Category: Microsoft

This category is for anything Microsoft related-so you’ll probably find that msot posts end up in here!

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BPOS & Blackberry


Microsoft BPOS has support Blackberry linking for a while, but for the full BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) experience, users were required to purchase the Blackberry licences separately. Not any more as

“Microsoft Online Services is now a BlackBerry® certified partner and BlackBerry Alliance Elite Member”

which gives us “Microsoft Online Services Hosted BlackBerry service”.

Microsoft will:

· Host and operate BlackBerry Enterprise Server

· Provide all BlackBerry Enterprise Server server, client licenses and support services Included in the service (There is no need for customers to provide licenses or service agreements.)

· Provide technical support to the customer’s IT administrators, including interfacing with RIM on troubleshooting as needed

The 3rd point there is a pretty attractive reason to go with this solution…as it gives you one port of call to troubleshoot your online services and your RIM infrastructure.

The features include:

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Pricing

“The Hosted BlackBerry Service is purchased and billed separately from Exchange Online Standard or the Business Productivity Online Suite Standard from Microsoft Online Services. It is a separate month-to-month auto-renewing agreement. Pricing is U.S.$10.00 per user per month with no minimum number of users required.”

There is a 30 day trial available so you can give it a whirl.

This is a good move on Microsoft’s part, positioning themselves as a more central pillar of a customer’s infrastructure and recognizing that Blackberries are here to stay. It’s good to see them embracing that rather than attempting to fight/ignore the competition as they might have done a few years ago.

You can see the full post here.

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Office 2010 New Feature Videos


One of the main things I did in preparation for BETT 2010 was create a bunch of videos showing some of the new features in Office 2010. I can talk about them ‘til the cows come home, but it’s always better to see things where possible. The videos were very well received and Office 2010 got a LOT of positive feedback…June should be an exciting time 🙂

Anyway, I thought I’d put the videos up on here too and hopefully you’ll find them just as interesting & useful as our stand visitors did last week…enjoy!

Background Removal:

This is a great feature in Word 2010, making in nice and easy to remove all or part of a picture’s background.

 

Broadcast PowerPoint:

This feature lets you “broadcast” your presentation over the net by giving you a link to share with whoever you need to…allowing people to see your .pptx as long as they have an internet connection:

Insert Web Video:

Inserting videos from sites such as YouTube has always been a bit of a pain in Powerpoint…but no more! Powerpoint 2010 makes it super easy…teachers loved this at BETT.

Edit video inside Powerpoint:

Inserting videos into Powerpoint has been available for ages, but any editing you needed to do-even basic stuff-has required a 3rd party product. Again, Powerpoint 2010 makes it easier by enabling you to edit the video without leaving the program. Here I’m trimming a bit of Shooting Stars 🙂

Powerpoint Video Effects:

More built in video editing here with shadows, borders, reflections and more being easily applied within Powerpoint 2010.

Create a Video:

You’ve made a presentation and now you need to make it available as a video file, rather than a slideshow. I believe most people use Windows Movie Maker to do this currently but, with 2010, it’s again all done inside Powerpoint.

Save to Skydrive/Sharepoint:

This is a great new feature. It lets you save to your Live Skydrive (25GB free storage!) directly from the Office applications…no more save to folder then upload to Skydrive…it’s all one nice, smooth action 🙂 I don’t do it in the video but you can see there is also exactly the same thing to save to Sharepoint, which should really help drive adoption of Sharepoint in schools. From various discussions I’ve had, many people see Sharepoint as an extra step so:

Create Document > Save to Folder > Upload to Sharepoint

and this leads to many people just not bothering as it’s more work and they perhaps don’t see the point of it. Having the ability to save directly to their MOSS site will cut that out and make it just as easy as it’s always been 🙂

Word Navigation Pane:

This is quite a small new feature, but I love it! The navigation pane picks up all the  headings, sub-headings etc and enables you to use them to navigate documents; making large documents much less painful!

