Apple's Piping Hot Innovation

Cool stuff...

http://www.forbes.com/2007/12/26/apple-patents-iphone-tech-wire-bc_1227appatent_print.html

New book claims Bell stole key telephone idea

Interesting...

By Brian Bergstein

updated 4:49 p.m. ET, Wed., Dec. 26, 2007
BOSTON - A new book claims to have definitive evidence of a long-suspected technological crime — that Alexander Graham Bell stole ideas for the telephone from a rival, Elisha Gray.

Read more here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22400009/

Google Reader Becomes Holiday Snitch

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/12/26/google-reader-becomes-holiday-snitch

Free and Easy Application Streaming

By Chris Wolf
I often get asked about effective ways to try out new applications, and naturally running an application in an isolated virtual machine is one of the first alternatives. Staging a VM will take at least a little time, and installing an application inside the VM will take up some time as well.

Of course, several applications are preconfigured in downloadable VMs and are available at VMware's Virtual Appliance Marketplace http://www.vmware.com/appliances/ . However, there are probably several applications that you would like to try out without having to download or stage a full VM.

That's where application streaming comes into play. Application streaming can allow you to run an application inside an isolated container on one of your systems. The isolated container houses all of the system dependencies needed by the application in order to run.
So ultimately, you can get the portability advantages of server virtualization for one or more applications.

If you're looking for an easy way to get your feet wet with application streaming, take a look at http://www.stream24-7.com .
At stream24-7, you can download an application player (think of it as an app-streaming equivalent to Adobe PDF Reader) and then run any streamable application hosted on the site.

To get started, you first need to register for an account at stream24-7.com. Once you have an account, you can then browse the site for streamable applications. (The Endeavors Technologies folks that host the site have yet to add a site search engine. I asked for a stream24-7 search engine on my Christmas List, and I'm hoping that Santa will deliver.)

A good application to take for a test-drive is OpenOffice. To try it out without having to install OpenOffice, follow these steps:

1. Browse stream24-7's business applications and
click on the OpenOffice link.

2. If you are registered and logged in, you will
see the "Stream it now" button. Click it.

3. Stream24-7 will now install the AppExpress Client
application player. The player installs as an
Active X plug-in and thus requires Internet
Explorer (or use of the IE Tab plug-in within
Firefox).

4. The Active X plug-in automatically downloads the
application player files and launches the
AppExpress Client Installation wizard. When
prompted, click Install.

5. When the IE popup wizard that launched the
AppExpress Client installation shows
"Installation Complete," you can close the
window.

6. You should now see the AppExpress Client object
on your system tray. Double-click on the
AppExpress Client object to launch the client.
Alternatively, the client can be opened by clicking
Start All Programs AppExpress Client Start
AppExpress Client.

7. In the Available Applications tab, you should see
OpenOffice 2.3 listed (see Fig. 1 at
http://admin.mcpmag.com/images/071226mcp_wolf.jpg).
With OpenOffice 2.3 highlighted, click Active.

8. When asked if you are sure you want to active the
application, click Yes. The application will now
stream down to your system. Don't worry, only the
essential code needed to start OpenOffice is
streamed down, so you'll only need to wait a
few minutes.

9. Once the activation completes, you're ready to run
OpenOffice. For example, you can start the
OpenOffice word processor by clicking Start All
Programs OpenOffice.org 2.1 OpenOffice.org Writer.

As you continue to use other features of OpenOffice, they will be downloaded as needed. Again, the benefit of application streaming is that you can use and try out applications without having to install them. Installing applications is often a big deal with the numerous freeware and shareware applications out there, as oftentimes you're unsure of if they are installing spyware on your system.

The AppExpressLite runtime creates a thin layer between the user interface and the underlying system resources. So it appears that OpenOffice is fully installed. Simply uninstalling AppExpress Lite removes any programs that it presents.

Application streaming has been becoming increasingly popular lately. If you're new to the technology, I'd recommend that you start with stream24-7, to see what the fuss is all about, and try out a new application or two while you're at it. You'll probably find that once you're familiar with app streaming, you'll find multiple use cases for it in your organization.

If you'd like to try out streaming some of your own custom applications, then I'd recommending taking AppExpress Lite for a spin. AppExpress Lite is free application streaming software that allows you to set up your own application streaming server and stream your organization's applications to clients.

Happy streaming!

Comment: http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?editorialsid=2440#post

Chris Wolf, MCSE, MCT, CCNA, is a Microsoft MVP for Windows- Virtual Machine.

Leaving Computers On Helps Them Last Longer

"You are finished using your PC for the day. Should you turn it off or leave it on?"

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-computers-sleep&print=true

Ajax View: Remotely Monitoring Web 2.0 Applications

The goal of the Ajax View project is to improve developer's visibility into and control over their web applications' behaviors on end-user's desktops.

Read more here: http://research.microsoft.com/projects/ajaxview/

Migrating Outlook contact dropdowns...

Weekly quickTIP: Losing All Contact

By Greg Shields

Not too long ago I moved my entire universe from my old computer to a new one. Though the process was a lot easier than previous moves, I found one item in particular to be missing. Specifically, I wanted to retain the e-mail addresses in Outlook's drop-down menu when I typed them into the To: field. Having used Outlook's autocomplete feature exclusively for years as my primary mechanism for finding an address, starting with a blank slate had me scrambling for contacts.

You see, an Outlook PST migration doesn't include those autocomplete addresses. They're not stored within your Outlook PST. Instead they're stored in a file with an .NK2 extension elsewhere in your profile. Making this migration even more challenging is that the location of the NK2 in Vista is different than where it was back on my old Windows XP machine.

For pre-Vista machines, the NK2 is stored in C:\Documents and Settings\{UserName}\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook. What's interesting is that this is not the place where Outlook PSTs are stored by default. For pre-Vista machines, that location is C:\Documents and Settings\{UserName}\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook, which is a slightly different path that meanders its way through the Local Settings folder.

On Vista machines, as you probably know, the path for profile information is quite a bit different. Thus, the ultimate resting place for the NK2 is different as well. For Vista, you'll want to deposit your NK2 into the C:\Users\{UserName} \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook folder. Once there, Outlook will begin using that file again to populate the drop-down list.

While looking for this file, you may also want to look through it as well. If you've been annoyed by the number and uselessness of certain addresses in your drop-down list, you can eliminate them from this file to remove them from your drop-down list. Doing this, however, is no trivial task. You can't just open this file in Notepad.

