Course: “ Creating and Managing a Private Cloud with System Center 2012 Jump Start ” Date/Time: April 3-4, 2012 from 9:00am – 5:00pm PST | NEWLY ADDED IMPORTANT: The Feb. 21-22, 2012 class is fully booked and closed to new registrations Where: Live virtual classroom (online from wherever you are) Cost: FREE! Target audience: IT Professionals (IT Implementers, managers, decision makers) REGISTER NOW

With all the Microsoft Press books published before the new year, we forgot to post a “New book” announcement for MCPD 70-519 Exam Ref: Designing and Developing Web Applications Using Microsoft® .NET Framework 4 (ISBN 9780735657267; 304 pages) by Tony Northrup. We apologize for the oversight, but better late than never. Tony’s book is the first in the new Microsoft Press Exam Ref series , and one of three Exam Refs currently available, with more on the way in 2012. The book is a great way to prepare for the MCPD 70-519 exam, the Pro-level exam required for the MCPD: Web...

Greetings! Today only our ebook bundle (EPUB, MOBI, PDF) for Microsoft Manual of Style, Fourth Edition , is on sale for 50% off. You get the ebook bundle, and all updates to that bundle over time, for only $11.99. Click here to make your purchase . Enjoy!

Everybody interested in learning about what’s new in SQL Server 2012, today’s a good day because we’re releasing our second DRAFT preview of Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2012 , by Ross Mistry and Stacia Misner. (Please remember that “draft” means we haven’t completed our editorial/production work on the content.) This version updates the two chapters that appeared in our first DRAFT preview release and adds four more chapters. It contains the boldfaced chapters below: PART I DATABASE ADMINISTRATION (Ross’s part) 1....

We’ve mentioned these in previous blog posts, but thought they deserved a reminder. Microsoft Excel 2010 Step by Step, Microsoft Word 2010 Step by Step and Windows 7 Step by Step are all available in video format free of charge. Each lesson is based on a chapter from the books. Lessons typically run about 15 – 25 minutes in length. Click here for Microsoft Excel 2010 videos Click here for Microsoft Word 2010 videos Click here for Microsoft Windows 7 videos

For information about the book, where to send press queries, and how to request a review copy, see our press release page for Microsoft Manual of Style, Fourth Edition . Here’s an excerpt: "However, change occurs rapidly in the world of technology, and so do the ways we talk about technology," continues Whitmire. "Even expert editors need a set of vetted guidelines that keep them up to date and protect them from making the same decisions repeatedly or in isolation. This edition of the Microsoft Manual of Style is about standardizing, clarifying, and simplifying...

Editors, writers, and content creators: get in line to purchase the newest edition of the Microsoft Manual of Style ! Now in its fourth edition, the Microsoft Manual of Style provides essential style and usage guidance for everyone who writes about computer technology. Fully updated and optimized for ease of use, this reference features: ■ Glossary for 1000+ terms and acronyms ■ Clear concise usage guidelines with examples and alternatives ■ Guidance on style, “voice,” formatting, and grammar ■ Insights on emerging terminology and standards. ■ Guidance...

Hello. We launched the Microsoft Press blog three years ago, so we’re no longer a baby blog. And we’re far beyond pulling ourselves up by the couch—we jump up and down on it—which means we’re not exactly toddlers. Plus, our vocabulary includes well over 350 words. But the best indication of our advanced development is the fact that we don’t see other children as “objects.” Frankly, we knew not to do that on Day 1. Thank you, everyone, for your interest and your responses over this time. We’ll keep sharing free ebooks...

We’re pleased to announce that the new Microsoft Press book XAML Developer Reference (ISBN 978-0-7356-5896-7, 340 pages) is now available for purchase! This book covers XAML from the ground up for both Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight development—and of course, because XAML is a foundational technology in building Windows 8 applications, learning the information here will be useful for a long time to come. You’ll discover practical ways to build rich, interactive user interfaces with data integration capabilities and support for multimedia...

