technical solutions and commentary

What Kind of American English Do You Speak? This is a fun little time waster I found.

My Linguistic Profile:
80% General American English
10% Upper Midwestern
5% Dixie
5% Yankee
0% Midwestern

Wow! How did I miss this the first time I read about the improvements in Service Pack 2 for Exchange Server 2003 Standard? Microsoft has announced the mailbox store in standard edition of Exchange Server 2003 will increase to 75GB! For my clients that’s probably the biggest and best news about Exchange standard since Exchange 2000 was released! Take a look for yourself on the SP2 overview page…. http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/downloads/2003/sp2/overview.mspx

The increase is noted in the last section of the overview after it talks about improvements in mobility, spam — which includes the new Sender ID framework, and enhacements to the IMF (those are cool too) — then, bam!… under mailbox improvements, there it is… 75GB! I have several clients that had to upgrade to enterprise to bypass the 16GB storage limitation, and now this! I can’t wait for the release of SP2… hopefully those who have already upgraded to enterprise won’t be too upset.

If you have migrated files and shares between servers in the past, you know there wasn’t a great way to get the task done. About the best thing that could have been done was to create a backup copy of the data you wanted to migrate and perform a restore on the new server, which would allow you to maintain your ACLs. Or you could use xcopy if the network paths to the files where not too long. Then you could use a resource kit utility to migrate the share paths and permissions.

I have been reading the Whitepaper on Microsoft’s new File Server Migration Toolkit . This application looks great. It will help you copy files and folders from servers running Windows NT4/2000/2003 to a Windows 2003 server. It will help you plan and ‘test’ the migration, consolidate the data, and it can even keep the same old unc paths of the shares (original server name and share name) using Dfs, so you don’t have to remap a bunch of network drives right after the migration. This would be awesome since this was one of the biggest pains in past file migrations I was involve with!

I haven’t used the FSMT in production yet, but am going to install it in my vmware lab and give it a try. If it works the way it sounds like it will, I’ll be using this thing for all of my files migrations and telling my customers about it. Great job Microsoft!

After using RSS Bandit for 3 weeks it blew up on me. I tried to fix it and even reinstalling it, but for some reason it will not work on my PC any longer. So I have been forced into looking for a new RSS reader. I have tried out about 10 freware readers and haven’t liked any of them as much as RSS Bandit. Since RSS Bandit’s not an option for me I have actually ended up using two different readers.

For general feeds (news, blogs, etc) which I read I chose RssReader. This reader makes feeds easier to scan and link to than the other reader I use… described below.

For business specific feeds (ms technet, trade mags, etc) whcih I read I chose Rss Popper. Rss Popper is nice ecause it ties into Outlook and I can get all the industry/business feeds relevant to my job directly through Outlook. The feeds appear in a RSS folder and sub folders and look like Public Folder Posts.

So if you can’t get RSS Bandit to work for you, you migt like these freeware alternatives as well.

Microsoft has a video Podcast (Vodcast) crew at TechEd 2005 this week. This is great for those who couldn’t attend this year. You can subscribe to the feed at www.microsoft.com/winme/TechEd/TechEdPodcast.xml.

TechEd 2005 Blogs by presenters, media, and attendees is here techedbloggers.net.

Podcasting is a new form of media which combines the capabilities of RSS (Real Simple Syndication) and audio or video clips. In this way listeners can ‘subscribe’ to programs. When a user subscribes to a podcast, the software is used to manage Podcast subscriptions automatically checks for new content every hour, or how ever often the software has been set to check, and then downloads the content to the computer. This allows the consumer (listener/viewer) to review the content when it is convenient for them. Most common, is the producer of the content publishes the podcast in MP3 format. This enables the consumer to listen to the program on a portable MP3 player, on a computer, or burn the program to CD and listen to it that way.

Virtually anybody can create the content for a podcast. All that is needed is a mic, some way to record, and someway to get the podcast to a common audio (or video) format such as MP3 (or MPG; MP4 for video content). As a subscriber it means you can choose what interests you at the time, choose what you would like to subscribe to, and choose when you want to listen (or view) the program.
Podcasting has awesome potential. It feels like a form of “public access” media, delivered through via personal syndication services, which translates into a DVR or Tivo type of scheduling power. Podcasting still is not very well known. However, with Apple’s announcement of providing podcast support in the new releases of iTunes, it should sling-shot the medium into the mainstream. Although more than likely the average person will not realize the full potential of Podcasting. It will likely be viewed more as a radio station or program that can be saved (like a DVR for audio) using iTunes.