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Sharepoint 2010 Beta Install Failure


I’ve been rebuilding our demo Sharepoint Server today and came across an issue which caused installation to fail. If you install Sharepoint 2010 on a Domain Controller, it will fail; luckily, the internet came to my rescue!

A Bing brought up this post by Sharepoint Joel which has 10 troubleshooting tips for this application…and shoot trouble they did! The one I needed was number 8:

If you are using SharePoint on DC, the following Windows PowerShell command would need to be run to enable Sandboxed Solutions.
$acl = Get-Acl HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ComputerName
$person = [System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]"Users"
$access = [System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryRights]::FullControl
$inheritance = [System.Security.AccessControl.InheritanceFlags]"ContainerInherit, ObjectInherit"
$propagation = [System.Security.AccessControl.PropagationFlags]::None
$type = [System.Security.AccessControl.AccessControlType]::Allow
$rule = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryAccessRule($person, $access, $inheritance, $propagation, $type)
$acl.AddAccessRule($rule)
Set-Acl HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ComputerName $acl

I ran that and BOOM, Sharepoint Config worked first time 🙂

If you’re experiencing issues with your install and/or want to see common pitfalls before you start the process, definitely check out his entire post here:

Sharepoint Joel 10 Tips

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My move to Android AKA Android vs Windows Mobile


Android is faster, more responsive, more intuitive, looks great and the app marketplace is amazing! I really wanted to get apps for my Windows Mobile 6.1 device but it was SO difficult! Within 14 hours of having my Android phone I’d downloaded multiple awesome applications which we’ll cover later 🙂

One of the biggest problems I found with Windows Mobile is that I felt constrained, there were so many things that I wanted to do but couldn’t…the big one (for me) was an e-book reader. There are so many times that having a book to hand would be great:

  • On the train
  • Waiting in receptions
  • Visiting the in-laws 😉

are just a few of them.

When I got Windows Mobile 6.1, I had a look online and saw there was indeed a Microsoft E-Book reader available. I downloaded it but couldn’t use it as it wasn’t designed for 6.1…bit of a fail! There is a support forum thread dedicated to this where a fix was mentioned about 2 years ago, but as far as I know, it never materialised. So for the 18 months I had that phone, I either had to carry an actual book around or lay off the reading!

The first day I got my Android phone, I downloaded a brilliant app called Aldiko which sorted all that out 🙂 See more below…

Marketplaces

For me, this is a huge revelation…the Android marketplace is amazing 🙂

I know Microsoft brought out the Windows Mobile Marketplace but, let’s be honest, it isn’t very good is it? I often had trouble signing in…sometimes I couldn’t connect from my device and other times it’d be the desktop version that wasn’t working. Once I was in it wasn’t plain sailing either…I found the entire thing clunky and difficult to navigate. Also I was never 100% sure if I was downloading a free app or a trial and I just didn’t feel comfortable as a user.

It’s possible that it’s just a personal thing that I don’t get on with the Windows Marketplace and that it’s a pleasure for everyone else…but I doubt it 😉

On the other side of this fence is the Android Marketplace…

It’s easy to navigate, it’s quick, it’s clear, it’s full of brilliant apps, it’s fantastic:

This brings me nicely onto:

Apps

This was probably the hardest part of being a Windows Mobile user; seeing all the iPhone users with their fancy apps…compasses, games, programs for work etc…and then Android came along and allowed people to do the same thing…not on at all! Finally Microsoft brought out the Windows Marketplace but, as I say above, it just didn’t seem very good.

I’ve had my new HTC Hero:

for about 3 weeks and am finding new apps almost daily. So far, these include:

Advanced Task Killer:

This is a great and very handy app for quickly and easily shutting down all the processes still running in the background. Great for making sure you don’t run low on memory!

 

Aldiko:

Aldiko Book Reader: Download and read thousands of books right on your Android smartphone.

 

and it’s already loaded with:

  • Art of War
  • The Prince
  • Hamlet
  • Othello
  • Macbeth
  • The Iliad

and more…giving me great reading material whenever & wherever I want it; something Windows Mobile could never give me.

To me, this really is brilliant 🙂 When the Christmas gatherings got too much, I was able to easily chill out and read Othello…nice!