Everybody interested in learning about what’s new in SQL Server 2012, we hope you saw our first release of our Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2012 ebook in October . That was just a draft, two-chapter quick release to help celebrate PASS Summit 2011 (and that ebook is still available). Here’s our upcoming release schedule for the ebook at this point: On February 1 , we’ll release another draft version of the ebook. (“Draft” means we haven’t completed our editorial/production work on the content, by the way.) This version will include...

For those attending TechReady: Mark Russinovich and Aaron Margosis , authors of Windows Sysinternals Administrator’s Reference (Microsoft Press, 2012; ISBN: 9780735656727), will be signing the book in the bookstore on Friday, February 3, from 12:00 to 1:00. Mark will also be signing his cyber-thriller Zero Day : http://www.zerodaythebook.com/ . By the way, everyone, you can download the Table of Contents and two complete sample chapters from Windows Sysinternals Administrator’s Reference via this blog post .

Today we’d like to quickly point you to an article written by Dana Epp called “ The Evolution of Elevation: Threat Modeling in a Microsoft World ,” which begins like this: “I’ve been asked to give a history of threat modeling from the perspective of an outsider looking at Microsoft. While I’m flattered by the idea, I’m also petrified. I have my own views of what has happened over the past 15 or so years, and I suspect I’ll contradict the views of some people I respect at Microsoft. That said, I welcome the opportunity for those people to email me at dana@scorpionsoft.com...

Greetings. We’d like to make sure you know about some upcoming free training. Here are the details: Course: “Creating and Managing a Private Cloud with System Center 2012 Jump Start” Date/Time: February 21-22, 2012 from 9:00am – 5:00pm PST Where: Live virtual classroom (online from wherever you are) Cost: FREE! Target audience: IT Professionals (IT Implementers, managers, decision makers) You can register via MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx-pid=298 . And here’s much more information about the course: ...

Post from Kenyon Brown, editor, Microsoft Press Three Microsoft Visio MVPs and authors, including Microsoft Press author, Scott Helmers , who wrote Microsoft Visio 2010 Step by Step , have recorded two dozen 5-8 minute videos on key topics in Visio 2010. Microsoft will release one video per week, and make them available at The Visio 2010 MVP Sessions page . Most videos include one or more sample diagrams that you can download. Topics include: Containers and lists Layers Network and rack diagrams Shape data Backstage and the ribbon Working with...

Greetings. Perhaps you’ve heard that as of this week Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing (TwC) initiative is ten years young: “At 10-Year Milestone, Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Initiative More Important than Ever.” In this post, we’d like to point you to a couple of posts written by Microsoft Press authors who played key roles in the initiative: Steve Lipner (Senior Director of Security Engineering Strategy at Microsoft), along with Michael Howard, authored The Security Development Lifecycle (Microsoft Press, 2006), which...

Good news! Software Change Management: Case Studies and Practical Advice , by Donald J. Reifer, is now available for purchase. Donald J. Reifer is one of the leading figures in the field of systems/software engineering and management, with over 40 years of progressive experience. He has built businesses, steered troubled projects, and served in executive positions in industry and government. He specializes in the area of metrics and measurement. Besides being a trusted advisor to major corporations and the government, he has founded software businesses and served as...

Post from Kimberly Kim, group content publishing manager Six of six titles entered in chapter-level competition win awards, four move on to the international competition   Excellence Excellence Distinguished Distinguished Microsoft Press is pleased to announce that all six of the Microsoft Press titles entered in our local competition of the Society for Technical Communications (STC) were honored with awards! Each title was evaluated against rigorous standards for information design, use and appearance of visual elements, usability, writing and editing, and how well...

We are very happy to announce that the Microsoft Manual of Style, Fourth Edition (464 pages, ISBN 9780735648715), has shipped to the printer. The Microsoft Manual of Style provides essential guidance to content creators, journalists, technical writers, editors, and everyone else who writes about computer technology. Direct from the Editorial Style Board at Microsoft—you get a comprehensive glossary of both general technology terms and those specific to Microsoft; clear, concise usage and style guidelines with helpful examples and alternatives; guidance on grammar...

