABC_Distance column.
F. You should consider developing a delete trigger which rolls back non-compliant Certkingdom.com policy
changes to the ABC_Distance column.

Answer: E

Explanation:

QUESTION 6
You work as a database administrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com is using a SQL Server 2008
instance that contains a database named ABC_DB. Certkingdom.com contains a lot of customer data
which is processed by the Web application. You need to keep the customer information safe since
it is confidential. This information includes files of data, backups, and log files.
How can this be achieved and still keep the performance and functionality of the web application?
Select one or two.

A. You should consider adding a transaction Log on ABC_DB, and set the information to be
encrypted for a fixed time.
B. Use BitLocker Drive Encryption on the hard drives on the SQL Server.
C. Use EFS (Encrypting File System) on the hard drives on the SQL Server.
D. You should consider enabling the Transparent Database Encryption on ABC_DB and back up
the transaction log.
E. You should consider enabling the Transparent Database Encryption on ABC_DB and enabling
the Transparent Database Encryption on master database.
F. Use cell-level encryption for the specific data that needs to be kept safe.

Answer: D

Explanation:
With the introduction of transparent data encryption (TDE) in SQL Server 2008, users now have
the choice between cell-level encryption as in SQL Server 2005, full database-level encryption by
using TDE, or the file-level encryption options provided by Windows. TDE is the optimal choice for
bulk encryption to meet regulatory compliance or corporate data security standards. TDE works at
the file level, which is similar to two Windows® features: the Encrypting File System (EFS) and
BitLocker™ Drive Encryption, the new volume-level encryption introduced in Windows Vista®,
both of which also encrypt data on the hard drive. TDE does not replace cell-level encryption,
EFS, or BitLocker.

QUESTION 7
You work as a database administrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com is using two SQL Server 2008
sample named ABCSmp1 and ABCSmp2. Furthermore, ABCSmp1 contains a database named
ABC_DB. A Certkingdom.com user named Mia Hamm uses her logon MiaHamm to log on to the database
on ABCSmp1. During the week you have transferred ABC_DB to ABCSmp2. You manually
recreate the Mia Hamm login on ABCSmp2. However, when she tries to login on ABC_DB at
ABCSmp2, she received an error message stating that she is not allowed access. Mia Hamm
needs to access ABC_DB and you need to make it happen.
What T-SQL code should you use? (Each correct option is part of the answer. Choose TWO)

A. Use Certkingdom.com;
B. Use ABC_DB; *
C. Use ABCSmp1;
D. Use ABCSmp2;
E. ALTER LOGIN MiaHamm WITH DEFAULT_DATABASE = ABC_DB;
F. CHANGE LOGIN MiaHamm WITH DEFAULT_DATABASE = ABC_DB;
G. ALTER LOGIN MiaHamm WITH PASSWORD = 'pwd1234' UNLOCK;
H. CHANGE LOGIN MiaHamm WITH PASSWORD = 'pwd1234' UNLOCK;
I. CHANGE USER MiaHamm WITH LOGIN = MiaHamm;
J. ALTER USER MiaHamm WITH LOGIN = MiaHamm; *
K. ALTER LOGIN MiaHamm ENABLE;
L. CHANGE LOGIN MiaHamm ENABLE;

Answer: B,J

Explanation:

QUESTION 8
You work as a database administrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com is using a SQL Server 2008 instance.
Your junior assistant is curious about on how to move a table, such as ABC_table, from its current
scheme (scheme1) to another scheme (scheme2)
How can you accomplish this in T-SQL?

A. You should consider using the following:
ALTER TABLE Schema1.ABC_Table SWITCH TO Schema2.ABC_table;

B. You should consider using the following:
ALTER AUTHORIZATION ON Schema1.ABC_Table TO Schema2;

C. You should consider using the following:
ALTER SCHEMA schema2 TRANSFER schema1.ABC_table;

D. You should consider using the following:
ALTER SCHEMA schema1 TRANSFER schema2.ABC_table;

E. You should consider using the following:
ALTER USER Schema1 WITH DEFAULT_SCHEMA = Schema2;

F. You should consider using the following:
MOVE ABC_Table FROM SCHEMA schema1 TO schema2

G. You should consider using the following:
MOVE ABC_Table FROM schema1 TO schema2

Answer: C

Explanation:
ALTER SCHEMA can only be used to move securables between schemas in the same database.
To change or drop a securable within a schema, use the ALTER or DROP statement specific to
that securable.

QUESTION 9
You work as a database administrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com is using a SQL Server 2008
instance. You have received instructions from management to allow the users at Certkingdom.com on the
SQL Server sample to use the OPENROWSET() function to search remote information sources.
You study incomplete code in the exhibit carefully. (Line numbers are used for reference purposes only)
Exhibit:
01. sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1
02. RECONFIGURE
03.
04. RECONFIGURE
05. GO
06.
07. SELECT a.*
08. FROM OPENROWSET('SQLNCLI', 'Server=Madrid;Trusted_Connection=yes;',
09. 'SELECT GroupName, Name, DepartmentID
10. FROM AdventureWorks.HumanResources.Department
11. ORDER BY GroupName, Name') AS a;
12. GO
Which T-SQL statement should you insert at line 03 to make the batch meet the requirement in
this scenario?

A. sp_configure 'Router control', 1
B. sp_configure 'Router control', 0
C. sp_configure 'Transaction Logs', 1
D. sp_configure 'Transaction Logs', 0
E. sp_configure 'Ad Lib Distributed Queries ', 1
F. sp_configure 'Ad Lib Distributed Queries ', 0
G. sp_configure 'Ad Hoc Distributed Queries', 1
H. sp_configure 'Ad Hoc Distributed Queries', 0

Answer: G

Explanation:
By default, SQL Server does not allow ad hoc distributed queries using OPENROWSET and
OPENDATASOURCE. When this option is set to 1, SQL Server allows ad hoc access. When this
option is not set or is set to 0, SQL Server does not allow ad hoc access.
Ad hoc distributed queries use the OPENROWSET and OPENDATASOURCE functions to
connect to remote data sources that use OLE DB. OPENROWSET and OPENDATASOURCE
should be used only to reference OLE DB data sources that are accessed infrequently. For any
data sources that will be accessed more than several times, define a linked server.

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DSLR Video Production Gear

2012-01-06T06:36:00.000-08:00

The majority of dSLR shooters require a light gear load as we usually do not have the luxury of a full crew to help carry our stuff. We also might move to several locations in a single day, and more equipment means slower set ups and breakdowns which can make a tight video production schedule even tighter. There are, however, a few things that I recommend even one-man-band shooters to carry around due to their light weight, small size and tremendous utility.

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Zoom H4N or TASCAM DR-100
These little devices are indispensable as
video production field recorders, thanks to their low $300 price tags and stunning stereo sound quality. You can use the onboard mics, which do a great job on their own, or attach external microphones, each of which can be recorded onto its own separate track in 4-Channel recording mode on the H4N. The sound quality of these affordable devices adds a tremendous amount of production value to a low-budget dSLR shoot, as dSLR onboard mics sound pretty terrible. Even if you have a higher-end field recorder and mics for your main capture, the H4N can be used to capture ambient sounds to layer in during post or do quick ADR sessions while your actors are on set. Have an assistant take your actors to a quiet area and re-record all their lines while you continue shooting. These takes can then be used to replace any garbled lines recorded by your main unit. One note: the units lack Time Code generators, meaning all syncing has to be done visually using waveforms.

Monopod
Having a lightweight, collapsible monopod tucked into my gear bag has come in extremely handy when I least expected it on dSLR video productions. A decent monopod costs around 20 bucks and is way lighter than any tripod. In addition to allowing me to shoot smooth pans with my dSLR with a much smaller footprint than a tripod, I have also used my monopod as a boom pole which I attach my H4N to directly. For shoots in nature, I have used my monopod as a walking stick. A bonus is the security felt by having a six-foot pole with which to potentially beat off wild animals! In a festive mood? Instant limbo-stick! Seriously though, it’s a very versatile tool which can even be used as a stabilization device as I explain in this other ShutterDown article on Cheap or Free Stabilization/Steadicam Tricks.

18% Grey Card
Setting proper exposure is best done with a professional light meter. If you find yourself without one (they can be a bit pricey), then another solution for setting exposure quickly in the field is an 18% gray card. This is a card with a neutral color cast that contains 18% black (on a scale where 0% is pure white and 100% is pure black). You can use the card to set the exposure on your dSLR and avoid blowing out your whites. A secondary use of the card is to set your white balance. For most dSLRs it works just as well as a white card without having to carry something else in your gear kit. For even more accurate color correction in post, invest in a three-card set containing pure white, 18% gray and pure black. After you frame your shot and set exposure, shoot a few seconds of the cards and use this footage in post to adjust your white, grey and black levels in your color corrector using the eye-dropper tool. Need a free card? Wilsonart will send you FREE samples of their laminate which will come in handy in a pinch. I ordered a black, white and grey card from them in 3 x 5 sizes (choose “matte” finish for low reflectivity), and used a brass binder to hold them all together. The gray is quite close to a pro gray card, close enough to neutral to do the trick for most shooters on a budget.

Collapsible Reflector
When on a dSLR shoot, I like to travel as lightly as possible. For this reason, I prefer collapsible reflectors as opposed to carrying Styrofoam boards around. In addition to being inconvenient, large boards have a tendency to act like sails when not in use and fly around, potentially whacking your actors or your gear. The collapsible reflector I use shrinks to 12” when folded and put in its case, making it much less of a hazard and easy to carry around. It’s great to bounce a little fill on an actor’s face or to reduce harsh light by acting as a shade.

Extra Media Cards
Media cards, such as SD or P2 cards, can die at the worst possible moment. This unfortunate event happened to me once while setting up to shoot a live theater performance. I had tested the camera earlier and all was well. For some inexplicable reason, however, when I turned the camera on to start recording, my camera reported an SD card error. Thankfully, I had a spare, which I quickly formatted and used to record the show without further problems. What would I have done without this extra card? I shudder to think of the disappointing conversation with my clients that would have occurred had I not had that spare little card in my gear bag. p.s. While buying an extra media card, pick up at least one spare battery for your camera as well.

70-431 Q & A / Study Guide

2012-01-05T11:21:00.000-08:00

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

QUESTION 1
You work as the database administrator at CertKingdom.com. The CertKingdom.com network consists of
a single Active Directory domain named CertKingdom.com. All servers on the CertKingdom.com network
run Windows 2000 Server. The CertKingdom.com network contains a SQL Server 2000 database
server named CERTKINGDOM-DB01 that runs on Windows 2000 Server. CERTKINGDOM-DB01
contains a database named CKD_Sales.
CertKingdom.com intends migrating CERTKINGDOM-DB01 to SQL Server 2005 in the near future. To
prepare for the migration, you decide to install SQL Server 2005 Express on a server named
CERTKINGDOM-SR31. You verify that CERTKINGDOM-SR31 exceeds the minimum recommended
hardware requirements for SQL Server 2005.
What should you do next?

A. Upgrade CERTKINGDOM-SR31 to Windows Sever 2003 and install Service Pack 1.
B. Install and run the SQL Server Upgrade Advisor on CERTKINGDOM-SR31.
C. Install SQL Server 2000 on CERTKINGDOM-SR31.
D. Download and install the .NET Framework 2.0.

Answer: D

Explanation:
SQL Server 2005 requires the.NET Framework 2.0. This is automatically installed when SQL
Server 2005 is installed but is not automatically installed when SQL Server 2005 Express is installed.

Incorrect Answers:
A: You do not need to upgrade CERTKINGDOM-SR31 to Windows Sever 2003 Service Pack 1 as
SQL Server 2005 Express can be installed on Windows 2000 Server. You will need to install
Service Pack 4 for Windows 2000 Server though.
B: You should run the SQL Server Upgrade Advisor when you want to upgrade an instance of a
SQL Server 2000 database to SQL Server 2005.
C: You do not need to install SQL Server 2000 before installing SQL Server 2005 Express.

Reference: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Books Online (2006), Index: installing SQL Server
Express, before installing

QUESTION 2
You work as a database administrator at CertKingdom.com. The CertKingdom.com network consists of a
single Active Directory domain named CertKingdom.com. All servers on the CertKingdom.com network
run Windows Server 2003 with the latest Service Packs and Hotfixes, while the client computers
run Windows XP Professional, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Novell NetWare 6.5.
You install SQL Server 2005 on a member server named CERTKINGDOM-SR21. CERTKINGDOMSR21
will host a database named CKD_Sales. All CertKingdom.com users must be able to connect to
CERTKINGDOM-SR21 by computer name. A CertKingdom.com network administrator named Rory Allen
must ensure that the client computers will be able to connect to CERTKINGDOM-SR21.
Which protocols can CertKingdom.com users use to CERTKINGDOM-SR21?

A. TCP/IP and Named Pipes
B. TCP/IP and IPX/SPX
C. Virtual Interface Adapter (VIA)
D. Shared Memory

Answer: A

Explanation:
By default, clients have TCP and Named Pipes as available protocols. You can manipulate the
protocol ordering by using the SQL Server Client utility. The client application uses the protocols
in the order specified on the client computer. If you are using SQL Server 2005, the protocol order
is stored in the ProtocolOrder registry entry under the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSSQLServer\Client\SNI9.0
Incorrect Answers:
B: SQL Server 2005 does not support IPX/SPX. The newer versions of NetWare, such as
NetWare 6.5, support TCP/IP which makes it the common protocol for all clients.
C: The Virtual Interface Adapter (VIA) can be used only by VIA hardware.
D: Shared Memory can only be used on the local computer and cannot be used as a network protocol.

Reference:Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Books Online (2006), Index: client connections
[SQL Server], about client network connections, choosing a network protocol

QUESTION 3
You work as the database administrator at CertKingdom.com. The CertKingdom.com network consists of
a single Active Directory domain named CertKingdom.com. All servers on the CertKingdom.com network
run Windows 2000 Server. The CertKingdom.com network contains a SQL Server 2000 database
server named CERTKINGDOM-DB01 that runs on Windows 2000 Server. CERTKINGDOM-DB01
contains a database named CKD_Sales.
CertKingdom.com intends migrating CERTKINGDOM-DB01 to SQL Server 2005 in the near future. To
prepare for the migration, you decide to install SQL Server 2005 Express on a server named
CERTKINGDOM-SR23. CERTKINGDOM-SR31 was used for previously used by application developer
and contains Microsoft Visual Studio 2003, .NET Framework 1.2 and Internet Explorer 5.5. You
verify that CERTKINGDOM-SR23 exceeds the minimum recommended hardware requirements for
SQL Server 2005.
What should you do next? (Each correct answer provides part of the solution. Choose THREE.)

A. Upgrade CERTKINGDOM-SR23 to Windows Sever 2003 and install Service Pack 1 for Windows Sever 2003.
B. Install Service Pack 4 for Windows 2000 Sever on CERTKINGDOM-SR23.
C. Upgrade the .NET Framework 1.2 to .NET Framework 2.0 on CERTKINGDOM-SR23.
D. Uninstall the .NET Framework 1.2 and install the .NET Framework 2.0 on CERTKINGDOM-SR23.
E. Upgrade Internet Explorer 5.5 to Internet Explorer 6.0 and install Service Pack 1 for Internet
Explorer 6.0 on CERTKINGDOM-SR23.
F. Upgrade Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 to Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and install Service Pack
1 for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 on CERTKINGDOM-SR23.

Answer: B,D,E

Explanation:
SQL Server 2005 requires Service Pack 4 for Windows 2000 Sever, Internet Explorer 6.0 with
Service Pack 1 and the .NET Framework 2.0. The .NET Framework 2.0 is automatically installed
with other versions of SQL Server 2005 but is not automatically installed with SQL Server 2005
Express. You can upgrade .NET Framework 1.0 and upgrade .NET Framework 1.1 to .NET
Framework 2.0 but .NET Framework 1.2 must be uninstalled first.
Incorrect Answers:
A: You do not need to upgrade CERTKINGDOM-SR31 to Windows Sever 2003 Service Pack 1 as
SQL Server 2005 Express can be installed on a Windows 2000 Server once you install Service
Pack 4 for Windows 2000 Server.
C: You can upgrade .NET Framework 1.0 and upgrade .NET Framework 1.1 to .NET Framework
2.0 but .NET Framework 1.2 must be uninstalled first.
F: SQL Server 2005 Express does not require any version of Microsoft Visual Studio.
Reference:Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Books Online (2006), Index: installing SQL Server
Express, before installing

QUESTION 4
You work as a database administrator at CertKingdom.com. The CertKingdom.com network consists of a
single Active Directory domain named CertKingdom.com.
You have received instruction from the CIO to prepare a new installation of SQL Server 2005. The
new SQL Server 2005 database server is named CERTKINGDOM-DB01. A CertKingdom.com user
named Mia Hamm is a member of the Marketing department. You instruct her to identify the
protocols that the client computers might use to connect to the server. Mia Hamm needs to identify
the protocols that are needed to accomplish this goal.
What should she identify? (Choose all that apply)

A. She should use the Multiprotocol.
B. Mia Hamm should use the Named Pipes.
C. She should use the Shared Memory.
D. She should use the TCP/IP
E. Mia Hamm should use the Virtual Interface Adapter (VIA).

Answer: B,D

Explanation:
The clients have by default TCP and Named Pipes as available protocols. You can make use of
the SQL Server Client utility to manipulate the protocol ordering. The client application uses the
protocols in the order specified on the client computer. When you make use of the SQL Server
2005, the protocol order is stored in the ProtocolOrder registry entry under the following registry
subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSSQLServer\Client\SNI9.0
Incorrect Answers:
C: Shared Memory can only be used on the local computer and cannot be used as a network
protocol.
E: The Virtual Interface Adapter (VIA) can be used only by VIA hardware.Reference:Microsoft SQL
Server 2005 Books Online (2006), Index: client connections [SQL Server], about client network
connections, choosing a network protocol

QUESTION 5
You work as the database administrator at CertKingdom.com. The CertKingdom.com network consists of
a single Active Directory domain named CertKingdom.com. All servers on the CertKingdom.com network
run Windows 2000 Server. The CertKingdom.com network contains a SQL Server 2000 database
server named CERTKINGDOM-DB01 that runs on Windows 2000 Server Service Pack 4.
CERTKINGDOM-DB01 contains a database named CKD_Trading.
CertKingdom.com wants to migrate CERTKINGDOM-DB01 to SQL Server 2005 but wants to retain the
CKD_Trading database with the same instance name. You decide to perform an in-place upgrade to
SQL Server 2005. You verify that CERTKINGDOM-DB01 exceeds the minimum recommended
hardware requirements for SQL Server 2005.
What should you do next?

A. Upgrade CERTKINGDOM-DB01 to Windows Sever 2003 Service Pack 1.
B. Run the SQL Server Upgrade Advisor on CERTKINGDOM-DB01.
C. Detach the CKD_Trading database on CERTKINGDOM-DB01.
D. Run the SQL Server 2005 Setup utility.

Answer: B

Explanation:
Before you perform an in-place upgrade of an existing database, you should run the SQL Server
Upgrade Advisor. The SQL Server Upgrade Advisor produces a list of items that must be
addressed before and after performing the upgrade. This list of items is specific to the existing
installation.
Incorrect Answers:
A: You do not need to upgrade CERTKINGDOM-DB01 to Windows Sever 2003 Service Pack 1 as
SQL Server 2005 can be installed on Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack 4.
C: You need to detach a database when you need to move the database to another database
instance or another database server. You do not need to detach the database before performing
an in-place upgrade.
D: You should run the SQL Server Upgrade Advisor before you run the SQL Server 2005 Setup
utility. The SQL Server Upgrade Advisor produces a list of items that must be addressed before
and after performing the upgrade. This list of items is specific to the existing
installation.Reference:Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Books Online (2006), Index: updating
databases, detaching and attaching databases

QUESTION 6
You work as the database administrator at CertKingdom.com. The CertKingdom.com network consists of
a single Active Directory domain named CertKingdom.com. All servers on the CertKingdom.com network
run Windows 2000 Server. The CertKingdom.com network contains a SQL Server 7.0 database server
named CERTKINGDOM-DB01 that runs on Windows 2000 Server. Service Pack 4 for Windows 2000
Server id installed on CERTKINGDOM-DB01.
CertKingdom.com wants to migrate CERTKINGDOM-DB01 to SQL Server 2005. You decide to perform
an in-place upgrade to SQL Server 2005. You verify that CERTKINGDOM-DB01 exceeds the
recommended hardware requirements for SQL Server 2005.
What should you do next?

A. Upgrade CERTKINGDOM-DB01 to Windows Sever 2003.
B. Install Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 7.0 on CERTKINGDOM-DB01.
C. Upgrade SQL Server 7.0 on CERTKINGDOM-DB01 to SQL Server 2000.
D. Run the SQL Server 2005 Setup utility on CERTKINGDOM-DB01 and upgrade directly to SQL
Server 2005.

Answer: B

Explanation:
You can upgrade from SQL Server 7.0 with Service Pack 4 directly to SQL Server 2005. Thus you
need only install Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 7.0.
Incorrect Answers:
A: You do not need to upgrade CERTKINGDOM-DB01 to Windows Sever 2003 as SQL Server 2005
can be installed on Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack 4.
C: You do not need to upgrade CERTKINGDOM-DB01 to SQL Server 200 as SQL Server 7.0 with
Service Pack 4 can be upgraded directly to SQL Server 2005. Besides, you will need to install
Service Pack 3 for SQL Server 2000 before you can upgrade it to SQL Server 2005.
D: You need to install Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 7.0 before you can upgrade it directly to SQL
Server 2005.Reference:Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Books Online (2006), Index: upgrading SQL
Server, upgrading to SQL Server 2005

QUESTION 7
You work as the database administrator at CertKingdom.com. The CertKingdom.com network consists of
a single Active Directory domain named CertKingdom.com. All servers on the CertKingdom.com network
run Windows Server 2003 and all client computers run Windows XP Professional. The
CertKingdom.com network contains two SQL Server 2000 database servers named CERTKINGDOMDB01
and CERTKINGDOM-DB02 that are configured for log shipping. CERTKINGDOM-DB01 is the
primary server and hosts a database named CKD_Trading. Both CERTKINGDOM-DB01 and
CERTKINGDOM-DB02 have Service Pack 3 for SQL Server 2000 installed.
CertKingdom.com wants to upgrade CERTKINGDOM-DB01 and CERTKINGDOM-DB02 to SQL Server
2005 Enterprise Edition but the CKD_Trading database must remain available during the upgrade
process. You verify that both CERTKINGDOM-DB01 and CERTKINGDOM-DB02 exceed the
recommended hardware requirements for SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition. You then install
Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2003 on CERTKINGDOM-DB01 and CERTKINGDOM-DB02.
What should you do next?

A. Install Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 2000 on both database servers.
B. Enable failover in the SQL Server 2000 log shipping configuration and upgrade CERTKINGDOMDB02
to SQL Server 2005.
C. Run the Database Maintenance Plan Wizard on CERTKINGDOM-DB01 to upgrade it to SQL
Server 2005.
D. Upgrade CERTKINGDOM-DB02 to SQL Server 2005 and then upgrade CERTKINGDOM-DB01 to
SQL Server 2005.

Answer: B

Explanation:
SQL Server 2005 does not support the Database Maintenance Plan Wizard which was integral to
log shipping in SQL Server 2000. Hence, log shipping stops functioning when you upgrade a SQL
Server 2000 log shipping configuration directly to SQL Server 2005. To upgrade log shipping to
SQL Server 2005, you must migrate the database servers to SQL Server 2005. If you want the
database to remain available during the migration process, you must migrate with failover. To
migrate with failover you must enable failover and upgrade CERTKINGDOM-DB02. Then you need
to failover to CERTKINGDOM-DB02 and upgrade CERTKINGDOM-DB01. Then configure log shipping
with the CERTKINGDOM-DB02 becoming the primary server and CERTKINGDOM-DB01 becoming the
secondary server.
Incorrect Answers:
A: You do not need to install Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 2000 on the database servers as SQL
Server 2000 with Service Pack 3 can be upgraded to SQL Server 2005. However, SQL Server
2005 does not support the Database Maintenance Plan Wizard which was integral to log shipping
in SQL Server 2000. Hence, log shipping stops functioning when you upgrade a SQL Server 2000
log shipping configuration directly to SQL Server 2005.
C: SQL Server 2005 does not support the Database Maintenance Plan Wizard which was integral
to log shipping in SQL Server 2000. Hence, log shipping stops functioning when you upgrade a
SQL Server 2000 log shipping configuration directly to SQL Server 2005.
D: Removing log shipping from CERTKINGDOM-DB02 and upgrading CERTKINGDOM-DB01 to SQL
Server 2005 will not ensure that the CKD_Trading database remains available. Reference:Microsoft
SQL Server 2005 Books Online (2006), Index: log shipping [SQL Server], upgrading

QUESTION 8
You work as the database administrator at CertKingdom.com. The CertKingdom.com network consists of
a single Active Directory domain named CertKingdom.com. All servers on the CertKingdom.com network
run Windows Server 2003. The CertKingdom.com network contains a Domain Controller named
CERTKINGDOM-DC01 and a member server named CERTKINGDOM-SR21.
CertKingdom.com wants to implement a SQL Server 2005 database that will store sales data. All
CertKingdom.com users will require access to the Sales_DB database. You have been instructed to
install SQL Server 2005 on CERTKINGDOM-SR21 and to create a database named Sales_DB. You
need to ensure that CertKingdom.com users and applications can connect to the database instance by
using only the computer name.
What should you do during the installation of SQL Server 2005 on CERTKINGDOM-SR21?