To edit your NK2, download a freeware tool called NK2.Info http://www.nk2.info/ . This tool shows you the addresses stored in the file and allows you to add and remove addresses as necessary.
Another more fully featured, for-cost tool that works for larger migrations is made by Ingressor Software http://www.ingressor.com/ .

Comment: http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?EditorialsID=2419#post
Greg Shields, MCSE: Security, CCEA, is an independent author, instructor, and consultant based in Denver, Colo.

Apple Censorship: This Time It's Displays

hmmm... gotta love the customer support! ;)

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/19/apple_display_update/

Personal Prompts

This is useful if you need to use different users to run commands, easy to see who you are using at the moment.

WINDOWS TIP SHEET: Personal Prompts

By Jeffery Hicks

I've written about customizing your CMD prompts in the past and here's another idea. What about adding the user name and or computer name to the prompt? With not much work you can your CMD session so that it has a prompt like one of these:

[SAPIEN\JEFF] C:\Windows>
[VISTADESK02] C:\Windows>

To try these out, open a command prompt and type:

Prompt [%userdomain%\%username%] $P$G

This should give you a prompt that looks like my first example. Don't worry -- right now this is only temporary. If you close and reopen your command prompt you'll get the "old" prompt back. To get the second prompt example, use this:

Prompt [%computername%] $P$G

Or, what about adding something like this:

Prompt %computername% $V $P$G

You should get something that looks like this:

VISTADESK01 Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6000] C:\Users\Jeff>

These are but a few examples. Take a look at help for the prompt command to see other options.

How do you make this permanent every time you open a command prompt?
First, copy the prompt command to a text file and save it as a batch file. Next, edit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command
Processor. If you don't have a registry key called AutoRun, add it as type REG_SZ and enter the full path and filename to your prompt batch file as its value.

The next time you open a command window, the batch file will run and you'll have a custom and personalized prompt.

Comment: http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?EditorialsID=2418#post

Jeffery Hicks MCSE, MCSA, MCT is a senior network engineer with Visory Group.

Googlepedia?

Interesting approach, definitely capitalistic! :)

December 14, 2007 • by The Associated Press
Google Inc. is working on a new Internet encyclopedia that will consist of material submitted by people who want to be identified as experts and possibly profit from their knowledge.

Read more here: http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?editorialsid=9346

Mac versus Windows vulnerability stats for 2007

Very interesting stats...

So this shows that Apple had more than 5 times the number of flaws per month than Windows XP and Vista in 2007, and most of these flaws are serious. Clearly this goes against conventional wisdom because the numbers show just the opposite and it isn’t even close.

Read more here:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=758

Google Gets Ready to Rumble With Microsoft

Google Gets Ready to Rumble With Microsoft

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/technology/16goog.html?ei=5088&en=51443a66d6584dc2&ex=1355461200&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

Office 2007 and Group Policy Control

By Greg Shields

We administrators often deal with Microsoft Office in a relatively unmanaged state. Office's installation routine allows for the component-wise installation of just those pieces you want your users to use. But once the installation is complete, controlling its configuration wasn't something we often concerned ourselves with.

But that doesn't need to be the case. For the latest versions of Office, Microsoft has released a set of pre-generated Group Policy Administrative Templates that allow you to lock down, centrally control, and otherwise manage the configuration of your Office installations. If you haven't incorporated these templates into your regular Group Policy management, you're losing out on the ability to control virtually every facet of Office.

For Office 2007, these Administrative Templates are located at the Web site: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=78161. Downloading them provides you with 15 ADM files that contain plenty of configurable and controllable settings within the Office suite.
Getting down into very detailed settings, these Administrative Templates enable control of things like default save location and file types all the way down to nitpicky items like "Disable the Free/Busy item in the person name Smart Tag menu." Whew!

Templates are available not only for the traditional Office components like Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint and Outlook, but also for newer services like the Outlook Calendar Printing Assistant, Groove client, Office Communicator, OneNote and SharePoint. Publisher, Visio, InfoPath, and Project get similar attention.

In a bizarre twist within a Microsoft world of ADMX files, the Office 2007 Administrative Templates all arrive as old-school ADM files, which means you won't be adding these templates to your Central Store.

The easiest way to use them is to copy them to the C:\Windows\Inf folder on the computer where you plan to use the Group Policy Management Console. Once there, the GPMC will automatically add the templates into each GPO you edit.

Windows 7 to get more touchy-feely

Multi-touch coming to a PC near your...

http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9833074-56.html

Microsoft Releases Office 2007 SP1 Early

It's nice to get something early for a change. ;)

http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?editorialsid=9331

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/default.aspx

CompUSA to close all stores after holiday's

Apparently they will close all of their stores after the holiday season concludes... interesting...

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2231399,00.asp

http://image.compusa.com/retail/collateral/news_release/compusa_acquired.pdf (pdf)

Call me a Utopian, but I want my teams flat and my team members broad

Here's a good article on having a team of generalists...

http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2007/08/03/call-me-a-utopian-but-i-want-my-teams-flat-and-my-team-members-broad.aspx

Mozilla, Opera look to make video on the Web easier

Hmmm... interesting...

Those two browsers will support a new HTML tag specifically for embedding video in Web pages
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/07/12/07/Mozilla-Opera-look-to-make-video-on-the-Web_1.html

The Poor Man's Event Log Monitor

Weekly quickTIP: The Poor Man's Event Log Monitor Full-suite log monitoring tools offer gobs of info, but for those times when you just need a nibble, Vista's event log monitor delivers the goods.

By Greg Shields

I love tools that centralize and monitor Event Log data from multiple systems. Microsoft has its System Center Operations Manager http://tinyurl.com/23cm8q . TNT Software has ELM Enterprise Manager http://tinyurl.com/2gahnh . Dorian Software has its Total Event Log Management Solution http://www.doriansoft.com/ . Any of these systems can aggregate event log data from systems all across the network, analyze it, chew it up and spit it all back out with full reporting and rich alerting capabilities.

But sometimes you don't need a fully functional tool to solve the problem. Sometimes all you want is a quick-and-dirty way to set up an alert when a particular event log entry appears. For those times, Windows Vista's new event log provides a "poor man's" solution.

Open the event log in Windows Vista and right-click any event log entry in the middle pane. There you'll see a new context menu item called "Attach Task to this Event..." Click on this new entry to bring up the Create Basic Task wizard. This wizard pre-populates the Name, Log, Source and Event ID associated with the scheduled task. All you need to do is configure the action you want to occur when the event is logged. That action can be either the starting of a program, sending of an e-mail or the displaying of a message on the screen.

