Entries for Tyler Pelletier

Microsoft thrive site should take a dive

Tyler Pelletier — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 03:41:53 GMT

"In response to the state of the economic downturn, Microsoft has launched a page on its website designed to help IT professionals. Microsoft Thrive , which is entirely Silverlight-based, has various resources that are divided into three sections: Advance Your Career, Enhance Your Technical Skills, and Align IT with Business. When you first load up the site, a one-minute video rather annoyingly starts playing in the bottom left."

There has been no update or change and I do not find the site to be of any real help the site seems to focus on microsoft resources ONLY and fails to actually provide helpful resources such as Technet How DO I videos or Springboard. If it's not updated to become more "useful" I think it should be removed.

http://edge.technet.com/Media/How-does-an-IT-Pro-Thrive-during-these-tough-times/#Page=1

http://www.microsoft.com/click/thrive/

Question

Tyler Pelletier — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 23:50:02 GMT

I have attended some of the it pro secessions in second life on Microsoft island it’s easier for me than to travel an hour for local user groups or to go to Microsoft Canada’s HQ anyway they have a channel 9 guy and have been featured on channel 9 I was wondering if there was some way to do the same with TechNet edge and maybe get some more presenters in SL.

http://img200.imageshack.us/my.php?image=channel9insecondlife.png

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/dpeeast/Interview-Robin-and-Kyle-Gomboy-of-ReactionGrid/

physical security is just as important as digital security

Tyler Pelletier — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 07:55:24 GMT

The Ultimate Lock Picker Hacks Pentagon, Beats Corporate Security for Fun and Profit

Marc Weber Tobias can pick, crack, or bump any lock. Now he wants to teach the world how to break into military facilities and corporate headquarters.
Illustration: Tetsuya Nagato

Tobias is laughing. And laughing. The effect is disconcerting. It's a bwa-ha-ha kind of evil mastermind laugh—appropriate if you've just sacked Constantinople, checkmated Deep Blue, or handed Superman a Dixie cup of kryptonite Kool-Aid, but downright scary in a midtown Manhattan restaurant during the early-bird special.

Our fellow diners begin to stare. Tobias doesn't notice and wouldn't care anyway. He's as rumpled and wild as a nerdy grizzly bear. His place mat is covered in diagrams and sketched floor plans and scribbled arrows. His laugh fits him like a tinfoil hat. It goes on for a solid 20 seconds.

But Tobias isn't crazy. Far from it. He's a professional lock breaker, a man obsessively—perhaps compulsively—dedicated to cracking physical security systems. He doesn't play games, he rarely sees movies, he doesn't attend to plants or pets or, currently, a girlfriend. Tobias hacks locks. Then he teaches the public how to hack them, too.

Like many exceedingly bright people, Tobias has the exhausted air of a know-it-all. Over dozens of dinners, he has walked me through how to pick simple locks ("Uh, is there something wrong with your hands?") and bypass combination dials ("A brain-damaged monkey could do it faster"). He has described how to outwit security technologies like motion detectors ("Duh"), face-recognition software ("It's stupid, even if you think about it!"), fingerprint scans ("What child came up with that?"), and heat sensors ("You can get this one—maybe").

Marc Tobias and Tobias Bluzmanis attempt to bump the high-security Medeco3 cylinder lock.
For more, visit wired.com/video. We've covered key card hotel locks over seafood, in-room credit card safes over sandwiches. While we ate a decent steak dinner, Tobias used the house crayons to diagram one of the largest jewel robberies in history; over dessert, he showed me how a person less honest than himself would pull the heist again.

Thinking like a criminal is Tobias' idea of fun. It makes him laugh. It has also made him money and earned him a reputation as something of the Rain Man of lock-breaking. Even if you've never heard of Tobias, you may know his work: He's the guy who figured out how to steal your bike, unlock your front door, crack your gun lock, blow up your airplane, and hijack your mail. Marc Weber Tobias has a name for the headache he inflicts on his targets: the Marc Weber Tobias problem.