A. Select the Named Instance and use MSSQLSERVER as the instance name.
B. Select the Named Instance and use CERTKINGDOM-DC01 as the instance name.
C. Select the Default Instance and accept the default instance name.
D. Select the Named Instance and use CERTKINGDOM-SR21 as the instance name.

Answer: C

Explanation:
To ensure that users and applications can connect to the instance using the computer name, you
should select the Default Instance and accept the default instance name, MSSQLSERVER.
Incorrect Answers:
A: You cannot use a Named Instance as users and applications will need to specify the server
name and the instance name when connection to the database.
B: You cannot use a Named Instance as users and applications will need to specify the server
name and the instance name when connection to the database.
D: You cannot use a Named Instance as users and applications will need to specify the server
name and the instance name when connection to the database.

QUESTION 9
You work as the database administrator at CertKingdom.com. The CertKingdom.com network consists of
a single Active Directory domain named CertKingdom.com. All servers on the CertKingdom.com network
run on Windows Server2003 while the client computers run Windows XP Professional, Windows
98 Second Edition, and Novell NetWare 6.5. All computers are members of the CertKingdom.com
Active Directory domain. The CertKingdom.com network contains a SQL Server 2005 database server
named CERTKINGDOM-DB01 that hosts a database instance named MSSQLSERVR.
CertKingdom.com wants to implement another SQL Server 2005 instance for a database named
Sales_DB. Sales_DB will store sales data for the company. All CertKingdom.com users will require
access to the Sales_DB database. You have been instructed to create the SQL Server 2005
instance for the Sales_DB database. You need to ensure that all users will be able to connect to
the Sales_DB database. You cannot make configuration changes to the client computers. Your
solution must optimize network traffic.
What should you do?

A. Install the instance as a Named Instance and configure it to support Mixed Mode
Authentication. The enable TCP/IP for the instance.
B. Install the instance as a Default Instance and configure it to support Windows Authentication.
The enable TCP/IP for the instance.
C. Install the instance as a Named Instance and configure it to support SQL Authentication. The
enable IPX/SPX for the instance.
D. Install the instance as a Default Instance and configure it to support Windows Authentication.
The enable IPX/SPX for the instance.

Answer: A

Explanation:
The default instance is named MSSQLSERVER. This instance name is already in use; therefore
you should use a Named Instance. You should use Mixed Mode Authentication to support
NetWare users.
Incorrect Answers:
B: You cannot use the Default Instance as the default instance is named MSSQLSERVER and is
already in use. Furthermore, you need to use Mixed Mode Authentication as Windows
Authentication does not support NetWare users.
C: You can use SQL Authentication, but this will require that you create SQL Logins for all users
and groups. It would be easier to use Windows Authentication for clients that user Windows XP
Professional and Windows 98 SE, and create SQL Logins for the NetWare 6.5 users. Also, SQL
Server 2005 does not support IPX/SPX. The newer versions of NetWare, such as NetWare 6.5,
support TCP/IP which makes it the common protocol for all clients.
D: You cannot use the Default Instance as the default instance is named MSSQLSERVER and is
already in use. Furthermore, you need to use Mixed Mode Authentication as Windows
Authentication does not support NetWare users. Also, SQL Server 2005 does not support
IPX/SPX. The newer versions of NetWare, such as NetWare 6.5, support TCP/IP which makes it
the common protocol for all clients.

QUESTION 10
You work as the database administrator at CertKingdom.com. The CertKingdom.com network consists of
a single Active Directory domain named CertKingdom.com. All servers on the CertKingdom.com network
run on Windows Server2003 and all client computers run Windows XP Professional. The
CertKingdom.com network contains two SQL Server 2005 database servers that are configured in a
cluster with two nodes named NodeA and NodeB. NodeA hosts a default database instance
named MSSQLSERVR.
CertKingdom.com wants to implement another SQL Server 2005 instance for a database named
Sales_DB. Sales_DB will store sales data for the company. All CertKingdom.com users will require
access to the Sales_DB database. You have been instructed to create the SQL Server 2005
instance for the Sales_DB database on Node
A. You need to ensure that all users will be able to
connect to the Sales_DB database.
What should you do?

A. Run the SQL Server 2005 Setup utility on NodeA and select a Named Instance for the
Sales_DB database.
B. Run the SQL Server 2005 Setup utility on NodeA and select the Default Instance for the
Sales_DB database.
C. Move the existing instance from NodeA to NodeB. Run the SQL Server 2005 Setup utility on
Node
A. Select the Default Instance and accept the default instance name
D. Run the SQL Server 2005 Setup utility on NodeB and select a Named Instance for the
Sales_DB database.

Answer: A

Explanation:
The default instance is named MSSQLSERVER. This instance name is already in use on NodeA;
therefore you should use a Named Instance.
Incorrect Answers:
B: You cannot use the Default Instance as the default instance is named MSSQLSERVER and is
already in use.
C: You do not need to move the existing instance as you can install up to 50 instances on a SQL
Server 2005 database server.
D: You need to install the instance on NodeA not NodeB. You can install a new instance on
NodeA if you use a Named Instance.

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

70-642 Study Guide

2012-01-03T04:50:00.000-08:00

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

Table of Contents

Table of Contents................................................................................................................ 1

Course Overview ................................................................................................................ 3

Section 0.1: Introduction..................................................................................................... 5

Section 0.2: Server Management ........................................................................................ 6

Section 0.3: Remote Management ...................................................................................... 7

Section 0.4: Mathematical Foundations.............................................................................. 8

Section 1.1: IPv4 Addressing.............................................................................................. 9

Section 1.2: IPv4 Subnetting............................................................................................. 10

Section 1.3: IPv4 Host Configuration............................................................................... 11

Section 2.1: IPv6............................................................................................................... 12

Section 2.2: IPv6 Addressing............................................................................................ 13

Section 2.3: IPv6 Configuration ....................................................................................... 14

Section 2.4: IPv6 Implementation..................................................................................... 15

Section 3.1: DHCP Configuration .................................................................................... 16

Section 3.2: DHCP Options .............................................................................................. 17

Section 3.3: Advanced DHCPv4 Settings......................................................................... 18

Section 3.4: Server Placement .......................................................................................... 19

Section 3.5: Superscopes and Split Scopes....................................................................... 20

Section 3.6: DHCPv6........................................................................................................ 21

Section 4.1: DNS Concepts............................................................................................... 22

Section 4.2: Name Resolution........................................................................................... 23

Section 4.3: Zone Configuration....................................................................................... 24

Section 4.4: Active Directory-integrated Zones ............................................................... 25

Section 4.5: Resource Records ......................................................................................... 26

Section 4.6: Client Configuration ..................................................................................... 27

Section 4.7: Dynamic DNS............................................................................................... 28

Section 4.8: Stub Zones and Forwarding.......................................................................... 29

Section 4.9: Root Hints and Root Zone ............................................................................ 30

Section 4.10: Zone Delegation.......................................................................................... 31

Section 4.11: WINS and GlobalNames ............................................................................ 32

Section 4.12: DNS Features.............................................................................................. 33

Section 4.13: DNS Design ................................................................................................ 34

Section 5.1: Routing.......................................................................................................... 35

Section 5.2: RIP ................................................................................................................ 36

Section 5.3: Demand-dial Routing.................................................................................... 37

Section 5.4: ICS and NAT ................................................................................................ 38

Section 6.1: Remote Access Concepts.............................................................................. 39

Section 6.2: Dial-up and VPN .......................................................................................... 40

Section 6.3: SSTP ............................................................................................................. 41

Section 6.4: CMAK .......................................................................................................... 42

Section 7.1: Network Location Profiles............................................................................ 43

Section 7.2: Wireless ........................................................................................................ 44

Section 7.3: RADIUS........................................................................................................ 45

Section 7.4: Network Access Protection (NAP) ............................................................... 46

Section 7.5: Network Authentication................................................................................ 47

Section 7.6: Firewall ......................................................................................................... 48

Section 7.7: IPsec.............................................................................................................. 49

Section 8.1: File Services.................................................................................................. 50

Section 8.2: File Shares..................................................................................................... 51

Section 8.3: Offline Files .................................................................................................. 52

Section 8.4: NTFS Permissions ........................................................................................ 53

Section 8.5: Share and NTFS Permissions ....................................................................... 54

Section 8.6: EFS................................................................................................................ 55

Section 8.7: Distributed File System (DFS) ..................................................................... 56

Section 8.8: Shadow Copy................................................................................................ 57

Section 8.9: Backup and Restore ...................................................................................... 58

Section 8.10: Disk Quotas................................................................................................. 59

Section 8.11: FSRM Features ........................................................................................... 60

Section 8.12: Print Services .............................................................................................. 61

Section 9.1: WSUS ........................................................................................................... 62

Section 9.2: Client Configuration ..................................................................................... 63

Section 9.3: MBSA ........................................................................................................... 64

Section 10.1: Reliability and Performance Monitor ......................................................... 65

Section 10.2: Event Viewer .............................................................................................. 66

Section 10.3: Network Monitor ........................................................................................ 67

Section 10.4: SNMP.......................................................................................................... 68

Practice Exams.................................................................................................................. 69

Course Overview

This course prepares students for the 70-642 Technology Specialist exam: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuring. It focuses on the details of configuring the infrastructure of a network.

Module 0 – Introduction
This module introduces Microsoft’s recommendations of the technical experience a candidate should have before attempting the certification test. Students will become familiar with server and remote management tools. This module provides the mathematical calculations of how to convert numbers from binary to decimal and hexadecimal. This mathematical foundation is necessary for students to understand the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses they will be studying in the course.

Module 1 – IPv4
This module discusses the details of configuring IPv4 addressing and subnetting. This includes topics of converting IPv4 addresses from binary to decimal, converting subnet masks to slant notation, identifying Ipv4 classes and ranges of IP addresses, and determining local and non-local hosts. Students will learn how to customize the number of subnets and hosts allowed on each subnet.

Module 2 – IPv6
In this module students will learn why it will become necessary to migrate to IPv6. They will learn the basic format of IPv6 addresses, identifying IPv6 address types, and configuring IPv6 addresses using the GUI and command line. Interoperability strategies for implementing IPv4 and IPv6 are explored.

Module 3 – DHCP
This module covers DHCP configuration, customization options, and advanced settings. Students will learn proper server placement to assure client communication with the DHCP server, the rationale for creating superscopes and split scopes, and DHCPv6 options.

Module 4 – DNS
In Module 4 students will learn the details of how DNS translates host names to IP addresses and the process of DNS name resolution for both the client and server. Topics will also include; creating zone and zone transfers, creating or converting an Active Directory-integrated zone, creating and editing resource records, configuring client registration, automatically updating DNS using Dynamic DNS, resolving queries using stub zones and forwarding, using root hints and a root zone, managing zones through zone delegation, creating WINS-integrated zones and GlobalNames zones support, and implementing strategies and goals when designing a DNS solution.

Module 5 – Routing
Module 5 teaches the students the basics of routing and how to manage routing table entries. Students will become familiar with installing RRAS components, and configuring RIP, demand-dial routing, and NAT solutions.

Module 6 – Remote Access
Module 6 discusses the details of configuring remote access and network authentication. Topics include; configuring a Remote Access server to use Dial-up and VPN connections, configuring client connections, configuring a VPN using SSTP, and using CMAK to manage remote access.

Module 7 – Network Access and Security
In Module 7 students will learn several strategies for controlling network access and enhancing network security. These will include: controlling network location profiles, configuring wireless connection, configuring a RADIUS client, server and proxy, configuring a DHCP server as an enforcement point, enforcing network authentication using Kerberos and NTLM, configuring a firewall, and configuring IPsec to protect IP packets during transmission.

Module 8 – File and Print
This module discusses managing network files and printing. Topics include: managing network file sharing and shared folders, controlling access using NTFS and share permissions, encrypting files and folders, protecting integrity of data through shadow copy, and backup and restore, restricting disk space using disk quotas and FSRM, and managing print services.

Module 9 – WSUS
In this module students will learn how to configure a WSUS server and client to manage the updating of software. They will also learn how to use MBSA to scan for security compliance.

Module 10 – Performance and Reliability
This module covers tools that are used to collect and monitor network data for performance and reliability. The Reliability and Performance Monitor provides network performance statistics. Event Viewer is used to monitor event logs. Network Monitor is used to gather information about network traffic. SNMP is used to manage networkattached devices.

Practice Exams In Practice Exams students will have the opportunity to test themselves and verify that they understand the concepts and are ready to take the certification test.

Section 0.1: Introduction

Preparation
This course prepares students for the 70-642 Technology Specialist exam: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuring. Microsoft recommends at least one year experience in the following underlying technologies:
• IP addressing and services
• Names resolution
• File and print services
• Network access and remote access
• Monitoring network services

This section introduces the instructor and the concepts that will be covered in this course.

Time

About 2 minutes

Section 0.2: Server Management

Preparation
This section discusses a new management console, Server Manager, used to install and manage server components. Server Manager uses the following elements:
• Role
• Role services
• Feature

Server Core, a scaled-down version of Server 2008, provides a reduced foot print, reduced maintenance, less crashes and downtimes, and uses less disk space. To provide these benefits a limited set of server roles are supported. Student will learn how to configure and manage a server using Server Manager. They will also learn how to install roles on a Server Core server.

Configuring Server 2008 Network Infrastructure Objectives
• 102. Configure Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
• 201. Configure a Domain Name System (DNS) server.

Lecture Focus Questions:
• What are the differences among roles, role services, and features?
• How are dependencies handled during role installation?
• How does the server core installation differ from a standard server installation?
• What are the limitations of a server core installation? What are the advantages?

Time
About 20 minutes

Section 0.3: Remote Management

Preparation

This section examines remote management options. Students will learn how to enable Remote Desktop on a Server Core, enable remote management of the firewall, and open firewall ports to allow remote use of MMC snap-ins.

Lecture Focus Questions:
• How do firewall ports affect your ability to remotely manage a server?
• What firewall port must be opened for Remote Desktop connections?
• What advantage does using TS Gateway have over using Remote

Desktop?
• What is the effect of enabling the Remote Administration exception in the firewall?
• What are the operating system requirements for RSAT?
• Which remote administration tools could you use if the firewall had only ports 80 and 443 open?

Time
About 25 minutes

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

70-294 Q & A / Study Guide

2012-01-02T01:29:00.000-08:00

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

QUESTION 1
You work as the IT Admin at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network has a forest that operates at the
forest functional level of Windows Server 2003. The forest has a root domain named Certkingdom.com,
and two child domains named north.Certkingdom.com and south.Certkingdom.com. Each domain has a security
group named Research which holds the user accounts for that domain.
Two domain controllers are situated in each of these domains. One domain controller in each
domain hosts a copy of the global catalog.
The global catalog server in the Certkingdom.com domain holds the domain naming and the schema
master roles. The global catalog server in north.Certkingdom.com and south.Certkingdom.com holds the relative
ID (RID), infrastructure, and PDC emulator master roles.
A Certkingdom.com user named Ally Wagner, in the south.Certkingdom.com domain, was recently married. When
Ally Wagner got back, she asked you to change her surname in her user account. After changing
Ally Wagner’s user account to Ally Hamm, you notice that her user account is still incorrectly
specified as Ally Wagner in the Research group.
Which of the following master roles should you move to the domain controller that does not have
the Global Catalog in each domain?

A. The domain naming master role.
B. The infrastructure master role.
C. The RID master role.
D. The schema master role.
E. The PDC emulator master role.

Answer: B

Explanation: Problems like this can occur when the Infrastructure master role is on the same
domain controller as the Global Catalog. The infrastructure master updates the group-to-user
reference whenever group memberships change and replicates these changes across the domain.
The infrastructure master compares its data with that of a global catalog. Global catalogs receive
regular updates for objects in all domains through replication, so the global catalog data will
always be up to date. If the infrastructure master finds that its data is out of date, it requests the
updated data from a global catalog. The infrastructure master then replicates that updated data to
the other domain controllers in the domain.
Unless there is only one domain controller in the domain, the infrastructure master role should not
be assigned to the domain controller that is hosting the global catalog. If the infrastructure master
and global catalog are on the same domain controller, the infrastructure master will not function.
The infrastructure master will never find data that is out of date, so it will never replicate any
changes to the other domain controllers in the domain. Transferring the Infrastructure master role
to a different computer would resolve this problem. There is no reason to transfer any other master
roles.
Reference:
Michael Cross, Jeffery
A. Martin, Todd
A. Walls, Martin Grasdal, Debra Littlejohn Shinder & Dr.
Thomas W. Shinder, MCSE: Exam 70-294: Planning, Implementing, and Maintaining a Windows
Server 2003 Active Directory Infrastructure Study Guide & DVD Training System, Syngress
Publishing, Rockland, MA, 2003, pp. 505-509.

QUESTION 2
You work as the IT Network Admin at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network has a forest with two child
domains named us.Certkingdom.com and uk.Certkingdom.com. All servers and domain controllers on the
Certkingdom.com network have Windows 2000 Server installed.
You have been given the task to uABCrade the domain controllers in uk.Certkingdom.com to Windows
Server 2003. You therefore need to take the appropriate steps that are required to prepare the
forest for the impending deployment.
Which of the following actions should you take?
Answer by selecting the appropriate steps from the column on the left and place it in the correct
order in the column on the left.

Answer:

QUESTION 3
You work as the IT Admin at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network has a domain named Certkingdom.com.
Certkingdom.com has offices in London and Berlin, which are configured as separate sites.
A Backup of Certkingdom.com’s Ntds.dit file is performed outside of business hours, seven days a week.
The domain has an OU named Research that currently holds no Active Directory objects. During
the course of the business day an administrator in Berlin removes the Research OU, while an
administrator in London simultaneously places existing Active Directory objects in it. The London
administrator is later informed of the removal, and now realizes that the objects that were placed
into the Research OU are missing.
The CIO has subsequently instructed you to make sure that a Research OU and the missing
Active Directory objects are available to the London administrator. The CIO also informs you that
your solution should have no impact on network connectivity and resources. You have already
created a new OU, and named it Research.
Which of the following actions should you take NEXT?

A. You should transfer the objects from the LostAndFound container to the new Research OU
B. You should recreate the objects and then place the replicas in a Domain Group Policy that
should be linked to all OUs.
C. You should restore the objects to the new Research OU nonauthoritatively.
D. You should restore the objects to the new Research OU authoritatively.

Answer: A

Explanation: You moved the objects to an OU that had just been deleted. When you move
objects to an object that is no longer there, the objects get moved to the LostAndFound container.
This means that we haven’t lost the objects, so we can just re-create the Research OU and move
the users from the LostAndFound container to the new OU.
Reference:
Michael Cross, Jeffery
A. Martin, Todd
A. Walls, Martin Grasdal, Debra Littlejohn Shinder & Dr.
Thomas W. Shinder, MCSE: Exam 70-294: Planning, Implementing, and Maintaining a Windows
Server 2003 Active Directory Infrastructure Study Guide & DVD Training System, Syngress
Publishing, Rockland, MA, 2003, pp. 38-39, 99-101

QUESTION 4
You work as a IT Admin at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com has its headquarters located in Dallas and branch
division in Miami. The Dallas and Miami division represent separate sites. The Dallas and Miami
divisions are linked to each other via a WAN link.
You have added a domain controller named ABC-SR01 to the Miami division and configured it as
a global catalog server. You have just completed configuring the site link between the Dallas and
Miami divisions.
The CIO at Certkingdom.com has instructed you to make sure that Miami workstations authenticate to the
network via ABC-SR01. The CIO also informs you that the replication of domain changes has to
happen instantaneously.
Which of the following actions should you take?

A. You should reduce the site link interval.
B. You should reduce the site link cost.
C. You should combine the Dallas and Miami sites into a single site
D. You should increase the site link cost.

Answer: A

Explanation:

QUESTION 5
You work as the IT Admin at Certkingdom.com. The Certkingdom.com network has a domain named Certkingdom.com. All
servers on the Certkingdom.com network have Windows Server 2003 installed and all workstations have
Windows XP Professional installed.
Certkingdom.com is made up of four divisions named Sales, Marketing, Finance and Research. The
Certkingdom.com network has an organizational unit (OU) named after each division that holds the user
accounts of all employees working in that specific division.
You need to install a new application for all employees in the Marketing division. You start by
creating an installation package and a Group Policy object (GPO). You plan to make use of the
new GPO to deploy the package to the workstations in the Marketing division. You therefore
connect the GPO to the Marketing OU. However, the application does not install.
The CIO informs you that the application must be installed and that you should make sure that
marketing application is not installed on workstations in the other Certkingdom.com divisions.
How will you accomplish the task?

A. Advise the Marketing users to reboot their workstations.
B. Edit the GPO and assign the application to user accounts with Marketing OU membership.
C. Connect the GPO to the Certkingdom.com domain.
D. Connect the GPO to the OU that contains computer accounts and not the Marketing OU.

Answer: B

Explanation: It is likely that the application was assigned to the computer accounts, rather than
the user accounts.
Reference:
Jill Spealman, Kurt Hudson & Melissa Craft, MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-294);
Planning, Implementing, and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory
Infrastructure, Microsoft Press, Redmond, Washington, 2004, pp. 12-3 to 12-10, 12-13 to 12-28,
12-34 to 12-39

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70-272 Q & A / Study Guide

2011-12-30T01:21:00.000-08:00

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

QUESTION 1
You work as the network administrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com has a domain named Certkingdom.com. All
servers on the Certkingdom.com network run Windows Server 2003 and all client computers run Microsoft
Windows XP Professional SP2.
Certkingdom.com has a Marketing and Finance division which requires using Microsoft Office XP to
perform their daily duties.
How would you instruct the Marketing and Finance user’s to run the Microsoft Office XP setup if
the setup fails and rolls backup without changing the user’s currently assigned privileges?

A. By adding the Marketing and Finance division to the Network Configuration Operators group
and accessing Microsoft Office Product Updates to scan the computer for updates.
B. By adding the Marketing and Finance division to the Power Users group and using Add or
Remove Programs in Control Panel to remove Office and re-install Microsoft Office XP.
C. By creating a remote connection to the Marketing and Finance group client computers and reinstalling
Microsoft Office XP using a network-based installation point with the required .msi file.
D. By adding the Marketing and Finance division to the local Administrators group and restarting
the browser and Workstation services before re-installing Microsoft Office XP from the Windows
Installer command-line utility.

Answer: C

Explanation: To try to recreate the error you have to run the installation in the users’ privileges so
running the installation on your computer with your privileges will not help you to solve the problem
(answer B and D). Visiting the Microsoft Office Product Updates Web site will not help the user in
any way as long as he doesn’t have Microsoft Office installed on his computer.

QUESTION 2
You work as the desktop support technician at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com has a domain named
Certkingdom.com. All servers on the Certkingdom.com network run Windows 2000 Server and all client computers
run Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2.
Certkingdom.com has a Marketing division which uses Microsoft Office 2003 for their daily duties. During
the course of the day Marketing division users reported that certain files of theirs have been deleted.
How would you configure the Marketing division client computers to track any attempts by
malicious users to alter or delete files on their computers?

A. By running the secedit /analyze command on the client computers.
B. By running the secedit /configure command on the client computers.
C. By configuring security access control lists for their disk drives by auditing the Everyone group
on the client computers.
D. By running the secedit /validate command on the client computers.

Answer: C

Explanation: You must track unauthorized attempts to modify or delete the files so auditing the
Everyone group is the correct choice.

QUESTION 3
You work as a desktop adminsitrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com has a domain named Certkingdom.com. All
servers run Microsoft Windows 2000 server and the client computers run Microsoft Windows XP Professional.
Certkingdom.com has a Marketing division which makes online purchases during work hours.
How would you configure the network firewall to stop these activities whilst allowing the Marketing
division to access the Internet?

A. By having port 110 blocked on the firewall.
B. By having port 443 blocked on the firewall.
C. By having port 143 blocked on the firewall.
D. By having port 21 blocked on the firewall.

Answer: B

Explanation: Port 443 is used for Secure Sockets Layer connections to Secure HTTP Web sites.
This port should be blocked.

QUESTION 4
You work as the network administrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com has a domain named Certkingdom.com. All
servers on the Certkingdom.com network run Windows Server 2003 and all client computers run Windows XP Professional.
Certkingdom.com has a Finance division which uses Microsoft Office XP to perform their daily tasks.
How would you configure Microsoft Office XP to ensure opened documents display’s a toolbar
containing the Balloons button?

A. By accessing the Help menu and selecting the Detect and Repair… option.
B. By right-clicking the toolbar and selecting the Reviewing toolbar from the context menu.
C. By re-installing Microsoft Office XP and copying a Normal.dot file from the administrator’s
computer to the My Documents folder.
D. By accessing the tools menu from another user’s document and accessing the Tools menu to
select Shared Workspace.

Answer: B

Explanation: The Balloons button appears on the Reviewing Toolbar. Simply enabling this toolbar
will show this button. To enable the toolbar, right click any open spot in the toolbar area. From the
dropdown list, click Reviewing.

QUESTION 5
You work as a network administrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com has a domain named Certkingdom.com. All
servers on the Certkingdom.com network run Windows 2000 Server and all client computers run Windows
XP Professional SP2.
Certkingdom.com has a Finance division that has a client computer named ABC-WS272. The Finance
division requires the use of a printer. You attach a printer to ABC-WS272 and enable Print Shared.
You then print a test page. However, other users in the Finance division cannot find the printer on the network.
How would you configure ABC-WS272?

A. By using a Group Policy Object GPO which deploys the printer software to the Finance division.
B. By opening Windows Firewall and configuring ICMP options.
C. By enabling the File and Printer Sharing option on the Exception tab of the Windows Firewall.
D. By configuring Windows Firewall to have the Don’t allow exceptions option enabled.