If you've got an available SMTP server on your network, configuring the sending of an e-mail allows you to specify the message characteristics right from within the Task Scheduler. Once the wizard is completed, the task appears in Task Scheduler under Event Viewer Tasks where even more configurations can be enabled.

I wouldn't discount the big players in the event log consolidation world like those I've talked about above. Their tools do so much more to make this process a lot easier -- especially across multiple machines with multiple logs. But sometimes when you've got a point problem, all you need is a point solution.

Comment: http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?editorialsid=2405#post

Greg Shields, MCSE: Security, CCEA, is an independent author, instructor, and consultant based in Denver, Colo.

See the nLite - Free desktop configuration tool

WINDOWS TIP SHEET: See the nLite
Harried by the mundane tasks of configuring and loading desktops?
Here's a miracle tool.

By Jeffery Hicks

If you spend part of your day configuring or loading desktops, you
can simplify your life with a terrific and free tool. Go to
http://www.nliteos.com/ and download a copy of nLite, which is
currently at version 1.4. This miraculous tool allows you to build
customizable installations for just about any Windows OS you need to
deal with today, except for Vista -- more on that in a moment.

Tired of building an XP box, loading Service Pack 2, loading all the
new updates and then configuring it? With nLite you can streamline
and simplify this process.

Here are just a few of nLite's features:

* Service Pack Integration
* Component Removal
* Unattended Setup
* Driver Integration
* Hotfixes Integration
* Tweaks
* Services Configuration
* Patches
* Bootable ISO creation

I've used nLite in the past to create unattended installation CDs
that have made life very easy.

Because Vista has a whole new way of installing and configuring, the
author of nLite decided to develop a new solution, instead of trying
to force Vista support into nLite. I think it's a wise move. If you
require Vista support then visit http://www.vlite.net/index.html and
download vlite.exe. It has many of the same features of the
original nLite.

There is enough online documentation to get you going for both
applications, although most if it is pretty self-explanatory. So
don't fumble around in the darkness of configuration and installation.
Head towards the (n)lite.

Comment: http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.aspx?editorialsid=2404#post

Standalone Microsoft Hypervisor

Editorial - Breaking Things Apart - Steve Jones

This is good news and I'm glad that Microsoft realizes (a little) that they don't have to bundle everything together and try to force everyone to run Windows. Their hypervisor will be a standalone product, meaning you don't have to buy Windows Server to run it.

I think this is a great start towards selling effective solutions and letting the customer put together what they need rather than forcing them to buy into your entire solution. The whole battle to prevent Vista from be virtualized, prevent Linux from running on Virtual Server/PC, even the battle that is going on to prevent OS X from running on a PC is silly.

Consumers want flexibility and while they'll work within whatever scheme you set up, they'll also purchase less if you make it difficult. Look at iTunes? It's not any better than other services except that it's painless, easy, dirt simple to buy music and have it automatically appear on your device.

This new hypervisor, which allow multiple operating systems to share hardware, will sell for $28.

Twenty-eight dollars. How cool is that? I think they could easily bundle this into a lot of orders for MS software at $99 or $249 or some magic number and make money. Of course I know that there are some other free versions out there from Oracle, Sun, and others that may give them some pricing pressure, but lots of us would like to get an integrated solution and would just as soon use the Microsoft solution that might work better with Windows.

I like the bundle of SQL Server and all its sub-systems. They give me a complete data platform on which I can develop any number of applications. But I really think that this is a strategy that they should consider for Integration Services.
Keep the product bundled in with SQL Server, but it's such a completely separate environment that I think it could be sold as a standalone product as well. Imagine what would happen if you could buy SSIS to move data between your Oracle servers? What if you could buy this system for $249 or even $499? Most of the other ETL products cost much more than this (I know because they won't list prices. If they were hundreds of dollars, the price would be listed).

Just imagine how many people that got tied into SSIS might consider SQL Server for their next project.

Steve Jones

Adobe Debuts New Flash Products

Adobe Flash 9 Update 3 available.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0%2C1895%2C2227687%2C00.asp

Download Here:
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash&promoid=BIOW

Windows XP SP3 To Include Vista Elements, Researchers Say

Sweet!

Vista's Network Access Protection modules also will show up in XP SP3. The system verifies a computer's "health" before allowing it access to a network, and has been "one of the more well-received features in Windows Vista," according to NeoSmart.

http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=204700446

With SP1, Microsoft plans to ditch the Vista “kill switch”

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=334

THE TIME IS RIGHT FOR A NEW CERTIFICATION

Hmmm, interesting thought.

By Emmett Dulaney

THE TIME IS RIGHT FOR A NEW CERTIFICATION If there's a need in the market for a new kind of certification, it would have to be for a Google certification.

Now, before you roll your eyes, let me explain my logic. The purpose of an IT certification is to authenticate the skills of an individual. The market thinking is that if the individual has these skills (and these skills have been validated by a third-party), then that individual is worth more than someone who doesn't have -- or hasn't proven they have -- those skills.

Given this line of reasoning, there are two certifications that make sense. The first is an end user certification for using Google. End user certifications exist for Microsoft Office products and a host of applications that people use frequently. What other frequently used tool has the ability to affect productivity more than Google? None.

In his book "The World Is Flat," Thomas Friedman describes an interview he did with Colin Powell while the latter was secretary of state. When Friedman asked Powell where he was when he realized the world had gone flat, Powell replied with only one word: "Google."

Not only is Google the "how" and "what," it's now also the "where" -- that's how ubiquitous it's become.

Why is a certification needed? Because there's enormous power in knowing how to use Google properly to find what you're looking for.
The goal isn't to have 81,600,000 results come back in 0.21 seconds; you'll never look past the first few pages returned. You'll just get frustrated and try the same search again. The goal is to have only a few results returned, but all of them relevant to what you're looking for.

How many users even notice the Advanced Search link and know the potential it holds? How many know that a tilde can be used to find synonyms, that a plus sign marks required entries, or that a colon limits the search to a specified domain? How much more productive could a user who knew all this be than one who didn't? If anything screams of the need for a certification, it's this.

The second certification that would make sense is an administrator-level certification for search engine optimizers. There are individuals who make their living by ensuring that your site will appear higher in Google results than sites that don't use their services. How well do these individuals know their trade? How well do they know what to avoid on pages, what to add, what to tag, etc.?
With more and more advertising revenue being diverted from traditional channels to Web sites, there's a real need for someone to prove they understand the channel.