Jan 12, 2012 Diagnosing and Repairing Difficult Problems in Windows 7 Mike Halsey Cost: Free It can be difficult enough finding out what's gone wrong with windows 7 or a program, but some problems can be a nightmare to diagnose. In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out talks you through how to diagnose really stubborn and hidden problems in Windows 7, and explains how you can go about fixing them. Time: 10:00 AM PT Register here: http://oreillynet.com/pub/e/2120 Jan 20, 2012 Introduction to Windows Media...

Back in October we shared that Karl Wiegers—author of Software Requirements, Second Edition (Microsoft Press, 2003), Practical Project Initiation: A Handbook with Tools (Microsoft Press, 2007), and More About Software Requirements: Thorny Issues and Practical Advice (Microsoft Press, 2009)—had started blogging. Karl’s most recent post, “Four Eyes Are Better Than Two: Reviewing What You Write,” is especially important for authors. Here’s an excerpt: Tough peer reviews are the most useful kind. They aren't much fun to read, but they sure help improve whatever you write. I...

A really in-depth, interesting reader review came by my desk today. It was such a helpful review, that I wanted to share it with all of you. Click Here: Book Review: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Internals A big Microsoft Press thank you to Jes Schultz Borland (Twitter alias @grrl_geek) for writing the review. We’re also happy to report that lead author Kalen Delaney and her team are currently working on the next edition for SQL Server 2012.

Greetings. This is just a quick post to point you to a new review of Richard Banks’s The future of looking back (Microsoft Press, 2011; ISBN: 9780735658066), the first book in our Microsoft Research series. The review , by David Ozab, begins like this: As I sit at my laptop writing these words, I am surrounded by objects: a bookcase full to overflowing, pictures on the walls, photo albums tucked into a file cabinet, and a closet full of clothes. A room filled with stuff—some practical, some sentimental—and at least some of it will last long enough...

Donald Reifer here. Many firms are currently searching for ways to save money and cut cycle time in these times of economic contraction. To achieve these ends, many are trying to find ways to cut their costs and spur productivity growth. For example, some are simplifying their software development processes while others are out-sourcing work to try to realize such benefits. But, any change, no matter how trivial, can have adverse effects especially when the staff is not properly prepared and trained to accept it. Take something as petty as introducing a new trouble report...

Hi, this is Dino Esposito. It’s been a couple of years since Microsoft Press published Microsoft .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise   (ISBN: 9780735626096; 460 pages), which I wrote with Andrea Saltarello. We also created a successful class out of the book and taught it countless times. As you can imagine, we’ve received a lot of feedback about some of the statements we made in the book and some of the positions we took on sensitive design points. A frequent point of discussion is the software architecture version of the old chicken/egg dilemma. What...

One more new Exam Ref to go before 2011 ends. It’s a joy to announce availability of MCITP 70-663 Exam Ref: Designing and Deploying Messaging Solutions with Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 (ISBN 9780735658080; 448 pages), by Orin Thomas. Our latest addition to the Microsoft Press Exam Ref series is the study guide of choice for 70-663, the Pro-level exam required for the MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator 2010 certification. Getting certified is a great way to start the new year. For a gaze inside, here’s the book’s Table of Contents and...

David Solomon, co-author of the Windows Internals book series, is holding a 2-day webinar January 9 & 11, 2012, exploring the internals of key Windows kernel components and mechanisms featuring the Sysinternals tools. Topics include kernel architecture, memory management, thread scheduling, interrupt processing, time accounting, and crash dump analysis. This knowledge will help you help you troubleshoot difficult system problems as well as understand the true meaning behind key system performance counters. For more details, see www.solsem.com/register.html .