It has been interesting to see mainstream media begin to accept the potential of Podcasting. I have noticed that many radio stations are producing podcasts of talk shows, online magazines, news outlets, and studios are beginning to adapt the medium. This is amazing to see the rate of acceptance of Podcasting, especially considering how resistant mainstream media commonly is of a brand new form of distribution. Remember the print publishers, newspapers… when the web began gaining popularity? Or the music companies when they resisted the idea of having downloadable music for consumers until Apple really convinced them to take the idea mainstream and somewhat secure? This new medium has sent a message to the commercial broadcasters… people are getting tired of listening to what corporate suits want to force on the listeners… people want good, original programming. Podcasting enables consumers the ability to choose what they want to listen to and when. I believe Podcasting will change mainstream media in a major way within the next two years.

Apple has really seen the potential and power of Podcasting and with the inclusion of a Podcast Channel in iTunes Apple will really be a key driver in end user acceptance of this new medium. See information and hear audio from Steve Job’s Keynote at Apple’s WWDC on iTunes and the inclusion on podcast feeds. It’s very interesting http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/06/make_audio_show_7.html.

Microsoft needs to get on the ball with support of podcasts. If they want to be known as an innovation company and lead the tech world, they better catch up to Apple in the ‘tech media’ arena.

I just finished the book “Microsoft Rebooted” by Robert Slater. It was a great, easy read which provided insights into Bill Gates’ and Steve Ballmer’s personalities and business strategies. As well, it was good background information on both of these men before Microsoft was much more than a couple of dozen employees. I got the impression that Bill has the tendency to view himself, since childhood, as the underdog. This feeling was transferred into his company. This results in his competitive, never give up attitude. I suppose if you had as much to lose as Bill, you would adopt that same sort of attitude. Very interesting was to see how he reacted to the Anti-trust trial with the US DOJ.

When Steve Ballmer became CEO of Microsoft it was amazing to see how he and Bill had really yet to define their roles within the “new” Microsoft. These roles where more or less discovered, as opposed to created between the two of them. I know there are a lot of cynics about the so called changes to Microsoft, but I think that Ballmer really understands what needs to change… and from what I read it appears Bill is beginning to warm up to those ideas, even though he may not have liked the idea of giving up so much of his power. Steve really sees the need to be more open and ‘friendly’ to their customers, partners, and even in the industry as a whole. This doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be competitive in their markets however.

Microsoft is a business. They need to remain innovative and competitive if they will survive the next twenty years. As a stock holder, I expect they will. I know that some will always view Microsoft as an evil empire, the same way many view Wal-mart, but they have done much for the software industry since their inception.

Microsoft and Bill Gates had the vision of putting a PC on every desktop in the workplace and in the home. This would mean PC’s would have to be easy to use, or at least easy enough for most to learn. Ways to use the PC to improve personal worker and home user productivity had to be discovered and exploited. Microsoft had achieved this vision. This was discussed in detail in the book ‘Business at the Speed of Thought’ by Bill Gates, published in 1999. I would venture to say that Microsoft was one of the few companies who saw this type of opportunity and created a new market.

The other computer companies of the day couldn’t see past what they were already doing. Bill Gates & Co. had vision and created the market while companies like IBM and Unisys as a whole refused to believe in the opportunity. Some would argue Apple saw this as well. That may have been true, but Microsoft understood that it’s strength was with the software, not the hardware. Where Microsoft concentrated on its strengths, Apple wanted to be a software and hardware vendor. I believe this is where Apple failed in the personal computer market. As the single vendor for the hardware, OS, and the majority of the applications that ran on their platform, Apple had nobody competing on the hardware. Microsoft software was independent of a single hardware source which resulted in a dozen or so hardware manufactures competing with one another for market share which resulted in lower prices and new models with increased performance. All the while Apple prices remained relatively high. What compounded the issue with Apple further was there wasn’t a great programming language to develop application for the Mac OS, while Microsoft realized this was a key in getting companies to further adapt the Windows OS.

From my perspective, I can see Microsoft starting to take a new approach to how they view and support their partners. It seems they are changing their attitude with the new realization that they need to support the people selling, implementing, and supporting their products. This book helped me to appreciate how things are changing at Microsoft by from the top-down…. although it may take some more time on an individual employee level.