TELNET ASCII Movie

Ok, i'm not that old in the tech industry, so this is kind of cool for me to see how the "old fogies" had their fun. :)

To watch the movie:

1. Go to Start > Run > type in Telnet
2. In Telnet type o and hit enter
3. Now type towel.blinkenlights.nl
4. Enjoy...

Windows XP SP3 boasts speed boost, testers claim

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9048658

Keeping Your Job

Amen! :)

"These days it seems that the demand for IT workers is still growing, but there is no shortage of companies still looking to lay people off or get rid of employees that aren't performing up to some standard.

I saw an interesting article on how to better ensure IT job security and wanted to comment on a few of the items listed from the DBA perspective. I think that different groups of IT workers have different tendencies, but DBAs often are in a very strange position in a company and they need to ensure that their contributions are recognized as well as their work is valued and understood.

I remember in the dot-com boom days when "quirky" IT workers were tolerated and even valued. The strange people wearing flip flops and t-shirts could perform wonders with computers and their eccentricities were tolerated. Often when they were just competent at their jobs and no one really understood just how much or little they actually could do with systems.

The world has changed and expectations for most of our systems are higher than they were a decade ago. Management is more realistic in their view of their business, with most of our employers not expecting to get bought out by some large corporation and retire. Our job is to provide stability and long terms strategic value to our companies.

As a DBA, you have a varied job. You're in charge of data, need to technically manage the systems, but also work with business users to ensure their data is properly qualified, the meta data is understood (even if not explicitly written down) and you can help them ensure data quality and recognize the importance of the information that is being stored in databases.

This means that you need to better fit into the business as well as providing value. You should respect the dress codes and other habits of the rest of the company. You also need to learn to communicate effectively with others. Don't talk down to someone with technical acronyms and descriptions and make sure that you are trying to solve the business problems, not fit the solution into come cool piece of technology.

By trying to better fit in, you become an asset to the business as a whole. People should feel comfortable asking for your help and appreciate the work you do.
And they're likely to keep you around for the long term."

Steve Jones
https://www.sqlservercentral.com/Login?ReturnUrl=%2fForums%2fTopic425452-263-1.aspx

Free SQL Server tools that might make your life a little easier

http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/mladenp/archive/2007/11/20/Free-SQL-Server-tools-that-might-make-your-life-a.aspx

More Leopard Problems Plague Apple

It seems that Steve Jobs needs to add a phrase to his vocabulary - "Blue Screen of Death" :)

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/2007/11/22/more_leopard_problems_plague_apple/

What If Gmail Had Been Designed by Microsoft?

Ok, I found this rather amusing :)

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-11-20-n35.html

VM Placement: Does the Guest OS Matter?

Here's a good article on VM's and Shared Memory.

TECH LINE: VM Placement: Does the Guest OS Matter?
Grouping VMs by OS and application on a physical host can improve memory performance.

By Chris Wolf

Chris: I've heard conflicting accounts from consultants on virtual machine placement. Some say to group VMs with like OSes and applications on the same physical hosts. Several others say it doesn't matter. I attended one of your seminars and remember you mentioning that there is a benefit to placing like applications and operating systems on the same host, but can't remember what that benefit is. Can you shed some light on this?
-- Kumar


Grouping VMs running like operating systems or applications is advantageous for organizations using a virtualization platform that supports memory sharing. Memory sharing is a feature of select virtualization platforms and is used by the virtualization engine to remove redundant memory pages.

Consider 10 VMs running on a system that run the exact same OS. In such a scenario, the guest OS in all 10 VMs would require the same read-only pages for OS data. Why load the same page into physical memory 10 times when only one instance is really needed? That is the logic behind memory sharing.

Memory sharing is a very useful server virtualization feature; however, the majority of server virtualization platforms do not support it. The varying levels of memory sharing support amongst platforms is likely what led Kumar to receive different perspectives from the consultants that he had spoken with.

Memory sharing is one of the "under the hood technologies" and in my experience remains relatively unknown. Two x86 virtualization platforms offer memory sharing today: VMware ESX Server and SWsoft Virtuozzo. Microsoft Virtual Server and Xen-based hypervisors (i.e.
Citrix XenServer, Xen 3.x on Novell SuSE Enterprise Server, Xen 3.x on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Virtual Iron) do not currently support memory sharing. Both Microsoft and XenSource claim performance as justification for not supporting memory sharing which, to a degree, is true.

The trick to an effective memory sharing architecture, however, is for the virtualization platform to scan for redundant memory pages when resource utilization is at a minimum, so the extra CPU cycles needed to locate redundant memory pages ultimately has no impact on VM performance. This is how memory sharing is managed on a VMware ESX Server. An ESX Server will only scan for redundant physical memory pages when resource utilization is at a minimum, oftentimes causing scans to only run at night during non-business hours.

Since system resources are only devoted to shared memory optimization during off-peak hours, it may take up to a week or longer before an ESX server realizes optimal memory consolidation.
The result is up to a 30 percent reduction in required physical memory. Get more information and resources on virtual machine memory sharing at my blog post, "Server Virtualization Memory Sharing -- Vendors Divided," at http://tinyurl.com/24etrp.

Comment: http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?EditorialsID=2372#post

Chris Wolf, MCSE, MCT, CCNA, is a Microsoft MVP for Windows- Virtual Machine.

Top 10 Internet Security Trends for 2007

Top 10 Internet Security Trends for 2007

1. Data Breaches. Late last month, documents from an information-breach lawsuit against the TJX Corporation -- owners of TJ Maxx -- revealed that as many as 94 million customers using Visa and MasterCard were exposed to hackers. Further, in addition to Monster.com and Salesforce.com being hacked, there is also a report coming out next week that suggests half a million database servers are vulnerable. Turner says these events are what made data breaches the top concern among security experts this year.


2. Vista Introduction. More than a dozen security patches, perceived complexity and an ambivalent reception among tech media and some technologists have kept the much talked about OS in the news, making it a top issue of 2007.


3. Spam. The hair-growth pill promotions, penny stock tips, and promises of money from deposed African dictators won't stop hitting your e-mail inbox anytime soon. Moreover, spammers are increasingly taking more sophisticated approaches such as sending disguised PDF files, pretending to know you in e-mail subject lines and delivering Storm Worm malware through e-greeting cards.