Lock-breaking is equal parts art and science. So is the ability to royally piss people off. Tobias is a veritable da Vinci at both endeavors. His Web site's streaming video of prepubescent kids gleefully opening gun locks has won him no points with mothers or locksmiths, and his ideas about how to smuggle liquid explosive reagents onto commercial airlines spookily presaged the Transportation Security Administration's prohibitions against carry-on liquids. Over the past 20 years, Tobias has been threatened by casinos, banned from hotel chains, and bullied by legions of corporate lawyers. And enjoyed every minute of it.

Tobias discusses full disclosure, his obsession, and his favorite pranks.
For more, visit wired.com/video. But to Tobias, pissing off The Man isn't the point, not entirely. Nor is it, entirely, to make himself famous or rich—not that he's allergic to either outcome. The point, he says, is to "make Blocked better." Tobias thinks of himself as a humble public servant. When he attacks the Kryptonite bike lock or the Club (or those in-room safes at Holiday Inn or Caesars Palace), he's not a bad guy—he's just Ralph Nader with a slim jim, protecting consumers by exposing locks, safes, and security systems that aren't actually locked, safe, or secure. At least, not from people like him.

The problem, if you're a safe company or a lock maker, is that Tobias makes it all public through hacker confabs, posts on his Security.org site, and tech blogs like Engadget. He views this glasnost as a public service. Others see a hacker how-to that makes The Anarchist Cookbook read like Betty Crocker. And where Tobias sees a splendid expression of First Amendment rights, locksmiths and security companies see a criminal finishing school. Tobias isn't just exposing problems, they say. He is the problem.

But forget bike locks and hotel room safes: These days, Tobias is attacking the lock famous for protecting places like military installations and the homes of American presidents and British royals.

Between stabs at his salad, Tobias hands me his latest idea of fun: nearly 300 pages of self-published hacker-Blocked detailing his attack on the allegedly uncrackable Medeco high-security lock. "Trust me, this will cause a Blockeded riot!" he says, dabbing at tears of joy with a paper napkin. "Oh yeah, this is way, way bigger than the liquid explosives thing!" And he's right, it is bigger—and with way, way bigger consequences.

Some Marc Weber Tobias problems rattle companies. Others end as consulting contracts or dropped lawsuits or forcibly improved design. But all Tobias problems, like all hacker stories, start with a nerdy kid in a basement workshop, taking things apart.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-06/ff_keymaster

No Tech Hacking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CWrzVJYLWw

Homeless Doesn't Mean Offline

Tyler Pelletier — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:58:17 GMT

The Wall Street Journal reports on the increasing numbers of homeless computer users. While some resort to familiar solutions such as using computers set up in shelters or at public libraries, others carry their own laptops and external hard disks, and some even generate their own electricity or connect their units to car batteries to keep their systems running. Cybercafes, sympathetic friends, and "hidden" locations in public places that offer AC power and wireless access are some of the methods used to stay online.

Except for where homeless users run their systems and make online connections, they're not much different than those of us using PCs at home or at the office: PCs are used for news, information, and entertainment, social networking, advocacy, and jobhunting. As one homeless user puts it: "You don't need a TV. You don't need a radio. You don't even need a newspaper, but you need the Internet."

If you had to hit the streets, what would you give up before you gave up your PC? If you're a PC nomad, what are your favorite ways to stay powered up and online? Hit Comment and share your thoughts.

Detail of image by Brian L. Frank for the Wall Street Journal.