I love how it’s home screen is laid out like an actual bookshelf…it might be gimmicky but I like it!

It looks great, works quickly and smoothly and has a brilliant selection of books. I’ve only downloaded the free books, ‘cos I love the classics, but you can also purchase O’ Reilly and MS Press books on there too; making them a truly portable aid.

Bonsai Blast:

A brilliant, fun and very addictive game where you simply need to get 3 coloured balls in a row:

I repeat, this is very addictive and will quickly take up a whole bunch of your time! Great for passing a few minutes or longer in queues, on public transport, waiting for the kettle to boil etc…but those few minutes will almost certainly stretch into 15-20 with a few cries of “just one more go” 🙂

CaveDroid:

A cool retro style 1st person game where you fly through a tunnel avoiding obstacles and collecting points. I can’t find any pics but I’ll keep trying.

Evernote:

Evernote is a pretty well known note-taking app and is very handy to have…I haven’t had cause to use the audio note yet but I can imagine that being pretty useful.

It’s very easy to use and will get a fair bit of use at partner events, seminars, that kind of thing.

OI Shopping List:

This app is brilliant. I’m a little upset that I’m this happy and excited about an app that lets you make lists but it really is very good.

It let’s you put in an expected/known cost for each item and then gives you a total for the list…the best bit is that, if you add in the costs as you go, it gives you a running total of what’s in your trolley/basket/arms. Very useful 🙂

Another great feature is that once you’ve list an item and cost once, future lists will pull that info out automatically…again, very useful! A recent update has given it a “Quantity” column too, which makes it even easier to use.

I’d definitely recommend this app for anyone that buys more than 1 thing from shop 🙂

There are plenty more apps that I’ll detail in future posts. If you’ve got any of your own you’d like to add in, let me know in the comments.

Summary:

I’ve only had my Android phone for a few weeks but I really am truly impressed with it…much more than I was when i got my WinMo 6.1 phone. I am a BIG Microsoft supporter and not particularly a fan of Google at all…however, with Android, they offer the far superior product so that’s what I, as  consumer, chose.

If you’re looking for looking for a cool, stylish, fun, helpful, useful, “check it out mate” phone…DEFINITELY go with an Android device. I’d still recommend Windows Mobile before anything else for a work device, but for a personal mobile device, Android is the top dog in my opinion.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this so please, leave a comment and let’s get a discussion going 😉

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More focus on Microsoft VLSC problems


The Microsoft VLSC website has been suffering issues for a month now (as this post chronicles) but it has been hard to get anyone to pay much attention to it. Now however, Bill Snyder over at Infoworld has written an article about the issues which will hopefully get us closer to getting a response from Microsoft. Check the article out here:

http://infoworld.com/t/cloud-computing/microsoft-snafu-calls-question-its-cloud-reliability-513

As you can see from the title, Bill makes some good points about Microsoft’s reliability as a Cloud Service provider. These are points that I’ve been thinking more and more recently and I do feel there’s something here that needs to be addressed by Microsoft.

Let me know what you think of the article…

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Sharepoint 2010 “Failed to Register Services”


I’ve been doing some playing around with Sharepoint 2010 and ran across a problem last night, after uninstalling Office Web Apps. I re-ran the Product Configuration Wizard as advised and it failed on step 6, leaving me unable to access the sites or central admin 😦

I had a look in the event logs and saw that it had “failed to register services” so a quick Bing took me to blog of Antonio Vargas which said:

To resolve this problem you need to go to the Registry Editor and delete SPSearchService entry.

Steps:

  1. Go to the Start Menu and then click Run.
  2. Write regedit on Run box.
  3. Navigate to the SharePoint registry entries on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web ServerExtensions\14.0\WSS\Services.
  4. Delete SPSearchService entry.
  5. Run the SharePoint Configuration wizard again.

I tried it and it worked a treat 🙂 Thanks Antonio and I hope this helps others out there too.