4. Professional Attack Kits. Symantec believes that not only are hackers becoming more savvy but are also setting up a new revenue stream by selling hacker kits to peers. Such kits include MPack, which was popular this year and "phishing" toolkits pervade cyberspace as well.


5. Phishing. Phishing, a cousin of spoofing and masquerade hacking, gets its name from the way hackers use friendly or seemingly benign programs as bait. Symantec's Turner says criminals no longer have to hack in, as some users are coming to them.


6. Exploitation of Trusted Brands. By exploiting a trusted Website, hackers can trick someone into thinking they're getting on Bank of America's homepage by, for instance, sending them a link such as www.bofa.com@yourmoney.com. Someone may then key in information on a false interface. While most browsers nowadays are equipped with warning messages, "Phishermen" also take advantage of misspellings of popular Internet addresses.


7. Bots. Hacking by proxy is an increasingly common way for cyber criminals to maintain anonymity, and the use of "Bots", or Electronic Data Interchange translators, is one of the many malicious emissaries used to siphon protected information.


8. Web Plug-ins. ActiveX control modules, derived from Microsoft's Component Object Model and used to manage multimedia applications, comprised the majority of plug-in vulnerabilities in 2007, according to Symantec. These modules are usually downloaded from Web pages and used to make programs more compatible with others -- but they can also be used as attack vectors.


9. Vulnerabilities for Sale. This year the debate over the link between proof of concept exploits and "wild" exploits heated up after a decision in late September by Swiss tech upstart Wabi Sabi Labi Ltd., to create an eBay Inc.-style auction for unpatched, zero-day software vulnerabilities.


10. Virtualization Machine Security. Software and server virtualization, as evidenced by VMware's multi-billion-dollar IPO and new entries by Oracle, Sun, Microsoft and others, is definitely here to stay. If two file servers can do the work of ten, as some proponents attest, then a hacker can have a field day exploiting such technology.

http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?editorialsid=9253

Users complain new Gmail version slow, crashes browsers

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/111607-gmail.html

Is Apple Spying On iPhone Users?

Apparently so...

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/11/is_apple_spying.html?print=true

http://www.hackint0sh.org/forum/showthread.php?t=16125

Editorial - TTYL

The issue of communication is a real issue in the IT world. I couldn't agree more with Steve Jones article below...

"OMG! The DB if FUBAR.

The sysop added an HDD and did a RAID rebuild OTF. AKAIK, the Vol with the MDFs got wiped for the CRM that runs 24/7.

I'm ROFLMAO. AWKFY? TTYL.

Can you imagine someone talking to you like that. I mean actually speaking with "words" like "T-T-Y-L?"

I saw this article about how most people are speaking English in business today, but with the globalization of many companies, it's easy to not only mis-communicate, but also offend. And that can be a big problem with not only co-workers, but also customers.

Whether we standardize on English or some other communication, I hope that we continue to keep the skills of our language alive. The new generation of workers, working in shorthands and their own slang, seem to be losing out on the ability to effectively communicate with others. Too often they want to bang something out on a keyboard rather than talking directly to someone.

I'm sure I sound like an old man, lamenting the good old days of paper, ink, and phones without voicemail. However it's not the shorthand or slang that bothers me as much as the lack of the ability to clearly articulate themselves that plagues many people in the IT world. When I started in this business, it was always an issue communicating because things were so highly technical and few people understood how computers worked. The geeks that could truly make a computer sing had trouble communicating with business users.

I think the same thing is true today with communication, despite the advances in making computer interations simpler, greater familiarity, and a comfort level with technology by many business users. For every step we've made in computing becoming more accepted by users in all aspects of society, we've gotten worse in our overall communication skills with acronym and shorthand overload. I almost shudder to think of the text-messaging generation entering the workforce.

Technical jargon is important. It helps us quickly, clearly, and easily communicate with other IT workers with very specific meanings, but it's not the way that we should communicate with those outside of IT. Even if you are never any type of analyst, designer, architect, it pays to be able to clearly and effectively communicate your ideas, thoughts, and concerns to others.

Save the shorthand and slang for those times when it's appropriate and be sure that you can communicate using clear and generally accepted English (or your native language) with everyone else you encounter in your career. "

Steve Jones
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/

Steve Jobs May Get a Raise

hmmm... does Steve think that Apple stock isn't going to keep movin' on up???

http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/11/steve-jobs-may.html

Disappearing Gmail messages baffle users

Gmail having issues??? Interesting to note that Microsoft's service (Windows Live Hotmail) has far fewer reports of such things. ;)

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9047178

Apple Leopard Update Fixes More Than Two Dozen Bugs

Glad to see they are starting to take care of some of their issues ;)


Apple Leopard Update Fixes More Than Two Dozen Bugs

By Paul McDougall, InformationWeek
Nov. 15, 2007
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=203101060

Apple on Thursday released an update to its Leopard operating system that's meant to fix more than 24 bugs that have troubled users since the software debuted last month.

Mac OS X 10.5.1, as the Leopard update is officially known, addresses issues affecting passwords, alerts, and partitioning, among other things. It's available through Apple's automatic download service, called Software Update.

Among the fixes: password-protected accounts now show up in the Finder's shared sidebar; disk partitioning when multiple RAID sets are created on the same disk is improved; and an issue that produces alerts when disk images are created using the Disk Utility or Terminal has been resolved.

Also patched is a glitch in which files restored in Leopard's Time Machine backup utility were not archived to the correct folders; a bug that caused To-Do lists to disappear in Apple's Smart Mailboxes; and a flaw that caused custom paper feeds to reset to 'default' when printing.

Apple has a lot riding on Leopard. It's hoping that the slick new interface that the software brings to its PCs and laptops will help it cut into Microsoft's dominance of the computer operating system market.

To that end, Leopard features a number of graphical enhancements that redefine the way users interact with their Macs. For instance, a feature called Stacks arranges all the files in a folder into an appealing fan shape when the folder is clicked.

Leopard also borrows heavily from Apple's successful iPod interface. An enhanced Finder tool lets users leaf through icons representing their files the same way they can flip through music tracks on the digital music player.

Apple is also hoping that new productivity enhancements and security tools built into the 64-bit Leopard will push it deeper into the business computing world, where the company has largely been shut out by Microsoft.

VMware Server 2.0 Beta!

For those of you who are using VMWare on USB drives, upgrade now to get USB 2.0 support!

What's New:
New features and enhancements in the VMware Server Beta 1 release:

* Web-based management interface: A new Web-based user interface provides a simple, flexible, intuitive and productive way for you to manage your virtual machines.

* Expanded operating system support: VMware Server now supports Windows Vista Business Edition and Ultimate Edition (guest only), Windows Server 2008 (Longhorn Server Beta 3), Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and Ubuntu 7.1, among others.

* Greater scalability: Take full advantage of high-end hardware with support for up to 8GB of RAM per virtual machine, up to two virtual SMP (vSMP) processors and up to 64 virtual machines per host.

* 64-bit guest operating system support: Run high-performance operating systems in virtual machines with support for Intel EM64T VT-enabled processors and AMD64 processors with segmentation support.

* Support for VIX API 1.2: This feature provides a programming interface for automating virtual machine and guest operations.

* Support for Virtual Machine Interface (VMI): This feature enables transparent paravirtualization, in which a single binary version of the operating system can run either on native hardware or in paravirtualized mode.

* Support for USB 2.0 devices: Transfer data at faster data rates from USB 2.0 devices.

http://www.vmware.com/beta/server/

Researcher: Half million database servers have no firewall

Survey finds that more databases are exposed to hackers than ever before, putting corporate data at risk, and many of these unprotected databases are also unpatched

By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

November 14, 2007

Think your database server is safe? You may want to double-check. According to security researcher David Litchfield, there are nearly half a million database servers exposed on the Internet, without firewall protection.

Litchfield took a look at more than 1 million randomly generated IP addresses, checking them to see if he could access them on the IP ports reserved for Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle's database. The results? He found 157 SQL servers and 53 Oracle servers. Litchfield then relied on known estimates of the number of systems on the Internet to arrive at his conclusion: "There are approximately 368,000 Microsoft SQL Servers... and about 124,000 Oracle database servers directly accessible on the Internet," he wrote in his report, due to be made public next week.

This is not the first time that Litchfield, managing director of NGSSoftware, has conducted this type of research. Two years ago, he released his first Database Exposure Survey, estimating that there were about 350,000 Microsoft and Oracle databases exposed.

This 2007 version of the Database Exposure Survey is set to be published Monday on Litchfield's Databasesecurity.com Web site. IDG News was given a preliminary copy of the findings.

With no firewall, databases are exposed to hackers, putting corporate data at risk. Litchfield said that, given the amount of press generated by corporate data breaches over the past two years, it's amazing to find that there are more databases exposed than ever before. "I think it's terrible," he said in an interview. "We all run around like headless chickens following these data breach headlines... organizations out there really don't care. Why are all these sites hanging out there without the protection of a firewall?"

This year's Oracle tally is actually down from Litchfield's 2005 estimate, which counted 140,000 Oracle systems. That same study placed the SQL server total at 210,000.

The security researcher wasn't sure why Oracle's numbers had declined while Microsoft's had risen. "Microsoft's technology is certainly easier to install. Maybe the increase in SQL server numbers is simply a function of that," he said.

In the 2005 survey, Litchfield found an even larger number of the open source MySQL databases outside of the firewall. The 2007 survey does not count MySQL, however.

There was one other disturbing finding in Litchfield's 2007 survey: Many of these unprotected databases are also unpatched. In fact, 4 percent of the SQL Server databases Litchfield found were still vulnerable to the flaw that was exploited by 2003's widespread SQL Slammer worm. "People aren't protecting themselves with firewalls, and the patch levels are atrocious," he said.

About 82 percent of the SQL Servers were running older SQL Server 2000 software, and less than half of those had the product's latest Service Pack updates installed. On the Oracle side, 13 percent of the servers were running older versions of the database that no longer receive patches. These Oracle 9.0 and earlier databases are known to have security vulnerabilities, Litchfield said.

Litchfield, who wrote the proof of concept code that was eventually used by Slammer, said that this many unsecured databases is enough to sustain another worm outbreak. "There's certainly potential there," he said. "So the question is what's the likelihood? [That's] much more difficult to answer."

http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/07/11/14/Half-million-database-servers-have-no-firewall_1.html

Top o' the day

QUESTION: How can I prevent Web sites from accessing the local clipboard on
my computer?

ANSWER:
If the security level for your Internet zones (Tools, Internet
Options, Security) in Internet Explorer 5.0 or later is set to
High, you're already preventing Web sites from accessing your
local clipboard.

However, if your security level isn't set to High and you still wish
to prevent IE's dynamic HTML from accessing your Web site, you should
disable the "Allow paste operations via script" option. Here's
the procedure:

1. Start Internet Explorer.
2. Go to Tools, Internet Options and click on the Security tab.
3. Select the Internet zone and click Custom Level.
4. Under the Scripting section, configure the "Allow paste operations
via script" option to Disable and then click OK. In IE 7.0, the
option is called "Allow Programmatic clipboard access."

Courtesy of: Zubair Alexander, MCSE, MCT, MCSA and Microsoft MVP

The Google Way

Here's an editorial from a newsletter that I receive. I thought it did a good job of contrasting Google and Microsoft in some ways...

"I've been working with Microsoft technologies for nearly two decades and I've admired how quickly the company has changed direction many times and how well they've brought new technologies to the masses. They didn't always innovate or invent the actual technology, but they have often made it cheap and available to large groups of people.

However I've also been annoyed sometimes by how quickly they've dismissed some good technologies and pushed others. Anyone remember Blackbird and their early dismissals of the Internet?

To a large extent, it seems that they're still doing that with Google. Despite the fact that both companies attract some incredible intelligent people, it seems that Microsoft continues plodding along in it's own direction while Google is constantly seeking to push the envelope and find new ways to grow and attack markets.

The Google phone is a good example. Not that Microsoft hasn't worked on phone and speech technologies, and they've done a good job improving Windows Mobile, but it seems that they lack the excitement and drive to really succeed. Google is looking to drive it's phone to the market in many ways, including grabbing spectrum on which to provide service. Microsoft seems content to deliver a platform and hope it gains large market share.

It's like Microsoft has become Sony with the Playstation 2, and Google is the new Microsoft with it's cool XBOX and the unification of online services through XBOX Live. They've innovated a new way of driving the business instead of trying to incrementally improve the old way.

And don't get me started on Search. I'm still amazed at exactly how bad Live Search can be. As I try their search product at times, I'm still amazed at just how bad it can be. I'm almost terrified of trying to use their Search Server Express, even in testing. Maybe they are trying to innovate here, and just not doing a better job. It just seems like they constantly give me less reasons to give it a chance.