Answer: C

Explanation: If the File and Printer Sharing is not enabled, the incoming request will be blocked
by the Windows Firewall.

QUESTION 6
You work as the network administrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com has a domain named Certkingdom.com. All
servers on the Certkingdom.com network run Windows Server 2003 and all client computers run Windows
XP Professional SP2. Certkingdom.com has a client computer named ABC-WS272 configured with
Microsoft Outlook Express.
Certkingdom.com has a Marketing division which uses Microsoft Outlook Express to send e-mail.
How would you configure Microsoft Outlook Express to ensure the users are able to open saved email
messages when opening Microsoft Outlook Express?

A. By disabling AutoArchive.
B. By importing .zip files.
C. By importing .pst files.
D. By importing .bdx files.

Answer: D

Explanation: The probable cause for this problem is that the user is not loading his dbx files when
Outlook Express launches. This is usually due to the user moving the dbx files, and Outlook
Express can no longer find them.

QUESTION 7
You work as the network administrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com has a domain named Certkingdom.com. All
servers on the Certkingdom.com network run Windows Server 2003 and all client computers run Windows
XP Professional. Certkingdom.com has a client computer named ABC-WS272 configured with Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Certkingdom.com has a Finance division with several employees who use ABC-WS272 to perform their daily tasks.
How would you configure ABC-WS272’s Internet Explorer to make sure that each user has their
own Favorites list?

A. By having a user profile created for each Finance division member using the computer.
B. By having a Microsoft Outlook Express identity created for Finance division members using the computer.
C. By having an Internet Explorer Address book identity created for Finance division members using the computer.
D. By having separate Favorites folder created under the My Documents folder for Finance division members using the computer.

Answer: A

Explanation: The user favorites list keeps changing. You must make sure for the user. Creating a
user profile for each family member will stop this change from happening.

QUESTION 8
You work as the network administrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com has a domain named Certkingdom.com. All
servers run Windows Server 2003 and all client computers run Windows XP Professional.
Certkingdom.com has its headquarters in Chicago and a Marketing and Finance division in Boston. You
are in Chicago and use a client computer named ABC-WS272. The Marketing and Finance
division has a client computer named ABC-WS274. Both ABC-WS272 and ABC-WS274 utilizes
manual IP address configuration and ISDN lines to access the Internet.
How can you utilize ABC-WS272 to control ABC-WS274 using Remote Desktop without disrupting
Internet connectivity?

A. By having ABC-WS272 configured with an Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) enabled after
placing ABC-WS272’s domain user account to Remote Desktop Users group on ABC-WS274.
B. By having ABC-WS272 configured with an Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) enabled with
Remote Desktop option in the Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) services enabled on ABCWS274.
C. By having ABC-WS272 configured with an Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) enabled and
enabling Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) on ABC-WS274.
D. By having ABC-WS274 configured with an Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) enabled after
placing ABC-WS274’s domain user account to Remote Desktop Users group on ABC-WS272.

Answer: B

Explanation: To keep the home computer secure you should start by enabling the ICF. By default
if you're running Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) and you enable Remote Desktop, Windows
Firewall will be automatically configured to allow Remote Desktop connections to your computer. If
you or someone else has removed the Remote Desktop exception then you’ll have to manually
add it by open the Security Center, click Windows Firewall and click the Exceptions tab, and select
Remote Desktop.

QUESTION 9
You work as the network administrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com has a domain named Certkingdom.com. All
servers on the Certkingdom.com network run Windows Server 2003 and all client computers run Windows
XP Professional. Certkingdom.com has a client computer named ABC-WS272 configured with Microsoft
Outlook Express.
Certkingdom.com has a Marketing division which needs to sends e-mail to Arabic clients.
How would you configure ABC-WS272 to ensure the Marketing division members are able to
compose an e-mail message in the Arabic character set?

A. By downloading the foreign language version of Microsoft Outlook Express and install the software.
B. By having the Windows XP language pack for the foreign language required downloaded and installed.
C. By accessing Regional and Language option in Control Panel and select the foreign character set required.
D. By accessing the Microsoft Outlook Express View menu to select Auto Encoding.

Answer: B

Explanation: From Start menu, select Settings then Control Panel, Start Regional Options, Click
on Languages tab, In Supplemental language support box, check the checkboxes of desired
language collection(s) and click OK, Additional files will be copied to your machine. You may need
to provide the Windows XP CD or the network share name, After reboot, support for new
languages will become available.

QUESTION 10
You work as the network administrator at Certkingdom.com. Certkingdom.com has a domain named Certkingdom.com. All
servers on the Certkingdom.com network run Windows Server 2003 and all client computers run Windows
XP Professional. Certkingdom.com has a computer named ABC-SR01 configured as the VPN server using
IPSec connections.
Certkingdom.com has a Marketing division which uses ABC-SR01 using a L2TP connection. During the
course of the day the Marketing division state the L2TP connection has failed.
How would you configure the connection used to ensure that the Marketing division is able to
access ABC-SR01?

A. By configuring the connection type to PPTP VPN.
B. By configuring the connection to use the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).
C. By configuring ABC-SR01 to use additional PPTP ports.
D. By configuring the connection type to SSTP VPN.

Answer: A

Explanation: IPSec is not used, so L2TP connections should not be used either. Instead
reconfigure to use PPTP VPN.

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70-271 Exam Q & A / Study Guide

2011-12-28T01:50:00.000-08:00

Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

QUESTION 1
You work as a technician at ABC.com. The ABC.com network only has workgroups. All client
computers are configured to run Windows XP Professional. All ABC.com employees have
administrative privileges on their own computer. ABC.com does not want file encryption to be
used.
You use a computer named ABC-WS25. You are promoted to a new position and have been
replaced by a new employee named Mia Hamm. You are worried that Mia Hamm will be able to
open your files.
How can you prevent Mia Hamm from opening your files and folders on ABC-WS25?

A. The data should be compressed in a folder.
B. The user should be removed from the ACL of the folder.
C. The operating system should be reinstalled with Windows XP Professional.
D. Your user account should be deleted from ABC-WS25.

Answer: D

Explanation: Your best option in this scenario would be to delete your user account from ABCWS25.

QUESTION 2
You are the newly appointed technician at ABC.com. The ABC.com network has a domain named
ABC.com. The client computers are configured to run Windows XP Professional.
Employees search the Web using Internet Explorer. To accomplish their tasks employees log onto
the ABC.com Web site. You implement a digital certificate to enhance the security of the ABC.com
Web site. The next day an employee of ABC.com, Ally Wagner, informs you that she is having
problems connecting to the Web site when she enters the URL for ABC.com in her browser.
Which action should you execute to resolve this problem?

A. Ally Wagner should add the www.ABC.com Web site to the approved Web sites in Content
Advisor.
B. Ally Wagner should access the Web site using the HTTPS for opening the URL..
C. Ally Wagner should set the Privacy setting to Medium in the Internet Option in the Control
Panel.
D. Ally Wagner should add the Web site URL to the trusted sites in the security zone.

Answer: B

Explanation: Your best option would be to select Option B. The scenario states that digital
certificates are used by ABC.com to secure the information on the website and in order to
establish a secure communication channel you have to use https instead of http. Https is http over
SSL.

QUESTION 3
You work as a graphics designer at ABC.com. The ABC.com network has a domain named
ABC.com. The client computers on the corporate network are configured to run Windows XP
Professional. You use a computer named ABC-WS271.
You want to increase the display size of your screen. However, you get an error message stating
that the Display menu on the control panel has been disabled.
How can you have the resolution of your screen increased?

A. You should set the hardware acceleration to full.
B. You should enable Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) support in the system
BIOS on the computer.
C. You should configure the display settings to work in dual-monitor mode.
D. You should request that the Remove Display option in Control Panel be disabled.

Answer: D

Explanation: Your best option in this scenario would be to select Option D. The Deny Access to
the Display Settings option will disable the display settings control panel icon as well as stopping
users from accessing any display settings. This setting can be applied either by a GPO or by
modifying the registry.

QUESTION 4
You work as a technician at ABC.com. The ABC.com network has a domain named ABC.com. All
client computers on the network are configured to run Windows XP Professional.
You bring your personal laptop computer to work and attempts to logon to the domain from your
laptop. However, you are not able to log on. Your laptop computer is configured to run Windows
XP Home Edition.
How do you ensure access to the domain using your laptop? (Choose TWO. Each answer forms
part of the solution.)

A. By joining your laptop to the domain.
B. By installing Service Pack 3 on your laptop.
C. By logging on as a member of the Power Users group.
D. by changing the Custom settings in the Setup Wizard.
E. By uABCrading to Windows XP Professional.

Answer: A,E

Explanation: Your best option in this scenario would be to have ABC-WS25 uABCraded to
Windows XP Professional and join it to the domain. Microsoft has crippled the Home version of
Windows XP and made it impossible to join it to domains. It thus forced the majority of companies
to invest in the slightly more expensive Windows XP Pro.

QUESTION 5
You work as a help desk support technician at ABC.com. The ABC.com network consists of a
single Active Directory domain named ABC.com. The servers on the ABC.com network are
configured to run Windows Server 2003 and all client computers Windows XP Professional.
You have administrative privileges on a client computer named ABC-WS10. ABC-WS10 has a
hard disk that is formatted as a single partition. You realize the next day that you failed to backup
the Boot.ini file on ABC-WS10 and now get a message stating that the boot disk is unable to be
read and as a result Windows will not be started. You thus decide to run the Recovery Console
and reboot ABC-WS10.
You advise Rory Allen to reboot his computer with the Windows XP Professional CD-ROM and
make use of the Recovery Console.
Which of the following is the task that Rory Allen should complete next?

A. Rory Allen should reinstall Windows XP professional.
B. Rory Allen should execute a system restore on ABC-WS10.
C. Rory Allen should execute the bootcfg command with the /rebuild parameter.
D. Rory Allen should execute the diskpart command.

Answer: C

Explanation: Your best option in this scenario would be to select Option C. The bootcfg command
is a Microsoft Windows XP Recovery Console command that manipulates the Boot.ini file. This
command has a function that can scan your hard disks for Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Microsoft
Windows 2000, and Windows XP installations, and then add them to an existing Boot.ini file. The
function can also rebuild a new Boot.ini file if one does not exist.

QUESTION 6
You work as a network administrator at ABC.com. The ABC.com network has a domain named
ABC.com. All servers on the ABC.com network run Windows Server 2003 and all client computers
run Windows XP Professional.
A ABC.com employee named Clive Wilson is a member of the Marketing department. Clive Wilson
is due to present a report to top management. The conference facility has a projector as well as a
laptop computer named ABC-WS25 that contains the latest graphics card. During the course of
the morning Clive Wilson informs you that he is having difficulty displaying complains that, during a
sales presentation to senior management he encountered a problem with ABC-WS25.
He informs you that the cables were connected properly and that ABC-WS25 was configured to
display to the projector. However, the message projected by the projector stated that it could not
project the image. You thus decide configure ABC-WS25 to show on the LCD but is unsuccessful
as you are presented with a ‘No signal’ message.
Which of the following actions should you take to rectify this problem?

A. The current video resolution on ABC-WS25 should be changed.
B. The projector should be checked to see whether it supports the IEEE 1394 standard.
C. The Video Graphics Array for ABC-WS25 should be listed in Device Manager.
D. The projector should be checked to see whether it supports the USB 2.0 standard.

Answer: A

Explanation: The error has occurred due to the fact that laptop computers often use a high
resolution while projectors have a much lower resolution. It is therefore needed that employees
assigned laptop computers make the necessary changed to the resolution settings prior to
connecting to the projector, unless the computer hardware takes care of this itself.

QUESTION 7
You work as a network administrator at ABC.com. The ABC.com network consists of a single
Active Directory domain named ABC.com. All servers on the ABC.com network run Windows
Server 2003 and all client computers run Windows XP Professional. The ABC.com network has a
file server named ABC-SR04 that is accessed by network users.
A ABC.com employee named Ally Wagner was assigned a computer named ABC-WS10. Ally
Wagner says that she cannot access ABC-SR04. No other employees are experiencing the same
problem. You confirm that the ABC-WS10 network cable connection is correct.
Which actions should you take to make sure that ABC-WS10 can make a connection to ABCSR04?

A. ABC-WS10 should be configured to make use of mnode for NetBIOS name resolution.
B. ABC-WS10 should be configured to automatically obtain an IP address.
C. ABC-WS10 should be configured with the correct DNS server IP address.
D. ABC-WS10 should be configured with the correct IP address of the default gateway.

Answer: C

Explanation: The scenario states that the cable is connected and other users are able to
communicate on the network. It is therefore not a physical network problem. It is likely to be a
configuration problem on ABC-WS10.

QUESTION 8
You work as a network administrator at ABC.com. The ABC.com network consists of a single
Active Directory domain named ABC.com. All servers on the ABC.com network run Windows
Server 2003 and all client computers run Windows 98.
ABC.com wants to uABCrade the client computers to Windows XP Professional. You are
concerned that performance might be slow after the uABCrade. You are particularly concerned
about response times when opening windows and menus.
Which of the following is a task that you would perform to address this issue?

A. Set the screen refresh rate to a lower value in Display settings.
B. Access the Performance Options dialog box and choose the Adjust for best performance
option.
C. Modify the Advanced Display settings to configure the display DPI setting to 120 dots per inch
in the Display Properties dialog box.
D. Access the Performance Options dialog box and modify the System applet.

Answer: B

Explanation: In this scenario you need to select the Adjust for best appearance option in the
Performance Option dialog box. The graphical nature of Windows XP Professional has progressed
as they are more extensive in their use of colors and shading, and they drain more system
resources. Trimming back the level of graphical representation in your Windows XP desktop can
save system resources and boost overall application and network performance.

QUESTION 9
You work as a network administrator at ABC.com. The ABC.com network has a workgroup named
ABC. All client computers either run Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP Professional.
A ABC.com user named Kara Lang is assigned a new Windows XP Professional computer named
ABC-WS25. Kara Lang is assigned the permission to create a file for her department. The file will
be used by four other users. Each user is responsible for a specific task and permission has to be
assigned in accordance to the duties they will perform on the file.
Which of the following is an option that would enable Kara Lang to perform the functions
mentioned in the scenario?

A. On ABC-WS25 you need to have the option of simple file sharing deselected.
B. On ABC-WS25 the Full Control permission should be assigned to Kara Lang.
C. On ABC-WS25 the NTFS permissions was reset after the uABCrade.
D. On ABC-WS25 a link should be configured in My Computer to the shared folder.

Answer: A

Explanation: Your best option would be to have simple file sharing disabled as it is enabled on a
Microsoft Windows XP-based computer if the computer is not a member of a domain. Simple file
sharing allows you to share folders with everyone on your workgroup or network and make folders
in your user profile private. However, if simple file sharing is enabled, you cannot prevent specific
users and groups from accessing your shared folders. If you turn off simple file sharing, you can
permit specific users and groups to access a shared folder.

QUESTION 10
You are employed as an administrator at ABC.com. The client computers on the ABC.com
network are configured to run Windows XP Professional.
The ABC.com Sales department manager, Rory Allen is assigned a client computer named ABCWS25.
During the course of the day Rory Allen make use of the Windows XP Professional driver
to install a Canon MP250 color printer on ABC-WS25. The Canon MP250 color printer will be
shared with another manager in the department.
After the installation you receive complaints from the two managers informing that they are only
able to print monotone graphs. You receive an instruction from the CIO to ensure that they are
able print the graphs in color from the printer. You thus decide to install a printer driver on ABCWS25
from the CD-ROM provided by the manufacturing company but find that the problem
persists.
Which of the following should be your next option?

A. You should configure the appropriate printer option in the BIOS.
B. You should have a signed printer driver installed on ABC-WS25 that was obtained from the
company.
C. You should run use the Add Printer Wizard to connect to the printer.
D. You should reconfigure the properties of the print server in Printer and Faxes.

Answer: B

Explanation: You should install the correct printer driver on ABC-WS25. The computer of the
other manager will then receive the correct driver from ABC-WS25 when he attempts to print.

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2011-12-19T21:32:00.000-08:00

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2011-12-16T11:59:00.000-08:00

If you are going to fly a helicopter you need to go to helicopter school. This isn't the type of thing that you just pick up after watching videos, it is the type of thing that can take a good amount of time studying an expert and being behind the stick to learn. Even though you know how to fly an airplane it doesn't imply that you know how to drive a helicopter.

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When it comes down to it, understanding how to fly a helicopter is like learning how to do just about anything else: you need to make certain you are learning the ropes in a manner that benefits you. While it's all well and good to get taught how you can fly, it's more essential to learn in ways where you actually pick-up the information.

In ways, helicopter school is very much like any other kind of flight school: first you learn in the classroom and then you learn in mid-air. Since a helicopter can be a complex machine you should know how to not only read the controls, but additionally learn how to read the machine. You need to know how flight is supposed to feel and what you ought to control. Additionally, helicopter school will also teach you how you can care for a helicopter and the way to control the unexpected.

When you do finally get into the air, you'll already have the background on how to pilot the machine. After a couple sessions of watching someone perform the controls it will likely be your turn to take over, though you typically may have some help from the councillor. You do this until you are fully confident with the machine.

Chances are you should be able to look for a helicopter school in your area. If you live in a very big city you'll typically manage to find a helicopter school at one of your commercial or general aviation airports. If you live outside in the country, well, you may have to drive a little bit more, but there's still a strong possibility that you'll find something that matches your needs.

Be aware that although it won't cost you private college-type tuition, helicopter school will cost you some good money, notably if you are going to a well established private teacher. Doing all of your research may help a little, but you will probably find prices in line with what you will find with a aircraft training facility.

The best way to check out a helicopter school in your town would be to do some searching online. One thing to note, though, is that keeping an open mind during your search is essential as selecting a school without taking a look at all the options isn't a smart thing to do. Ensure that you understand how they teach and what type of one on one training they are able to offer you.

One on one training is essential for learning to fly. Even though you need to pay a little bit more for this, getting that one on one time behind a while with a trainer is the greatest method to make sure you know what you are doing.

There are a lot of things to consider when choosing a helicopter school. Whether you are wanting to earn your private pilots license or are looking to fly commercially. Hillsboro Aviation Helicopter Training has the specialized helicopter courses you need to accomplish your goal so you can start flying as soon as possible. Visit http://www.hillsboroaviation.com for more information.

How Can Event Technology Help Your Event

2011-12-14T13:23:00.000-08:00

The technological world we live in has left no stone unturned, and the field of event technology has changed and improved dramatically over the years. If you are planning an event or are keen to start organising one then learning about what event technology is available and how this can be used at your own event is a good idea. By using relevant and high quality audio visual equipment at your event, you can dramatically improve the experience of the attendees. Having audio visual equipment present can mean the difference between an average event and one that is never forgotten.

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Slideshows and overhead projectors as you likely remember then are a thing of the past. Today projectors and projection screens offer an incredible quality and work brilliantly to provide a conference with visual materials. If you organising a conference or a meeting of some kind then the chances are good that your speaker will wish to point to information or provide visual representations of the ideas being discussed. Using a projector with a projection screen is ideal for this. It can be connected to a computer or laptop and therefore can be used to show graphs, slideshows or other presentations easily.

Another relatively new aspect of event technology is that of an interactive whiteboard. These are brilliant for large scale brainstorming sessions and can really encourage audience participation. If you want to particularly encourage interaction between delegates then ensuring you have an interactive whiteboard at the front of the room will help do this. If you are organising a music event or some kind of performance then getting the lighting correct is absolutely critical. Lighting displays are necessary to guarantee a good performance and to ensure the audience enjoy themselves. Lighting systems are more efficient, more effective and better for the environment than ever before. Whether it is a drama or music related event, planning the lighting system is one of the first and most important tasks that should be done.

Digital signage can also make a huge difference to the success of an event of conference. Video walls are available as are single screen displays and a host of other multi screen facilities. Depending on what event you are planning, you may wish to hire some digital signage of some kind to ensure the day stands out in people’s minds. If your event is being hosted outside then you are likely to need some kind or personal address system. These are perfect for making announcements and passing along information. The equipment available today is clearer than ever before and they can project a sound over a considerable area.

If you want to display and present information to a large number of people then hiring some kind of technology is important. The high standard of event technology that is available in the modern age means that business events or conferences can be more interactive than ever before. Musical and theatrical performances too have benefited tremendously over the years due the huge improvements made to lights and sound equipment. Now musical performances can enjoy crisp and clear sounds and theatre productions can make the most out of lighting displays.

Event technology is very important regardless of what type of event you are organising. AV furniture is also available to house the equipment and ensure it works well. Audio visual installation is often included in the overall cost of hiring. You should check this out though with the company you are using. If you are new to the world of event management then it is well worth looking to hire an event management company to organise the event on your behalf. This can save you a great deal of time, money and stress too.

Why Colocation Services Are Economical

2011-12-12T07:15:00.000-08:00

Colocation centres or facilities give clients a safe place where they can house their hardware and equipment. Housing them in office premises or warehouses is simply too risky as there is always the possibility of fire, theft and vandalism. A colocation centre or facility is also a carrier hotel where a dedicated server or a fully managed server can be housed. They are also geographically positioned to attain the best internet connection possible to secure uptime and to prevent latency.

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Colocation centres or facilities have building features that are necessary for protection and risk reduction. For one, they have fire protection systems designed to protect their equipment and to minimize possible damage. These include smoke detectors, hand held fire extinguishers, fire sprinkler systems and the installation of passive fire protection elements. Usually, nineteen inch racks are provided for data equipment and servers while twenty three inch racks are provided for telecommunications equipment plus cabinets and cages that can be locked depending on how clients want to access their equipment. Air conditioning and air cooling systems are also provided to control room temperature. Physical security is also provided round the clock to protect the facility. In some facilities, employees are required to escort clients to their respective equipment and in some facilities they implement the use of biometrics or proximity cards for access. Similarly, generators and back up batteries are essential to ensure a hundred percent uptime in the event of power outages. These generators are designed to run indefinitely until the main power supply is restored to working condition. Lastly, they have multiple internal and external connections that ensure uptime in the event where a set of lines are damaged.
One great benefit a client gets from utilising colocation services is the free installation of hardware and equipment. All a client has to do is ship or deliver their equipment. Installation comes as part of a bundled service.
Another real benefit is the savings one gets from the facilities and equipment of a colocation centre. For an entrepreneur, purchasing advanced fire protection systems and hiring physical security to man the grounds at all times may not be practical especially if the business is home based. Chances are it will be more expensive to build your own data centre rather than leasing one. Provided that the servers and other equipment are yours, maintaining this equipment is still going to be more expensive because you will need generators, back up batteries and fibre optic lines to cite a few, for continuous performance. These are not exactly affordable to the average entrepreneur so colocation services are the practical solution.
To ensure round the clock uptime for your website, a colocation facility offers continuous electrical power, onsite technical support and physical security. This becomes a welcome solution for those who have to maintain and manage their equipment as this can be truly a challenging task and time consuming. If you have someone else tending to these matters for you, then you will have more time to focus on the more important aspects of your business.
Also, having your equipment elsewhere reduces many risks in the event that you cannot afford a security team or a fire protection system. Theft is a rampant crime so it is imperative that you secure your home by not having expensive and state of the art equipment. It is important that this equipment is offsite and secure in the hands of the most reliable people to avoid losses when incidents happen. Plus, colocation centres are designed to be able to respond correctly in case of fire. Trying to put off fire on your own can cause more damage to your equipment.
Lastly, colocation centres need to live up to certain standards and levels of reliability. They need to be audited to be able to function as a colocation facility. This alone gives peace of mind that the equipment is in good hands.
By utilising a highly reliable and reputable colocation services provider, it is clear that this will dramatically reduce overhead expenses for any company. The affordable costs that these services come with are merely a fraction of what one would spend in building their own housing. The internet is now a way of life and every individual entrepreneur capitalises on this fact. A website running all the time is the key to succeed in this competitive industry. To this, a fully managed server, dedicated server hosting, UK based, and colocation services can be the answer.

Data Transmission Options and Medias

2011-12-10T10:56:00.000-08:00

There are two basic categories of transmission media: guided and unguided.

Guided transmission media uses a cabling system that guides the data signals along a specific path. The data signals are bound by the cabling system. Guided media is also known as bound media. "Cabling" is meant in a generic sense, and is not meant to be interpreted as copper wire cabling only.

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Unguided transmission media consists of a means for the data signals to travel but nothing to guide them along a specific path. The data signals are not bound to a cabling media and are therefore often called unbound media.

Know we are discussing the types of guided media:

1. Open Wire: Open wire is traditionally used to describe the electrical wire strung along power poles. There is a single wire strung between poles; No shielding or protection from noise interference is used. We are going to extend the traditional definition of open wire to include any data signal path without shielding or protection from noise interference. This can include multi conductor cables or single wires, This medium is susceptible to a large degree of noise and interference and consequently is not acceptable for data transmission except for short distances under 20 ft.

2. Twisted Pair: The wires in twisted pair cabling are twisted together in pairs. Each pair consists of a wire used for the +ve data signal and a wire used for the -ve data signal. Any noise that appears on 1 wire of the pair will also occur on the other wire. Because the wires are opposite polarities, they are 180 degrees out of phase (ISO degrees phasor definition of opposite polarity). When the noise appears on both wires, it cancels or nulls itself out at the receiving end. Twisted pair cables are most effectively used in systems that use .a balanced line method of transmission: polar line coding (Manchester Encoding) as opposed to unipolar line coding (TTL logic).

