All over the internet and blogshpere there are varying opinions, bordering on religious fanaticism, of which OS is the best. I obviously have my opinion too. There has been a lot of work done around trying to quantify what constitutes the best way to...

Ok, I’ve been trying to keep my cool on this whole thing but enough is enough. A few days ago ars technica ran a hype-story called “First commercial tool to crack BitLocker arrives” (no, I’m not going to link to it because they don’t deserve the traffic...

Well with Windows 7 coming up, there’s been a bit of talk around Bitlocker To Go.(BTG) BTG is essentially Bitlocker for external drives. It’s full volume encryption for all your USB drives. Jeffa and I have been talking about it quite a bit recently...

We are bringing our world class Windows Azure data centres here to Australia. Microsoft has a long history of bringing industry leading technologies to the world. Windows Azure is no different. Today we announced that we will be adding more data centres...

Recently there has been a video doing the rounds from YouTube on how smartphone pictures can be a privacy risk . It’s no joke. Most smart phones, have GeoTagging turned on by default for photos that you take with the phone’s camera. What this does is...

I'm a Windows Live Writer fan by habit. It works well and does everything I need. But now that I'm on Office 2010 , I want to see how well OneNote works. I use OneNote a lot at work and for client meetings. It's great for any research and interviews...

In the IT Security area there seems to be this lack of belief in the old adage, It Can Happen To Anyone . Normally, before a company will get off their collective butts and do anything about their software security, they have to experience an incident...

Well it's been a crazy few weeks for me. But I've managed to get Jesper to agree to come down for Tech Ed. That makes the list of cool speakers grow to: Steve Riley Kai Axford Jesper Johansson Corneliu Tusnea Yours Truly and more great...

I recently posted an article on our ACE Team blog (you can read it here if you are interested) There were a few comments about the use of Dynamic SQL that made me realise that not everyone “get’s it” yet. Here are the comments that started the discussion...

So first off, Thank you to Jim Manico for his comment on my previous post which lead me to create this post. I will includes quotes from Jim’s comment for reference here. JM : “ I think you are terribly wrong, and its important we clear this up .”...

A while ago I went with a work colleague of mine when he presented at a user group meeting.  To cut to the chase, there was a Mac bigot there. Of course, as all Mac fanboys, he felt he had to attack us because we work for Microsoft.  Now I'm...

I've been working through all the new features of Office 2010 and discovered that I can blog from OneNote…. Now THAT is a feature I can abuse. Of course, it means I have to have time to actually post to my blog more. Although with any luck, that will...

One of the very cool features of the Windows Azure AppFabric , which is now commercially available as of the 12th of April 2010, is the Access Control service. This service provides authentication services for not only your Azure based cloud services...

Well we’re getting the schedule ironed out. My sessions are listed below. You WILL come to them won’t you!   SEC402 Federated Identity in the Cloud Wednesday, August 25  13:45 - 15:00 Rocky Heckman Does this sound like you: You want to provide...

Well I was polishing my UAC session for Tech Ed this year. It occurred to me that there are bound to be a lot of actual questions about it. So what I thought I'd do is ask you for your questions. So tell me, what do you want to know about UAC? Post your...

Recently I was invited to participate in a workshop that was put together by the Ministry of Post and Telematics in Vietnam ( http://www.mpt.gov.vn/ page in Vietnamese ). MPT is a government organisation that is progressing IT in Vietnam. I was asked...

New features available in preview for Windows Azure Active Directory Support for OAuth2 for delegated directory access An updated Windows Azure Authentication Library (AAL) designed to work with Windows Store applications. New Authentication Options:...

This month MS Open Tech ( http://msopentech.com/ ) enjoyed it’s one year anniversary. At MS Open Tech they build open source code, create interoperability bridges, contribute open standards specs. They also work with a variety of standards organizations...

Hi Gang! Well in the spirit of Tech Ed ANZ 07, I posted a countdown gadget. Now this one is a bit strange to install due to the limitations of what files my other provider will serve. So follow these instructions: Download the TechEdAU07.zip file from...

Well, it looks like I will get to influence the Security Track at Tech Ed Australia 2010! So we’re back in action. If you have a great session, and I’m talking level 300 or 400 sessions, go to the Call For Content link http://australia.msteched.com/cft...

One of the key aspects to secure cloud hybrid applications is a secure connection from the cloud based services to the on premise base ones. With Windows Azure this is quite easy. You can use Windows Azure Connect to establish a secure IPV6/IPSec based...

I've been asked several times where to get the new ACE Threat Analysis and Modeling tool. You can find this and more information about ACE Services here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/security/aa570413.aspx Have a look. We're working on getting...

Well this year Andrew Coates is in charge of the content for Tech Ed ANZ. Andrew has always been a big thinker so I'm I'm sure it will be an event not to be missed! He's started a few Tech Ed Posts on his blog that you'll want to keep up with. In another...

Ian Murdock is going to visit Microsoft to give some presentations on Open Source projects. It is great to hear this kind of work. Here's a bit of information. The Debian Project is widely considered one of the most successful and influential...

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed herein in no way reflect those of my employer or colleagues. They are all my own and I take responsibility for them. I read a little article recently about a guy name Rob Spence in Canada who plans to install a camera...