It's almost like Google is playing offense and Microsoft is playing not to lose. Which is a sure way ensure Google will come out on top. "

Steve Jones

10 dirty little secrets you should know about working in IT

Unfortunately #1 is very prevalent in the IT industry.

1.) IT pros frequently use jargon to confuse nontechnical business managers and hide the fact that they screwed up

All IT pros - even the very best - screw things up once in a while. This is a profession where a lot is at stake and the systems that are being managed are complex and often difficult to integrate. However, not all IT pros are good at admitting when they make a mistake. Many of them take advantage of the fact that business managers (and even some high-level technical managers) don't have a good understanding of technology, and so the techies will use jargon to confuse them (and cover up the truth) when explaining why a problem or an outage occurred. For example, to tell a business manager why a financial application went down for three hours, the techie might say, "We had a blue screen of death on the SQL Server that runs that app. Damn Microsoft!" What the techie would fail to mention was that the BSOD was caused by a driver update he applied to the server without first testing it on a staging machine.

http://www.globalknowledge.com/training/generic.asp?pageid=1470&country=United+States

Weekly quickTIP - Building a Better Defragger

Weekly quickTIP: Building a Better Defragger The disk defrag tool gets better with every OS, it seems. Check out some of the improvements on hand this time around.

By Greg Shields

I remember defragging hard drives back in the days of Windows 2000.
As an administrator, it was a pain in the neck. You could start a drive defragmentation from the local machine, but there weren?t any tools to truly remotely script the process.

Windows 2000?s defragger was a cantankerous beast too. Starting it consumed all kinds of system resources, and stopping it took forever. Worst of all, you could run the defragger over and over on a particularly fragmented drive and never get it fully defragmented.

That cranky tool has gotten incrementally better with each release of the Windows operating system. Windows XP added remote scripting exposure and improvements to its core engine. Windows Vista adds a number of new and neat additional features as well.
Compliments of Microsoft KnowledgeBase Article 942092
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942092 , some of its shiny, new improvements include:

* Partial defragmentation. By default, the defragger only
defragments files that are 64 MB and smaller. You?ll
need to use the -w switch to defragment large files
above that size.

* Cancellable defragmentation. Ever tried to cancel out
of the middle of a defragmentation process? Wait for it.
Wait for it. With Vista, the cancel process has been
improved to make stopping the process much quicker.

* Low priority defragmentation. Vista?s defragger now
runs as a Low Priority process, which means that it
behaves better when running alongside other tasks you?re
attempting to accomplish.

* Ability to defragment volumes with less free space.
Optimizations have been made in the defragger?s engine
that allows it to run with less required free space
than in previous versions.

* Faster defragmentation. Also refreshing are optimizations
that increase the total speed of defragmentation.
Microsoft says the process now runs up to two to three
times faster than with previous versions.

* Shadow-copy-aware defragmentation. The defragger is now
integrated with the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS).

* Master File Table defragmentation. Vista can now eliminate
fragmentation on a disk?s MFT.

What I find to be the most exciting about these new capabilities is simply the automatic scheduling of the defragger at system install. Every copy of Vista automatically sets up a defragmentation job to occur at 1 a.m. every Wednesday. If the computer happens to be powered down, the task is scheduled to run at the next idle opportunity. You can change this schedule by opening Task Scheduler and drilling down the tree to Task Scheduler Library \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Defrag.

Comment: http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?editorialsid=2365

Greg Shields, MCSE: Security, CCEA, is a principal consultant for 3t Systems http://www.3tsystems.com/ in Denver, Colo.

10 IT career killers to avoid

1. Failing to have a life plan. "This is the No. 1 biggest mistake that I run into with my clients. I work with a number of clients in IT, many of whom are in C-level roles. A life plan is a business plan, in the same way that a company leader creates an annual business plan for what the future is going to bring from a corporate perspective. Three life aspects to focus on include one's career, personal and family, and financial goals. If someone has a good title and a satisfactory personal and family life but they're struggling to make monthly payments, then they're not going to be satisfied. They should look at those aspects for themselves. They should look at the competitive environment, the job marketplace and whether their skill set is current. If someone can replace them because they're cheaper, faster or better, it's no different than looking at your IT requirements. Most importantly, this plan should be written down. Only 14% of people do that. 86% are putting their futures in the hands of others. It's not a good place to be in."

2. Not keeping your skills current. "The business landscape is ever-changing and there is more demand for jobs than supply. Not staying on par with colleagues and those vying for your job will be a death knell. With individuals able to do the same work that someone is doing anywhere in the world today and the prospect that organizations will chase skill sets around the world, if you're not up to date with your skill sets in IT, you're significantly at risk of being replaced. This includes the need to stay up to date in technical skills, business skills and soft skills."

Click Here to read the rest...

IE Automatic Component Activation (Changes to IE ActiveX Update)

It's about time...

Back in April 2006, we made a change to how Internet Explorer handled embedded controls used on some webpages. Some sites required users to “click to activate” before they could interact with the control. Microsoft has now licensed the technologies from Eolas, removing the “click to activate” requirement in Internet Explorer. Because of this, we're removing the “click to activate” behavior from Internet Explorer!

Click Here to read more....

Microsoft Tries To Patent Conversational Closers

OK... somebody has too much time on their hands.


By Doug Caverly

Can’t be bothered to type “goodbye” at the end of IM conversation? That’s okay - Microsoft wants to do it for you. The real kicker, though, is that Microsoft also wants to patent this practice.

A U.S. patent application states, “a converser may be insulted when the user terminates a conversation without saying goodbye or may consider it to be rude to end a conversation abruptly without a communication that the conversation is ending.” Well, all right.

There’s no need to patent a tool that would automatically send goodbye messages, however. Aside from the sheer ridiculousness of the idea, Cade Metz notes, “You could argue that IRC clients have offered this sort of thing for years . . .”

So is it just me, or is Microsoft going increasingly loony? Steve Ballmer alone has generated several odd quotes in the past couple of months, and then there’s the $240-million-for-a-1.6-percent-stake-in-Facebook thing to consider.

With any luck, Patent Application 20070255800 will be killed. Without any luck, well . . . look for Microsoft to patent something related to round objects with spokes.

http://www.webpronews.com/node/41956/print

World’s First Image Taking of the Moon by HDTV

Check out the images... pretty cool stuff.

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/11/20071107_kaguya_e.html

Rotten Apple: Leopard

Not to pile on, but these articles keep coming to me! They seem to be everywhere the past week...