Un-Shielded Twisted Pair

The degree of reduction in noise interference is determined specifically by the number of turns per foot. Increasing the number of turns per foot reduces the noise interference. To further improve noise rejection, a foil or wire braid "shield" is woven around the twisted pairs. This shield can be woven around individual pairs or around a multi-pair conductor (several pairs).

Shielded Twisted Pair Cables with a shield are called shielded twisted pair and are commonly abbreviated STP. Cables without a shield are called unshielded twisted pair or UTP. Twisting the wires together results in characteristic impedance for the cable. A typical impedance for UTP is 100 ohm for Ethernet 10BaseT cable.

UTP or unshielded twisted pair cable is used on Ethernet 10BaseT and can also be used with Token Ring. It uses the RJ line of connectors (RJ45, RJ11, etc...)

STP or shielded twisted pair is used with the traditional Token Ring cabling or ICS-IBM Cabling System. It requires a" custom connector. IBM STP (shielded twisted pair) has a characteristic impedance of 150 ohms.

3. Coaxial Cable: Coaxial cable consists of two conductors. The inner conductor is held inside an insulator with the other conductor woven around it providing a shield. An insulating protective coating called a jacket covers the outer conductor.

The outer shield protects the inner conductor from outside electrical signals. The distance between the outer conductor (shield) and inner conductor plus the type of material used for insulating the inner conductor determine the cable properties or impedance. Typical impedances for coaxial cables are 75 ohms for Cable TV, 50 ohms for Ethernet Thin-net arid Thick-net. The excellent control of the impedance characteristics of the cable allow higher data rates to be transferred than with twisted pair cable.

4. Optical Fiber: Optical fiber consists of thin glass fibers that can carry information at frequencies in the visible light spectrum and beyond. The typical optical fiber consists of a very narrow strand of glass called the core. Around the core is a concentric layer of glass called the cladding. A typical core diameter is 62,5 microns (1 micron = 10-6 meters). Typically Cladding has a diameter of 125 microns. Coating the cladding is a protective coating consisting of plastic, it is called the Jacket. An important characteristic of fiber optics is refraction. Refraction is the characteristic of a material to either pass or reflect light. When light passes through a medium, it "bends" as it passes from one medium to the other. An example of this is when we look into a pond of water.

Advantages of Optical Fiber Noise immunity: RFI and EMI immune (RFI - Radio Frequency Interference, EMI -Electromagnetic Interference) Security: cannot tap into cable.

Large Capacity due to BW (bandwidth) No corrosion Longer distances than copper wire Smaller and lighter than copper wire Faster transmission rate Disadvantages of Optical Fiber Physical vibration will show up as signal noise

The cost of optical fiber is a trade-off between capacity and cost. At higher transmission capacity, it is cheaper than copper. At lower transmission capacity, it is more expensive.

5. Microwave System: These systems have no wire connection, so the transmission has low error rate, making it reliable, but expensive. As there is no wire connections, so it can be used for large area transmissions. They system transmits a signal in a line of sight path between relay stations, approximately at a distance of 30 miles to boost up the signal. Satellites are also used in microwave communication..

6. Communication Satellite Communication satellites are an important medium used in microwave communications. There are hundred of communications satellites today in the "parking orbit". They are solar powered space relay station to link earth stations. The elite receive a signal from earth station,, amplifies it and retransmit it to the other earth station thousand of miles away.

7. Waveguides Waveguides are metal tubes that confine and serve as paths for very high frequency radio waves. Waveguides have proven feasible and are being implemented on an experimental basis, but their large-scale implementation depends' upon a greater demand for additional transmission capacity. BELL the US laboratories has introduced a Waveguide system that can carry as many as 200000 voice grade channels.

8. Laser: Lasers use a much higher portion of the electromagnetic spectrum than by-radio transmission, therefore, they offer tremendous potential for sending a large amount of data without tying up the already crowded radio frequency spectrum. The use of optical frequency and the need for line-of -sight paths present unique problems for laser implementations. Short distance intracity links among tall buildings equipped with rooftop transmitters and receivers appear to be a one way resolve this problem.

Ice Fishing Tackle and Tools

2011-12-07T16:29:00.000-08:00

The hype around cloud computing is hard to ignore and as each vendor is trying to put the word "cloud" in front of all its products, enterprises are finding it extremely difficult to sift through the noise and really find which products work best specifically for their data center.

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While the ability to utilize the public cloud is extremely appealing due to the reduced infrastructure management needed in a public rather than private environment, CIOs and data center managers are hesitant to place important data and applications in the public cloud. With this cautious viewpoint, enterprises are turning to private and/or hybrid cloud solutions that will enable them to receive the benefits of a public cloud while keeping their infrastructure under their control and experience improved agility and infrastructure utilization—leading to dramatic cost and time savings.

Therefore, the popularity in turnkey, ready to go, cloud solutions has skyrocketed over the past year as enterprises are on an active search for the simplest and quickest way to get their private cloud infrastructure up and running. A turnkey cloud promises some appealing benefits like simplicity, quick roll-out, and cost savings, but many organizations are still perplexed by how to evaluate a turnkey solution—or even what capabilities one should include—and how to integrate it with their existing network, compute and storage infrastructure.

To help enterprises evaluate here are the three essential elements that should constitute any turnkey private and/or hybrid cloud solution:

1. Intelligent and reliable automation features:

A turnkey cloud solution must be able to automatically provision configurations when needed and decommission devices when not needed. Additionally, it should be able to combine all known devices, discover new devices and compile them into a resource pool. With the introduction of hybrid cloud computing the importance for intelligent automation features significantly increases. Enterprises need to be able to reliably and securely burst into a public cloud when resources are not available in the private cloud.

One of the most important elements of ensuring the selection of the correct turnkey solution for an environment is selecting a solution that not only provisions virtualized resources but physical and public cloud resources as well. Today, when organizations think of cloud solutions they seem to jump right to technology that only handles virtualization. However, this is only a partial solution as enterprises on average have only 50 percent of their applications virtualized. Therefore, when building a private cloud using a tool that provisions hardware is a necessity to gain the full benefits of a private cloud. The ability to provision and decommission entire hardware and virtualized topologies that include compute, network and storage is a crucial element of a turnkey solution. This feature is crucial to controlling resource sprawl and maximizing the utilization of existing resources.

2. Out-of-the-box adaptors for existing infrastructure:

Seamless integration of a cloud management tool into an enterprise's existing infrastructure is extremely important as CIOs and data center managers are trying to get the most out of their existing infrastructure. All environments these days are heterogeneous with equipment from multiple systems, network and storage vendors. So, when enterprises bring in a private cloud solution it needs to be able to work across these multi-vendor devices.

If additional resources need to be added to a workload IT should not have to hesitate because they have a Dell system but would like an HP system. Similar to the frustration that arises if someone gets a flat tire and has a Goodyear right around the corner but all they can use is Michelin, a turnkey solution that is not able to provision a wide variety of devices can cause a lot of headaches for IT.

There are thousands of hardware devices and several virtualization vendors that exist today and writing an adaptor for each of these resources is extremely time consuming which is why enterprises need to look for tools that have pre-built adaptors for most of the popular hardware devices and virtual resources from vendors including Dell, IBM, HP, NetApp, EMC, Cisco, Juniper, VMware, Citrix, Microsoft, Red Hat, etc. By creating a private cloud out of existing hardware it not only saves on time, but also creates significant CAPEX savings by re-utilizing existing resources and spare capacity for new workloads instead of purchasing new equipment.

3. Predefined templates for commonly used compute, network and storage configurations:

It is important to first mention that without predefined templates a cloud solution cannot be turnkey. The initial starting point to ensure this requirement is met is looking for the library of predefined templates. The greatest expense for building a private cloud is in the designing and crafting of the templates for the topologies that will frequently be used. Additionally, with most cloud solutions one can build custom templates that need to take the existing environment in the data center into consideration.

When the turnkey cloud solution offered a pre-built library of templates for commonly used topologies then enterprises are able to significantly speed up the time it takes to get a private cloud up and running, thus accelerating their time to value. These predefined templates can deliver 50 to 90 percent of the design for an environment and all they require is IT making easy customizations to make the template fit their specific environment perfectly.

The purpose for a turnkey solution is to be able to quickly and reliably convert an existing static environment into a self-service dynamic environment. And in order for this environment to be successful the turnkey solution must contain the three elements discussed. These capabilities will be crucial for enterprises looking to deploy a turnkey private or hybrid cloud.

By Garima Thockchom, VP of Marketing at Gale Technologies, a leading provider of infrastructure automation software solutions that power IT as a Service for labs, enterprises, and service providers.

All the information you should know for free videos

2011-12-07T14:26:00.001-08:00

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With YouTube, you can share everything with your friends, a terrific movie, a new song from your favourate singer,
or a piece of funny video of your family. Imagine what your life could be without these websites like YouTube.
OK. This is knows to all of you. However, another interesting story arises. If you have found a free video you enjoy,
and you would like to download it to your laptop or PC.
How can you do this?
Actually, it is not a problem anymore, as it has been verified to be simple by software developers.
With free youtube downloader, which is widely known by people, you can easily download free video from YouTube.
It works well, and most importantly for most of us, it is FREE!

However,if you would like to enjoy videos with your iphone ipad or ipod (means you can watch them anytime anywhere),
rather than the PC or laptop, what can you do?
In order to reach your aim more efficiently, there are some questions need to be solved:
Q1, what kind of format does iphone ipad or ipod support?
Q2, which software can we choose for playing videos on iphone ipad or ipod?
Q3, do we need professional softwares for playing videos on iphone ipad or ipod?
Q4, how much do we have to pay, is there any FREE and powerful tool for completing this task?
Q5, why do we need FREE and professional software?
Q6, can we find a FREE and powerful software?
Q7, How it works and what's new?
OK. I am pretty sure you can find answers for these questions after reading paragraphs below.
All the information about this format is shown below:
------------
For the first question, the format supported by iphone ipod is H.264,mp4 and etc,

For the second question, if the free video you download is .flv, which your iphone ipad cannot play, what can you do?

This is straightforward, what you need is a video converter softeware. Surely you can find some online service provided by some software company.
But normally, you cannot get everything done with these services, as you need to pay for the softwares.

For the third quesion:
Of course you can find millions of results by Google yahoo or Bing, or recommended by someone, for a free software and convert the videos.
There is no doubt that you are not willing to try every software on after another. Leave this job to us (hmm...).
The famous Free Video Converter is a good choice, with advanced features and totally free.
However, if you need a professional video converter software for all iphone ipad (including iphone5/iphone4s and ipad3), please keep reading.

For the fourth quesion, the answer is definitely yes if you want to enjoy high-quality videos on your iphone ipad.

For the fifth question, normally you need to pay about $20 for a professional video converting software.

Of course you can find some Free-Trial version of these softwares.
But, trust me, you will be asked to pay for it maybe when only 30% of your video is converted.
Can we find professional and TOTALLY FREE softwares? The answer is yes.
I spent almost one week and have found 50 softwares. However, it turned out that only 5 of them are totally free.
Moreover, only 2 of 5 can provide professional video converting functions for iphone ipad or ipod. But it is a pity that for one of them,
when I pressed the 'free upgrade' bottom, the unpleasant "Buy the new version, save up to 30%" was shown.
It is readily comprehensible if you choose th pay for the iphone ipad video converter, as you would like to have better technical support
and service. But, from another point of view, if there is a software, which is designed to meet most of your need, simple to use and powerful.
Would you still like to write a long email for technical support from the so-called 'professional' software company?
Maybe you will not receive their reply until two weeks later with 'your email has been forwared to our technical support session,
they will contact you as soon as possible, best regards'...Is it still worth paying for?
What we need is just converting videos and playing them on iphone & ipad. We just need to enjoy free video anytime anywhere.
It is for fun. If you paid and got pissed, you are a donkey...We need powerful softwares as well as FREE.
This is the real happiness, this is the right a U.S citizen can enjoy.
Above we talked about two softwares that are powerful and free. What are these softwares?
OK. I will show what I have got during the last week. The only one software which is TOTALLY FREE and with no limitation is Free video to iphone ipad converter.
What's new?

With the free video to iphone ipad converter 5.1.1, you can convert video files of AVI, FLV, MPEG, WMV, M2TS,
AVCHD, MPEG-TS, RM and MKV to iPad/iPad2, convert MKV to iPhone 4, iPod, Apple TV (HD).
With the new high quality engine, it is easy to put free video on iphone ipad with the fastest conversion speed.
We promise you can converting a FLV(400Mb) to iphone ipad within 6 mins.
Support more than 7 languages and movies subtitles, you can set the output subtitles you want.
Support HD video output with AC3 audio.
Less steps for normal users and more parameters configuration for professional uers.
If you made a mistake before the conversion, you have not to stop the process, just back to the user interface and set them
again, keep jobs efficient and save time.

I don't want to introduce too much for the software itself as I am not the developper of it. I just would like,
as a customer and a software reviewer, tell you what it can do for you. I will not leave the download link here as I don't want to be seen as a spam maker.
If you are interested in it, you can find it easily and then try by yourself. Just Google it with key words: Free video to iphone ipad converter 5.1.1.
Be aware of that you'd better search with the version information, in order to have its latest and FREE version.
I am not sure if it is free for some older versions.
At last, if you feel like using it, please do share it with your friends, just like sharing YouTube videos.
It is the best way to show your support to those who develop free and powerful softwares for you.
Just share your excitiment and joy, with the hope of getting more and more free and professional softwares in the future.

All the information you should know for free videos

2011-12-07T14:26:00.000-08:00

Perhaps all of you knows YouTube is the most favourate site for viewing free videos,
and the best option for uploading your videos and sharing with people all over the world.
You can almost find any free video you want, FOR FREE! You must have experiences of sharing your
favourate free videos with friends. Full of joy and pleasure, right?
With YouTube, you can share everything with your friends, a terrific movie, a new song from your favourate singer,
or a piece of funny video of your family. Imagine what your life could be without these websites like YouTube.
OK. This is knows to all of you. However, another interesting story arises. If you have found a free video you enjoy,
and you would like to download it to your laptop or PC.
How can you do this?
Actually, it is not a problem anymore, as it has been verified to be simple by software developers.
With free youtube downloader, which is widely known by people, you can easily download free video from YouTube.
It works well, and most importantly for most of us, it is FREE!

However,if you would like to enjoy videos with your iphone ipad or ipod (means you can watch them anytime anywhere),
rather than the PC or laptop, what can you do?
In order to reach your aim more efficiently, there are some questions need to be solved:
Q1, what kind of format does iphone ipad or ipod support?
Q2, which software can we choose for playing videos on iphone ipad or ipod?
Q3, do we need professional softwares for playing videos on iphone ipad or ipod?
Q4, how much do we have to pay, is there any FREE and powerful tool for completing this task?
Q5, why do we need FREE and professional software?
Q6, can we find a FREE and powerful software?
Q7, How it works and what's new?
OK. I am pretty sure you can find answers for these questions after reading paragraphs below.
All the information about this format is shown below:
------------
For the first question, the format supported by iphone ipod is H.264,mp4 and etc,

For the second question, if the free video you download is .flv, which your iphone ipad cannot play, what can you do?

This is straightforward, what you need is a video converter softeware. Surely you can find some online service provided by some software company.
But normally, you cannot get everything done with these services, as you need to pay for the softwares.

For the third quesion:
Of course you can find millions of results by Google yahoo or Bing, or recommended by someone, for a free software and convert the videos.
There is no doubt that you are not willing to try every software on after another. Leave this job to us (hmm...).
The famous Free Video Converter is a good choice, with advanced features and totally free.
However, if you need a professional video converter software for all iphone ipad (including iphone5/iphone4s and ipad3), please keep reading.

For the fourth quesion, the answer is definitely yes if you want to enjoy high-quality videos on your iphone ipad.

For the fifth question, normally you need to pay about $20 for a professional video converting software.

Of course you can find some Free-Trial version of these softwares.
But, trust me, you will be asked to pay for it maybe when only 30% of your video is converted.
Can we find professional and TOTALLY FREE softwares? The answer is yes.
I spent almost one week and have found 50 softwares. However, it turned out that only 5 of them are totally free.
Moreover, only 2 of 5 can provide professional video converting functions for iphone ipad or ipod. But it is a pity that for one of them,
when I pressed the 'free upgrade' bottom, the unpleasant "Buy the new version, save up to 30%" was shown.
It is readily comprehensible if you choose th pay for the iphone ipad video converter, as you would like to have better technical support
and service. But, from another point of view, if there is a software, which is designed to meet most of your need, simple to use and powerful.
Would you still like to write a long email for technical support from the so-called 'professional' software company?
Maybe you will not receive their reply until two weeks later with 'your email has been forwared to our technical support session,
they will contact you as soon as possible, best regards'...Is it still worth paying for?
What we need is just converting videos and playing them on iphone & ipad. We just need to enjoy free video anytime anywhere.
It is for fun. If you paid and got pissed, you are a donkey...We need powerful softwares as well as FREE.
This is the real happiness, this is the right a U.S citizen can enjoy.
Above we talked about two softwares that are powerful and free. What are these softwares?
OK. I will show what I have got during the last week. The only one software which is TOTALLY FREE and with no limitation is Free video to iphone ipad converter.
What's new?

With the free video to iphone ipad converter 5.1.1, you can convert video files of AVI, FLV, MPEG, WMV, M2TS,
AVCHD, MPEG-TS, RM and MKV to iPad/iPad2, convert MKV to iPhone 4, iPod, Apple TV (HD).
With the new high quality engine, it is easy to put free video on iphone ipad with the fastest conversion speed.
We promise you can converting a FLV(400Mb) to iphone ipad within 6 mins.
Support more than 7 languages and movies subtitles, you can set the output subtitles you want.
Support HD video output with AC3 audio.
Less steps for normal users and more parameters configuration for professional uers.
If you made a mistake before the conversion, you have not to stop the process, just back to the user interface and set them
again, keep jobs efficient and save time.

I don't want to introduce too much for the software itself as I am not the developper of it. I just would like,
as a customer and a software reviewer, tell you what it can do for you. I will not leave the download link here as I don't want to be seen as a spam maker.
If you are interested in it, you can find it easily and then try by yourself. Just Google it with key words: Free video to iphone ipad converter 5.1.1.
Be aware of that you'd better search with the version information, in order to have its latest and FREE version.
I am not sure if it is free for some older versions.
At last, if you feel like using it, please do share it with your friends, just like sharing YouTube videos.
It is the best way to show your support to those who develop free and powerful softwares for you.
Just share your excitiment and joy, with the hope of getting more and more free and professional softwares in the future.

Android Application Development

2011-12-05T03:06:00.000-08:00

iPhone Application Development might be officially simple simply because of the adeptness from encoding 'languages' along with other specialized abilities. You might be likely to create the very best from the apple iPhone software as well as place it on the market towards the apple iPhone customers. Prior to carrying this out you should know from the limitations which Apple company Inc. the actual creative designers associated with apple iPhone, possess used. These types of limitations might have a detrimental effect on your own creativeness as well as Application Development strategy. A few of the notable limitations that may restrict your own range associated with building the actual programs tend to be the following.

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Possibly or even:
Among the main limitations used through Apple company is actually how the person may operate merely a solitary software from 1 provided period. Therefore which 2 programs can't be operate concurrently, regardless of exactly how essential each tend to be. Assume, you obtain the phone when you are online, possibly a person remain glued towards the web and never go to the telephone or even leave from the web to go to the telephone. You can't perform both points concurrently. This really is 1 excellent concern for that software creator since it might slow up the importance from the software.

Assume you're in the middle of a credit card application regarding the actual buying and selling associated with shares on the market. This particular needed advices through a person within the real-time. Right now whenever you will put into action an important choice associated with selling or buying the actual gives, a person begin obtaining a good similarly essential phone. Right now possibly you are able to deal with the phone call or even you need to ongoing the actual buying and selling. You are able to operate merely a solitary software from any kind of provided stage of your time although not each concurrently.

History associated with 3rd party:
This is actually the expansion from the limitation pointed out previously. The sooner stage had been regarding operating a credit card application upon display however this really is regarding operating a credit card application within the history. This particular limitation doesn't permit any kind of 3rd party software to operate within the history. Therefore which when you're going to the phone essential for the company, you can't gather any kind of communications with the immediate messenger. The actual most detrimental a part of this really is that you're proved to be traditional towards the information sender. This may guide to numerous misconception as well as large monetary deficits.

Centralized Manage:
Absolutely no software could be straight utilized through the apple iPhone person. Each and every apple iPhone person needs to obtain the applying in the Apple company Shop. Therefore how the creator needs to very first publish the applying towards the Apple company Shop and when Apple company Inc. discovers this really worth disbursing one of the customers, after that after which just the applying will probably be obtainable through the apple iPhone customers. This kind of centralized regulates not just places limitations about the designers but additionally boosts the possibility of unneeded hold off within the power from the software.

Edition compatibility:
The applying focusing on the most recent edition might not focus on the sooner edition. The reason being the actual operating-system associated with various variations might not be suitable. This is essential for that software creator simply because he/she needs to lastly check the applying upon 2 variations associated with apple iPhone os's.

Learn Microsof company Accessibility

2011-12-02T01:53:00.000-08:00

Gaining an art in almost any Microsof company strategy is constantly worth the weight in gold. When it comes to work prospective customers you are unable to get it wrong. In order to understand how to document and also change data it is just a good idea to understand Milliseconds Accessibility.

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Just how can this method enable you to? Most companies require a means of keeping as well as rescuing details. Document dependent techniques are actually swapped out through engineering, especially spreadsheets as well as databases. MS Entry can be Microsoft's top selling pc repository method. When it 1st made an appearance that shook in the complete database market place and many established makes observed these people out of the blue could not remain competitive.

Microsoft Accessibility is a great tool regarding developing techniques utilized by a few consumers. Referring within the Microsoft office selection associated with programs. With this package deal you will find the central aspects of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and also View. For most newbies Accessibility proves one of the most tough deal to find out. This might be while there is much more into it compared to the other Microsoft office programs. Having said that, you'll find diverse periods on the mastering method. It is possible to create simple operating methods using the inside constructed sorcerers to assist you through databases design. Regarding some thing considerable community . 's better to learn Milliseconds Entry from a respected origin.

There are many factors to consider whenever you discover Microsoft Gain access to. For starters, you will be taught a few relational databases principle. In simple terms this is one way files relates to other info. As an example you will have relationship from a college student and also courses or perhaps a estimate and also a client. This primary stage is the central feature to master because precisely what employs about will certainly expand this base.

You will end up eager to obtain on to monitor interface layout, when this can be done you will need to generate storage locations for your information. You will understand the best way to generate what are named as tables to carry your data. The volume of tables you have is dependent upon the files you happen to be aiming to keep. Window screens is going to be constructed throughout the furniture. You'll find bad and the good ways to design and style screens, but this specific incorporates training. You could possibly think back later in life for your early monitor models and also giggle.

You will probably need to find out and get solutions from your databases. In a very income method you may want to know how several icons had been sold recently inside southerly far eastern area of the nation. How you can do this would be to develop a issue. Questions are great for giving you a moment picture of your information. From this you are able to location developments as well as do projecting.

Presenting data in a well put together understandable formatting is a type of need. How you can do this is to build a record which can be provided for the printing device. Designing a study is comparable to planning any display form. It's not hard to develop speedy easy accounts within MS Entry, nevertheless, you will go beyond this kind of and look to creating something more vibrant. Envision having the capacity to result that report straight into MS Exceed or perhaps Word. You could do this and is an excellent feature to have experience of.

As increasing numbers of businesses change coming from papers for you to computer based programs, you should carry on thus far with your abilities. If you possibly could find out Microsof company Entry you are going to situation on your own effectively inside employment market, fitness center throughout the world.

We will summarize what we have realized in the following paragraphs:

Any Microsoft skill is worthy of possessing

Attempt and go above basic principles while studying Microsof company Access

The expertise in Milliseconds Entry improves task prospective customers

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City Year -- An Education Solution at Work in Detroit

2011-11-30T07:07:00.000-08:00

Joel Gullickson, City Year Detroit corps member Team Leader, Ford Motor Company Team at Detroit Collegiate Prep High School

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Every 26 seconds, someone drops out of school in America. Detroit is being called the epicenter of the urban public education crisis -- Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called us "Ground Zero" for education reform. In Detroit, the dropout rates hover around 50%, and rates for African American and Hispanic males are even worse. According to recent data, almost 40% of Hispanic and African-American students fail to graduate with their class.

Based on leading research from Johns Hopkins University, we can now predict with alarming accuracy the likelihood of a student in a high-poverty school graduating from high school. By as early as the sixth grade, if a student falls off-track in either Attendance, Behavior or Course performance in math or English (the ABCs), without intervention, that child stands only a 20% chance of graduating high school. Students are failing and dropping out at alarming rates -- not because they want to, but because they are not getting the supports they need to keep them on track to graduation. Some supports are coming from the top. A state-wide school district, the Educational Achievement Authority, aims to radically restructure education in the state's lowest 5% performing schools. But the EAA is still months away from taking action. City Year Detroit has boots on the ground in classrooms right now.

