February, 2012

‘Nuff said! (OK, there’s a little more to say: watch for much more information about the Consumer Preview at the end of the month.) UPDATE: Check out this post for information on the Consumer Preview, which was released on February 29.

Update : You can now download this free ebook in three formats from the Microsoft Download Center: PDF , . mobi , and ePub . We are very excited to announce that we are able to offer Security and Privacy for Microsoft Office 2010 Users (ISBN 9780735668836), by Mitch Tulloch, as a free ebook. You can download a free copy of the ebook from the Microsoft Download center, or purchase a print book for $9.99 here . See below for the table of contents and an excerpt from the Introduction. Take control—and put the built-in security and privacy features in Microsoft Office to work! Whether downloading documents, publishing a presentation, or collaborating online—this guide offers concise, how-to guidance and best practices to help protect your documents and your ideas. ...

Greetings. We’re very happy to share that beginning soon we’ll be featuring Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) as guest bloggers here on the Microsoft Press blog. Our first posts will be updates and overviews from the 2012 MVP Global Summit taking place February 28 – March 2. Then, in March, we’ll have a number of posts written by Microsoft SQL Server MVPs about the soon-to-be-released SQL Server 2012. By the way, many of our authors are MVPs, but we’ll be reaching out to the huge pool of thousands of MVPs for guest posts. We hope you’ll tell us in a comment on this post what kinds of articles you’d like to see. Finally, here’s a little bit about this talented community: Who are MVPs? Microsoft MVPs are exceptional community leaders who actively share their high-quality, real-world...

Hello! Christophe Nasarre here. I’m the Technical Reviewer of the upcoming sixth edition of Windows Internals (which is being released in two parts, the first part in March 2012). and I’ve read all previous editions of the book, going back to when it was titled Inside Windows NT . Microsoft Press asked me to comment on the experience of reviewing the book and, in this and future posts, to share book excerpts containing information I found particularly enlightening. Opening such a book is like base jumping: you start with a high, level, panoramic view and you juuuummmp deep down, very close to all the little details that help you really understand how everything works. It’s just incredible how much can be found in this book: The high-level view of all the features included...

Greetings. On January 31, we released a draft version of the Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2012 ebook containing the six boldfaced chapters below: PART I DATABASE ADMINISTRATION (by Ross Mistry) 1. Denali Editions and Enhancements 2. High Availability and Disaster Recovery Enhancements 3. Scalability and Performance 4. Security Enhancements 5. Beyond Relational PART II BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE DEVELOPMENT (by Stacia Misner) 6. Integration Services 7. Data Quality Services 8. Master Data Services 9. Analysis Services and PowerPivot 10. Reporting Services That release is available in PDF only, and you can download it via our January 31 blog post . In today’s post, we’re happy to say that we’re on schedule to release the final, full, and, yes, free 10-chapter ebook in three formats (PDF, MOBI...

Here it is! The Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Pocket Consultant (ISBN 9780735663763; 592 pages) is a concise and easy-to-use reference from William R. Stanek. As so many of you know, William is just the best at delivering what you need to know without all the frills. If you are a SQL Server administrator, this book will help you save time, minimize system downtime, and get the job done! Below is an excerpt from Chapter 3: "Implementing Policy-Based Management." CHAPTER 3 Implementing Policy-Based Management Introducing Policy-Based Management 77 Working with Policy-Based Management 80 Configuring Central Management Servers 88 Managing Policies Throughout the Enterprise 92 Policy-Based Management is an extensible and scalable configuration ­framework that you can...

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!

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 Developer 4 certification To give you a look inside, here’s the book’s Table of Contents, and an excerpt from the section on 70-519 exam objective 4.2 (Design an authentication and authorization model): Contents Chapter 1: Designing...