COMMENTS:10TAGS: Internet, wi-fi, Internet access, wall street journal, homeless

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/homeless_doesnt_mean_offline

edge on joost

Tyler Pelletier — Fri, 29 May 2009 19:20:26 GMT

I was wondering if there are any plans to make technet edge available on joost or hulu's web tv applications

http://www.joost.com/

Oregon News Team Finds Geek Squad Incompetent

Tyler Pelletier — Sat, 23 May 2009 01:49:07 GMT

As if Geek Squad, the PC repair portion of mega electronics chain Best Buy, needed any more damage to its geek cred, it went and got punked by a local Oregon Fox News team. But what's most surprising is how easily the undercover news team did it.

Taking a problem-free PC, the investigators pulled the IDE cable out of the hard drive and told local PC repair shops in the Portland-Metro area that the system wouldn't boot. This included a pair of Geek Squad locations, the first of which identified the problem and fixed it free of charge. Kudos then, right?

Wrong. The second Geek Squad location charged $70 off the bat for a diagnosis, which isn't particularly egregious. But after two days of waiting, a tech called back to inform the undercover team that their hard drive was broken. If that weren't bad enough, the tech claimed it would cost up to $580 to fix the problem! That's not all. Geek Squad said it found a virus and suggested that the 'owner' buy a new PC instead of having the 'broken' one repaired.

"We take any misdiagnosis very seriously, and I personally feel horrible that we missed this opportunity to be consistently accurate," Steve Carter, Geek Squad District Manager, wrote in a statement. "I'm working closes with my Geek Squad agents going forward to ensure that the highest level service is maintained consistently for our customers in Portland."

Watch the undercover video here.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/oregon_news_team_finds_geek_squad_incompetent

Free Windows Server 2008 Training Course

Tyler Pelletier — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:21:06 GMT

"over 6 Hours of training videos"

Free Windows Server 2008 Training Download - Train Signal, Inc.

Free Windows Server 2008 Training Course. 1) Installing Windows Server 2008 and active directory 2) active directory users and groups in windows server 2008 ...
http://www.server2008training.com/

I only ask that you take a copy to your local school because we all know how old the books and computers are in the classroms and we all wish we had a better education at a younger age

CTP of Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 available today!

Tyler Pelletier — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:58:26 GMT

It was almost exactly one year ago that we signed off on beta 2 of Windows HPC Server 2008 and today we made available the Community Technical Preview (CTP) of Windows HPC Server 2008 R2. Based on Windows Server 2008 R2, the CTP is a preliminary release, allowing an early preview of planned functionality for HPC Server 2008 R2. In our labs, we’re up and running on Windows Server 2008 R2. We’re regularly running stress runs on Dan Reed’s 1000 node cluster in Microsoft Research, teasing out distributed admin issues with virtual machines that turn our own 540 node cluster into a 2000 node süper-cluster, and using solid state drives to identify database scalability issues. Later this year we’ll do some runs on huge (2000+ node) supercomputers. HPC is becoming part of mainstream computing, and that’s a nice way of saying it can’t fail. We have customers in production and they’ve provided us with a list of great features for our upcoming release. Some of them told us they wanted to use our SOA programming model in mission critical environments. With this CTP we provide the first of many mission critical features, disconnection/reconnection for SOA workloads. Say you submit a million Monte Carlo simulations to the cluster. In the past you would receive the calculations as they were completed, one by one. With our CTP you could submit from your laptop, disconnect, go home, play with the dog, sleep soundly, and come back in the morning to collect the complete set of results. We’ll have additional mission critical features in our future pre-releases. HPC Server 2008 allowed people who weren’t supercomputing geniuses to set up and run a cluster, easily and quickly. Our CTP includes a number of enhancements to our distributed management infrastructure, including the ability to create custom heat maps and use 3rd party reporting tools. Using a cluster should be as easy as using any other network resource. Just like you can connect to a network printer and print jobs, you should be able to connect to a cluster, submit a computationally challenging job, and get the results. Our improved job scheduler includes a number of customer requested features including job progress and pre/post tasks. Pre/post tasks are cool because you can use them to set up and tear down compute nodes. Say you’re doing a bunch of genomic searches. With pre-tasks you could stage parts of the genomic database across your compute nodes, run your searches in parallel, and then clean up when you’re finished. Hey, it’s a simple map/reduce system.
Continue At Source