At City Year Detroit, young adult leaders like Joel Gullickson are helping turn around the very real dropout crisis in Detroit. City Year's unique approach embeds a team of corps members (up to ten young adult leaders) at high-poverty K-12 schools full-time for the entire school year, where they provide targeted tutoring, mentoring, behavior coaching, attendance incentives, and other interventions to bring the achievement of struggling students back on track. From before the first morning bell until the end of afterschool programs, corps members serve as near-peer role models and provide the extra human capital so desperately needed in high-poverty schools. This year, City Year Detroit is partnering with nine public schools in Detroit, River Rouge, Harper Woods, and Taylor, and is bringing a laser-focused dedication to moving students who have fallen off track back onto the path towards high school graduation.
Like Joel, City Year recognizes that solving the education crisis will help solve many of the other issues impacting our society. City Year's efforts are keeping student in school and on track to graduate ready for success in college or career -- which is critical to building a local pipeline of a highly educated workforce. City Year leverages the talent, energy, idealism and service of young adults (ages 17-24) who choose to serve as AmeriCorps members for a year; our focus is to help solve the dropout crisis, and it is through service that City Year demonstrates the power of these young adults to tackle critical issues in our community and their commitment to developing the next generation of educated, successful young leaders of Detroit.

Germany's Merck wants Facebook page back

2011-11-28T14:40:00.000-08:00

Germany's Merck KGaA has threatened legal action after it said it lost its Facebook page apparently to rival Merck & Co. in the U.S., though it has yet to identify defendants in the case.

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In a filing before the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Merck said it intends to initiate an action based on the apparent takeover of its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/merck by its similarly-named but unrelated competitor, Merck & Co.

The filing reflects the growing importance of social networks as marketing tools, with companies willing to go to court to safeguard their perceived rights on these networks.

Because Facebook is an important marketing device, the page is of great value, and its misappropriation is causing harm to the company, said Merck KGaA in the filing. The company in Darmstadt claims to be the oldest and one of the largest producers of pharmaceuticals and chemicals worldwide.

The Facebook page contained on Friday information on Merck in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, which is described as "a global healthcare leader working to help the world be well". The site is said to be intended only for residents of the United States and its territories. On Sept. 16, it carried a post welcoming users to "Merck's official Facebook page!"

Merck in Germany said in the filing that it entered into an agreement with Facebook on or about March, 2010 for the exclusive use of the web page. Merck said it assigned administrative rights to the web page to a limited number of people, who are its employees, or its external service provider for registration of domain names and social media user names.

By about Oct. 11 this year, Merck Germany said it found that it no longer had administrative rights to the page which now had content that appeared to be "created by, and is related to" Merck & Co. in the U.S.

Merck & Co. was formed in 1891, but became an independent American company after World War I, according to the website of Merck in Germany. The two companies are no longer linked to one another, and they only have in common the name Merck, which the U.S. operation is only allowed to use in North America, according to Merck KGaA.

Merck in the U.S. was not immediately available for comment on the filing. "We're looking into this but have no comment at this time," said Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes in an email.

Merck KGaA said it requires "pre-action disclosure from Facebook to determine the nature of the misconduct, to frame the pleadings, and to identify the proper defendants." It decided to file in New York where California headquartered Facebook has an office, as it has been advised that pre-action disclosure to identify defendants is not available through courts in California, leaving Merck KGaA without remedy in California until after it identifies a proper defendant or defendants.

While it is clear that Merck KGaA's Facebook page has been misappropriated, it is not yet clear how that happened or who is at fault, nor is Facebook providing clear information about what happened, the company said.

Microsoft building Kinect device for Windows PCs

2011-11-27T07:10:00.000-08:00

Microsoft will build a Kinect device specifically for use with PCs, as the company prepares to launch a program to support commercial products developed for Kinect and Windows.

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Kinect is the motion and voice technology that Microsoft first introduced as an add-on to the Xbox. Gamers with Kinect play games by moving their bodies, rather than pushing buttons on a controller.

In a recent video, Microsoft showed some possible applications for Kinect with Windows, including people playing musical instruments by moving their hands in the air; a surgeon flipping through X-ray images without touching the screen; a teacher controlling a display of the night sky by moving his arms; and a technician remotely controlling a robot that defuses a bomb.

Earlier this year, Microsoft released a software development kit to let developers build applications on Windows that make use of the Kinect sensor. The Kinect device Microsoft will build for PCs has a few adjustments that should make it better suited for use with computers.

"Of particular interest to developers will be the new firmware which enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 50 centimeters in front of the device without losing accuracy or precision, with graceful degradation down to 40 centimeters," Craig Eisler, general manager of Kinect for Windows, wrote in a blog post.

This "near mode" will be more suitable for someone sitting at a computer, as opposed to standing in front of a TV. It's been one of the most requested features from developers already working on products, Eisler said. The new hardware will also have a shorter USB cable for connecting to computers.

When Microsoft first released the SDK for Kinect for Windows, it limited developers to non-commercial use only, saying it would release a commercial package in the future. It recently promised to launch that program early next year.

Some developers may be worried about how much to invest in their products without knowing more about the commercial program. Eisler wrote that users have said they want assurance of support and continued innovation from Microsoft. He hinted that the commercial program will give licensed customers access to ongoing updates in speech and human tracking technology as well as full support for Kinect hardware for Windows.

Microsoft recently announced an incubator program for getting startups with Kinect ideas off the ground. A Microsoft spokesperson said that Kinect for Windows will be commercially available prior to the incubation phase of Kinect Accelerator. Microsoft is accepting applications through Jan. 25 and the program will start in March.

Microsoft slashes upgrade times for Windows 8

2011-11-27T07:05:00.000-08:00

Microsoft claimed yesterday that users will be able to complete a Windows 8 upgrade much faster, in some cases in one-tenth the time it took similar-configured PCs to upgrade to Windows 7.

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The time savings quickly accumulate the more files are on the to-be-upgraded PC, said Christa St. Pierre, a member of Microsoft's Setup and Deployment team, in a long entry on the company's "Building Windows 8" blog.

According to St. Pierre, a clean install -- where all files and data are wiped from the drive prior to installing Windows 8 -- should wrap up in 21 minutes, 35% less time than the 32 minutes Microsoft said it takes Windows 7 to do the same.

For what Microsoft called a "medium upgrade," one on a PC with 213,000 files and 77 applications, Windows 8 is three times faster, finishing the upgrade in just 42 minutes, versus Windows 7's two hours and 11 minutes.

The real savings show when machines sporting between 430,000 and 1.4 million files with between 90 and 120 applications are upgraded: In those scenarios, Microsoft promised that Windows 8 was between four and ten times faster in the time trials.

St. Pierre acknowledged that Windows 7 was no greyhound.

"If you had a large number of files on your system, you may have seen that installation times in Windows 7 didn't scale very well," she said, citing a graph that showed a "super upgrade" on a PC harboring 1.4 million files and 120 applications taking eight and a half hours.

That kind of time was actually on shorter end of Windows 7's upgrade duration: Two years ago, a different member of Microsoft's deployment team warned that some upgrades from Vista to Windows 7 could take up to 20 hours.

St. Pierre also said that only Windows 7 to Windows 8 upgrades will transfer applications, meaning that anyone migrating from Windows XP or Vista will be offered a clean install that transfers only personal files, or in the case of Vista, personal files and the user's Windows settings.

She did not specify which versions of the decade-old Windows XP could be upgraded to Windows 8, but said that in some cases, depending on the PC's hardware, it would be possible.

"We expect that many systems running Windows Vista and even Windows XP will also be eligible [for Windows 8 upgrades]," St. Pierre said.

St. Pierre added that upgrade from XP to Windows 8 will let users of the former transfer "personal files" -- she did not define that term, however -- perhaps making the migration more generous than Windows 7's.

That 2009 operating system only provided a clean install that required users to move files off the PC to an external hard disk drive using Windows Easy Transfer.

For Windows 8, Microsoft has ditched the transfer utility and included the personal file-retention feature in the overall upgrade process. However, St. Pierre did not spell out whether the Windows 8 setup will copy those files to external media -- perhaps a USB thumb drive -- or whether they would somehow be stored on the PC's primary hard disk drive before being restored after the upgrade completed.

How Oracle made the Sun deal work: a lesson for CFOs

2011-11-26T16:18:00.000-08:00

CFOs who gathered outside Boston on Thursday to discuss how they can be agents for change within their enterprises were treated to a close-up view of how Oracle not only transformed its own business but made its Sun Microsystems acquisition a success.

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"The CFO role is more far-ranging than finance," Oracle Chairman Jeff Henley told the audience at the MIT Sloan CFO Summit. He spent 13 years as Oracle's CFO before taking his seat as head of the board of directors seven years ago, and he singled out IT as a key area for CFOs to partner with, whether it reports to them or not.

The IT budget should be spent in a more transformational way, and CIOs can't do this alone, he said. They need support from the rest of the business.

"Most companies are not using IT to its full potential," Henley said. "More complexity means less innovation. When you reduce complexity, you get better information and better controls."

During Henley's tenure as CFO, Oracle began a major, two-phase transformation that by its 2010 fiscal year had resulted in $2.5 billion in cost savings.

From 1998 to 2003, CEO Larry Ellison drove the company to simplify, standardize and centralize, with the result that it saved money, got better information, and gained more agility to execute globally, Henley said. Then from 2003 forward, it moved to a global single instance of its ERP system and processes, as well as more centralized decision-making, shared service centers, and a global information system.

This transformation set the stage for the work Oracle did to make its acquisition of Sun a success. Henley called the Sun deal, which closed in early 2010 and was one of more than 90 acquisitions Oracle has made since 2005 -- "Unequivocally the finest acquisition we've ever done."

Henley characterized the deal as a good one for Oracle: Sun was "cheap, but had tremendous IP and engineering assets." Still, "when we bought it, it was a very sick company" with low margins. The Sun deal, announced in 2009, closed in early 2010.

Oracle identified a range of challenges facing Sun, where changes could improve processes and cut costs. These included inventory: the company had short delivery lead times and large excess and obsolete inventories, according to Henley. Its manufacturing was spread out over 21 final assembly and test sites, and it had three distribution centers and four global logistics providers. Its distribution network had four tiers and was expensive. Finally, Oracle judged Sun's ERP systems to be fragmented, and it had multiple logistics systems.

Oracle took a hard line on inventory, throwing it out and simplifying the supply chain. It moved Sun to all configured systems, eliminated distribution centers and reduced the assembly and test sites to just five, while cutting logistics providers to a single one. Going forward, it would modify processes only when it made sense for all customers, according to Henley.

On the technology side, it integrated Sun with its Global Single Instance ERP system, and standardized on Oracle supply chain, demand management, and trade packages.

According to Henley, the results in twelve months were:

-- 16.7% reduction in product lead time

-- 9.8% reduction in headcount

-- 63.2% reduction in excess, obsolete inventory

-- 24% reduction in freight and warehousing

-- 9.7% reduction in inventory

But just as CIOs can't effect change alone, neither can CFOs, Henley said. He credited unwavering commitment from Ellison to driving the changes at Oracle.

"The CFO can't do it all -- you have to have your CEO behind you, " he said. "You're going to break a lot of glass."

Education, Analysis Help When Evaluating Lighting Technologies

2011-11-25T06:36:00.000-08:00

Lighting efficiency options keep getting better, more complex, and tougher to sort out. There's a lot more to consider: new metrics, too-good-to-be-true claims, and sometimes questionable analyses, to name a few. A bit of reality checking, plus some help from a few independent data sources, may help facility managers navigate this ever-growing maze.

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LightFair, the annual product show of the U.S. lighting industry, is always a feast of new lighting products and services. The 2011 event was no exception. As in recent years, solid-state lighting (SSL) based on LEDs (light emitting diodes) was all the rage. It seemed like a forgone conclusion that fixtures designed around LEDs would, in the next few years, supplant even high-efficiency fluorescents. Many vendors also exhibited sophisticated lighting controls for both LED and other lighting sources.

To describe the benefits of these new options, new lingo and new ways to compare light sources have been developed. Confronted by this avalanche of new information, lingo and products, some facility managers find themselves shutting down, unable to assess the possibilities and perhaps becoming too guarded as a result.

Because LED lighting involves a very small and essentially directional source (the LED lamp), retrofit devices and fixtures designed to use them may look and act differently from other sources. In the case of street or parking lot lighting, the directionality may be a plus: instead of lighting up the sky and creating glare and light pollution, nearly all light is focused down toward the ground. This difference may complicate comparisons with a large light source having a much wider distribution. Even if efficacy (lumens per watt) is lower for the LED source, its tighter distribution may still yield the same surface brightness using fewer watts. Differences in color content may also affect the level of wattage needed to assure acceptable illuminance.
Luminaire System Application Efficacy

To address such issues, lighting manufacturers have come up with new metrics, not all of which are as yet generally accepted. Luminaire System Application Efficacy, for example, is a sophisticated way to combine all of the above to allow useful comparisons among fixtures. Determining that final number involves inputting a variety of factors into software (find it at www.lrc.rpi.edu/parkinglot/#intro). Without knowing and understanding all the inputs, however, an end user may not know whether the answer has been "cooked" by a vendor supplying the comparison.

One area that remains controversial, for example, is the claimed scotopic/photopic (S/P) ratio for various light sources, or even such ratios within a type of light source. An S/P ratio describes the output of a given light source with regard to optical characteristics that may make an area appear brighter or darker, irrespective of a standard foot-candle measurement. If one claims a better S/P ratio for a source, the answer may favor that source. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lighting Facts Label does not include an S/P ratio, and does not require testing by an independent lab to verify the S/P number.

With regard specifically to LED lighting, another factor that may be both useful and a bit enigmatic is Duv. Loosely described as color consistency, this factor indicates how consistently the light from an LED source matches a known and precisely quantified color standard: the higher the number, the less consistent the match. In a row of many LED wall washers, for example, a high Duv could yield noticeable variations in wall color among fixtures, even if all contained lamps having the same coordinated color temperature (CCT).

John Halamka: The new metrics for CIO success

2011-11-23T21:26:00.000-08:00

When I began my career as a CIO in 1997, success was defined by the basics: email delivery, network connectivity and application functionality. I personally wrote code, experimented with new operating systems and created novel analytics.

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In 2011, CIO success is much more complex.

Infrastructure success can be defined as 99.99% uptime of all systems and no loss, corruption or breach of data. This is very hard to achieve, and the cloud sets expectations that IT infrastructure should be like heat, power, and light -- available when needed, in the amount required.

Application success can be defined as the delivery, on time and on budget, of "go lives" according to project plans. Two important forces make this more complicated. One is the rise of consumer app stores, which set expectations that enterprise software should be easy to find, procure and install. The second is that, as the economy forces downsizing, there's more pressure on the IT department to quickly deliver applications that provide better workflow automation and thus the improvements in efficiency the organization needs when it's scraping by with fewer employees.
This all sounds impossible. Deliver massive infrastructure in an environment of constant change, but keep it entirely reliable and secure. Deliver applications that support business processes in increasingly short time frames with limited resources -- both within the IT department and among the business owners of those processes.

Modern CIOs are not technologists or evangelists for innovation, but customer relationship managers, strategic communicators and project managers, delicately balancing project portfolios, available resources and governance.

Modern CIOs have little time to get infrastructure and applications right. They must think more like CEOs about business needs and future strategies, and they must act more like Wayne Gretzky (who skated not where the puck was, but where it was going to be), to ensure that critical information technology is deployed by the time it is needed.

What am I doing in fiscal 2012 to become a more effective modern CIO? Three things:

1. I'm identifying key business customers and meeting with each one to make sure their priorities are reflected in the current IT operating plan and the five-year IT strategic plan. Working with the governance committees, I will trim the list of priorities to just those projects that have the greatest impact on business strategy, quality and efficiency.

2. I'm standardizing communications so key customers receive monthly updates about their priority projects.

3. I'm defining a process for managing IT projects across the enterprise. It includes standardizing the IT project intake process, the IT project life cycle and project management tools (project documentation, project plans and status reports).

I hope that by focusing on customer relationship management, communication and project management, I will create a positive working environment for the IT staff, with a manageable set of well-defined projects and engaged customers. Doing a few projects swiftly and in greater depth to meet the most critical needs of the business is much harder than agreeing to do many niche projects and moving slowly on all of them.

CIOs should be judged on their ability to manage demand and achieve reasonable levels of customer satisfaction while focusing on a narrower project portfolio and delivering it at a faster pace.

Better Windows support due on IBM mainframes

2011-11-22T12:06:00.000-08:00

IBM mainframes will soon be able to manage Windows applications, bridging one of the last major divides in data centers.

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IBM had already announced that it intended to deliver that capability with its zEnterprise 196 mainframe, but it recently said the Windows management function will be available on Dec. 16.

There are many Windows-based applications, including ones made by IBM, inside most data centers; they typically interact with mainframes to access data. Historically, all Windows software has had to be managed separately.

But now, IBM has promised, the security and speed of mainframe environments that include Windows systems will be improved. It will be possible to connect systems on a private network, thus avoiding some network hops and enabling the use of integrated management tools.

Joe Clabby, an analyst at Clabby Analytics, said the new features should reduce the labor required to run mainframe environments that have multiple operating systems. Moreover, he added, "if you can manage this as a single architecture, it saves money."

Greg Lotko, business line executive in IBM's System z division, said the addition of Windows support "is really recognizing that the world is heterogeneous."

Are You Safe from Hackers?

2011-11-21T14:49:00.000-08:00

We don't use E-gold very often since most of our online business and customer sales are conducted through our online merchant account. However, we occasionally have someone who will request paying by E-gold so we keep an account there for this reason. Once a month or so we withdraw the funds and decided to do so yesterday. Imagine our dismay when we logged into our E-gold account yesterday and found our balance to be a big fat ZERO! We had checked the balance just a few days ago so we knew this was not correct. After investigating the history of the account, we found that a spend had been made to another e-gold account user WITHOUT our knowledge or authorization. We had been hacked!

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Since we have up to date anti-virus and firewall software on our computer, we assumed we were safe. Not so! It seems this is not enough to keep away the hackers as the software does not prevent "Spyware" from being installed on your computer.

"Spyware" is software that gets onto your computer and literally "spies" on your activities. The spying can range from relatively harmless use of cookies tracking you across multiple websites... to extremely dangerous "keystroke loggers" which record passwords, credit cards, and other personal data. That data then gets relayed to the person who put the software on your computer.

Spyware gets on your computer in one of several different ways.

First, it rides along with software you download from the 'Net and install on your system.

Second, they come as email attachments (much like viruses) and automatically install themselves on your computer when you open the email message.

Third, hackers find an open port on your computer and use the "back door" to install basically anything they want.

And fourth, the more malicious types, like keystroke loggers, can even get installed by someone with direct physical access to your computer such as an employer, suspicious spouse, business competitor, or someone who wants to know exactly what you're doing.

So how do you protect yourself against these malicious hackers? You need a program that specifically scans your system for the tens-of-thousands of existing spyware programs along with the new ones appearing daily.

Below are two programs which specifically check for and remove spyware from your system:

"Spybot Search & Destroy" - www.safer-networking.org
"Ad Aware" - www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/

You may have spyware lurking on your computer right now so protect yourself today by downloading one of the above programs!

As a point of reference, we contacted E-gold and informed them that we had been hacked. We provided them with the account number of the person who received the funds and asked for a contact e-mail address on the person. E-gold informed us that they could not provide that information without a "court order" and that basically there was no way of getting the money back!

Take action today to protect yourself from this growing threat! The bottom line is: - Keep your anti-virus program current

- Install a firewall
- Carefully screen software before installing it
- Scan specifically for spyware weekly
- Stay current on this growing threat.

HP Tablet PCs And The Machines Of Today

2011-11-19T10:20:00.000-08:00

HP Tablet PCs are a great way of being able to save and work on your projects. They are able to do more than just one type of input. They have the ability to be two kinds of computers at the same time. This is good for someone who needs to do more than one type of work.

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How one inputs their data into an instrument depends on what they are doing. They may be performing a specific job that requires the use of this type of computer because of its ability to take in data by touch or pen control. Another may need to use a laptop to finish what they are doing. The best option is to have both combined into one object.

The computer can also turn into a laptop. HP Tablet PCs are able to make their screens bend in a way that turns them back to become a platform that you can write on. When the job is done with using the tablet, the user can turn it back into a laptop. Some jobs need a laptop and others need a surface that you can draw or write on. It is nice to have options when using a computer.

The use of the flat drawing board is a function that suits well for art. The artist can use the pen to draw in detail. It also allows them to edit the image as well. This ensures that the project will be at its best when completed. The artwork is then saved on the machine digitally where it can be used for later.

HP Tablet PCs are also light weight. The advantage of having a device that can do more than one thing is having a device that doesn't weigh like more than one thing. The ability to have two computers in one instrument is a good thing for those who have to carry the item around. A good example of this is a doctor who must walk around the hospital with the computer.

The computer can turn into a laptop with a keyboard and the regular instruments that are used. HP Tablet PCs can also be tablets with the ability to use touch and pen input to manipulate information. The device can adapt to any type of project that it needs to perform. This is good for someone who needs this type of duality in their computer.

The real nice point to being able to have two types of computers is that they are in one device. This helps to reduce the weight and cumbersome problems of having more than one item to deal with. With a computer that can do two things in one also reduces the issue of having too much to carry. Weight can be a very serious issue when you have to carry the item around with you all day like a doctor.

When you look at the computers that you can buy, you have to look at the HP Tablet PCs. They are light weight and very useful with their multiple ways of input. They can be two machines in one. You are able to have two computers in one at the same time. The trick is to be able to have an instrument that can do more than one task.

How Should Brands Engage In Google+?

2011-11-18T06:51:00.000-08:00

Brand pages have now launched on Google+ and the majority of businesses have jumped in with both feet already, beginning to amass followers and engage with them.

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Whilst most brands are more than likely still in the process of creating or finalising their strategy for Google+, for many there will still be a question of engagement – how should a brand engage with users on Google+?

Some brands are starting by talking to G+ users in the same way as they speak to their audience on Facebook. Whilst Google+ and Facebook are of course similar in many ways, the conversations in most cases perhaps need to be framed differently in order to get the most out of the audience, with a focus on different content.

Having spent some time on the network, Google+ users seem to be far more technically orientated – they are (at the moment at least) thinkers and will want to engage around content that is perhaps more developed and refined than the content you’d traditionally find on brand Facebook pages. This could be detailed talk around the specifications and design of a tech product such as a tablet or laptop, versus a discussion on the colour of the product in Facebook. It is all engagement and of roughly equal value in increasing the consumers’ propensity to purchase or recommend, it will simply appear in a different form on Google+.

Different CTAs (calls to action) will also be important – it is likely that the average Google+ user will require more incentive to engage than the average Facebook user. By way of example, competitions to drive engagement and also acquisition will need to be much more thought out and worthwhile to the end user on Google+.

Of course, customer service in the form of one-to-one support will also be a good idea. Whilst the tools aren’t currently in place to allow coordinated discussions for brands to help them address consumer concerns, this is certainly something that should be addressed moving forward, given the savvy nature of the Google+ audience. Many brands currently use Facebook or Twitter for customer services purposes (Facebook’s discussions application was a great solution until it was closed down), so it makes sense that the same should be done in Google+. It’s probable that this will come to fruition should Google launch the capability for apps to be created for brand pages in Google+ - essentially a similar approach to that of Facebook.

Obviously, the approach to Google+ will be different from brand to brand – the above are simply a few points for brands or their commissioned digital PR or social media agencies to take into consideration. There are almost certainly opportunities about within Google+, not in the least because it’s likely to provide another social media outlet for brands to engage a totally different model of audience that - in most cases - they won’t have had access to previously. There is of course a lot of trial and error to be endured, but instinct suggests that the brands that treat G+ as an entity in its own right are the ones that will win out in the end.

Microsoft SideWinder X8 Mouse customers ratings

2011-11-17T00:53:00.000-08:00

Irrespective of the cord-free advantage, wi-fi these rodents employ a very poor adopting pace involving considerable COMPUTER SYSTEM participants on account of lag plus indicate hiccups. Microsoft's feature-heavy SideWinder X8 solves of which dilemma that has a hybrid car pattern of which helps you replace pretty much faultlessly concerning feeling stimulated plus wi-fi network. Place with Microsoft's souped-up BlueTrack sensor technological know-how, some sort of well-sculpted pattern (intended for suitable distributed persons), plus several different attributes, along with the SideWinder X8 satisfies in a relaxed manner one of many game playing these rodents high level. Possibly for the encouraged selling price connected with $99, the SideWinder X8 is usually a valuable improvement to help almost any gamer's system, although in particular when you might realize its for just a very little seeing that $70.

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The SideWinder X8 has a beautiful, futuristic pattern that may be smoothes available a lot of the abrasive tips by sooner incarnations connected with Microsoft's completely new creation connected with SideWinder these rodents. The X8 carries a tricky angled waistline exemplified by means of a tasteful combination of figure that supply realistic slumbering destinations for every single ring finger. That pattern facilitates ones give fit in an organic and natural golf grip. Positioning the SideWinder with your eventually left give senses at ease plenty of, even so the a couple area keys within the eventually left area on the computer mouse button were being definitely adapted with all your suitable thumbs as the primary goal.

Right-handers will probably get pleasure from the page layout plus pattern on the a couple side-buttons. Such as sooner SideWinders, the X8's thumbs keys employ a stacked, directory page layout. Although rather than the more aged models' round nubs, the X8's area keys mountain back to the inside, giving some sort of holds on your thumbs. That pattern helps you purely steel ones thumbs vertical to help mass media the keys, reducing your need for just a under the radar thumbs motions of which takes you outside of key management move. That will noise inconsequential to help nongamers, although most of us be expecting the first-person filming twitch herd will probably accept.

The X8's a couple key keys accomplish evidently, although most of us tend not to appreciate the precious metal scroll tire. Some sort of cross-hatch connected with precious metal ridges combined tire usually are purported to produce many more golf grip, they tend not to perform the job, which often ends up with some sort of fewer a number of, "soft" emotion towards scroll tire in comparison with with different these rodents.