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

Greetings. Over at InfoWorld Neil McAllister has written a review titled “Why Microsoft developers need a style guide” that describes how the Microsoft Manual of Style, Fourth Edition is a great tool for software developers. His review begins like this: “I usually get some flak from readers whenever I suggest that software developers can learn lessons from Microsoft. Not everyone thinks Microsoft is a role model. Nonetheless, I maintain you'd be hard-pressed to find another company outside Redmond that thinks more seriously and deeply about the practices and processes of software development. Case in point: the new fourth edition of the Microsoft Manual of Style , which crossed my desk last week. The Microsoft Manual of Style is a style guide for writers. Its goal...

  Want another $6 off your purchase of Microsoft Excel 2010 Formulas and Functions Inside Out ? Just clip this coupon to get your discount at checkout. Act fast, this coupon expires soon.           We’ve also updated our videos on the Microsoft Press page at Amazon.com  - www.amazon.com/mspress . You’ll find helpful videos on Windows 7 by author Mike Halsey.

Kimberly Kim here. I am delighted to announce that Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out by Tony Redmond was awarded Best of Show in our local Society for Technical Communications (STC) competition. 2011 Puget Sound STC Competition Award of Distinguished Best of Show: Informational Materials     The judges cited the tone and clarity of the writing, the consistent use of structure and visual elements to aid navigation, and even threw in some love for the index! But the best comments are those that indicate we’ve created a truly valuable resource for our readers: This is another of Microsoft’s amazing “under-the-hood” resources. As such, the audience has been clearly identified and the structure has obviously been carefully developed to allow a wide range of readers to locate and...

We’re very pleased to announce that Jennifer Mason, Christian Buckley, Brian T. Jackett, and Wes Preston’s book, Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Creating and Implementing Real-World Projects has shipped to the printer! This hands-on book focuses on a different business scenario in each chapter, using a standardized approach to guide you through the solution-building process from start to finish. Build effective business solutions with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 by applying example workflows and principles from real-world projects. Learn how to use your SharePoint skills to develop a corporate intranet, a media hub, a system to support distributed teams, and solutions to many other scenarios. The book will be available via online retailers around March 25. In the meantime, here’s more information...

Meet your favorite Microsoft Press authors : Brian Alderman Microsoft® SharePoint® 2010 Administrator's Companion Get comprehensive information to plan, deploy, administer, and support SharePoint 2010. With this ADMINISTRATOR'S COMPANION, you get mission-critical information from leading SharePoint experts and MVPs-in a single volume.... Chris Beckett Microsoft® SharePoint® 2010 Plain & Simple Get the fast facts that make learning Microsoft® SharePoint® 2010 plain and simple! This no-nonsense guide uses easy numbered steps and concise, straightforward language to show the most expedient ways to learn a skill or solve a specific p... Robert Bogue Designing Solutions for Microsoft® SharePoint® 2010 Designing Solutions for Microsoft...

Just want to quickly point the developers in our readership to the first of two posts on the Visual Studio blog introducing “a few of the broad reaching experience improvements that we’ve delivered in Visual Studio 11.” Here’s a description of what the two posts cover: “In the remainder of this post we’ll describe in a lot more detail how we have given you more time to focus on adding value to your applications by reducing UI complexity in VS 11. In tomorrow’s post we’ll go into details regarding the new experience patterns we’ve introduced to simplify many of your common development workflows. The overall effect of the changes we’ve introduced is that Visual Studio 11 demands less of your focus, and instead allows you to focus...

As we’ve mentioned, Karl Wiegers—author of Software Requirements, Second Edition (Microsoft Press, 2003), which has sold over 100K copies ; Practical Project Initiation: A Handbook with Tools (Microsoft Press, 2007); and More About Software Requirements: Thorny Issues and Practical Advice (Microsoft Press, 2009)—began blogging a while back. His most recent post, “ You Say You Want to Write a Book? ,” is the first of two posts on starting out as an author. And he tells me he’s got a four-part series coming soon on getting a book published. Karl is one of the most professional authors Microsoft Press has had the pleasure to work with; his guidance for aspiring authors is likely to be helpful.

Microsoft Press author Tony Redmond explains the reprint correction process. If you’ve read his book Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out and have some comments or corrections, he invites you to post on the errata page. Microsoft Exchange 2010 Inside Out heads for another printing | Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog