Darien's Dialog..

Behind the scenes at the TechNet MSDN Technology Summit in Malaysia, Kuala lumpur

2009-03-15T13:00:23Z

After a spell of around two years, it was so great to be back at the TechNet/MSDN Keynote in Kuala Lumpur recently. Our theme was “ Spotting the Future ” and during the nearly 3 hour demo fest extravaganza it was our idea to show everyone how Microsoft technology, current and future, can help increase productivity and save money in these tough economic times. From the overwhelming feedback I received, most of it on bluehoo (thank you everyone for your comments :-) ), it looks like we covered that...(read more)

URL SCAN 3.0... an excellent update

2008-09-13T07:30:00Z

I've always been a fan of URLScan, originally part of the IIS Lockdown Tool, as it gave tremendous flexibility in URL filtering across different IIS versions that didn't have these capabilities natively built in. Sure, you lost a bit of performance running the ISAPI-based filter, but you mitigated so many port 80/443 HTTP attacks that running URL scan made me sleep better at night. Well now there's an update, and it's separated from the IIS Lockdown tool, so you can just take the ISAPI filter...(read more)

Where's my memory gone?...Got a 4GB 32-bit Windows System?.. Read on...

2008-08-16T13:53:25Z

Here's a common question that we're having to answer with our customers over and over again. It's getting common because 4GB of RAM is no longer the big deal that it was a few years ago, and unfortunately with the extra memory comes extra overhead that may be preventing you from utilizing all that memory for your applications. Need an explanation? Here's one of the most articulate articles that I've seen to-date on what's going on. Check out Mark Russinovich's recent blog post on Pushing the Limits...(read more)

Where's my hard disk space gone?

2008-05-25T03:15:37Z

Ever find yourself asking, "Where's all my hard disk drive space gone?", and even more so, "Which application has stolen it?!". Well, guess no more... I came across this really handy free application called WinDirStat (you can download it from here ), that let's you see you whole hard drive visually. Here's a snapshot of my hard drives at home:- Cool, huh. Previously, I've been using an internal tool at Microsoft (which one of our employees wrote) called FatSlice. Once again,...(read more)

F5's "Pump It Up! Hi-5 2008" APAC Partner Conference in Malaysia

2008-02-10T05:58:09Z

I was honored to be invited to present a speaking slot at the keynote of the recent F5 "Pump it up! Hi-5 2008" APAC partner conference, held in the Westin, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I've always respected F5's products as being best in class in their field, not to mention that we at Microsoft use their products extensively both internally and externally, as an example for our microsoft.com infrastructure - so it was a 'no brainer' for me to accept (Thank you, Tina).

Equally, I just LOVE partner conferences, because I can be quite 'free' in what I say on stage. Partners are very much our friends, and service the very same customers that we see everyday - we share the same challenges, the same synergies in dealing with our diverse customer base - it brings us together in a silent and respectful understanding of what needs to be done, and so I just love sharing my thoughts with this kind of audience.

I focused on a few, very few, clear messages for my presentation. F5 and Microsoft work well together (obvious, but needs to be stated) and we work well together over three particular workloads:-

Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS) and BIG-IP focusing on the Web Accelerator (WA) Module - this is the "hotspot", as I called it, especially for combined Microsoft and F5 partners - read more here, and get the deployment guide on how to do it from here.
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and total solution components from F5. Totally excellent deployment guide here. Lots of areas BIG-IP can enhance the base solution from the front-end to the back-end replication.
Microsoft Office Communication Server (OCS) 2007 and BIG-IP, which is really a follow on from 2) since it's part of an overall Unified Communications (UC) solution. Once again, deployment guide from here.

Suffice to say, I really enjoyed my session; I loved the stage - it just invoked passion; I loved the crowd; F5 were just great, and I really enjoyed meeting all the partners afterwards. Thanks F5, and thank you everyone at the conference. I'll definitely make a point of dropping into the F5 office next time I'm in Seattle.

Obligatory photos below:-

RosettaNet Global Summit & Conference in Penang, Malaysia

2007-11-25T08:09:50Z

I was honored to be invited to speak for the RosettaNet Global Summit and Conference which, this year, was held in Penang, Malaysia. It was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends, as well as make some new global acquaintances. I especially enjoyed meeting Michael Noterangeli who later moderated my forum after one of my talks on One Decade of Optimizing Supply Chains: RosettaNet ROI and Best Practices. It was amazing to meet someone who is equally passionate about RosettaNet evangelism and adoption amongst Tier-3 (and beyond) suppliers and manufacturers.

All in all, it was a fabulous couple of days, and I'm inspired by the overall theme of RosettaNet looking for the "next big thing" in innovation to keep driving the organization forward. Also, a big thanks to Mr. HH Foong, a good friend, and the current RosettaNet Malaysian Director for his wonderful support during the event.

Of course, no blog entry would be complete without the photos... so here they are. These are from my talk and consequent forum on "One Decade of Optimizing Supply Chains: RosettaNet ROI and Best Practices", and if you're interested in the slides, then you can get them directly from RosettaNet Malaysia's site here.

With RosettaNet Malaysia's Director, Mr. HH Foong (to my right), with my Microsoft colleagues and together with the lovely ladies from Kompakar's Penang Office.

Giving my talk on "One Decade of Optimizing Supply Chains: RosettaNet ROI and Best Practices". It was a cool session, as I got to share our own RosettaNet story (I call it the "empowering story of the 7B1") which was the building of the XBOX 360.

I was also invited to contribute to the forum on Supply Chain Optimization together with Intel and Cisco, chaired by Michael Noterangeli.

Wonderful New Windows Live Releases!

2007-11-09T05:00:00Z

It's been a big few days for the larger Windows Live team with lots of great releases that are really coming together to work as a whole. I've just upgraded my machines at work and at home, and I'm really enjoying all the new services. What am I talking about? Well, first up, you've all just have to head on over to:-

http://www.windowslive.com

Here you'll get the downloads for:-

The new Windows Live Messenger (8.5) - pictured right
Finally, a new version of Windows Live Writer, which I used for this post (it rocks!)
Windows Live Photo Gallery - great for Windows XP users, that can now get a taste for the Photo Gallery application that ships with Vista, except with the Windows Live publishing (and even Flickr) capability built right in.
Windows Live Mail - great for use with Hotmail. Finally, a rich email Hotmail (and others) client. Lovely!
Update for the Windows Live Toolbar
Plus more...

Also, if you want to get a brand new Windows Live account (that is, one that ends in @live.com rather than @msn.com or @hotmail.com), then head over to http://www.windowslive.com/freshstart.html.

Here are some other links you'll enjoy with the above:-

Hear, straight from the horses mouth (the Windows Live Messenger Product Team), what are the new features in 8.5 - http://messengersays.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!5B410F7FD930829E!27545.entry
And if you really like Live Messenger so much, create your own Messenger button and add it to your signature - http://www.gowindowslive.com/messenger/button/Default.aspx
Also, check out the plug-ins for Windows Live Writer at http://gallery.live.com/results.aspx?bt=9&pl=8. It's cool that it's fully extensible, eh? (I used the Spaces Emoticon plug-in to insert this wink).

Most importantly though, have a great time with Windows Live!

Professional Audio on Windows Vista with Cakewalk Sonar et al.

2007-10-17T13:17:00Z

After watching the Cakewalk: Making Music with Sonar video on Channel 9, I was once again inspired by the state of professional audio on Windows, and in particular Windows Vista. Audio engineers and producers alike now have a wonderful, robust, glorious-looking operating system that just fits into any musical studio environment.

And with software tools such as Cakewalk's Sonar 7 Producer Edition that take full advantage of Vista's capabilities such as new multicore architectures, WaveRT, x64 memory addressing etc.. super-high-end audio and MIDI production (formerly reserved for high-end ProTools installations) are now available for every small studio or even the "weekend warrior" in the home. If you're a Mac user on ProTools or Logic (or whatever) and you're looking at giving the power and flexibility of the Windows Vista platform a try using Cakewalk's Sonar, they have a competitive crossgrade offer available here.

Also, beyond Cakewalk, there are plenty of other audio application which are already running or are targeted to run on Windows Vista. Another favourite company of mine for the Windows Platform are Rain Recording which specialize in developing hardware specifically for Digital Audio Workstations (DAW) on Windows. They maintain a cool list of applications tested to run on Vista called their Rain Recording Vista Watch. It's cool. Check it out.

So, team, there's no excuse not to run Windows in recording studios anymore, don't you think? ;-)

Microsoft TechEd SEA 2007... "Thanks for the great sessions, guys!"

2007-09-09T13:39:00Z

I just finished my Windows Compute Cluster Server session, and yesterday, my IIS 7.0 (and 6.0) Security session. I don't know which one I enjoyed more, revisiting my favourite topic of all time with IIS, or seeing the looks on everyone's faces when we went through Windows Supercomputing.

Everyone, thanks for attending my sessions, and thanks for the great questions and feedback afterwards. As promised, here's the link to the final slides:-

SYS314: Securing IIS 7.0 (and IIS 6.0)
Zipped PowerPoint 2007 File
WIN224: Supercomputers on Windows: Technical Overview of Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003
Zipped PowerPoint 2007 File

Hope to see you all again next year, in the meantime, please feel free to comment below.

Draft Slide Decks uploaded for my TechEd SEA 2007 Sessions

2007-09-01T11:45:00Z

Everyone, here are the drafts of my slide decks for my TechEd Sessions. Please give me your feedback, because I can still change my sessions to incorporate your suggestions. This is the first year I'm posting my slides up in advance, so I hope with your feedback I can make my sessions more targeted to what you'd all like me to cover. Here they are:-

SYS314: Securing IIS 7.0 (and IIS 6.0)
Zipped PowerPoint 2007 File
Monday, 10th September, 6:00pm to 7:15pm, Room 307&309

"This session will focus on the best practices in securing your IIS web servers. We’ll take a revised look at IIS 6.0 in the first half, particularly leveraging the new security features introduced back in Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1. In the second half, we’ll take a look at the future of IIS with IIS 7.0, its brand new architecture and its new security model."

WIN224: Supercomputers on Windows: Technical Overview of Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003
Zipped PowerPoint 2007 File
Tuesday, 11th September, 3:15pm to 4:30pm, Banquet Hall

"Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 brings together the power of 64-bit computing, the security of the Active Directory directory service and the Windows operating system to provide a security-enhanced and affordable high-performance computing (HPC) solution. In this session we’ll cover the components and applications that make Compute Cluster Server so powerful. First, we provide an overview of Compute Cluster Server, the technical components and the technologies behind it and its infrastructure with a quick overview of some of the high-performance applications. We’ll also bring along a HP-C Series Blade Windows Supercomputer and show just how easy it is to use these high end computing resources with familiar tools such as Microsoft Excel, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office SharePoint Services."