Further than the press button page layout, Microsoft differentiates the SideWinder X8 almost all individually featuring a exclusive BlueTrack sensor. BlueTrack debuted within a several Microsoft these rodents not too long ago, and it also delivers superior tenderness plus effectiveness in comparison with regular optical or perhaps beam of light these rodents. Of which much better effectiveness helps you operate the X8 along with BlueTrack these rodents when using enhanced choice of types of surface, as well as marbled, new carpet, lumber, and almost all whatever except see-through and mirrored a glass. Many web-sites include claimed of which BlueTrack isn't going to get along with textile computer mouse button protections, although utilised the X8 a great extensive time with XTracPads' textile RipperXXL computer mouse button station without the need of issues. Some sort of wood made workspace, some sort of ebook, as well as a marbled bed sheet shown both equally trusted. Moreover, you may receive several packages connected with unique legs with the X8, which often helps you tailor the tactile think on the computer mouse button to help whatsoever exterior you decide.

B&N's Nook Tablet also ships early

2011-11-16T07:06:00.000-08:00

Barnes & Noble began selling its new 7-in. Nook Tablet for $249 on Wednesday, earlier than executives said it would appear.

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One store in Harrisonburg, Va., had three Nook Tablets on sale for the general public at the time of the store's opening at 9 a.m. ET Wednesday, a clerk said. Many other pre-ordered Nook Tablets were also available for sale Wednesday at the store, located near James Madison University in western Virginia.

Engadget reported a Nook Tablet sold at a Barnes & Noble store on Tuesday, but didn't indicate the location.

A Barnes & Noble spokeswoman told CNET that the Wednesday store arrivals of the Nook Tablet are two days before the "end of week" arrival that executives had announced on Nov. 7. But the Wednesday arrival conforms to a leaked presentation on the Nook Tablet that circulated days before the Nov. 7 announcement.

The early arrival of the Nooks shows that Barnes & Noble doesn't want to be outdone by Amazon, which shipped its $199 Kindle Fire 7-in. tablet a day early on Monday.

Analysts predict a fierce competition between the two tablet makers, and said that neither wants to slip-up with initial shipments.

Beware of dogma

2011-11-15T05:56:00.000-08:00

Political debate in the United States today is highly polarized. Many in Congress are so beholden to the dogma of their political party that they are unable to make rational choices that might even give a hint that the "other side" has a point. The result is that Congress seems unable to act in the best interests of the citizens it is supposed to serve, resulting in historically low approval ratings.

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IT is not immune from such polarization. There are, for example, many IT decision-makers who simply swear by open source. They believe so much in the open source model, and have had such positive initial experiences with open source tools, that they have taken the dogmatic position that all of their future software acquisitions will be made from within the open source portfolio.

On the other hand, there are decision-makers who have fully and with little reservation married themselves to proprietary platforms. The support and sense of security they get from platform buy-in has become entrenched in their go-to-market strategy, and the very mention of open source may elicit an actual, audible snort.

I find many Managed Service Providers (MSPs) that need an effective, inexpensive way to start building out their infrastructure fall in the open source camp. Unfortunately, many of them also discover that their open source toolkits have certain limitations that make it difficult for them to remain efficient and able to deliver competitively differentiated services once they build a reasonably sized customer base.

I find many proprietary platform supporters on the enterprise side, where business-as-usual often prevails. The problem for this group is that they often find themselves saddled with excessive licensing costs and overly complex products that are integrated in name only, and require extensive customization to meet even relatively simple operational needs.

So here is my suggestion to both parties: Don't be so dogmatic. Sure, open source solutions are attractive for a variety of reasons. But they are not the end-all and be-all of software. There are plenty of proprietary solutions that offer simplicity and reasonable cost -- and, most importantly, will actually do what's needed to support your growing and increasingly complex business requirements.

It may mitigate certain types of personal/career-related risks when one buys fully into a proprietary platform that no one ever got fired for buying. But, that does not tend to be the path to differentiated success and organizational excellence. Few of us have the luxury of being able to burn through more budget and staff hours than we absolutely have to.

Actually, when it comes down to it, both MSPs and enterprises have very similar needs nowadays. They need agile, cost-efficient solutions that scale, deliver rapid time-to-benefit, and play well with others. These characteristics are not the exclusive domain of either open source or proprietary software. Nor is it impossible for either class of solution to provide them.

CRM Watchlist 2012: The Preseason is Underway

2011-11-14T10:44:00.000-08:00

Okay, maybe I miss baseball season too much. Maybe just using the word “preseason” gives me a comfort level that is just…well…comforting, but regardless of my real reasons for saying “preseason” (ahhhh, so nice…), this is the first round of the CRM Watchlist for 2012 - an assessment of the companies that I find important that will end in January 2012 with the announcement of the winners of a place in the CRM Watchlist for this year.

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The Idea

The CRM Watchlist plays a very specific role in the pantheon of technology companies and service providers. It’s comprised of those companies that I think that we all should be paying serious attention to, regardless of size or revenue, because one way or the other they are going to make a difference in a customer-centric world - at least from the standpoint of technology and innovation in that area. And most importantly, to the customers that actually use them to enable their customer strategies and programs. Small or big, they deserve notice and they deserve to be on a shortlist for appropriate practitioner engagements.
The Caveats

The caveats are somewhat different than last year though not entirely. The ones that remain the same are here again with some refreshed wordsmithing that makes them au courant.

Here goes:

The Preseason List - The list here is the list of all the companies et. al being considered for the list that I’ve been tracking during 2011. This is not a finalists list nor is it a winners list. These are the companies that have been noteworthy enough in 2011 to be considered for the Watchlist. But every company on this list has been tracked by me (more on that in a minute, companies-that-I-haven’t-tracked, I’m going to take care of you.).
This is a CRM Watchlist - meaning that worthiness is not just how well you analyze twitter traffic or how you suck up to digerati. Traditional CRM still has its place and a BIG place. Gartner estimates that SCRM is $1 billion of $13 billion in the total CRM market in 2012 so we’re still only talkin’ maybe 7.5% or so. Okay? What that means is that while Social CRM is an important part of some of the criteria, it’s not the sole criteria. Again this is Social CRM, not social media. Social per se isn’t the center of the universe here - it is being seen here as channels for input and outreach. However, unlike last year, I am going to give more credence to companies that are providing a component part of a CRM or Social CRM technology. So the chances of winning if you’re a vendor with promise that provides a small piece of the technological puzzle are increased to some extent. (Note the italics for emphasis)
I very well may have forgotten some companies that I think should be candidates but the odds of that are miniscule - but again, possible. So…. see below on what to do if I have forgotten you or your candidate for the list
You’ll note there are a few companies who are not CRM(ish). They are still noteworthy for reasons that shall be stated if they make the finals.

What’s Different for 2012

There are several things that are different this year that range from the way I’m applying criteria to the market changes that dictated the list choices to the failure of several of the candidates and even the winners to maintain any momentum or to live up to their promise. You’ll note that several of last year’s candidates and winners are not under consideration this year. They failed to do what they should have in the market and the result was….deterioration of their presence or stasis at best. Which is sad. KickApps, listen up here.

OR like Radian6 they got acquired and thus, are now part of salesforce.com and will be considered part of salesforce.com in the discussion, despite the fact that they are operating somewhat independently still. Because the acquired companies have the full resources of the acquiring company, they have to be considered part of it. The only exception to that will be RightNow (acquired by Oracle) because the acquisition is not complete at the time of the assessment.

Also different this year is that there are a number of candidates on the list who I learned about from CRM Idol. Now, the winners from CRM Idol 2011, Get Satisfaction for the Americas and BPMonline for EMEA are guaranteed a place on the list because de facto, de jure and any other de that goes with that, they have been vetted by the influencers and validated by the market just because of the contest itself. To win that, you had to be worth watching.

But there are more than the winners on this list because I felt that they are really interesting for one reason or the other. Some were semi-finalists, some weren’t. The criteria I use here are not the same criteria we used for CRM Idol
The Criteria

What I’m NOT going to do in this section is reveal how I weigh the criteria. There are weights assigned to the criteria. The weights have actually shifted somewhat from what the 2011 weights were.

But, there are a couple of general points to be made on this, earthlings. First, if I haven’t watched you closely for at least a year, the likelihood of you making this list is not that good. However, there is an app(lication) for that Open enrollment week. That’s where the arguments for those of you not on the list can be made. But you’re gonna have to work for it because if you want me to put in the time to do the work I have to do for all the candidates, finalists, and winners, then you have do the work that makes me want to do the work…. or something like that.

Without further ado and in no particular order these are the criteria. Don’t stress if you don’t see all that you need to know. If you decide to ask for the questionnaire all will be clear. If not, I’m around to ask questions on during open enrollment week.

Financial Performance -. How well has the company done in the last 12 months? Part of this is for understanding how the candidate companies think about their top and bottom lines. How well have you done year over year? Why? Because I need to be able to gauge the success you’re having as a business and the stability you have relative to your financial performance. How important is that relative to the other criteria? If you know me, you’ll have a good guess. If you don’t, try to find out. But not from me.
Management - This is a look at who the candidate companies’ top and CRM/SCRM management are. Remember this is a CRM Watchlist so there are two things that I’m looking at. First, the management that is directly involved in CRM or the component technologies that are relevant to this. So it might be a VP of Product Development or Product Marketing for example. Second the C-suite commitment to the CRM or, again, component technologies relative to the rest of the portfolio of products and services.
State of Technology Products/Services - Since I’m looking at both technology companies and the consulting services providers, the product portfolios that are appropriate to the Watchlist from the vendors and the services provided by the SI/Consulting firms in the CRM(ish) domains are obviously something that I have to look at thoroughly. The way I look at them - quality of the existing portfolios; the road maps; appropriateness to the market; customer perceptions of the value-in-use of the products. How well they support the jobs customers want them for - not the feature function list.
Partnerships/Alliances - who do these companies, hang out with- at least the tech vendors and the SI/consulting institutions? Is their partner mix a wise one? Are they getting results with their channel/ecosystem? Are they fair to their partners? How do they think of the partner channels?
Mission/Vision - What is the CRM related mission and vision for the company? Do they even have one? If they don’t, how is CRM thought of in the context of the universal corporate mission and vision?
Market Presence/Impact - What kind of impact and presence does the company have in the market? That means how they are perceived, how they participate, what their messaging is and how it coheres with their actions in the market. How does the company run their external operations - outreach to customers? What are customers’ perceptions of them?
Thought Leadership - This is different than market presence. For example, there is one major company who has a strong to dominant market presence and only a weak to modest hand in thought leadership. This means how you move the needle forward when it comes to thinking about ideas - which could be in your domain - say, analytics” - but it also looks at how you relate to analysts, bloggers etc. and how much you participate in the idea marketplace in the community - independent industry conferences etc. and what materials you are putting out there be it a white paper, an event, a video, a conference of your own. It also means how much you support your vision and mission or your messaging with a body of knowledge.
Corporate Culture - Finally, how does your mission/vision and belief structure affect your company and how it supports its employees and its customers? How well do you treat your employees? What do your customers think of working with you - not just of you? Are you flexible enough a culture to be able to change when need be. How imperious is management or how empowered are the staff etc.? Plus many other “touchpoints.” All part of this equation.

Now of course…The Preseason Candidates List: Software Vendors

Here’s the list so far, without comment, in no particular order and without links. In the next couple of days, you’ll see a second list with the consulting firms and systems integrators who aren’t on this one. (UPDATE - Coremetrics shouldn’t have been independent since its now part of IBM. Its now out of the list as an independent entity and incorporated into IBM (thanks to Tim for noticing this one))

Oracle
SAP
Microsoft
Salesforce.com (Radian6, Assistly)
NetSuite
RightNow
Sage
SugarCRM
Lithium
Jive
Attensity
Aplicor
Maximizer
Nimble
SAS
Moxie
Infusionsoft
Eloqua
Marketo
Clarabridge
Cisco
IBM (Unica, SPSS, Lotus, Coremetrics)
Zoho
Amdocs
Pegasystems
Sword-Ciboodle
Get Satisfaction
CDC Pivotal
Relayware
Infor
Pardot
Google
Nielsen
Telligent
Reuters (Open Calais)
InsideView
Crowd Factory
FuzeDigital
Parature
BatchBlue
Hootsuite
INgage Networks
ExactTarget (CoTweet)
Genesys
Coveo
BPMonline
Hubspot
Neolane
Zestia
workbooks.com
JaguarTPM
Vertical Solutions Inc
Qontext
Lattice Engine
Crimson HexagonXactly
UpdateCRM
Silverpop
Teradata (Aprimo)
Cosential
Salestrakr
RO|Innovation
Zestia (Capsule CRM)
Parature
Blackbaud
Meltwater Group
Reuters (Open Calais)
Dimelo
GreenRope CRM
RO|Innovation
SalesNexus
Soluciones SA
Stone Cobra
Thedatabank
ABCrm
IKO System
IntouchCRM
Atollon
The Selfservice Company
Workday
FinancialForce
SuccessFactors
Zuora

A Couple of Notes on the List

Just a few things:

I reserve the right to add to the list up to November 26 at 6pm at my discretion. I may have left a company or two off inadvertently and I don’t want to do that.
The consulting firms/systems integrators will be up as a separate list later this week.
There are multiple companies on this list who are marginal and will have to make a case, but they are good enough to make the candidates list, where many weren’t.

I’m Not on the List? What Do I Do?

Okay, I’m going to give you a window. I can’t be anywhere near perfect when it comes to tracking you. If you are on this list I might have tracked you and didn’t think you should be a candidate. However, I might not have tracked you and just don’t know you. I’m also happy to be convinced that I was wrong if you aren’t on the list and should have been according to you.

However, there are going to be rules and here they are:

From Monday November 14 at 8:00am ET to Friday November 19 at 6pm ET, there will be an open enrollment time. This is enrollment to be a candidate to be considered. No more, no less. If you have been in existence less than 12 months, don’t bother to apply. If you don’t meet the categories above, don’t bother to apply. But otherwise, if you’re interested, bother to apply.
If you are interested in being a candidate, let me know of your interest and I’ll send you a questionnaire that MUST be FULLY filled out or I’ll just ignore you. Last year, during the enrollment period, I asked people to just answer a few questions. I had a 10-day window last year and 88 companies asked to be part of the Watchlist consideration. Except that, 67 of them didn’t answer the questions that I explicitly asked them to and they were dumped immediately. Twenty-one of them did answer the questions, about half made the candidates list and 4 of them actually were Watchlist winners. So there is a value in this. You’ll have until November 26, 2011 at 6pm ET to fill out the questionnaire. These are essay questions, not multiple choices. Some of the questions are confidential, most are not. I need them to write the reviews if you are a winner

The process is simple:

When the enrollment period opens, send me an email at paul-greenberg3@the56group.com. Indicate your interest in being considered as a candidate for the CRM Watchlist 2012. Please tell me in a paragraph why you qualify for the CRM Watchlist 2012.
I will then send you the questionnaire and I’m asking you to answer all 9 questions fully. The 9 questions are based on the criteria set out above. Send it back to me before November 26 at 6pm. This really isn’t a lot of time since Thanksgiving is November 25 and that really means it needs to get in on November 24, most likely but you do have until Friday, November 26 at 6pm.

Of course, I reserve the right to not put you on the list even if you submit the document. This is an admissions form so to speak. Admission to candidacy. No more. No less.
I’m on the List. What Do I Do Next?

Well, the answer is…nothing and something optional that would be wise. If you’re on the list, I’ve been tracking you for some time during this year. That means I know enough about you to put you on the candidates list. There are a number of companies that aren’t on the list that I’ve been tracking too. However, here’s the deal. The questionnaire that I reference above? Its optional for you, but I’d like you to think about filling it (as many of you on the list did last year).

Here’s why.

I’m human and right now, my perception of you is shaped by my perception of you. Filling in the questionnaire shifts that a little toward the perception of you that you want me to have, which gives you a better chance of winning if it’s convincing.

Virtualization wars: VMware vs. Hyper-V vs. XenServer vs. KVM

2011-11-14T04:07:00.001-08:00

Ten years ago the argument over virtualization would have been a short one because VMware was the only game in town, but that early dominance is now being significantly challenged by Microsoft, Citrix and Red Hat (KVM).

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And Microsoft is on the offensive because of the forthcoming upgrade to Hyper-V coming with Windows Server 8. New features put it "on par and in some ways better than VMware," according to Aidan Finn, a Microsoft IT consultant in Dublin, Ireland. He says Hyper-V outstrips VMware in inexpensive server-attached storage, aspects of live migration and failover for site-to-site disaster recovery. Plus Hyper-V will have capacity access more virtual CPUs than ever before.

This flurry of improvements is in addition to progress Hyper-V has been making against ESX in licenses issued. Hyper-V grew 62% last year compared to ESX's 21% growth and Citrix's 25%, according to IDC. Separately, Gartner projects that by next year Hyper-V will account for 27% of the market, up from 11% two years ago. Within that projected 27%, Gartner says Microsoft will have captured 85% of all businesses with less than 1,000 employees that use virtual servers.

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Year-to-year growth is significant because the number of X86 servers being converted to virtual servers is also growing dramatically. Gartner says x86 boxes will grow from 11 million virtual machines in 2009 to more than 55 million next year.

Meanwhile, Citrix, which Gartner projects to hold 6% of the market next year, is making strides working off its base of virtual desktop customers and recent assertions that it will drop prices next year to be less expensive than traditional physical desktops.

The company recently came out with a new version of its virtual server- XenServer 6.0 - that supports better sharing of CPUs among virtual machines and boosts its overall support for virtual CPUs to 16 and 128GB of virtual memory. That's still less than half what VMware and Red Hat support. And Citrix is continuing its collaboration with Microsoft to support management of each other's virtual environments. In the latest version, XenServer will be manageable from Microsoft's upcoming Systems Center Virtual Machine Manager. Citrix's XenCenter already supports managing Microsoft hypervisors and virtual machines.

Red Hat has perhaps the most work to do, with Gartner projections for its share of the market next year only 2%. But it has aggressively been working to make its virtual environment more manageable and robust. With the acquisition of Qumranet Red Hat gained kernel-based technology to run on its Linux platform. As such, Red Hat is a clear option for Linux shops.

Red Hat's KVM efforts will most probably get a boost from IBM, HP, Intel, all of which are members of the Open Virtualization Alliance, which is dedicated to encouraging use of open virtualization technology. The established customer bases of these other vendors can only help the spread of Red Hat's virtual environment.

Oracle Solaris goes to 11

2011-11-12T10:23:00.000-08:00

Oracle has updated its Unix-based operating system Solaris, adding some features that would make the OS more suitable for running cloud deployments, as well as integrating it more tightly with other Oracle products, the company announced Wednesday.

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"We looked at some of the big challenges that people were having in deploying cloud infrastructure, either in a private cloud or public cloud," said Charlie Boyle, senior director of product marketing. "In the release, we engineered out some of the complexity in managing a cloud infrastructure, and made it possible to run any Solaris application in a cloud environment."

Cloud deployments require even greater levels of automation and streamlining than a standard IT infrastructure would, noted Markus Flierl, Oracle vice president of software development. While an organization may run hundreds of Solaris servers, as it moves its applications to a cloud infrastructure, it may run them across thousands of virtual Solaris instances.

Solaris, a Unix implementation, was originally developed by Sun Microsystems, which Oracle acquired last year. While not as widely known for its cloud software, Oracle has been marketing Solaris as a cloud-friendly OS. In Oracle's architecture, users can set up different partitions, called Zones, inside a Solaris implementation, which would allow different workloads to run simultaneously, each within their own environment, on a single machine.

Oracle Solaris Zones has 15 times less overhead than a VMware implementation, Oracle asserted in its marketing literature. The company also touted that Zones had no artificial limitations set on memory, network, CPU or storage resources.

Many of the new features were designed to ease the administrative overhead of running a cloud-like infrastructure, Flierl said. One new feature, called Fast Reboot, will allow the system to boot up without doing the routine set of hardware checks, a move that can make system boot times up to two-and-a-half times faster, Oracle claimed. This feature can be handy in that an administrator applying a patch or software update across thousands of Solaris deployments can reboot them all the more quickly. "It allows you safely to upgrade your entire environment," Flierl said.

The new Solaris also features a new software management system, called Image Packaging System, that will keep track of a program's dependencies, or the libraries and other software that the program needs to run. The Image Packaging System keeps all the software packages in a system up-to-date, including those in a virtual environment.

Also adding to Solaris' cloud capabilities are new administrator controls that lock down the settings in individual Zones. Users can be limited in what changes they can make to the file system, or to the network settings. It can also limit the amount of network bandwidth each Zone can use. This is also the first version of the OS that allows users to virtualize networking resources, meaning supporting network cards can route traffic to appropriate virtual machines without any additional processing on the part of the server CPU itself.

In addition to work Oracle has done to make Solaris cloud-ready, the company has also closely tailored other Oracle products so that they can be coupled more easily to Solaris, including the Oracle Database 11g, Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g and the Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center administrative software package. By controlling an entire stack of software, the company can make "holistic" decisions over which part of the stack would be best suited to tweak to gain performance improvements, Flierl said.

Solaris 11, which complies to the Open Group's specifications for Unix implementations, can support any programs that were written for earlier versions of Solaris, dating back to Solaris 6. The company also runs the Oracle Solaris Binary Application Guarantee Program, which certifies more than 11,000 applications that can run on Solaris 6.

Solaris 11, released Wednesday, will run on both x86 and Oracle's Sparc-based processors.

Windows Phone 7 jailbreak app shows that Microsoft, not Apple, is the friend of openness

2011-11-10T23:34:00.001-08:00

Apple has managed through the years to portray itself as the friend of freedom and openness, while depicting Microsoft as the exact opposite. But the recent decision by Microsoft to approve the use of a jailbreak app for Windows Phone 7 shows that Microsoft embraces freedom far more than does Apple.

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ChevronWP7 Labs has released a tool to allow people to jailbreak Windows Phone 7 devices, available for $9. It lets anyone install and run apps outside of the official Windows Phone Marketplace. It's good for a single device; to do the same on another device costs another $9.

Microsoft allows the tool in the marketplace. If someone uses the tool, the warranties on their phone will remain, and they'll still be able to get Microsoft support for their phone.

It wasn't always so. A year ago, the same company released a similar tool, and Microsoft had it removed from the marketplace.

This isn't the first time that Microsoft has embraced the hacking of its devices. After initially not allowing hacking the Kinect, Microsoft changed its mind, and encourages Kinect hackers.

Contrast that behavior with Apple, which fiercely controls what can be done with its hardware. In fact, the company has even argued before the U.S. Copyright Office in 2009 that jailbreaking the iPhone is illegal, claiming that:

"Current jailbreak techniques now in widespread use [utilizes] unauthorized modification to the copyrighted bootloader and OS, resulting in infringement of the copyright in those programs."

Apple is also notorious for banning apps from the App Store for unclear reasons. Even worse, it has done the bidding of Chinese censors and will not allow people in China to download apps from the App Store, or content from iTunes, about the Dalai Lama or certain activists.

Earlier this year, the New York Times reported:

Apple's iTunes service still forbids Chinese users from downloading certain applications that refer to the Dalai Lama and the Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer.

And Macworld found last December that in China Apple censors apps that mention the Dalai Lama.

So while Apple's marketing is clearly superior to Microsoft's in portraying itself as the friend of freedom and openness, the truth is, Microsoft is far more a friend of openness than Apple.

SAP Mobile: inching towards the rest of the world

2011-11-10T04:25:00.000-08:00

SAP is getting its mobile act together. But it is taking time and it is proving a rocky journey.

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I’m at SAPPHIRE/SAPTechEd Madrid and for the first time in a while, SAP has managed to get (half way) through a large customer event without causing serious alarms in the minds of customers and partners. Mostly. In our executive meetings, my team has been concentrating mostly upon mobile and the SAP Store since that is something that has exercised many of us as a story we have found difficult and often at odds with the rest of the industry. That is changing but as always, it’s changing the SAP way. Mostly.

Here’s how the story pans out:

At SAPPHIRE Orlando, SAP showed a slew of proof of concept apps. I liked what I saw at the time but immediately thought about the business model. SAP was pimping the idea of the Sybase Unwired Platform as the springboard for what they will offer. That hasn’t changed, and, true to form, SAP is expecting its large customers to pony up mega bucks to take the platform. A couple of months back, SAP told me the mobile pipeline was running at around $500 million, a fact confirmed by Bill McDermott at the last earnings call. At the time I wondered where that number comes from. Now it is clear - it’s SUP and not much else.

Today the story takes another step forward. Eric Lai succinctly sets out SAP’s position in an advertorial on Forbes. He makes great play of the fact that SAP is showcasing 50 SAP and SUP certified apps at this event and that:

For SAPPHIRE NOW, 20 partners submitted 200 apps to be shown on the show floor. 100 were chosen (check them out at the SAP Partner Mobile App Catalog).

SAP’s Usman Sheik, VP e-channels told me there are 200 apps in EMEA undergoing certification and 200 more on the US. All good so far. But it ain’t quite that simple.

Right now, SAP is saying that all mobile apps it certifies will have to be SUP compliant. That in turn means developers will need to license SUP and pass that cost on to their customers and/or customers themselves will need to license SUP.

I have said before and I repeat here: SAP should give the platform away in most cases. It doesn’t make sense to developers if they have to pay for a platform at high cost. Apple managed to build a highly successful business by making the barriers to developers trivial. SAP is still trying to wean itself on the idea that everything has to come with a Veuve Cliquot price tag.