A word of warning: Having followed the above steps, I now seem to be without search capabilities inside Sharepoint now 😦

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Office 2010 line up revealed


Office 2010 is a little bit closer as today Microsoft announced the FPP (Full Packaged Product aka Box Copy) SKU lineup, along with US retail pricing.

The Tech Preview & Beta have been very well received with the current beta being downloaded over 2,000,000 times already! Now consumers & small businesses can see what versions are available and which Office products they will contain.

Office Home & Student:
This version has proved very popular on Office 2007, giving great flexibility for home users & students while also offering great value for money. The 2010 release includes:

Word 2010
Excel 2010
PowerPoint 2010
OneNote 2010
Office Web Apps

It will continue to allow installation on three PCs in one house; which is a huge draw for everyone 🙂

Office Home & Business:
This is aimed at small businesses and includes all the above plus Outlook 2010.

Office Professional:

This is the top level version of Office available outside of Volume Licensing, and is comprised of:

Word 2010
Excel 2010
PowerPoint 2010
OneNote 2010
Outlook 2010
Publisher 2010
Access 2010
Office Web Apps

You’ll notice that Sharepoint Workspace (the new name for Groove) isn’t included…that’s included in Office Pro Plus on Volume Licensing.

Office Professional Academic:

This contains the same products as the regular Office Pro but with Educational pricing, so around 1/5 the cost! The inclusion of Outlook et al make this a great offering for more advanced students such as those in Higher Education.

Although not mentioned in today’s announcement, Standard & Professional Plus will still be available in Volume Licensing with Office 2010. Don’t forget that we will also have Office 2010 Starter as the free, ad supported replacement for MS Works!

I’m excited for Office 2010 both as a user and a partner…how about you?

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Windows Azure MSDN Benefits


It was announced a little while ago that MSDN Premium subscribers would receive a number of free Windows Azure hours as part of their subscription:

image

and these would be, as expected with MSDN, for test and dev only.

However, I saw over on Eric Nelson’s blog that this is no longer the case. Microsoft have:

“decided to lift this restriction so that you will be able to use your Azure benefits for normal (production) use, if needed”

From January 4th 2010 the introductory Azure offer gives a huge 750 compute hours per month!

As Eric points out, the above offer expires after 8 months so don’t rush to sign up if you’re not going to make use of it straight away…make sure you get your “money’s” worth 😉 After that time period, the level of free access drops down as per the below chart:

image

This is a great way of making Azure easily available to the 1000’s of developers with MSDN subscriptions. It will allow them to test it as a solution, show the company how it will benefit them and then easily move to a production environment with reduced admin and cost.

See Eric’s post here.

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VStudio 2010 release date delayed


VStudio 2010, the latest version of Microsoft’s development product suite, was slated to be released March 22 2010; however, according to The Register, that’s no longer the case.

Sosa Somasegar’s (Senior VP of MS Developer Division) MSDN blog tells us that:

“we are going to extend the beta period by adding another interim checkpoint release, a Release Candidate with a broad “go live” license, which will be publicly available in the February 2010 timeframe.

Since the goal of the Release Candidate is to get more feedback from you, the team will need some time to react to that feedback before creating the final release build.  We are therefore moving the launch of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 back a few weeks.” (bold mine)

So there will be a VStudio 2010 RC in February 2010 and the final release of Visual Studio 2010 can be expected probably around the beginning of May 2010.

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SQL Server 2008 R2: Licensing Changes


SQL Server 2008 R2 has got a whole host of new features and now it’s got some new licensing too 🙂

The big move is that SQL’s licensing will follow the same path as Windows Server, both in editions and also virtual licence allowances:

  • SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard = 1 VM per licence
  • SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise = 4 VM’s per licence
  • SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard = Unlimited VM’s per licence

Here’s a Microsoft diagram that shows many of the main differences between the now 3 editions:

clip_image002

If you currently have SQL Server 2008 Enterprise and Software Assurance there is “a complete transition/migration path” but I don’t have any details yet…they will be available nearer launch on May 6th 2010.

For more info on SQL Server 2008 R2, see my other post here:

Read What’s New in SQL Server 2008 R2

Original post from MS here.

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