We’re excited to announce that Egbert Jeschke, Helmut Reinke, Sara Unverhau, Eckehard Pfeifer, Bodo Fienitz, and Jens Bock’s Microsoft Excel 2010 Formulas & Functions Inside Out (ISBN 9780735658028; 1104 pages), ) is now available for purchase!  You can find the book’s introduction in this previous post . In today’s post, please enjoy two excerpts – Chapters 3 & 5. Chapter 3 - “From Numbers to Formulas” - Calculations in Microsoft Excel are achieved through formulas. Formulas are entered differently than other data, although you probably won't notice the difference...

We’ll be posting our “New book” announcement for this book in early January but wanted to make you all aware that XAML Developer Reference , by Mamta D. and Ashish Ghoda, is available now. If you have some free time over the holidays and want to study XAML, this is the book for you! Also makes a great gift for the developer on your list.

Just in time for the holidays, we’re happy to announce MCPD 70-518 Exam Ref: Designing and Developing Windows® Applications Using Microsoft® .NET Framework 4 (ISBN 9780735657236; 336 pages) by Tony Northrup and Matthew A. Stoecker. This book is the latest addition to the new Microsoft Press Exam Ref series , and a great way to prepare for the MCPD 70-518 exam, the Pro-level exam required for the MCPD: Windows Developer 4 certification. To give you a look inside, here’s the book’s Table of Contents, and an excerpt from the section on 70-518 exam objective 3.3 (Design Data...

You can read a pretty in-depth review of Eric Brechner’s I. M. Wright’s “Hard Code”: A Decade of Hard-Won Lessons from Microsoft (Second Edition) at the ZDNet UK Book Reviews site. The review is by Mary Branscombe, and it begins like this: What's it like to work at Microsoft? Better still, what do the people who write software at Microsoft actually do? This annotated collection of software development columns, originally written for internal consumption, is a fascinating view of what's infuriating, what's inspiring and what's plain bizarre...

Microsoft Press is pleased to announce the new book Developing Microsoft Media Foundation Applications (Print ISBN: 978-0-7356-5659-8, 384 pages) by Anton Polinger. Media Foundation provides the core tools you need to create powerful and professional media applications and components. The author, Anton Polinger is an expert who has been developing Microsoft media technologies for over a decade. This book shows you how to build applications that can capture different types of video and audio files, process media information, and stream media over the Internet. Filled...

We’re pleased to announce that the new Microsoft Press book Integrating PHP with Windows (ISBN: 978-0-7356-4791-6; 664 pages) is now available for purchase! Millions of developers use the popular PHP web development language to create web sites and web applications. But PHP runs on servers, so all that code has to be hosted and executed on some type of server—and increasingly, that is a Windows Server running Internet Information Server (IIS). The hosting OS and ecosystem is extremely important to PHP developers and IT staff, because it includes such tasks...

Thanks to everyone who responded to the sign up request. I received 80 requests from testers and they will be getting information in email soon. If you did not get into the pilot, I’m sorry, but we had to limit the numbers. I will post details sometime in the spring if we choose to move forward with a commercial product for labs online. Thanks, Kim  

Greetings. Tony Northrup, who has authored or co-authored at least a dozen Microsoft Press books for IT professionals, including MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-515): Web Applications Development with Microsoft .NET Framework 4 , has just published a new book: Tony Northrup's DSLR Book: How to Create Stunning Digital Photography . Here’s a quick description of the book from Tony: “I've been working on this book -- Tony Northrup's DSLR Book: How to Create Stunning Digital Photography -- in-between my Microsoft Press books for about two years now. It's a general, but...

We are pleased to announce that the new Microsoft Press book,  MOS 2010 Study Guide for Microsoft OneNote Exam (ISBN 9780735664821, 160 pages), is now available for purchase! In today’s post, please enjoy reading an excerpt from chapter 2, Sharing and Collaborating:   Synchronizing Shared Notebooks Shared notebooks are identified in the Navigation bar by a Sync Status icon. The icon displays a symbol to indicate the status of synchronization. For example, you’ll see a check mark when a notebook is up to date. You’ll see a warning exclamation mark when OneNote...