In essence, SAP is deliberately restricting the market to the largest partners. Senior SAP executives have confirmed this saying they believe a top down approach is right for enterprise. My colleagues and I vehemently reject that argument. The big SIs/partners will not build the hundreds or thousands of apps needed to catapult the SAP Store to relevance. That has to come from a bottoms up approach. Apple and Saleforce.com have proven that model. It’s a done deal.

Owen Pettiford, a long time SAP developer and SAP solutions user gets this argument as do many of my colleagues. In a stinging post on the SAP Community Network, he asks: How many mobile downloads from an Apps Store does it take to make $5bn ? He observes:

I think the problem SAP face is that to make the above a success will require CIOs (or at least 2000 of them) to think strategically about Mobility because of the level of investment required when investing in an Enterprise Mobility Platform like SUP. This will slow their time to market which will annoy the business who are screaming for “Apps – Now !”

(Disclosure: Owen asked me to sense check his post. It’s in line with what I have been saying for some time.)

In comments, Jarret Pazahanick, another SAP house person says:

I know several large SAP customers who have reviewed the infrastructure and licensing costs and could not build a business case.

I also know that to be true having spoken to representatives of several very large SAP customers.

There’s a much simpler argument that SAP should understand and it comes in three parts:

The size of the average functional developer team inside SAP is 10 persons. That’s the equivalent of a small developer shop. Geddit?
Prior to SAPPHIRE, I was part of a judging panel reviewing applications built with SAP Gateway, a tool that allows developers to hook up SAP systems to many other services in a very easy way. The entries were first class, many showing how you can hide ‘good old SAP’ and make something that is not only functionally useful but good to look at and consume. All (except the Microsoft dudes) demonstrated the ability to deploy on multiple mobile platforms. These were built by tiny teams over three days. Yes, they’re little more than POC but provide a solid indication of invention and innovation that IS possible with SAP technology. As I said at the time, all we need now is for SAP to get real about licensing that technology. It drew a spontaneous round of applause.
There is no shortage of developers willing, able and enthusiastic about developing on SAP technology. They know there is a huge market out there that SAP can help them reach. All those I know are willing to share the spoils.

The good news is that SAP is making certification free through the end of this year and is talking ’sub-$1,000′ going forward. I don’t believe they’ll charge that fee for some time to come as they realize that take up is not g0ing to be at the speed they desire. Even so, I cannot imagine any SAP developer shop baulking at $1,000 or less.

Similarly, SAP has taken the eminently sensible decision of pitching what amounts to the marketing of these solutions via the SAP Store at a reasonable 15%. The comparisons are obvious. Not as cheap as Android Market but way better than Apple.

Going forward, the company has indicated an intent to open up the SAP Store so that developers of non-SUP solutions can come on board. Similarly, it is working on ways to make the SDK available at low or no cost and further into the distance, it talks about plans to make SUP licensing at the application level much lower than the current $900 mark. It has to because as currently iterated, that won’t fly very far.

To its credit, SAP has pushed through many policy refreshes that signal a welcome change in direction. Progress, just in the last few months has been astonishingly fast by SAP standards and again, for that they deserve credit. But, SAP will find they have to review their strategy around the platform in short order. Otherwise, I don’t see the mobile SAP Store turning into the runaway success they’d like us all to believe.

To use the famous word of Steve Jobs: there is one more thing.

Flash on mobile is dead. As the news was breaking, I saw an elegant and very well thought out solution that can be deployed on any mobile platform. It was built upon Flash. Not knowing the breaking story I asked: “What about HTML5?” It came from an Adobe team who I’m guessing are pretty annoyed right at this moment as they see their innovation effectively flushed down the toilet. There’s a lot of flash in the SAP landscape and that must now be addressed. It won’t be trivial. It will create developer challenges. It will be for the best, however painful in the short term.

Google starts rollout of Google+ for businesses

2011-11-07T15:52:00.000-08:00

After months of waiting, Google+ invites enterprises, brands into the fold

Computerworld - Google is getting ready for businesses to start jumping onboard its Google+ social network.

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The social network Monday began to roll out Google+ Pages to help businesses create a presence on the social network platform for connecting with their users locally or worldwide. Vic Gundotra, Google senior vice president of engineering, wrote in a blog post that users can add businesses to their circles, recommend them with a +1 and connect with business team members personally in Hang Outs.

"For you and me, this means we can now hang out live with the local bike shop, or discuss our wardrobe with a favorite clothing line, or follow a band on tour," Gundotra wrote. "Google+ Pages give life to everything we find in the real world. And by adding them to circles, we can create lasting bonds with the pages (and people) that matter most."

Google+ engineers appear to be gradually rolling out the new Pages. While some organizations, like the band ColdPlay, already have signed up, not everyone can. Some users clicking on the link to create a business page receive the prompt, "Google+ Pages isn't ready for everyone, and asks users to "check back soon." Gundotra said in his blog post that everyone "will soon be able to join."

Google released its social network last June and a month later was asking enterprises and organizations to back off from using the site for business purposes.

"Right now, we're very much focused on optimizing for the consumer experience," said Christian Oestlien, a developer on the Google+ project, in a video blog posted last summer. "But we have a great team of engineers building a similarly optimized business experience for Google+. We are very excited about it and hope to roll it out later this year."

At the time, Google also put out a call for business that would be interested in acting as a test group so Google engineers could see how users want to interact with companies.

A matter of days after that post, Google said it was accelerating its efforts to develop a business version of Google+. The company also noted that "tens of thousands" of businesses had signed up to be part of their test group.

In Monday's blog post, Gundotra did not say how the company had optimized Google+ Pages for business use. Google has not yet responded to a request for more information.

Despite the lack of details, Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, said this is a good move for Google+. "It's high time that Google delivered on the promise of a more business-oriented social networking mechanism," Olds said. "This is one area where they can get a jump on Facebook and make a name for themselves."

Many businesses and organizations use Facebook for marketing purposes, but the social network isn't optimized for them, Old said. Monday's announcement could give Google+ an advantage in the lucrative enterprise market.

"With Facebook, companies are using mechanisms that are really designed and geared to individuals," he added. "While they're making it work, they'd probably be better served with tools that are designed with companies in mind. Google+ can get the jump on Facebook if they can put together a set of tools that make social networking easier and more effective for businesses."

A group of businesses, including Macy's, Pepsi, Toyota, Angry Birds and Zen Bikes, already have set up business pages on Google+.

Forbes places Mark Zuckerberg in top 10 most powerful people

2011-11-06T06:22:00.000-08:00

Forbes has ranked Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg as the ninth most powerful person in the world this year. He was number 40 last year.

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Forbes has released its list of “The World’s Most Powerful People.” The annual ranking, which compares politicians, religious leaders, self-made billionaires, major philanthropists, and celebrities, has listed Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg as number nine this year.

At age 27, Zuckerberg is not only the youngest person on the list, but he is also the biggest gainer this year, jumping 31 spots from number 40 in 2010. Forbes estimates his net worth at $17.5 billion.

Unsurprisingly, US president Barack Obama tops the list. The only technology-related figure above Zuckerberg is Microsoft founder Bill Gates, at fifth place (up from 10th last year).

The next technology figures don’t appear till number 30: Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are tied for the spot, having slipped from number 22 last year. Other tech gurus this year include Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in 40th place (up from 66th), Baidu CEO Robin Li in 42nd, and Apple CEO Tim Cook in 58th.

Forbes takes into account four factors for its ranking. It measures how many people a person has power over, the financial resources controlled by each candidate, whether his or her influence affects more than one arena, and considers how actively they wield their power. This cuts the list down to 70 people, or one for every 100 million people on the planet.

Europe Approves Microsoft Purchase of Skype

2011-11-05T05:29:00.000-07:00

The European Commission on Friday approved Microsoft’s $8.5 billion purchase of Skype, saying it had no objections to a deal that would link the world’s largest software maker with the leading Internet communications service.

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While the assent from the European competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, is not the final antitrust hurdle for the transaction — regulators in Russia, Ukraine, Serbia and Taiwan are still deliberating — the positive review from Brussels was considered the last significant threat to what would be Microsoft’s largest takeover to date.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission approved the transaction in June.

In voicing no objections to the deal, Mr. Almunia, a Spanish economist, chose not to act on a complaint from an Italian competitor to Skype, Messagenet of Milan, which had asked that the deal be blocked unless Microsoft opened Skype’s 124-million user network to competitors.

Mr. Almunia in February approved Microsoft’s purchase of the search advertising business of Yahoo. This time, the competition commissioner said he was approving the purchase of Skype “because the deal would not significantly impede effective competition,” according to a statement by his office.

In the consumer communications business, the commission said Microsoft and Skype overlapped only in video communications, which Microsoft offers separately through its Windows Live Messenger program.

“However, the commission considers that there are no competition concerns in this growing market where numerous players, including Google, are present,” the commission said in its statement.

In the sale of Internet communications to businesses, Skype had only “a limited presence,” the commission concluded, which did not overlap with Microsoft’s Lync Internet communications software, used by large companies.

Microsoft, in a statement, called the European approval “an important milestone. We look forward to completing the final steps needed to close the acquisition.”

The approval from Brussels will expedite the fusion of Microsoft, maker of the ubiquitous Windows computer operating system and Office business application suite, with Skype, an Internet seller of free and low-cost audio and video telephony founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennstrom, a Swede, and Janus Friis of Denmark.

During the past eight years, Skype has become the largest provider of Internet-based communications. But profitability has remained elusive.

A previous owner, eBay, which bought Skype for an estimated $2.6 billion in October 2005, was not able to integrate Skype profitably into its online auction business. In October 2007, eBay took a $1.4 billion impairment charge reflecting what it estimated that it had overpaid for Skype.

Last November, eBay sold a 70 percent stake in Skype to an investor group led by Silver Lake Partners for an estimated $2 billion.

Microsoft, which announced its agreement to buy Skype on May 10, is paying nearly three times Skype’s market value, as measured by the sale of eBay’s stake almost a year ago to private investors.

Leif-Olof Wallin, an analyst in Stockholm for Gartner, said Microsoft would use Skype to bolster its push into Internet-based telephony around its Lync software for businesses. With Skype’s huge user base, Microsoft will be able to greatly expand the availability of low-cost Internet telephony, Mr. Wallin said.

He added that Microsoft’s distribution of Skype through its Windows operating system would improve the image of Internet calling, especially among businesses, which are increasingly encouraging workers to use their own computers and software for company business.

That will make Microsoft more of a direct competitive threat to Cisco Systems and Avaya, the two biggest companies that sell Internet-based telephone service software for businesses.

But it will also accelerate downward pressure on long-distance and international calling prices, Mr. Wallin said.

“Once it is preloaded on a device, whether it is a computer or a phone, it becomes more convenient to use,” Mr. Wallin said. “That will make consumers more likely to discover and try it.”

Whether Microsoft can generate a profit from Skype, or create profitable synergies with its other software services and products remains unclear, said David W. Cearley, an analyst for Gartner in Stamford, Connecticut.

“I do not believe that direct revenue was the main reason for the purchase,” Mr. Cearley said. “The main thing that Microsoft is buying with Skype is brand presence on the Web and a customer base.”

Microsoft 83-640 Exam

2011-11-04T02:21:00.000-07:00

QUESTION 1
You work as the network administrator at CERTKINGDOM.com. The CERTKINGDOM.com network has a
domain named CERTKINGDOM.com. All servers on the CERTKINGDOM.com network run Windows Server
2008.
Only one Active-Directory integrated zone has been configured in the CERTKINGDOM.com domain.
CERTKINGDOM.com has requested that you configure DNS zone to automatically remove DNS records
that are outdated.
What action should you consider?

A. You should consider running the netsh /Reset DNS command from the Command prompt.
B. You should consider enabling Scavenging in the DNS zone properties page.
C. You should consider reducing the TTL of the SOA record in the DNS zone properties page.
D. You should consider disabling updates in the DNS zone properties page.

Answer: B

Explanation: In the scenario you should enable scavenging through the zone properties because
scavenging removes the outdated DNS records from the DNS zone automatically. You should
additionally note that patience would be required when enabling scavenging as there are some
safety valves built into scavenging which takes long to pop.
Reference: http://www.gilham.org/Blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=aab85845-88d2-4091-8088-
a6bbce0a4304&ID=211

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QUESTION 2
You work as the network administrator at CERTKINGDOM.com. The CERTKINGDOM.com network has a
domain named CERTKINGDOM.com. All servers on the CERTKINGDOM.com network run Windows Server
2008.
The CERTKINGDOM.com network has a server named CERTKINGDOM-SR15. You install the Active
Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) on CERTKINGDOM-SR15.
Which of the following options can be used for the creation of new Organizational Units (OU’s) in
the application directory partition of the AD LDS?

A. You should run the net start command on CERTKINGDOM-SR15.
B. You should open the ADSI Edit Microsoft Management Console on CERTKINGDOM-SR15.
C. You should run the repadmin /dsaguid command on CERTKINGDOM-SR15.
D. You should open the Active Directory Users and Computers Console on CERTKINGDOM-SR15.

Answer: B

Explanation: You need to use the ADSI Edit snap-in to create new OUs in the AD LDS
application directory partition. You also need to add the snap-in in the Microsoft Management
Console (MMC).

QUESTION 3
You work as the network administrator at CERTKINGDOM.com. The CERTKINGDOM.com network has a
domain named CERTKINGDOM.com. All servers on the CERTKINGDOM.com network run Windows Server
2008.
The CERTKINGDOM.com network has two domain controllers CERTKINGDOM-DC01 and CERTKINGDOMDC02.
CERTKINGDOM-DC01 suffers a catastrophic failure but it is causing problems because it was
configured to have Schema Master Operations role. You log on to the CERTKINGDOM.com domain as
a domain administrator but your attempts to transfer the Schema Master Operations role to
CERTKINGDOM-DC02 are unsuccessful.
What action should you take to transfer the Schema Master Operations role to CERTKINGDOMDC02?

A. Your best option would be to have the dcpromo /adv command executed on CERTKINGDOMDC02.
B. Your best option would be to have the Schema Master role seized to CERTKINGDOM-DC02.
C. Your best option would be to have Schmmgmt.dll registered on CERTKINGDOM-DC02.
D. Your best option would be to add your user account to the Schema Administrators group.

Answer: B

Explanation: To ensure that CERTKINGDOM-DC02 holds the Schema Master role you need to seize
the Schema Master role on CERTKINGDOM-DC02. Seizing the schema master role is a drastic step
that should be considered only if the current operations master will never be available again. So to
transfer the schema master operations role, you have to seize it on CERTKINGDOM-DC02.
Reference: http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/d4301a14-dd18-4b3c-a3ccec9a773f7ffb1033.
mspx?mfr=true

QUESTION 4
You work as the network administrator at CERTKINGDOM.com. The CERTKINGDOM.com network has a
single forest. The forest functional level is set at Windows Server 2008.
The CERTKINGDOM.com network has a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database server named
CERTKINGDOM-DB04 that hosts the Active Directory Rights Management Service (AD RMS).
You try to access the Active Directory Rights Management Services administration website but
received an error message stating:
"SQL Server does not exist or access is denied."
How can you access the AD RMS administration website?

A. You need to restart the Internet Information Server (IIS) service and the MSSQLSVC service on
CERTKINGDOM-DB04.
B. You need to install the Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS) on
CERTKINGDOM-DB04.
C. You need to reinstall the AD RMS instance on CERTKINGDOM-DB04.
D. You need to reinstall the SQL Server 2005 instance on CERTKINGDOM-DB04.
E. You need to run the DCPRO command on CERTKINGDOM-SR04

Answer: A

Explanation: You need to restart the internet information server (IIS) to correct the problem. The
starting of the MSSQULSVC service will allow you to access the database from AD RMS
administration website.

QUESTION 5
You work as an enterprise administrator at CERTKINGDOM.com. The CERTKINGDOM.com network has a
domain named CERTKINGDOM.com. The CERTKINGDOM.com network has a Windows Server 2008
computer named CERTKINGDOM-SR03 that functions as an Enterprise Root certificate authority
(CA).
A new CERTKINGDOM.com security policy requires that revoked certificate information should be
available for examination at all times.
What action should you take adhere to the new policy?

A. This can be accomplished by having a list of trusted certificate authorities published to the
CERTKINGDOM.com domain.
B. This can be accomplished by having the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) responder
implemented.
C. This can be accomplished by having the OCSP Response Signing certificate imported.
D. This can be accomplished by having the Startup Type of the Certificate Propagation service set
to Automatic.
E. This can be accomplished by having the computer account of CERTKINGDOM-SR03 added to the
PGCertificates group.

Answer: B

Explanation: You should use the network load balancing and publish an OCSP responder. This
will ensure that the revoked certificate information will be available at all times. You do not need to
download the entire CRL to check for revocation of a certificate; the OCSP is an online responder
that can receive a request to check for revocation of a certificate. This will also speed up certificate
revocation checking as well as reducing network bandwidth tremendously.

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Windows XP is still pretty cool

2011-10-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

Twelfth in a series. Here’s a dirty little secret: I’m still using Windows XP.

That’s right. A technology analyst -- independent, mind you; not working for a firm that requires a specific load -- and I’m voluntarily using XP. In fact, I’m writing this article on it. I’ve been using it so long, I almost stopped noticing, and as XP crossed the 10-year anniversary of its official launch this week, I thought some about my own experiences with it.

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Now, before you condemn me as a total luddite, let’s be clear: I’ve got lots of Windows 7 and even Vista machines running around the office (and a couple of Macs, for that matter), and I use them as well, all synched up with SugarSync (the one they never mention these days when they’re talking about how cool DropBox is).

But the old AMD desktop powering two big monitors is still my base system. It’s odd, in a way, because I have not one, not two, but three Win7 desktops piled up next to this one, ready to go when it dies.

So, why do I cling to XP when most others have moved on? Here are a few of the reasons.

I like to have each folder view retain its own setting. So, in the My Documents view, I prefer to see midsize icons in alphabetical order. Down at the My Documents\vendors\Chip Companies\Intel level, I can see files in Details view in reverse chronological order (newest first). In the My Pictures view, I like thumbnails. I prefer the subfolders to stay out of the way when I’m viewing by chronology.

In Win7, all folder views change at once whenever I change any of them, which means I am constantly having to adjust my view -- every time I want to see anything. Extra steps. Why can’t the folder just remember how I viewed it last time and stay that way? As it does in XP.

When I want to launch Word in XP, I hit two buttons: Start and the letter “w” and up comes a blank doc. In Win7, the sequence is Start, “w,” and Enter -- three buttons. Extra steps.

In XP, I use the My Documents folder as my desktop. Sometimes I put files or folders in a certain order for specific reasons. A folder containing my work in progress may be on the bottom right, separated from the other folders, because I’m working on it. Files that I’ve saved out for further study are in the order I want to read them. In XP, these items stay where I put them.

But Win7 is much smarter than me, and it thinks they should be in whatever view I last told all my folders to be in. I cannot move things around on my desktop. Win7 has a death grip on all my stuff.

And while we’re on folder views, what the heck is the difference between arrange, sort and group? In Win7, I have all these "choices" and within each, more choices: arrange by author, sort by name, group by date modified. Who has time for all these extra steps? And anyway, once I’ve spent all this time (which I can’t bill back to Microsoft) setting my view just right, it simply changes next time I adjust my view somewhere else in the file system. Why go to all that trouble just to have the OS throw my work out?

Why break things that work? Why bother with extra steps? Why is Microsoft still developing software that is convenient for the company rather than for its users?

It’s not like there are no improvements in Win7. Maybe people, including me, have praised it extravagantly.

Windows XP takes a lot longer to boot, but it’s been years since I established a protocol of powering on before going into the kitchen to make coffee and coming back when SugarSync is finished scanning my hard drive.

Win7 has cooler utilities and media handling, but many of these apps are available through Windows Live, making XP still pretty cool.

If I may observe, the process of continuously developing software and obviating older software seems analogous to the process that movies go through. In 1969, Henry Hathaway made a John Wayne classic called "True Grit" that embodied Wayne’s persona as a tough, dry wrangler trying to do the right thing. Why, in 2010, should the Coen brothers remake the same movie, a retread which, while fine in its own right, will never be a classic? Why downgrade a work of art that was already all it could be?

Because living artists need to eat. Plain and simple. John Wayne is done eating, but the Coen brothers need to put that new pool house on the side deck near the recreation area. In the Maslovian hierarchy of needs, the Coen brothers are way beyond needing to eat. But you get the idea.

Microsoft brings out new editions of Windows because it needs to eat, not because users need better software.

I leave you with this YouTube video, a lovely low-production-value musing on the nature of operating systems and their continuous frenzied development:

Is Facebook already more profitable than Amazon?

2011-10-25T06:06:00.000-07:00

Facebook’s financial details may not be public, but estimates show it could already be more profitable than Amazon. Revenue is a different story.

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How profitable is Facebook? Since the young company is still private, nobody knows for sure. Still, estimates indicate the social networking giant could already be pulling in more profits than the online retail giant Amazon. If it isn’t already, it will be by the end of the year, at least according to unofficial numbers.

Facebook’s revenue passed $1.6 billion in the first half of 2011 and saw around $800 million in operating income (although net income was reportedly just under $500 million). Uncrunched points to Amazon’s financials for the same time period: $322 million operating income in Q1 and $191 million operating income in Q2, or $513 million for the first half of 2011.

Palo Alto’s revenue and profit is rising at an estimated 50 percent clip every six months. In other words, $2 billion in operating income for 2011 is entirely possible.

It’s important to remember that revenue and profit are two completely different beasts. While Facebook may be passing Amazon in profit, it’s nowhere near when it comes to revenue. Amazon saw a total of $34 billion in revenue for 2010. Facebook’s revenue for last year is estimated to anywhere from less than $1 billion up to nearly $2 billion.

Amazon’s market cap is $107 billion. Facebook has accepted investments at a valuation of at least $50 billion. The latest valuation from third-party investors was $70 billion, while the highest valuation private markets have given the social network has been $80 billion.

Cue the speculation on whether Facebook is undervalued or overvalued, and remember that Amazon probably deserves the same type of scrutiny.

Reports about Microsoft's annual proxy statement focus on Steve Ballmer's paltry 2 percent pay raise. The big news is with the other Steve

2011-10-24T07:47:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's annual proxy statement arrived on Monday, and most of it's a snooze. It's largely forgettable, repeating numbers we've seen in the annual report -- until you get to the parts about shareholdings and salaries for Microsoft's biggest wigs. It gets even more interesting when you compare this year's report with last year's (DOC).

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According to this year's proxy statement, Steve Ballmer got a 2 percent raise, to $2,047,000 for fiscal 2011. At that rate, "the Board believes Mr. Ballmer is underpaid for his role and performance."

Lest you're worried that Ballmer might appear on a street corner near you, hat in hand and begging for nickles, take a look at his stock holdings. One year ago, he held 408 million shares. In the past year, he's sold 18 percent of his holdings and now owns just 333 million shares. Last November, I wrote about his pending stock sales and how they might presage a long-term departure plan. It looks like Ballmer sold all of the 75 million shares he reported, for about $2 billion.

Bottom line: $2 million in salary, $2 billion in stock sales. Not bad for a year's work.

The really interesting story, though, isn't with Steve Ballmer. It's with Steve Sinofsky.

Last year, Sinofsky didn't make the list of named shareholders. Microsoft is only required to report the stock holdings of directors, the CEO, CFO, and the three highest-paid executive officers. Last year, Sinofsky didn't make enough money -- he isn't a director -- so we have no way of knowing how many shares of Microsoft stock he held.

This year Sinofsky's compensation put him among the top three executive officers: almost $650,000 in compensation, a $1.3 million bonus, and $5.3 million in stock options. Since he's now one of the top three, Microsoft has to report his stock holdings.

Turns out Sinofsky is the fourth-largest reported shareholder, behind Bill Gates, Ballmer, and venture capitalist David Marquardt. Sinofsky has "beneficial ownership" of more than 1.1 million shares of Microsoft, including more than 600,000 vested shares that apparently haven't been exercised yet.

That doesn't make Sinofsky the fourth-largest Microsoft shareholder -- not by a long shot. Microsoft is required to report the total number of shares held by all executive offices and directors, and that group of 17 people holds a whopping 879 million shares.

Still, 1.1 million shares makes a pretty nice nest egg, eh? Especially considering Sinofsky isn't yet a member of the board.

Microsoft: BPOS components average 99.9-plus percent uptime

2011-10-21T08:08:00.000-07:00

The hosted applications in Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS) have averaged uptime of 99.9 percent or better in the past year, according to the company.

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BPOS, a collaboration and communications suite hosted by Microsoft and sold with partners, includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online and Live Meeting.

Last week, Google touted a 99.98 percent uptime for its hosted Gmail service in 2010, for both individual account holders and people who use it as part of Google Apps, a BPOS rival. Google didn't provide the uptime rate for the other Apps suite components, like Docs and Calendar.

Google and Microsoft offer a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee for their Apps and BPOS suites, respectively. When that service level agreement (SLA) isn't met, Google offers affected customers credits and extends their subscriptions, while Microsoft offers cash reimbursement.

Google announced last week that it was modifying its SLA to count every instance of downtime; previously, it logged only outages of 10 minutes or more. It also tweaked its SLA to include outages due to planned maintenance work, which previously wasn't counted against the 99.9 percent uptime commitment.

According to a spokesman for Microsoft, the BPOS SLA counts "any service issue as downtime, from the minute it starts to resolution."

"We also count issues for any number of impacted users, not just if 'enough' users are impacted," he said via e-mail.