Opinion: Apple's latest operating system release may be the most troublesome since Apple switched from its System operating system to the BSD Unix and Mach-based Mac OS X.

I have never heard so many complaints about a Mac OS upgrade. Back in 2000/2001 when Apple users were switching from its older System operating system to the BSD Unix-based Mac OS X, I also heard many a die-hard Mac user cursing at the changes. Then, however, everyone knew that there was going to be real trouble. After all, this wasn't just an upgrade—both the software and hardware were moving from one operating system to another.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2212976,00.asp

More sad stories of Leopard issues...

Poor chaps aren't exactly having the easiest time of things with the new OS. ;)

Leopard App Casualty List Grows
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2212576,00.asp

10 types of programmers you’ll encounter in the field

A funny read if you are a programmer (or work with them) :). Follow the link for the full descriptions...

#1: Gandalf
This programmer type looks like a short-list candidate to play Gandalf...
#2: The Martyr
In any other profession, The Martyr is simply a “workaholic.” But in the development field...
#3: Fanboy
Watch out for Fanboy. If he or she corners you, you’re in for a three-hour lecture about...
#4: Vince Neil
This 40-something is a throwback to 1984 in all of the wrong ways. Sporting big hair...
#5: The Ninja
The Ninja is your team’s MVP, and no one knows it. Like the legendary assassins....
#6: The Theoretician
The Theoretician knows everything there is to know about programming. He or she can...
#7: The Code Cowboy
The Code Cowboy is a force of nature that cannot be stopped. He or she is almost always...
#8: The Paratrooper
You know those movies where a sole commando is air-dropped deep behind enemy lines and...
#9: Mediocre Man
“Good enough” is the best you will ever get from Mediocre Man. Don’t let the name fool you...
#10: The Evangelist
No matter what kind of environment you have, The Evangelist insists that it can be improved...

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=262

Nice and Needed Vista and 2008 Disk Management Enhancements

The Incredible Shrinking Disk Windows 2008's nifty disk-manipulation features includes this cool disk-shrinking tool that has nothing to do with cold water.

by Greg Shields

Windows Vista comes with a boatload of nifty new features, but one that continues to excite me is its enhanced ability to manipulate disks. With previous versions of Windows, we could expand volumes with the DISKPART command or append new ones to create larger volumes. But at no point with the native tools were we ever able to make those volumes smaller.

If you’re like me, when you build a new computer you sometimes scratch your head when the option arrives asking for volume size. More often than not, I usually create a volume that’s as big as the disk itself. But sometimes I need to create multiple volumes on the same disk. Maybe I have a concern about log files filling up the system drive. Maybe I want to split apart my data drives from my system drive for easier recovery in case of a failure.

In either case, creating a volume at the wrong size usually meant extra work down the road to fix that size when it became apparent I’d made a mistake. With Vista and Windows Server 2008, however, those problems go away.

Right-click the Computer icon on any Vista or Windows Server 2008 computer and open Computer Management (for Vista) or Server Manager (for Windows 2008). Navigate down to Disk Management and right-click again on any available disk. You’ll see three new items in the context menu: Extend volume, shrink volume and delete volume.

By far the neatest of these is the ability to shrink a volume. Obviously the shrinkage of that volume will depend on how much data is on the disk, but what’s unbelievably cool about this new capability is that it can be done without impacting the OS. You can even shrink the system drive while the system is actively running on the drive. There are a few limitations:

* You can only shrink NTFS or unformatted partitions.
* Disks with too many bad clusters will not be allowed to shrink.
* Unmovable areas on the disk like the page file or shadow copy storage area can impact how far down the disk can be shrunk. If your disk cannot shrink to the size you want, consider removing these elements first.
* Only administrators can manipulate disks.

If you prefer the command line, the command-line tool DISKPART has similarly been augmented with these capabilities. The command you’ll want to look for is SHRINK DESIRED={Desired amount of size reduction} MINIMUM={Minimum amount of size reduction}. By including both the DESIRED and MINIMUM switches in the command, DISKPART will attempt to reduce the size by the DESIRED amount. If it can’t, it’ll at least attempt to reduce it by the MINIMUM amount.

http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?editorialsid=2326

Greg Shields, MCSE: Security, CCEA, is an independent author, instructor, and consultant based in Denver, Colo. A contributing editor to Redmond magazine, MCPmag.com and a popular speaker at TechMentor events, Greg’s recent book "Windows Server 2008: What’s New/What’s Changed" is now available at www.sapienpress.com. You can contact Greg about "The Incredible Shrinking Disk" at gshields@redmondmag.com.

Google Dials Into the Cell Phone Market

Hmmm… ought to be interesting…

http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/G/GOOGLE_MOBILE?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-11-05-11-04-01

Microsoft's HD Photo to become JPEG XR Standard

Ahhh... Microsoft giving back to the community. :) Surprising though, because you would think with Apple on the imaging/video forefront that they would be the ones with the new image standard.

A new attempt to provide a higher-end sequel to the ubiquitous JPEG image standard is officially under way.

The multiple countries participating in the Joint Photographic Experts Group, which created the JPEG standard, have approved an effort to make Microsoft's HD Photo format a standard called JPEG XR, said Bill Crow, who has led Microsoft's HD Photo effort and who just took over the company's Microsoft Live Labs Seadragon imaging project. XR stands for "extended range," a reference to the format's ability to show a wider and finer range of tonal gradations and a richer color palette.

http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9810024-39.html

Cool Sysinternals tools - and they're free!

BGInfo v4.11 - Show system info on your desktop background

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/bginfo.mspx

Process Monitor v1.25 - Task Manager expanded

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx?wt.svl=leftnav

Fortress Mac Is Gone

Well it appears that Mac's have now grown up enough to begin getting some attention by professional hacker's. Until now the Mac OS has been relatively secure (or so it was believed) - for the simply reason that there wasn't a large enough market for the hacker's to pay attention to. Appx 6% marketshare isn't exactly a goldrush for professional hacker's who are looking for money. However, with the recent surge in Mac users with OS X, I suppose someone finally decided it was time to unleash on the fanboys. :)

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2210900,00.asp

"It appears that the Mac is becoming popular enough that the "bad guys" think it is worth spending time and effort in developing malware for the Mac OS. If we see a rise in Mac malware, then we will have to assume that there are profits to be made in malware for Macs as well. Stay tuned."
http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/security_response/weblog/2007/11/the_double_attack_windows_atta.html

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/10/mac-users-get-a.html