A blog covering Azure, Hyper-V, Windows Server, desktop, systems management, deployment, and so on …
Is it just me or does anyone else think that Microsoft is releasing a 2007 version of every product in their catalogue? If you are someone who prides yourself in knowing lots of products to be able to do your job then you are going to struggle to keep up. It might be time to buy on of these 
A word of warning though. The Homer Simpson theory would tell us that each succesive clone will become dumber and dumber, and hence each would desire to create a clone of itself.
Microsoft has posted a series of links for upcoming and on-demand webcasts about the upcoming Windows "Longhorn" product. I’d recommend that consultants and proactive administrators take a look.
"Learn how the Windows Server code name "Longhorn" operating system helps IT professionals maximize control over their infrastructure while providing unprecedented availability and management capabilities, to deliver a significantly more secure, reliable and robust server environment than ever before".
The WinRE team have posted instructions on how to repair a boot failure on Windows Vista due to a missing file. Here’s a quote from the post:
"To repair your computer using Startup Repair follow these steps:
Startup Repair should now start diagnosing your system to identify the root cause of the failure. Once it has identified the root cause, it would automatically start repairing your computer. If you are curious to know what Startup Repair did, you can click on the details link and see which tests Startup Repair ran to diagnose the problem.
After Startup Repair has finished the repairs, click Finish to reboot your computer.
Your computer should now be able to boot normally into Vista!!"
Steve Riley mentions a piece done in the new series of Mythbusters, the Discovery Channel show, on his blog. We have all heard of security conscious organisations that decide to use thumb/fingerprint readers to secure their computer rooms, etc. We’ve also heard the urban legends"myths" that said systems can be cracked pretty easily.
Well, it appears they can! The Mythbusters crew succesfully lifted a fingerprint from the reader and made latex and ballistics gel copies of it. Using these (the latex sheet needed to be licked to work) they were able to succesfully fool the reader. This was despite the manufacturer claiming that the reader checked pulse, sweat and temperature. Worse again, they even beat it with a photocopy of a finger print.
As Steve mentions in his blog, biometrics by themselves are not a secure authentication mechanism. Secure authentication requires two factors such as "What you have" (biometric, smart card, etc) and "what you know" (passphrase, PIN, etc). Either one by itself can be easilly comprimised but together they are pretty secure.
So, the lesson here is, if your company uses fingerprint readers then you don’t need to worry about your finger being chopped off by attackers … it’s much easier to lift the print at the scene.
The BBC has reported an interesting story. It appears that the UK’s Customs & Excise department is scanning the laptops of suspected offendors for illicit materials, namely offensive pornography. Wanting to prevent the import of offensive materials is an appladable desire. However, given that certain nations, including some in the EU, have a history of using government agencies to perform industrial espionage to aid their native companies, I do have a problem with this action.
Interestingly, the person who reported this story said their laptop could not be scanned by the agents on hand because it was an Apple. The agents had no idea what encryption was either.
So, if you do not want company secrets to be stolen by a governement agency of some nation, make sure you encrypt your laptops hard disk.
The Register has published a whitepaper that describes how Microsoft has caught up with RIM in the marketing of push email technology. Until Service Pack 2 for Exchange 2003, no one was able to match up with RIM. Sure, there were alternatives but RIM had the name: Balckberry. Every director and senior manager wanted a Blackberry. This all sounds great but hold one a second… there’s some problems:
That last one is a real stickler. You may have been able to offer alternative solutions but they still had license costs and you still had to beat the name "Blackberry". Plus, let’s face it, non-Blackberry devices were a dog to use until recently. You were probably talking about having to use a brick of a PDA and who really wants to revisit the 1980’s … I prefer to forget that decade happened.
With Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Exchange 2003, Microsoft included a new feature for pushing email out to Windows enabled smartphonnes and PDA’s. Secure push email from within Exchange was now possible. You didn’t need to use another companies service or network. You also could reduce your licensing costs. Simultaneously, phone manufacturers worked with Microsoft to develop better devices that would be more appealing to the target market. Now a director can use a feature rich smart phone that is no bigger than a normal mobile/cell/handy phone.
MS Push Email offers other features too. A PIN policy can be enforced on the devices. This offers basic security to lenghten the time it takes to access data on a device without the owners permission (real security requires encryption). Furthermore, if a device is lost or stolen it can eb reported to IT or the security officer. With this notification, Exchange administrators can send a signal to the device to wipe itself, thus preventing unauthorised access of data.
The message was very slow to get out to the typical sys admin or CIO. It appears that it’s finally getting out there but the uptake does appear to be slow in Ireland. That’s a pity because it would be a shame not to use the free and secure solution that Microsoft have provided.
There’s loads of information on the net on how MS push email works and how to deploy it. Here are some links:
Finally, Nathan Winters (in the UK) has set up the Microsoft Messaging & Mobility User Group UK. The intention of this group is to share information and to inform people on how to make the best use of the technologies that Microsoft has provided in making the information worker a mobile worker.