Send via e-mail | Submit to Digg | Add to Live Favorites

http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2009/05/20/ctp-of-windows-hpc-server-2008-r2-available-today.aspx
http://bink.nu/news/ctp-of-windows-hpc-server-2008-r2-available-today.aspx

Two free e-books available in May

Tyler Pelletier — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:25:57 GMT

Two free e-books available in May

Our celebration of 25 years of publishing by Microsoft Press continues this month with two more free e-books available for the next week! These offers expire on May 27, 2009, so download the e-books today:

Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services Resource Kit, by Christa Anderson and Kristin L. Griffin with the Microsoft Presentation Hosted Desktop Virtualization Team (PDF, 38.0 MB). In-depth and comprehensive, this Resource Kit delivers the information you need to set up, deploy, and manage a Terminal Services farm using Windows Server 2008. For more information or to buy the print version of this title, visit the Microsoft Learning website.

The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention, by Marc McDonald, Robert Musson, and Ross Smith (PDF, 4.3 MB). This practical, hands-on guide captures, categorizes, and builds a process of best practices to help avoid creating defects during the development process—rather than fixing them after extensive analysis. For more information or to buy the print version of this title, visit the Microsoft Learning website.

Note: You will need to temporarily allow pop-ups in order to download the free e-books.

Published Wednesday, May 20, 2009 7:16 AM by Filed under: http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoft_press/archive/2009/05/20/two-free-e-books-available-in-may.aspx

Windows Server 2008 Interop with Linux and OS X

Tyler Pelletier — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:52:19 GMT

We’re a little over halfway done with the Interop Road Show I helped create. Last week Matt Hester did a simulcast of the live event from Chicago. Although he did a great job, I wanted to capture the demos with Camtasia v6.0.2 and provide some high quality audio and video of the demos, so here they are.

http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/05/16/windows-server-2008-interop-with-linux-and-os-x.aspx

Interop Road Show – webcast playback and downloads now available

Tyler Pelletier — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:06:33 GMT

Last week I took off for vacation. It was one of those marathon honey due vacations and I am happy to say I accomplished most of what I set out to do. The house is painted. The trees and bushes are trimmed. The pool is in top shape and ready for frolicking.

I also took some time to help Matt Hester deliver a simulcast of the Interop Road Show we’ve been doing. He did the delivery and I answered the question on LiveMeeting. Of course we recorded the LiveMeeting audio, slides and demos and they are now ready for your viewing pleasure. You’ll see they are available in .WMV format (my fav) and the LiveMeeting format.

When you start listening to session one, you’ll notice Matt’s mic is over driving the system. It was adjusted about 7 minutes into the session so it’s much more comfortable at around 9 minutes. Here the are:

Session 1: Active Directory Interoperability with Linux and Apple OS X: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mseventsbmo/view?id=1032414587-1&role=attend&pw=7975E672
Session 2: Running Open Source Software (OSS) on Windows Server 2008: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mseventsbmo/view?id=1032414587-2&role=attend&pw=7975E672
Session 3: Installing and Using PHP with SQL Server 2008: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mseventsbmo/view?id=1032414587-3&role=attend&pw=7975E672

Get the rest of the information about the webcast on Matt’s blog at http://blogs.technet.com/matthewms/archive/2009/05/13/integrate-your-it-environment-roadshow-questions-answers-and-resources.aspx.

Published Thursday, May 14, 2009 11:02 PM by http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/05/14/interop-road-show-webcast-playback-and-downloads-now-available.aspx

TechEd North America online

Tyler Pelletier — Mon, 11 May 2009 07:50:34 GMT

Keynote

View the TechEd North America keynote live on Monday, May 11 starting at 10:00 A.M. PST.