The competition between Google Apps and BPOS has been heating up in the past year. Google has been updating its suite with capabilities aimed at large enterprises and their CIOs. Google Apps has traditionally been aimed at small and medium-size businesses.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is beta testing a big upgrade to BPOS called Office 365, whose applications will be based on the latest 2010 versions of their on-premise counterparts. Office 365 will also include versions that come with Office Web Apps, a hosted version of Microsoft Office, and with the option of the full-featured Office suite itself.

Because BPOS and Google Apps are cloud-hosted suites, their performance and uptime are critical aspects to their respective customers, most of whom rely on the suites as their primary workplace e-mail service.

French gov't will train SMEs to use Google, Microsoft tools

2011-10-20T08:05:00.000-07:00

Microsoft and Google recruited a new sales force of sorts on Thursday: a network of business counsellors and IT trainers partly funded by the French government.

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Microsoft and Google recruited a new sales force of sorts on Thursday: a network of business counsellors and IT trainers partly funded by the French government.

The companies have struck an agreement with the government allowing them to promote productivity tools such as Web analytics, document sharing and unified communications, including their own product offerings, through a government-backed IT training plan for small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs).

The government wants to help the country's small businesses use IT to increase sales and become more profitable, and last month renewed the program intended to achieve that, "Passport for a digital economy," for a further three years.

The Passport program delivers free training courses and offers other benefits to startups and businesses with fewer than about 20 employees that have followed three of the courses. Those benefits include discounts on IT products and services, and access to government-backed financing for IT purchases.

Some of the training courses will be written by Google and Microsoft under an agreement signed Thursday morning with Hervé Novelli, the secretary of state responsible for SMEs, and Yves Fouchet of CEFAC, a government-funded agency that delivers training and support to small businesses.

Google will contribute three training modules written by the company's marketing and product teams, said Mats Carduner, the company's managing director for Southern Europe. The courses will teach businesses how to create a Web site, attract an audience and optimize the site to increase sales using tools such as Google Analytics. "We'll make the modules available to CEFAC, but we won't do the training," he said.

Microsoft, a supporter of the Passport program since it began, will offer training materials on Web site creation, along with additional modules on unified communications products and Microsoft Office Live Small Business, its online office productivity tool, said Eric Boustouller, CEO of Microsoft France.

The company is also a participant in the government-sponsored buying guide for small businesses, he said.

"It's not just about Microsoft products. We're open to any products that work with ours, whether from Google or others," he said.

Google and Microsoft are not the only IT vendors backing the Passport program: others include Cisco Systems, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, PayPal and Yahoo.

Since the launch of the program, 45,000 businesses have signed up for help, according to Fouchet.

However, that's just a small fraction of the 2.7 million microenterprises in France, said Novelli. One of the limiting factors for the Passport program is how to reach them all, as the network of small business advisers doesn't have sufficient geographic reach, he said.

That's why the government is almost doubling the number of advisers, said Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, secretary of state for IT.

She also wants to see improvements in the quality of IT training, and said the government is looking at a system of certification for trainers. With the level of demand for IT expertise today, "IT advisor" needs to become a recognized profession that people can put on their CV, she said.

Microsoft prepares new 'Next' website

2011-10-18T16:05:00.000-07:00

Microsoft appears to be preparing to launch a new website called "Next" where it will share information about new technologies it and others are developing.

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"It's Microsoft's home for stories and conversations about what's new and on the horizon," according to the "about" page.

For now, the main page says that the site is "coming soon." The only blog post says: "Congrats if you found this site already...you weren't supposed to! We'll be back soon."

It was written by Steve Clayton, who has worked at Microsoft for 13 years and, according to his profile, recently moved to the company's Redmond, Washington, headquarters "to work on storytelling."

The site will offer stories about people at Microsoft and the technologies they are developing, according to the "about" page. "It's not all about Microsoft though -- we'll look at where technology is going, how it will impact our lives and what the important trends are. Innovations and innovators of all types are fair game here and we'll shine a light on them as well as on Microsoft," it says.

Microsoft will welcome feedback about the kinds of topics it should cover on the site, it said. "The site is ultimately for you, to show you who we are, what we're about and where we're headed," it says.

The main page also includes a list of items posted on Twitter from Microsoft's Twitter account. The URL links the site to Microsoft's TechNet blogs, which often cover technical topics related to the company's products.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the site or when it will go live.

Microsoft's plan for bringing its BI tools to iOS, Android, and Windows 8 devices

2011-10-17T16:28:00.000-07:00

Microsoft outlined its mobile BI roadmap, which includes support for Microsoft business intelligence tools on iOS, Android and Windows 8 over the next year-plus.

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While Microsoft’s coming Hadoop distributions may have been the biggest announcement from the Microsoft SQL PASS Summit last week, there were a couple of other hidden gems.

One of these was Microsoft’s mobile business intelligence (BI) roadmap. Microsoft is taking its BI capabilities and offerings to non-Microsoft platforms in calendar year 2012, officials said during last week’s confab.

Microsoft’s “BI solutions” include everything from PowerPivot and Excel, to SharePoint search and PerformancePoint capabilities, to reporting services. They’re the tools and add-ons that complement SQL Server.

The steps on the Microsoft “Mobile BI” roadmap (which is illustrated in the Microsoft slide above):

1. First half of calendar 2012: Enable Microsoft’s “existing corporate BI Web-based solutions” — including SQL Server Reporting Services, PerformancePoint and Excel Services –to run in browsers on Apple’s iOS and Windows devices. (I’m assuming “Windows devices” here means Windows Phones and Windows 7 PCs, but am asking just to make sure.)

2. Second half of calendar 2012: Add touch support for data exploration and visualization capabilities of those BI offerings on iOS, Microsoft and also Android platforms. (Again, this seemingly means iOS-based iPhones and iPads; Windows 7 PCs and Windows Phones; and Android phones. Not sure if it also means Android tablets. I’ve asked and will update if/when I hear back) Update: Microsoft officials demo’d this at PASS on Windows Phone Mango, the iPad 2 and an Android tablet. (Thanks @pradeepviswav)

3. Post-calendar 2012: Adding support for Microsoft’s BI offerings for Windows 8 slates. (Even though Windows 8 is expected by most company watchers to ship by the fall of 2012, Office 15 isn’t expected to be done until some time after that, and possibly not until 2013. Given Microsoft’s BI offerings include Excel and SharePoint, I’m assuming this is a reference to the “Wave 15″ version of those offerings.)

A note on the Microsoft Business Intelligence blog adds that items 1 and 2 will “ship outside of the final release of SQL Server 2012 in a separate ship vehicle the details of which are yet to be finalized.”

Microsoft officials did acknowledge last week that some key touch-centric features of Power View (the new BI tool formerly codenamed “Crescent,” which Microsoft is developing alongside SQL Server 2012, a k a, SQL Server “Denali,”) are going to ship in the latter half of 2012, months after SQL Server 2012 itself. Power View is a browser-based Silverlight application launched from SharePoint Server 2010. A first version of Power View (minus touch functionality) will ship alongside SQL Server 2012 in the early part of 2012.

(I’m thinking BI Mobile Radmap Item 2 is a reference to Power View touch and maybe also Data Explorer — a SQL Azure Lab tool for mashing up Azure Marketplace data with other data sources.)

There are also a couple of other interesting tidbits regarding Microsoft’s Hadoop announcement from last week from another Microsoft blog post.

In addition to enabling Microsoft BI tools to work with the two Hadoop distributions (Windows Azure and Windows Server) that Microsoft and partner Hortonworks are building, Microsoft also is going to provide other integration points between its Windows public/private cloud and Hadoop.

“Both distributions will offer simplified acquisition, installation and configuration experience of several Hadoop based technologies i.e. HDFS, Hive, Pig etc., enhanced security through integration with Active Directory, unified management through integration with System Center and a familiar and productive development platform through integration with Visual Studio and .NET – all of this optimized to provide the best in class performance in Windows environments,” according to a post on the SQL Server team blog.

The promised Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Hadoop for Windows Azure — due out before the end of this year — will include a Hive ODBC Driver and Hive Add-in for Excel, the post noted. And in terms of what kinds of contributions Microsoft is planning to offer back to the Apache/Hadoop community, one example is work around making “JavaScript a first class language for Big Data by enabling the millions of JavaScript developers to directly write high performance Map/Reduce jobs.”

Microsoft launches public sector magazine

2011-10-16T00:38:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has quietly created a new group, the office of civic innovation, as well as a new online magazine designed to promote its public sector initiatives.

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The new office of civic innovation is a seven-person team based in Washington, D.C., and part of Microsoft's Public Sector division, said Mark Drapeau, editor and chief of the new online magazine, Publicyte, and a member of the new team. The company first talked about the group at a launch party for the magazine in Washington, D.C., earlier this week.

Workers in the office of civic innovation will try to innovate the way the Public Sector group sells products and communicates with customers, he said.

Drapeau hopes to make Publicyte, the digital magazine, "a great source of creative thought leadership on technology and innovation for different public sector verticals" like government, education and health care. "We want to present Microsoft in a new light to influential people in the public and civic sectors and through the media that covers it," he said.

Drapeau will contribute articles to the site as will other Microsoft writers and outside contributors. "It's a Microsoft website so it's going to be Microsoft-friendly, but we have a lot of latitude about the kind of content and opinions that are expressed," he said.

Microsoft did not officially announce the magazine. "It's a bit under the radar. I want to build an audience organically," he said.

Publicyte will be successful if it influences public and civic sector professionals, he said. "If we can change the way people think about issues like social media and government, we've done our jobs," he said.

Drapeau started out as a researcher studying animal behavior and their social networks and he said he can apply some of that work to his current position running Publicyte. He's been working in Microsoft's Public Sector division for about a year-and-a-half.

Microsoft has been in a heated battle with Google over the past couple of years for contracts to offer products and services to public sector organizations, like government agencies and schools. Publicyte and the civic innovation office appear aimed at shaping Microsoft's image and boosting its success in the sector.

Microsoft fails to credit Kelihos takedown partner

2011-10-11T14:19:00.000-07:00

Microsoft grabbed headlines Wednesday with its report about the successful takedown of the Kelihos botnet, but while the company detailed the achievements of its Digital Crimes Unit, it failed to mention the major role security firm Kaspersky Lab played in the operation.

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Microsoft's Kelihos takedown announcement centered on the fact that its specialized team of lawyers succeeded in naming defendants in a botnet-related federal court complaint for the first time -- such cases usually involve unknown parties.

The named defendants were Alexander Piatti and his Czech-based company dotFREE Group SRO, which operated a second-level domain (SLD) registration service in the .cz.cc name space. This service was abused by the botnet's operators to set up hosts for their control infrastructure. A temporary restraining order was obtained by the Digital Crimes Unit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, forcing VeriSign to suspend the cz.cc domain.

Microsoft did not disclose any technical details about how Kelihos was hijacked from its original operators because Kaspersky Lab handled that part of the operation. The security company's experts explained Thursday in a lengthy blog post how they took control of the botnet, but they probably didn't appreciate being left out of the story in the first place.

"Hey @msftmmpc [Microsoft Malware Protection Center] why didn't u mention all truth about Hlux/Kelihos botnet taking down?" Dmitry Bestuzhev, head of Kaspersky Lab's global research and analysis team for Latin America, wrote on Twitter.

"Kaspersky Lab played a critical role in this botnet takedown initiative, leading the way to reverse-engineer the bot malware, crack the communication protocol and develop tools to attack the peer-to-peer infrastructure," said Tillmann Werner, a senior virus analyst with Kaspersky in Germany. "We worked closely with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit (DCU), sharing the relevant information and providing them with access to our live botnet tracking system," he added.

Even the antivirus vendor's co-founder and CEO, Eugene Kaspersky, linked to his company's blog post with the message: "The flipside of the Microsoft's takedown of Kelihos (Hlux) botnet."

Kaspersky Lab currently operates the only server where computers infected with this malware connect to, which effectively puts it in control of the botnet. The company has the resources to keep this so-called sinkhole operational for a long time, but the end goal is to reduce Kelihos' size as much as possible.

Sending commands to clean the infected systems remotely would be illegal in most countries, so this won't be an easy task. Microsoft has added detection for the Kelihos malware family to its Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), which is distributed to computers worldwide via Windows Update, but the effects have yet to show.

The software giant claims that not crediting Kaspersky Lab in its original announcement was the result of poor communication between the two companies. "Due to an unfortunate miscommunication between Microsoft and Kaspersky prior to the announcement, Microsoft was operating under the belief that it was Kaspersky's desire to not be proactively mentioned in the announcement --- as some partners commonly request and which we understand and respect given the sensitivity of these situations," said Richard Boscovich, a senior attorney with the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit.

"However, we were very glad to see Kaspersky subsequently come forward with their role in the operation, because we very much want to give them the credit they deserve. Their research and unique, in-depth insight into the botnet was invaluable in this case and we are grateful for their support and determination to make the Internet safer for everyone," he added.

Apple, carriers launch iPhone 4S pre-sale

2011-10-11T00:18:00.000-07:00

Verizon Wireless today beat Apple and its carrier rivals to the iPhone 4S pre-order punch, kicking off sales just after midnight PT.

Sprint followed about 20 minutes later.

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But while Verizon's site appeared to be working normally -- and responded promptly to orders that were aborted at the last minute -- Sprint's was initially sluggish and displayed a "site is temporarily unavailable" message when one of the iPhone 4S models was chosen.

By 12:35 a.m., however, Sprint's site accepted an order.

Apple's online store reopened around 12:30 a.m. Pacific after its usual pre-launch maintenance, and appeared to be operating normally at first, although Computerworld was not able to place an order as a new customer with any of the three carriers. In fact, after selecting Sprint, a message appeared saying that the iPhone 4S could only be pre-ordered by existing Sprint customers, and told others that they would have to purchase their phones at an Apple retail store.

But within 30 minutes, Apple's pre-sales site started acting erratically, at times returning a generic "Not Found" error message and at other times refusing to allow a carrier choice. At 1:15 a.m. those problems appeared to have been largely resolved, but Apple's site was at times lethargic, likely because of the traffic load.

AT&T did not begin taking pre-orders at its website until nearly 1:00 a.m. Pacific.

Today's pre-order launch had been set Tuesday when Apple CEO Tim Cook led a launch event that unveiled the long-rumored smartphone.

Much of the commentary about the iPhone 4S, particularly on Twitter, was negative that day, with many expressing disappointment that the smartphone didn't offer a larger-sized screen or support the faster LTE networks that AT&T and Verizon are deploying.

It's impossible to know whether the negative reaction will mean fewer sales, but most analysts have predicted that it will have little impact and remained confident that Apple will sell a record number of iPhones during the fourth quarter.

Last year Apple sold 16.2 million iPhones in the fourth quarter.

Apple is selling the iPhone 4S at three prices -- $199, $299 and $399 -- rather than the two prices of earlier versions. Also today, Apple and carriers kicked off sales of the $99 8GB iPhone 4.

The company has departed from past practice in another way: It kept alive 2009's iPhone 3GS, which it and carriers will offer to customers free when they commit to a two-year service contract.

iPhones ordered online today are to be delivered by Oct. 14, said Apple, the same day in-store sales will begin. Apple has said its retail stores will open their doors next Friday at 8 a.m. local time, an hour earlier than usual for most of the outlets.

Also today, Apple told customers they could order an unlocked iPhone 4S -- one not tied to a specific carrier or connected to a contract -- in November for prices ranging from $649 (for a 16GB model) to $849 (for a 64GB phone).

Steve Jobs on Education

2011-10-10T01:12:00.000-07:00

Everyone is talking about Steve Jobs this morning. The acknowledgement of how he improved the human condition while also making billions in profits for himself and others almost makes the Al Copeland Humanitarian Award unnecessary this year. Steve Jobs embodied the entrepreneur as humanitarian — not because he gave away his wealth as if to cleanse himself of the sin of having earned it, but because he created and promoted consumer items that significantly improved our lives while justly generating enormous wealth for himself, his employees, and shareholders.

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In addition to embodying the spirit of “The Al,” Jobs had quite a lot of smart things to say about education reform. I’m grateful to Whitney Tilson for reminding me of this. Here are some selected remarks from Steve Jobs on education:

[On Unions]

I’m a very big believer in equal opportunity as opposed to equal outcome. I don’t believe in equal outcome because unfortunately life’s not like that. It would be a pretty boring place if it was. But I really believe in equal opportunity. Equal opportunity to me more than anything means a great education. Maybe even more important than a great family life, but I don’t know how to do that. Nobody knows how to do that. But it pains me because we do know how to provide a great education. We really do. We could make sure that every young child in this country got a great education. We fallfar short of that…. The problem there of course is the unions. The unions are the worst thing that ever happened to education because it’s not a meritocracy. It turns into a bureaucracy, which is exactly what has happened. The teachers can’t teach and administrators run the place and nobody can be fired. It’s terrible.

[On Vouchers]

But in schools people don’t feel that they’re spending their own money. They feel like it’s free, right? No one does any comparison shopping. A matter of fact if you want to put your kid in a private school, you can’t take the forty-four hundred dollars a year out of the public school and use it, you have to come up with five or six thousand of your own money. I believe very strongly that if the country gave each parent a voucher for forty-four hundred dollars that they could only spend at any accredited school several things would happen. Number one schools would start marketing themselves like crazy to get students. Secondly, I think you’d see a lot of new schools starting. I’ve suggested as an example, if you go to Stanford Business School, they have a public policy track; they could start a school administrator track. You could get a bunch of people coming out of college tying up with someone out of the business school, they could be starting their own school. You could have twenty-five year old students out of college, very idealistic, full of energy instead of starting a Silicon Valley company, they’d start a school. I believe that they would do far better than any of our public schools would. The third thing you’d see is I believe, is the quality of schools again, just in a competitive marketplace, start to rise. Some of the schools would go broke. Alot of the public schools would go broke. There’s no question about it. It would be rather painful for the first several years

DM: But deservedly so.

SJ: But far less painful I think than the kids going through the system as it is right now.

[On Digital Learning]

The market competition model seems to indicate that where there is a need there is a lot of providers willing to tailor their products to fit that need and a lot of competition which forces them to get better and better. I used to think when I was in my twenties that technology was the solution to most of the world’s problems, but unfortunately it just ain’t so… We need to attack these things at the root, which is people and how much freedom we give people, the competition that will attract the best people. Unfortunately, there are side effects, like pushing out a lot of 46 year old teachers who lost their spirit fifteen years ago and shouldn’t be teaching anymore. I feel very strongly about this. I wish it was as simple as giving it over to the computer….

As you’ve pointed out I’ve helped with more computers in more schools than anybody else in the world and I absolutely convinced that is by no means the most important thing. The most important thing is a person. A person who incites your curiosity and feeds your curiosity; and machines cannot do that in the same way that people can. The elements of discovery are all around you. You don’t need a computer. Here – why does that fall? You know why? Nobody in the entire world knows why that falls. We can describe it pretty accurately but no one knows why. I don’t need a computer to get a kid interested in that, to spend a week playing with gravity and trying to understand that and come up with reasons why.

DM: But you do need a person.

SJ: You need a person. Especially with computers the way they are now. Computers are very reactive but they’re not proactive; they are not agents, if you will. They are very reactive. What children need is something more proactive. They need a guide. They don’t need an assistant. I think we have all the material in the world to solve this problem; it’s just being deployed in other places. I’ve been a very strong believer in that what we need to do in education is to go to the full voucher system. I know this isn’t what the interview was supposed to be about but it is what I care about a great deal.

(Source: Smithsonian Institution Oral and Video Histories)

The above interview was from 1995, but it is clear that Jobs did not significantly change his mind over time. In 2007 he reiterated that unions and lifetime employment for teachers were at the heart of the problem. This is from PC World:

During a joint appearance with Michael Dell that was sponsored by the Texas Public Education Reform Foundation, Jobs took on the unions by first comparing schools to small businesses, and school principals to CEOs. He then asked rhetorically: “What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in, they couldn’t get rid of people that they thought weren’t any good? Not really great ones, because if you’re really smart, you go, ‘I can’t win.’ “

He went on to say that “what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way. This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy.”

After Steve Jobs made these comments I wrote an op-ed for the NY Sun, which stated:

There is a price to be paid for this kind of frank analysis and Steve Jobs knows it. “Apple just lost some business in this state, I’m sure,” Mr. Jobs said. Of course, Apple sells a large portion of its computers to public school systems. By taking a stance against school unionization, Mr. Jobs may lose some school sales for Apple.

Sharing the stage with Mr. Jobs was Michael Dell, the chief executive officer of Dell, a competing computer manufacturer. By comparison, according to the description of the event, Mr. Dell “sat quietly with his hands folded in his lap,” during Mr. Jobs’ speech while the audience at an education reform conference “applauded enthusiastically.”

Mr. Dell followed Mr. Jobs by defending the rise of unions in education: “the employer was treating his employees unfairly and that was not good. … So now you have these enterprises where they take good care of their people. The employees won, they do really well and succeed.”

Whether Mr. Jobs or Mr. Dell is right about the role unions have played in public education, one thing is perfectly clear – attacking the unions is a controversial and potentially costly choice for corporate CEOs.

The safe thing is to make bland declarations about the need to improve the quality of education without getting into any of the messy particulars that might be necessary to produce a better education. Changing the status quo in education almost certainly requires ruffling someone’s feathers, but doing that is almost certainly bad for business.

In part this is why we see highly successful entrepreneurs who survive in a world of ruthless competition abandon these business principles when they turn to education philanthropy. People who would never endorse the idea that businesses should be granted local monopolies, offer workers lifetime tenure, or pay employees based solely on seniority, embrace a status quo public system that has all of these features.

While some CEOs may sincerely believe that education is somehow different from the rest of the world in which they live, others have been cowed into submission. Teachers are a very large, well-organized, and relatively affluent consumer and political bloc….

Steve Jobs has embarked on a perilous path, but with solid evidence and persuasive arguments, he can move all of us toward higher quality schools. He should be applauded for having the courage to say out loud what scores of other business leaders are too sheepish to say.

Unfortunately, Steve Jobs will no longer be with us as we try to advance on this perilous path of education reform.

Microsoft to ship last service pack for Office 2007 this month

2011-10-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

Microsoft yesterday announced it will ship a third and final service pack update for Office 2007 before year's end.

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It appears that Microsoft will deliver Office 2007 Service Pack 3 (SP3) this month.

"The October 2011 release provides a six-month window to test and deploy the release prior to exiting mainstream support," Microsoft said in a blog post Thursday.

Office 2007, which went on general sale in January 2007 alongside Windows Vista, exits what Microsoft calls "mainstream support" in April 2012.

The suite will continue to be updated with security fixes for another five years after that, through April 11, 2017, during the "extended support" phase.

The biggest difference between the two support phases is that extended, non-security fixes are provided only to companies that have paid for special support contracts.

Microsoft, however, never issues service packs -- which are mostly composed of past security and other patches -- once a product is retired from mainstream support.

Office 2007 SP3 will be offered using Microsoft's now-standard procedure. Initially, the service pack will be available as a manual download and through Windows Update as an optional install. Three months later, the company will kick SP3 into Windows Update for automatic distribution and deployment.

Microsoft also usually gives corporate customers another heads-up about 30 days before it starts serving Office service packs through its update services.

Service Pack 3 is Office's 2007's first SP since 2009's SP2.

Not surprisingly, Microsoft touted the newer Office 2010 as an option for customers who want to retire Office 2007 or the even-older Office 2003.

Office 2003 has more than two years of life left in it: The suite won't be retired from security support until April 2014.

Arabs, Jews Study IT Together

2011-10-06T00:03:00.000-07:00

Nazareth, Israel
Orgad Lootsky heard the bombing near here that killed 20. But Lootsky, who has trained IT professionals for seven years, still believes he can forge links between Arabs (Christian and Muslim) and Jews.

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In this northern city, which has an Arab section and a Jewish one, called Nazareth Illit, high school teenagers from the Nazareth Baptist School and its Jewish counterpart come together to earn their Cisco Certified Networking Associate (CCNA) certificates in classes taught by Lootsky.
These young adults exhibit seriousness preparing for their futures, but what's compelling is how they trump the political pressures that make any mixing of Arabs and Jews potentially confrontational.
Haya Samaan, a 15-year-old 10th-grader at the Nazareth Baptist School, has been in the program for two months. "I want to make a difference," says Samaan, who considers Bill Gates a hero. "I want to fulfill my dreams," she adds, explaining her studies for the CCNA certificate. She's also excited about the connections she's making with Jewish classmates.
The program has backing from local educators such as Ousama Moalem, principal of the Nazareth Baptist School; parents; and scholarship help from Salesforce.com/foundation, individuals and Nazareth Illit-Yezreel Technological College, which hosts the sessions on its campus.
Zika Abzuk, who established the program in Nazareth and is business development manager at Cisco in Israel, said that after a suicide bombing, tensions were high, and some parents and officials were dubious about the plan. "But we felt this is time people should show there are many good things we can do together," she said.
Moalem, whose school of 1,060 makes do with 20 computers and lacks networking equipment and teaching space, agreed: "The students are excited, the atmosphere is comfortable, and I look forward to more cooperation with the Jewish school."
But as with IT projects in the business world, reality tempers enthusiastic visions. Iris Klein, general director of the Nazareth Illit-Yezreel Technological College, said on a day when people were visiting bombing victims in the hospital that she wholeheartedly supports the program and will find money to keep it alive, but that this alone will not change the enmity in the region. "This is a small program, and we would be happy to enlarge it," she said, "but we have to be realistic."
And yet the attitude of Alex Etkin, a 17-year-old 11th-grade Jewish student in the program, should encourage more optimism. "We're all here to learn," said Etkin, who has dreams of being an artist as well as an IT professional. "It doesn't matterif you are Arab or Jewish, we want to learn together."