Three Reasons Microsoft Should Be Thankful

By Shane O’Neill

Tue, November 24, 2009 — CIO — This is the time of year to be thankful for the good things in your life: family, friends, health, a job, a smartphone, a virus-free computer.

What should the software soldiers in Redmond be thankful for? Well, Microsoft has certainly had a topsy-turvy year. But despite layoffs, dismal revenue reports and great difficulty getting anyone to take Windows Mobile seriously, the software giant has much to be thankful for as we head into Turkey Day.

[ For complete coverage on Microsoft's new Windows 7 operating system -- including hands-on reviews, video tutorials and advice on enterprise rollouts -- see CIO.com's Windows 7 Bible. ]

Here are a few reasons why Microsoft should stay resilient against its many rivals through the holidays and beyond.

Windows 7 Is Not Vista

It’s a safe bet that Windows 7 will not end up like its embattled predecessor, Vista. The new version of Windows, launched on Oct. 22 in a modest fashion compared to Vista’s garish debut three years ago, has received mostly positive reviews, its early sales exceed those of XP and Vista in a comparable time frame, and its market share for last weekend passed 5 percent, according to Web metrics company Net Applications.

LinkedIn Opens APIs, Clearing Way for New Apps

By Kristin Burnham

LinkedIn has tradionally been cast as the conservative choice among social networking apps, so it may develop a different kind of application ecosystem than Facebook’s quizzes and games, for example.

LinkedIn has also announced that an interface redesign is pending, though mum’s the word on timing.

Beginning today, developers can register at developer.linkedin.com to receive a unique key that allows access to discussion boards, sample code, provisioning code and more, says Adam Nash, VP of search and platform at LinkedIn.

Installing VMware vCenter prerequisites on Windows Server 2008 R2

Author: Scott Lowe
Date: November 24th, 2009

With Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft has finally abandoned the 32-bit world in server land in favor of a 64-bit only operating system. While this is a very good step in the right direction toward solving the 32-bit/64-bit selection dilemma, it can present some installation challenges.
I recently encountered this issue when our organization installed VMware vCenter Server on Windows Server 2008 R2. With older versions of Windows, there is a 32-bit option, so vCenter has no trouble installing; however, once things move in the 64-bit direction, there are two items that you’ll need to address before the vCenter installation will be successful:
The need for the .NET Framework 3.5.1.The need for a 32-bit Database Source Name (DSN)/ODBC connection pointing to the vCenter database.
I’ll outline tips that will help you with the installation process.

Important notes

Before we proceed, you should be aware of these important product and article notes:
Although VMware indicates that small organizations can safely run vCenter on a 32-bit OS, it recommends that administrators consider 64-bits for all new installations.If you’re installing vCenter on a virtual machine running under vSphere/ESX 4, you should know that support for Windows Server 2008 R2 is currently experimental. Even though everything will probably work just fine, VMware won’t provide support if you have problems.This article assumes that you have already followed VMware’s guidance as outlined in the documentation and created a database and database user for vCenter. For my purposes, I created a database named VCDB and a SQL Server account named vcenteruser.

How to centralize email and calendar data for optimum availability

Date: November 24th, 2009
Author: Brad Bird

How things have been done

I had a partial solution for awhile, leveraging Microsoft Exchange. I would save any meetings from my other mail systems as .ics files and import them into Outlook using the File | Import/Export menu in Outlook 2007.

Once this was done, I needed to make sure that the appointments copied over from the Personal Calendar that I imported were then synced to the Calendar folder hosted on the Exchange server. This process was still somewhat manual but the benefits made it tolerable.

However, I kept discovering new challenges in trying to access my Calendar and meeting appointments while on-the-go. If you travel a lot like I do, managing your bookings, hotel reservations, flights, and car rentals is a job in itself. It often required me to have a lot of paper on hand to keep it all straight.

My solution for this issue is a free Web site called Tripit.com. I created an account on Tripit and associated several email addresses with that account. From here, whenever I receive an email confirmation for flights, car rentals, or hotels, I forward them to a central email address: plans@tripit.com. Tripit (Figures A and B) assembles my details into individual trips based on the longest start and end dates (these usually correspond to my flight departure and arrival dates).

Making Outlook Work for You: Inbox and Calendar Essentials

SUMMARY

Everyday you’re flooded with loads of emails, appointments and tasks. Outlook has little-known organizational tools that can drastically help manage this mess. In this 60-minute webinar, Outlook expert Ben Schorr will help you unlock secrets of using Microsoft Outlook to tame your inbox and organize your professional life. Join us to see live demonstrations of:

• Survival tips for e-mail overload – Get organized today
• Calendar nuts & bolts necessary to use your Outlook efficiently
• New Outlook techniques you can start using today to become even more efficient!
• Ways to stay organized and on task with Outlook’s Tasks & to-do
• Bonus: Pre-conference exercises to help you prepare

Microsoft Project 2007: Tips & Tricks for Project Planning

SUMMARY

Managing your projects at work has become easier through Microsoft Project. Learn the basics of project management using the Microsoft Project 2007 for planning your important projects. In this session, author and instructor Teresa Stover will provide a guided tour of Microsoft Project and demonstrate the best ways to start a new project. Join us for this 90-minute Webinar, where you and your colleagues will discover:

• How to create a new project plan- and manage it
• Learn to enter and sequence new project plans and tasks
• Ways to easily organize tasks into an outline
• Steps to schedule to specific dates & set deadline reminders
• How to create project milestones

Adobe CS4 Product Integration for Design and Web

SUMMARY

Learn the incredible ways that Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Fireworks and Dreamweaver work together to cover your Design and Web needs! In this 90-minute webinar training you and your colleagues will learn how to use the products together to produce:

• Vector Based/Resalable Artwork, Printed Brochures
• PDF’s, Interactive Page Curl SWF
• Pixel Based Artwork, Touch Ups,
• Mockups for the web, and a website

Excel 2007 PivotTable Webinar: Crunch Data; Impress Colleagues & Clients

SUMMARY

Excel’s PivotTables feature is one of the most powerful, yet least used features in Excel. Join Excel expert Annette Marquis for this upcoming 60-minute webinar as she demonstrates numerous features and shortcuts that will save you time and allow you to make better, more informed decisions. Please join us to discover:

• Crucial PivotTables Techniques: Save time & analyze data
• Ways to format your PivotTable report to make effective decisions
• Verify accuracy of your data & other essential Excel tools
• Tricks to use PivotTables to validate business proposals & display vital statistics

Dreamweaver Training

Adobe Dreamweaver is one of the industry’s leading web authoring tools for building world-class websites and applications. Cascading style sheets (CSS) are the modern standard for website presentation, controlling such things as borders, spacing between paragraphs, headings or images, control of font faces or font colors, background colors and images. Join us for this six session webinar training where you and your colleagues will discover how to:

• Create rich, aesthetically compelling web designs in Dreamweaver
• Drastically reduce the cost of building and maintaining your website
• Analyze your code to ensure that it is done correctly and efficiently
• Troubleshoot your specific problems – Live Demonstrations

Lawyers can now grab your metadata

November 17, 2009 by Steve Hannaford

Posted in: Latest News & Views, Regulations & Compliance

Most companies now understand that all sorts of data on their servers is vulnerable to be dragged into court in the event of a lawsuit. But now it’s their metadata that’s under attack, and the change may mean more trouble yet.

What is metadata? It’s the digital information that gets attached to any email or text document that traces who created the document and when, what (if anything) it was based on, who modified it and when, and how it was routed inside and outside the company.