1500 kbps, 750 kbps, 300 kbps

http://www.msteched.com/online/home.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/click/thrive/

Tyler Pelletier — Sun, 10 May 2009 05:52:07 GMT

I would like to see a video interview with the people behind thrive and see what there plans or goals are because the idea behind this site helping it pro's thrive is good but the content is not deep enough or technical enough to get people to implement anything.

I would like to see it teach both the fundamentals of networking and server management but some of the advanced technologies like high availabillity and actually implementing some of the new virtualization technologies

http://www.server2008training.com/

Learning center - free online classes
http://h30187.www3.hp.com/

Virtualized Windows Essential Business Server 2008 (EBS) to be featured in a Microsoft System Center Tools presentation at TechEd

Tyler Pelletier — Thu, 07 May 2009 05:45:49 GMT

John Joyner, a Microsoft MVP for Operations Manager and Senior Architect at ClearPointe, will be including Windows Essential Business Server 2008 (EBS) in the following presentation at Microsoft Tech·Ed North America 2009:

VIR306 Using Microsoft System Center Tools to Deliver Virtualization Management for Hosting and Service Providers on 5/14, room 502A, 2:45 PM to 4:00 PM. Please attend if you can.

A portion of this talk features Windows Essential Business Server 2008 (EBS) with Hyper-V. EBS is going to be one of two demo customer networks that will be shown managed by a service provider with OM 07 R2 and VMM 07 R2 frameworks (managed customer networks in untrusted/Internet-facing scenarios).

More detail from John:

This network has 8 servers: the 3 EBS core servers which are VM’s, 5 physical servers, and some clients. All 3 EBS computers are Hyper-V guests of two Hyper-V server hosts. VMM 2008 R2 is deployed on an additional physical server in the EBS domain. Essentials 2007 on the EBS Management Server is in Service Provider mode, and an additional OM 07 R2 gateway is deployed on an additional physical server in the EBS domain. OM 07 R2 is providing a consolidated view of host and VM health from the service provider vantage point.

Session objectives:

1. Deploying OpsMgr and SCVMM Agents to multiple ‘un-trusted’ customer environments

2. Granting role-based security access to customers in OpsMgr and SCVMM

3. Creating tailored customer views in the OpsMgr Web Console and SCVMM Self Service Portal

The EBS-specific scenario would be a Microsoft customer that wants the advantages of EBS and virtualization from a service provider. The session prepares the audience to build the service provider framework, or partner with a downstream service provider, and deliver this service as an offering to customers.

Chuck Archer

EBS Senior Program Manager

Posted: Saturday, May 02, 2009 12:28 AM by http://blogs.technet.com/essentialbusinessserver/archive/2009/05/02/virtualized-windows-essential-business-server-2008-ebs-to-be-featured-in-a-microsoft-system-center-tools-presentation-at-teched.aspx

I spy the Windows 7 RC download !!!

Tyler Pelletier — Tue, 05 May 2009 05:03:56 GMT

http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/05/04/i-spy-the-windows-7-rc-download.aspx

Go get it @ http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx.

Microsoft Management Summit 2009

Tyler Pelletier — Sat, 02 May 2009 20:42:23 GMT

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/infrastructure/videoGallery.aspx

Interop Road Show Webcast - live this week on 5/6/2009

Tyler Pelletier — Sat, 02 May 2009 20:32:29 GMT

On Wednesday May 6th, we’ll be broadcasting the Interop Road Show. Actually it’s going to be a bit of a simulcast. Matt Hester will be in Downers Grove, IL doing a live delivery of the sessions, and we’ll pick up the audio and demonstrations via the magic of Microsoft LiveMeeting.

http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/05/02/interop-road-show-webcast-live-this-week-on-5-6-2009.aspx

MindBites launches Screencast 4 Cash contest [MindBites launches Screencast 4 Cash contest]

Tyler Pelletier — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:16:20 GMT

by Christina Warren Apr 21st 2009

At SXSWi 2008, Grant and I met Jason Reneau, the founder and CEO of MindBites, a platform and marketplace for video lessons. We were really impressed with the MindBites vision last year. When we met up with them this year, it was awesome to see how far the community, the site and the market for quality video tutorials has come.

Today, MindBites is launching the Screencast 4 Cash contest in conjunction with Techsmith's Jing Pro and Download Squad (that's us!). Entrants can submit an original screencast to be eligible to win a Grand Prize of $1000, plus a copy of Snagit/Camtasia Studio. There will also be a People's Choice Prize, determined by popular vote, and the winner will get $500 and a copy of Snagit.

Every vote cast in the contest will yield a $0.10 US donation to the Youth for Technology Foundation, which exposes children in underdeveloped parts of the world to technology through instruction and staffed technology centers. So just by voting, you can help underprivileged kids get access and instruction to technology.

Screencasts are a great way to learn, or teach a specialty. We covered some iPhone-specific screencasts last month and found the medium really, really ripe for learning or supplementing other forms of instruction.

If you've got a great idea for a screencast, enter the contest! Grant and I are two of the judges and we can't wait to see what stuff gets submitted! You can read more details on deadlines and voting dates over at MindBites.

Want to know more about MindBites? Check out this video from SXSWi 2009!

Tags: camtasia, jing, mindbites, screencasts, techsmith

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/04/21/mindbites-launches-screencast-4-cash-contest/

in reply to MindBites launches Screencast 4 Cash contest

What is IT Pro Momentum and how can you join this Microsoft program? [What is IT Pro Momentum and how can you join this Microsoft program?]

Tyler Pelletier — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:23:02 GMT

Need some help to test/pilot the latest Microsoft infrastructure technologies?

IT Pro Momentum is a Microsoft Early Adopter Program for IT Professionals who bet on the newest technologies to drive business value for their companies and advance their career.

Through IT Pro Momentum, you will be able to:

· Discover and evaluate the newest MS technologies

· Pilot and deploy MS beta products

· Access MS Beta Product Support

· Connect with an international community of IT Pros through Momentum forums

· Share your experience adopting a new technology with the IT Pro community worldwide

Here are some program benefits offered to Momentum participants (free of charge for one year):

· Technical Content & Online Trainings

· Support for Beta Products (via e-mail)

· TechNet+ Direct Subscription

· Early Adopter Forums

· Through your local MS contact, you can share your experience with the IT Pro community worldwide (blogs, events, user groups, etc.)

These are the technologies supported by IT Pro Momentum in 2008-2009:

· Client Infrastructure: Vista SP1, IE8, Windows 7 (2009), Windows Mobile 7 (2009)

· Server Infrastructure: Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Windows Server 7 (2009)

Virtualization: Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager

· Web Infrastructure: IIS7, Sharepoint on the Web

· Collaboration & Connectivity: Office Communication Server 14 (2009), Exchange 14 (2009)

· HPC: Windows HPC Server 2008

If you are interested in piloting one or more of these technologies just send a message to http://blogs.technet.com/itpromomentum/archive/2008/08/08/what-is-it-pro-momentum-and-how-you-can-join-this-microsoft-program.aspx

in reply to What is IT Pro Momentum and how can you join this Microsoft program?

some ideas [some ideas]

Tyler Pelletier — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:17:24 GMT

I would like to see some videos on:
Windows Server 2008 r2 VDI how to set up VDI and some technical detail to get an idea of whats there and where your going with it

some more videos on system center essentials and dynamic it

I also want to know more about the BI vision and Dynamic it vision and how small businesses should get started

more on small business server 2008 and essential business server 2008 what will be in r2? will they add dynamics crm or nav to sbs?

I really appreciate all the great videos and the work that goes into editing them

Thank You

in reply to some ideas